Where's the Wally? - Deputy PMQs 20th November 2024

Sir Keir - perhaps we should call him other things beginning with K e.g ‘Knockabout,’ the scornful term he used of PMQs last week - was not at the Dispatch Box today. He was returning from the G20 Summit in Rio, far more congenial than the rowdy Commons. Clad in black, ‘Agent K’ schmoozed the PRC’s premier Xi Jinping and at a press conference avoided criticising the jailing of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protestors; perhaps they were ‘far right thugs.’ Best not to rock the sampan, especially when the incoming US administration may stick an oar into the Chagos Islands handover to China’s friend Mauritius.

Taking his place was Angela Rayner, the toughie redhead, and deputising for Kemi Badenoch as per convention was Alex Burghart, the Conservatives’ Shadow NI Minister.

Once again, the cockpit of the Chamber is less satisfactory when both sides agree. Angie’s opening remarks included a reference to ‘Putin’s barbaric war in Ukraine. We will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes.’ Even now few mainstream journalists other than Peter Hitchens are prepared to give the history and context to that conflict. It is one that has become especially ominous now that President Biden has (perhaps consciously) authorised Zelensky’s use of long-range missiles against Russia, and the latter has changed its nuclear doctrine to include Ukraine’s backers. Burghart seconded Rayner, as did Daisy Cooper (Lib Dem).

Graham Stuart (Con) aimed a shot at Rachel Reeves’ claim to have worked as an economist, but misfired. Perfunctory research reveals that like Nigel Lawson Reeves got her Oxford degree in PPE and further, her MSc at the LSE was in economics. What matters is not the Chancellor’s over-egged CV (since amended) but her policies, and Angie countered with ‘in the last four months our Chancellor has shown more competence than the last four Chancellors that were appointed by his Government.’ Now that claim really does need unpacking.

Like her boss, Rayner is fond of repetition: she said thrice that the previous Government had ‘spent the reserves three times over.’ But when she contrasted the (currently modest) inflation now building in the economy with the 11 per cent under the Conservatives Burghart quickly reminded her of Ukraine and Covid, (measures on both of which matters Labour had been strongly supportive.)

Reeves’ inheritance tax raid on farmers was a live issue. The Lib Dem’s Daisy Cooper cited a constituent’s family who, if forced to sell land to meet the charge, would find their food production economically unviable. Replying to a Midlands MP on the same problem, Rayner repeated Starmer’s claim that ‘the vast majority of farms will not pay any inheritance tax’; yet Burghart had earlier quoted the NFU’s estimate that ‘75% of all commercial farms will fall above the threshold.’ Yesterday Badenoch got a great cheer when she told the farmers’ rally in London that Conservatives would cancel that tax at the first opportunity.

What was John McTernan thinking when he said Britain didn’t need small farmers and would treat them as Thatcher had treated the miners if they protested? Even Sir K had to dissociate himself from that. And what was on ‘posh wellies’ Steve Reed’s mind when he told the Parliamentary environment committee that farmers should consult their tax advisers if the IHT caused them difficulty? What if all farmers sold up and emigrated to somewhere warmer and more sane?

And then there is the ongoing row about the rise in employers’ NIC. Speakers for the Lib Dems and Plaid Cymru both raised the implications for care workers, who (it was said last week) might not get compensation for the increased cost; as indeed could be the case for other Local Authority contracted-out services.

The bigger picture with the NIC debacle is that the Government has to some extent tried to give back with one hand what it has taken with the other, using additional funding in the case of LAs and the NHS; and by increasing the Employer’s Allowance (a discount of up to £10,500) for small businesses.

But parish and town councils will not qualify for compensation at all and expect the additional cost to them will be £10 million. The voluntary and charity sector, also struggling, estimates that without similar compensation or exemption the NIC hike will cost it £1.4 billion and impact services. GPs estimate it will cost them £260 million (the poor underpaid and overworked things - seen one recently? Tell Big Chief I-Spy!)

On the whole the public sector and micro businesses will be cushioned.

Not so, medium and large private enterprises - compare Scenarios 4 and 5 in this explainer. They face a significant extra burden, in an economic climate that is already difficult.

But they also have the resources and now an additional motivation to accelerate the trend towards replacing people with machines. AI, robots and automated checkouts don’t get sick or sue their employers. Taxing employment may have more success in reducing it than with harmful indulgences like alcohol and tobacco. A Labour Government claiming to represent the interests of ‘working people’ may see fewer of them and more claiming benefits instead.

Rather than changing the borrowing rules and going for broke, the Government should consider retrenching - on vanity projects like HS2, on foreign aid and foreign war, on expensive new-Eden energy ideas that make our industry increasingly uncompetitive, on ‘restoring our role as a climate leader on the world stage’… We have to cut our coat according to the cloth.

Unless the West succeeds in provoking Russia into nuclear retaliation, in which case pensioners need not fear freezing to death. Shame about the polar bears, though.

Reposted from Wolves of Westminster

WEEKENDER: The E-waste trail, by JD

This link to Al Jazeera is still working although the video/film has disappeared (as has Al Jazeera TV):

https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/witness/2014/09/e-waste-trail-2014924132443417118.html

In 2014 I saw a post about Austin Sevens (vintage autos) from James Higham (on his now defunct Wordpress version of Nourishing Obscurity) that reminded me. They are still going strong after all these years - unlike modern computers etc.

There was a feature on Al Jazeera about the problem of 'e-waste' which is old computers and phones being exported to the third world and dumped on rubbish tips. Somebody in Ghana decided to collect things which had identifiable stamps on them. He found stuff from Leeds Council and other councils plus things stamped with the names of government departments. He was then seen presenting the things to a Councillor in Leeds and got the usual buck passing; third party contractor takes away old stuff or it was donated to charities etc.

But my mind works in different ways. I could see the names Compaq and HP etc and I thought why does he not go to those manufacturers and ask why, unlike the Austin Seven, their products cannot be adapted or designed to have a much longer life. I thought first of all about modern record players most of which can play any record made in the past 100 years or so. They will still play the old 78s. Music centres usually allow for cassette tapes and CDs as well.

So why does Microsoft update their systems in a way which has rendered obsolete my two digital cameras as well as my scanner? They were only cheap cameras but they would still work if I had access to the old Windows XP or Vista or whatever it was. Why this built in obsolescence? Presumably to sell the new stuff which means throwing away the old stuff which, of course, ends up on rubbish tips in Ghana where people scavenge for salvageable parts.

Built-in obsolescence is a sales gimmick invented by the American automobile industry in the Fifties. A new model every year but the newness was only skin deep, it was the styling which was changed but the same old mechanicals remained unchanged. The new car performed exactly like the old car, it used the same petrol, the accelerator and brake pedals were in the same place as in the old car, the steering and suspension were as vague and sloppy as they ever were.

The new 'techie' obsolescence unfortunately is much more revolutionary. It seems that the 'hardware/software' (i.e. the equivalent of the mechanicals in the car) is what has been changed (improved?) and any techie devices designed for the existing hardware/software becomes useless immediately and we have to buy a new version on what feels like a weekly basis.

And what happens to the old ones? They are dumped in landfill sites in Africa or India.

What a mad cycle.

FRIDAY MUSIC: Brian Eno, by JD

Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno, also mononymously known as Eno, is an English musician, songwriter, record producer and visual artist. He is best known for his pioneering contributions to ambient music and electronica, and for producing, recording, and writing works in rock and pop music. A self-described "non-musician", Eno has helped introduce unconventional concepts and approaches to contemporary music. He joined the glam rock group Roxy Music as its synthesiser player in 1971 and recorded two albums with them before departing in 1973.

https://www.brian-eno.net/about/#

stiff

Another Green World (theme music for BBC's Arena)

Brian Eno & Roger Eno - By This River (Live at The Acropolis)

Spinning Away

Brian Eno "Ring Of Fire"

Slither and strike - PMQs 13th November 2024

Sir Keir’s counterattacks on the Opposition are a standard Prime Ministerial way to respond to questions, but his evasions and stock ‘we’re fixing the mess’ routine are becoming irritating. There is only so long he will be able to divert attention to the lamentable performance of the previous Government. Soon his side will have to cope with some difficult hatchlings from what is now their brood.

There were three in his opening remarks. One was his reference to Monday’s Armistice Day event in Paris where he and President Macron reaffirmed their ‘unwavering’ support for Ukraine. There’s a troublesome item for Starmer to discuss in our special relationship with America, for President-Elect Trump’s son has taunted Zelensky about losing his ‘allowance’ under the incoming US administration.

Another was COP29 on Tuesday, where Starmer raised the UK’s CO2 emission reduction target to 81% down from 1990 levels by 2035. He told the Commons his focus was on ‘British energy security’ although it looks like the dash towards national dysfunctionality and poverty has just thereby accelerated.

A third was Islamophobia Awareness Month. Ayoub Khan, one of five pro-Palestinian independent MPs in the House, later used this hook to press the PM on his definition of ‘genocide’ in relation to casualties in Gaza. Sir Keir reminded him of October 2023 and said he was ‘well aware’ of the definition, which is why he had never used that term. British foreign policy - not just Labour’s - faces a growing challenge from Muslims who take an internationalist angle; in 2017 Pew Research estimated followers of Islam here will soar to 17 per cent of the population by 2050.

The questioning began with revisiting the Chancellor’s hike in employers’ National Insurance Contributions. Christine Jardine (LibDem) highlighted the impact on GP services. Starmer spoke of extra money for the NHS and social care and carers’ allowances, and was grateful for the next question, a sitter from his side inviting him to attack the Opposition’s ‘damaging’ policies on maternity pay and the minimum wage and its ‘dangerous’ backing for fracking. Sir Keir said here was the Opposition leader’s chance to explain why she opposed Labour’s beneficence.

Kemi Badenoch came out swinging: ‘The Prime Minister can plant as many questions as he likes with his Back Benchers, but at the end of the day I am the one he has to face at the Dispatch Box.’

But yet again she offered him an escape route by a question that both commented on the extra costs of his COP commitment and asked whether he would ‘confirm that he will keep the cap on council tax?’ Naturally the PM bolted towards the first (‘lower bills, energy independence and the jobs of the future’) and left the key point unaddressed. He will always slither out, Mrs Badenoch - if you let him.

Nevertheless Kemi pressed him on the latter, asking how much extra local authorities would have to raise to adjust for NIC rises and cover the social care gap in the Budget? The PM replied to this ‘knockabout’ by repeating his earlier stated figure of £600 million more for social care - had Badenoch not been listening? Yes, she had, and it was the Government that had not been listening to ‘the Labour-run Local Government Association;’ ‘It is clear that the Government have not thought through the impact of the Budget, and this is the problem with having a copy-and-paste Chancellor. Did they not realise that care homes, GP surgeries, children’s nurseries, hospices and even charities have to pay employers’ NI?’ Starmer struck back with his standard ‘we’ve-done-more-than-your-lot-did’ but clearly a point had been scored.

Then came the usual: badly damaged economy, £22 billion black hole, fixing the mess… ‘Nothing to offer but platitudes,’ commented the Mongoose. The hissing is failing to deter.

Ed Davey, too, asked for ‘more reassurance’ on the impact of NIC on GPs. The PM repeated what he had said to Jardine earlier: ‘We will ensure that GP practices have the resources that they need’ without clarifying the funding gap issues.

Brendan O’Hara again raised the Winter Fuel Allowance, reminding the PM how he had sympathised with pensioners two years ago, but Sir Keir struck back against the SNP’s own economic record.

Lincoln Jopp (Con) thought he’d caught Starmer on Sue Gray and the special envoy job: ‘Will he finally admit that it was an invented job on taxpayers’ money for one of his cronies?’ ‘It wasn’t,’ came the reply - short, and short of explanation.

Once more we see the need for Opposition speakers to polish their snake hooks.

Reposted from Wolves of Westminster

FRIDAY MUSIC: Carolina Chocolate Drops

"The Carolina Chocolate drops were an innovative black string band founded in 2006. The original members — Dom Flemons, Rhiannon Giddens, and Justin Robinson, with assists from Sule Greg Wilson — spent a lot of time with the revered string band elder Joe Thompson, an 86-year-old fiddler from Mebane, North Carolina. His music formed the core of their original setlist, but blues, jug-band numbers, originals, novelty songs, ballands and other kinds of Americana rounded out their repertoire. They won the last official Folk Music GRAMMY in 2010 for their Nonesuch Release, Genuine Negro Jig. Justin Robinson was the first to depart, followed by Dom Flemons; Malcome Parson, Hubby Jenkins and Rowen Corbett came on board for the rest of the CCD tenure. The group is no longer together but they have inspired a new generation of musicians of color to pick up the banjo, bones, and fiddle."

http://www.carolinachocolatedrops.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolina_Chocolate_Drops

Carolina Chocolate Drops - Country Girl [Official Video]

Carolina Chocolate Drops "When the World's On Fire"

Carolina Chocolate Drops - No Man's Momma - Newport Folk Festival 2011

Carolina Chocolate Drops - Genuine Negro Jig [HD]

Carolina Chocolate Drops - Hit 'Em Up style [HD]

Carolina Chocolate Drops ft. Rhiannon Giddens "Jackson," Grey Fox 2013

No More Bromance - PMQs 6th November 2024

Emily Maitlis loved last week’s PMQs: ‘Just imagine if PMQs was like this every week. Conciliatory. Helpful. By [sic] partisan. Passionate and compassionate.’

Your correspondent was thinking more on the lines of ‘get a room.’ It may have suited Sir Keir to face Walter the Softy but cross-party collusion has often been the bane of good politics, whether re Brexit or destructive Covid lockdowns. The Commons and especially PMQs should be a bear garden.

La Maitlis herself was not all sweetness and light this morning as Trump became President-Elect: she had to be told off on Channel 4 for swearing about him. Remember the tears of the righteous in 2016? Wait for Rachel Maddow’s reactions on MSNBC (there’s something about her to Make America Grate Again) and all the other tremendously well-paid Care Bears.

Yet the US may now have avoided the ramp to nuclear war and a transformation (by mass illegal migration and fast-track citizenship in a handful of swing States) into a permanent one-party government. The garbage can - and just did.

Over here, we face ‘four more years’ of radical incompetence, unless it gets so bad that the IMF returns, and then we shall all be sorry. Meantime Team Tory has a new captain and the initial signs are that she is a good bowler; the question is whether her side will ever bat again.

The PM opened by congratulating Donald Trump first and then ‘my fourth Tory leader in four and a half years’; Mrs Badenoch thanked him for his ‘almost warm’ welcome and promised to take a different approach by being ‘a more constructive Opposition’ than the last one. Tighten the shin pads! Did the PM and Foreign Secretary take the opportunity of their last meeting with DJT to apologise for Lammy’s derogatory remarks and ‘scatological references’ - some of which she quoted - about him? If not, would Starmer do so now on his colleague’s behalf? Sir Keir swished the air, saying the House was united on national security and Ukraine which was ‘far more important than party politics.’

Kemi noted he had not distanced himself from the Foreign Secretary’s remarks, and expected Trump ‘will soon be calling to thank him for sending all of those north London Labour activists to campaign for his opponent.’ Since most of the Cabinet had signed a motion to ban Trump from addressing Parliament, would the Prime Minister ‘show that he and his Government can be more than student politicians’ by asking Mr Speaker to extend the invitation instead? Starmer replied that Badenoch was ‘giving a masterclass on student politics’ but again he failed to answer the question; which Kemi noted, saying ‘he just reads the lines the officials have prepared for him.’

Perhaps it is a matter of having too much body armour (those 400 Labour myrmidons) but Sir Keir has a habit of chesting away deliveries rather than attempting to score. Again and again he counters with semi-irrelevant boilerplate blether: ‘economy, security, conflict’; ‘fixing the foundations’; ‘stability’; ‘black hole’; the last lot’s ‘mess’; ‘schools, hospitals, homes.’ He is becoming a ‘doubleplusgood duckspeaker’, a Shogun of slogan.

That, or he hurls the ball back. Mary Glindon (Lab) quoted Kemi as saying the outrage about Covid-time Downing Street partying was ‘overblown’ and Starmer shared his honourable friend’s disapproval - without adverting to ‘Beergate’ or his own role in promoting lockdowns. Sir Keir also sided with Torcuil Crichton (Scottish Labour) in challenging the SNP to use its powers and the additional funding now in place to improve public services in Scotland.

There were some easy underhand tosses: the need to support children’s special needs and youngsters’ mental health, the benefits of the minimum wage increase, fighting misogyny in Ireland and the economic abuse of women’s credit, developing infrastructure, cleaning rivers and so on.

And there were hands across the aisle as George Freeman (Con., Mid Norfolk) urged the use of pension funds to invest in innovative businesses; welcomed by the PM as already being addressed by Labour’s British Growth Partnership.

An issue on which we might wish for less consensus was raised by Ed Davey: the House’s unity on Ukraine. This may be a hot one when Trump pushes for peace there.

On a currently contentious matter, at last we got some clarification on the impact of taxation on small family farms: ‘the vast, vast majority of farms will not be affected’ - a shame this could not have been established earlier - followed, of course, by boilerplate about the NHS, schools and homes.

Coming back to the Leader of the Opposition: Badenoch’s inquisitorial approach is promising, but she needs to spend more time in the nets to practise shots under Starmer’s Stonewall Jackson defence.

A slightly edited version of this appeared first on Wolves of Westminster

Stop smashing the system!

We need to be clear: the aim of the Blair-Brown-Starmer constitutional changes is to take power away not from Westminster, but from us.

The Glorious Revolution of 1688 put the Crown under parliamentary control, counterbalancing it with a Protestant male bourgeoisie. In the centuries since then, we have seen a Glorious Evolution into a secular non-sexist democracy, with religious and ceremonial trappings.

At long last, we the people who are subject to the law are at the same time the citizens who make the law, through our representatives. Since 1928, all adults have had an equal voice in national self-government.

It is our country. This is what ideologues want to smash.

After Hitler invaded Russia, a London publican said to Claud Cockburn (p. 226):

“I can see it coming, Claud. The Communists are going to take over the country when this little lot’s finished with. And I don’t say they shouldn’t. I don’t say you don’t have common human justice on your side, Claud. All I ask of you is just one thing.”

“What’s that, Harry?”

“All I ask, Claud, is when you and your pals take over and make that great revolution, that you’ll just leave me my King, my constitution and my country.”

He had tears in his eyes, and it was hard not to be able to offer him a binding guarantee.

The power of Parliament is awesome. If sufficiently explicit, an Act passed by both Houses and receiving Royal Assent overrides any other law, treaty or authority anywhere. That is absolute sovereignty. The Crown in Parliament is not bound by any principle or aim other than the expression of the people’s will in pursuit of the nation’s interests.

Its unpredictability and complete liberty is what political zealots cannot stand; they wish to replace a purely procedural system with some programme and administrative arrangement that embodies their philosophy, and then our debates can be at an end.

Nor is it only the Left that undermines us. We have been betrayed on all sides by Quislings enriching themselves by colluding with multinational corporations and supranational organisations trending towards centralised global control. If they succeed, we shall find that absolute power, as Baron Acton said, corrupts absolutely, and that “RULERS”, as Coleridge said, “are as bad as they dare to be”.

How quickly politicians will shake off the common people who give them legitimacy! A touchstone for this misbehaviour is the German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock’s arrogant dismissal of democracy when she said she would stand with Ukraine “no matter what my German voters think“. It is especially ironic that she was not voted into the Bundestag personally, but simply through leading the Green Party under Germany’s proportional representation setup.

Our own system is still imperfect, and has flaws that can be exploited by the ruthless to turn it into a self-destroying machine. When in 1780 John Dunning moved that “the influence of the Crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished”, it was not anticipated that the office of the Prime Minister might become a tyranny, using the monarch’s Royal Prerogative; yet (for example) almost the first act of Blair’s New Labour Government was to politicise the Civil Service in a Privy Council meeting. The comprehensive damage to our constitution had been planned in advance like a bank raid.

In 1789, Thomas Jefferson mooted a periodic constitutional convention so that the living citizens of the United States could re-determine how they governed themselves. If we British value our freedom, then we must find some way to do the same; it cannot be left to a crypto-Communist cabal ruling us on the basis of a freakish electoral result that has already lost a significant portion of its tiny minority of supporters after less than four months.

Reposted from Wolves of Westminster.