Best Of

Lawyers, particularly court lawyers, have a lot of relevant skills for politics. They are trained to construct an argument and defend it from criticism. They learn how to speak in public. The better ones learn how to be persuasive and to think on their feet. They learn how to analyse a subject and pick out the relevant facts.

But none of this can make up for the inevitability that at least some of our number are just shits. Jenrick being a case in point.

The problem comes with a certain type of lawyer. Who believes that The Law is the Goal and The All.

Hence you get lawyers in management who prevent non-lawyers being promoted - because “specialists might get bogged down in the details”

Many years ago, when I worked in an oil company, I used to attend lots of meeting and conferences. I was curious about the workings of the company.

At one meeting, someone gave a proud presentation of how he had cut costs on a new oil field. I noticed that he had substituted regular steel for the well heads, rather than a special steel (pretty much stainless).

I put my hand up, and being stupid, asked.

Yup - he hadn’t checked. The reason for the original special spec was that the field had lots of water in the oil, and the oil came out under great pressure and very hot. Regular steel gets eaten by that at a crazy rate. Mm per hour can happen.

If that had gone ahead, multiple blowouts. Probably deaths.

My career survived (my manger protected me quite well, in those days). What was interesting was the reaction of all those around the clown - “he couldn’t be expected to know technical stuff - that’s not his job”.

Everyone in that meeting (apart from me) was a lawyer or accountant.

When Johnson saw Walter Cronkite's damning report from Khe Sanh, he apparently said "if I've lost Cronkite I've just lost middle-America". If Starmer has lost John Rentoul, it really is all over.

https://x.com/dpjhodges/status/1938873634850001395?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q

When is Starmer going to lose you?

It's quite a puzzle. Starmer's lack of leadership touch and failures would have lost him everyone normally, but all politics is relative. About 60-65% of voters have nowhere else to go that could actually do better or help the cause of grown up politics, except those in the 100 or so seats where the LDs are the contender. So for the moment Starmer and Labour are the only grown up, non nationalist centrist option in about 530 seats.

It may be over for Starmer (though I am not sure) but it certainly is not all over for Labour.

Of course it isn't and indeed the current situation is a million miles away from where Labour were in the mid-70s where their majority was two or three and the problems were every bit as bad if not worse.

Neither the Conservatives (due to their myriad failures from 2010-24 which were either self-indulgence (the EU) or inertia (social care reform) or Reform, whose biggest asset and problem is Farage, offer anything remotely coherent in terms of a policy response on immigration, the economy, social care or a host of other issues.

Governing ain't easy and it was never going to be easy whoever won last July. The party was over, the bill was on the table and we had to pay up. I do think closing off options to raise income tax and VAT was a mistake by Starmer and Reeves but the shadow of 1992 is long.

If you want Labour to succeed, your best friends are time and patience. The next election will, as they often are, be a war of statistics vs perceptions. Labour will wheel out all manner of statistics about how things have improved on their watch and the Opposition will wheel out their statistics and perceptions to try to prove they haven't.

MY biggest concern is the 40% or so who will probably not vote again - democracy is in trouble if the best we can manage is 60% turnout - I'm not after 90% but we should we looking at 75% turnout. Reform could win as loveless a landslide as Labour on an even lower share of the vote - it wouldn't be called "loveless" of course by the Express or the Mail but we know that's what it would be.

The problem of disengagement with politics and the political process is one of the biggest we face and it won't be solved by changes to electoral system (though they may help) but a thorough ground-up re-engagement with people and understanding what it is they want and expect from all levels of Government.

This seemed a bit odd.

Pro-Palestinian activists reportedly destroy military equipment intended for Ukraine
https://kyivindependent.com/pro-palestinian-activists-destroy-ukrainian-aid-worth-1-million-confusing-it-with-israeli-06-2025/

But makes a lot more sense in the light of this.
https://x.com/HarcourtYthan/status/1938511739059888527
..Palestine action runs on donations, its largest donor and supporter, the man that pays their legal fees and organises actions, is a man called James "fergie" Chambers, wealthy son of the American Cox family.

Chambers is a big fan of Putin's invasion.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fergie_Chambers

During the Cold War, it was standard KGB policy to try and infiltrate any anti-governmental organisation in the West.

Often the method was funding - a Russian agent would join the organisation as a fund raiser. And do so well that he would end up as the chief finance guy - and build a power base controlling the organisation.

This is why, around 1990, large numbers of such orgs collapsed.

The KGB objective was to promote opposition, and where they could, turn such organisations to violence. So in the event of war, sabotage and anti-war protests….

The funny thing about Starmer regretting all his Island of Strangers stuff, the only people really offended by a single phrase in a single speech (that other than that was hardly Nick Griffin giving it the big'un) aren't the people he needs to win over.

All those Red Wall voters who are concerned about immigration now just got further proof he isn't serious about dealing with it.

You don't think he needs to win over/back the Left?
It's a view (one that Team Starmer held and may still hold).

The original speech was to try and target Reform voters.

I think a good chunk of the left will vote for him to stop Reform. I am sure this BS in this interview is trying to show some ankle to them that he isn't really a mini-Nigel. I guess the question is, is it enough? And it plays in to what a lot of Corbyn types have said for a long time, is that he can't be trusted in what he says.

What he means is, "It was supposed to be a dog whistle, but instead the wrong people heard it and started comparing me to Enoch Powell."

What's the Kremlinology here? Michael Gove levers Kemi into the leadership, becomes Spectator editor, lures Shippers away from the Times, and runs a story that Kemi might be for the chop.

That Dave (pbuh) thinks Jenrick should lead the Tories at the next election, that's a biggie, especially as Dave has been helping Kemi at PMQs.

Coincidentally Gove admits to being a duplicitous snake in today's Times.

What [Gove] regrets now, he says, is being “insufficiently clear” to Cameron that he would campaign for Leave.

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/michael-gove-camerons-divorce-sarah-vine-depression-dvcpbqm8n

Cant figure why anyone would listen to Cameron, he destroyed the Conservatives.

Nope, that was the Brexiteers, which even Gove privately admits.

Cameron signed up to a Blair agenda and did nothing to reverse the creeping expansion of the state. He lost the troops on the ground as what he offered wasnt conservatiism. He could quite happilu have stood up to the various factions in his party but that required a backbone and he didnt have one. He was crap a party management and hence we had the Brexit vote something we can all be grateful for and which is his overarching legacy.

Cameron spent and taxed less as a percentage of gdp than any UK PM this century

Austerity. And is the tax thing even true?
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hmrc-tax-and-nics-receipts-for-the-uk/hmrc-tax-receipts-and-national-insurance-contributions-for-the-uk-new-annual-bulletin

When you consider the cuts to the 50p top income tax rate Brown left, taking the lowest earners out of income tax, cuts to inheritance tax etc.

You've unaccountably omitted George Osborne raising VAT (and extending it to pasties).

I'm old enough to remember when Cornish pasties were the biggest political issue of the day.