Best Of

Andy Burnham to increase use of migrant detention centres. Socially right. Good.

Dunno. Sounds like something from the Blair years. The anger is coming from people who want migrants out of the country. They don't want them locked up in detention centres, they want them deported, or towed back to France. And the anger is in large part now about migrants with the legal right to live in the country.

So the question is whether Burnham is willing to make the case for legal migration, or if he is going to reduce migration to the extent that people notice the difference? If he does the same as every other politician for the last three decades - of falling between those two extremes - then he's not going to do anything to defuse the current anger.

There is no way any politician can reduce migration to the extent people will notice. That’s why the right is doing well across all of Europe

The goalposts keep moving anyway. The last figures released if one takes account of students and others on a guaranteed return is a net of around plus 70,000. Farage has stated it doesn't count because the people leaving are nice people who Farage likes, whilst those arriving are nasty people Farage doesn't like.

Farage just wants to chuck everyone out who isn't a gurning pasty twat like him.

You'll all be sorry when anyone who is allowed to stay has to look like Farage.

The nice people/nasty people division is fundamental to immigration though. The political problem isn't the numbers - literally noone minds students from New Zealand being here; hardly anyone minds families from Hong Kong - it's the visibility of boat people, and it's the incidents like the one in Belfast today.
Farage's proposed solution to all this response to this has been incoherent, unrealistic, and not particularly attuned, I don't think, to what people actually want - but on the basis that he's the only one making a noise about the problem - which people very much do recognise - he gets the political credit.
Many on the left seem to genuinely see the worst thing about a stabbing as 'but Nigel Farage might say something bad about this!' This does not necessarily reassure voters that the problem is being taken seriously.

Despite your four likes where does "stabbing" come into my narrative?

I was being far more general. Nigel likes people Nigel likes and doesn't like people Nigel doesn't like. There is probably a converse common denominator between the two

Yet more fires in Russia. This one could be a gas pipeline.

https://x.com/tendar/status/2064404551352955229

If only there were a way to stop Russian soldiers getting paid as well the war would be over in a week.

The rate on Russian bonds is up to 15% again today. Brent has fallen a lot today on data from China showing a huge drop in Chinese crude oil imports. The Russian Central Bank has started printing money to buy Russian bonds and fund the war effort. There's been a steady flow of cash out of the Russian banking system for the last twelve months, most likely as Russians use their savings to cope with inflation and some employers putting employees onto short hours. The Russian government is urgently trying to privatise assets to raise cash, but there were no buyers for a Russian coal company they wanted to sell.

The signs of increasing stress on Russia's economy and government finances are there, but how much road they have left for can-kicking I don't know.

I could envisage the oligarchs deciding they need to dispense with Putin and transfer their allegiance to some bastard like Sergey Lavrov.

Recently there was a big argument in the higher echelons of the Russian state over the number of senior generals being assassinated by the Ukrainians. The generals weren't happy that the FSB wasn't able to protect them.

Putin smoothed things over by saying that his own personal bodyguard force would be used to protect the most senior people.

Of course, this means that the highly-trained and uber-loyal Presidential bodyguard force is now in place, "protecting" all the other most senior members of the government and armed forces. Kinda convenient for Putin that.

Yet more fires in Russia. This one could be a gas pipeline.

https://x.com/tendar/status/2064404551352955229

If only there were a way to stop Russian soldiers getting paid as well the war would be over in a week.

The rate on Russian bonds is up to 15% again today. Brent has fallen a lot today on data from China showing a huge drop in Chinese crude oil imports. The Russian Central Bank has started printing money to buy Russian bonds and fund the war effort. There's been a steady flow of cash out of the Russian banking system for the last twelve months, most likely as Russians use their savings to cope with inflation and some employers putting employees onto short hours. The Russian government is urgently trying to privatise assets to raise cash, but there were no buyers for a Russian coal company they wanted to sell.

The signs of increasing stress on Russia's economy and government finances are there, but how much road they have left for can-kicking I don't know.

Yes the economic news out of Russia is terrible, and if they’re saying that officially then we know it’s a lot worse behind the scenes. They’re at least half way through their gold reserves already, with China the buyers well under market price, and they’ve had to significant’y cut signup payments to new soldiers. Meanwhile inflation is rampant despite official figures, and fuel is again being rationed in large parts of the country.

The war is now affecting ordinary Russians in a way it hasn’t up until this year. The bombing of St. Petersberg last week, taking out an oil depot and a warship just as Putin opened a big economic conference there, was possibly the icing on the cake for the elites realising the war was coming to them.