Best Of

Starmer spent more than 4 years as leader of the opposition, wins a huge majority, and then resigns after less than 2 years as PM. Mindboggling.

There are good reasons for that. (Narrator: he was crap at the job. Like, really, really crap.)

No where near as bad as Truss, May, Boris in that order.

Foreign policy good with the exception of his failure to hammer Israel hard

It's a dismal game, but going poor to catastrophic, I'd go

May, Starmer, Sunak, (big gap) Johnson, (huge gap) Truss.

Johnson brought disgrace on the office and Truss was mad. The other three just weren't up to it.

(The interesting one is Cameron- he wasn't stupid, but he shared some properties of the stupid-diligent corner of the military officer classification. He calmly and effectively did a lot of things that have turned out to be disastrous.)

As for Burnham, one of his bits of people-pleasing has been to implicitly promise to depose Starmer right now- even though he's absurdly underprepared for the role he's about to take on. Health Sec and Manchester Mayor is an incredibly thin CV for the job he's up for, and none of us have a damn clue what he's going to do, except please everyone.

Burnham ought to bring in AV imo, the Australian voting system. Would be the best way to stop Reform.

Needs a referendum.

He might as well go the whole hog and hold a referendum on making himself dictator and head of state.

You're confusing Burnham with your mate Farage.

In a polity without a written constitution, Reform only need to win once.

https://cmsm.co.uk/hitler-becomes-fuhrer-19-august-1934

Oh and Germany did have a written constitution. Indeed it was because they had a written constitution that Hitler was able to gain power. He was able to exploit the German Constitution to make sure he could say, quite truthfully, that he had taken power legitimately,

Key to it was control of the judiciary, where they had a head start since many of the senior judges were already Nazi sympathetic. Once it became almost impossible to challenge the actions of the paramilitaries and other thugs in dragging elected mayors out of council meetings and beating them up in the street, and the like, taking control of the rest of the state became relatively easy.

They also had direct control of the Prussian police force.

Indeed. When I was reading Evans's tome about how the Nazis destroyed democracy, the stories of the way social democrat and other centrist mayors and councillors were treated naturally got me thinking about how I'd react if I were dragged out of a council meeting and beaten up . My recourse would be to go to the police and then rely on the legal system, and if neither of those were prepared to do anything, I'd really have nowhere else to go. It's no surprise that most of them gave up politics and then saw some Nazi dropped in as mayor in their place. It would be nice to think that in the same circumstances we'd make some sort of heroic stand, but I suspect that I and most of us would give up and try and keep our heads down, once the institutions of the state had so obviously been captured.

These are really astonishing times. Starmer wins a huge majority and, within 2 years, is forced to resign by his own party on behalf of someone who has not even been an MP for more than a decade. This is done on the basis of no discernible platform or policy difference but simply the belief that one is capable of speaking to and relating to people and the other is not. It is an incredible gamble, not just for the Labour party but for the country.

I think all sensible people can only hope this works for the sake of the country but I am not sure reckless really covers it.

I would say desperate, rather than reckless.

Reckless implies that there's a better option that is being passed over, but there isn't, really. For whatever reason the Cabinet is incredibly weak. There are no major political divides, because none of them have a clue.

And so, with such a complete lack of leadership they turn in desperation to the one person exhibits some motive force.

"These are really astonishing times. Starmer wins a huge majority and, within 2 years, is forced to resign by his own party on behalf of someone who has not even been an MP for more than a decade."

The reason this has happened is

a) Starmer is not a politician and has no idea why this has happened and the whole thing is bewildering to him. He never had a 'story' or narrative to tell the voters. He never had one or two guiding star ideas as to what should be done for Britain.

b) Labour under McSweeney spent so much time eradicating Corbynista and campaigning to win via a 'time for change' strategy that was actually a ming vase walk* that they did not think to actually have a serious plan for governing

c) the problems facing any PM are bordering on insurmountable.


* Contrast with Blair/Brown - ming vase with an actual up their sleeve plan from day one - e.g bank of england.

What's Burnham's plan? Free buses for WASPI women or something equally ridiculous.

1, Remove red lines on CU and SM
2. Go for PR
3. Devolve more authority to local authorities and promote more social housing
4. Bring Thames Water into public ownership

All popular, big, and easy to describe.

He has said no PR this side of a GE.

How much will no 4 cost? Not just the nationalisation but all the remedial work needed. How is it going to be paid for?

Meanwhile this - https://www.thetimes.com/uk/healthcare/article/nhs-hospital-nottinham-inquiry-baby-deaths-kj99rx3lw - will be familiar to Burnham from his time in Health. What's his plan to deal with these sorts of widespread scandals? A reminder: a Parliamentary Commission recently pointed out that good maternity care was the exception rather than the rule in Britain.

4, Bring Thames Water into public ownership:

About a third of Thames Water's income goes to paying interest on its debt. Incredible.
Remove the debt (because it's bankrupt) and suddenly it's profitable and cash generating.
Its investors will argue that makes it a valuable company and they should receive massive compensation.

But because the company's debts far exceed its assets, existing shareholders cannot "walk away" from the debt while keeping the underlying value of the pipes and treatment plants.

If Thames Water goes bankrupt and enters the government's Special Administration Regime (SAR), its existing equity is legally wiped out and treated as completely worthless.

So there is the plan. Do SAR and its cash generation can finance better environmental protection, mend leaks, perhaps a reservoir, and hopefully a reduction in consumer prices.

Just ignore the special pleading from the Private Equity vultures which Starmer seems unwilling to do.

Nationalising Thames Water would be utterly moronic*.

They have borrowed too much money. Their owners therefore should be left with nothing, and, congratulations to their creditors, you now own a water company. This is standard practice for debt laden businesses going bump, there is nothing particularly special about this one.

The only reason for the government to get involved in the long term would be if the core business can't wash its face, even absent the debt.

There might be a role for government to play in ensuring suppliers get paid on time through the restructuring (and thus don't have the potential to cause water supplies to be interrupted), but that's about all that is necessary.

Capitalism works, boys and girls. All that is required is usually to keep the government out of the way of it, and this case is no different.

* Labour being the party for morons, they'll therefore probably rush off and do it.

This sounds simplistic. OK, the creditors now own a debt free water company they didn't ask for. And they decide the best thing to do with their new found zero debt company shell is to sell candy floss at fairgrounds rather than the tricky matter of providing water for 12 million voters. Government cannot keep out of the matter of water. If no-one else runs it, they do.

Capitalism allied to natural monopolies is not a natural state of affairs.

Burnham ought to bring in AV imo, the Australian voting system. Would be the best way to stop Reform.

Needs a referendum.

He might as well go the whole hog and hold a referendum on making himself dictator and head of state.

You're confusing Burnham with your mate Farage.

In a polity without a written constitution, Reform only need to win once.

https://cmsm.co.uk/hitler-becomes-fuhrer-19-august-1934

Oh and Germany did have a written constitution. Indeed it was because they had a written constitution that Hitler was able to gain power. He was able to exploit the German Constitution to make sure he could say, quite truthfully, that he had taken power legitimately,

Key to it was control of the judiciary, where they had a head start since many of the senior judges were already Nazi sympathetic. Once it became almost impossible to challenge the actions of the paramilitaries and other thugs in dragging elected mayors out of council meetings and beating them up in the street, and the like, taking control of the rest of the state became relatively easy.

Met Office is saying 39 here next week. I wonder if there’s a chance we break the 40 degree record of 2022

Met saying 38 and 37 here on Tuesday and Wednesday, but Beeb saying 34 and 35 for the same days.

Matthew Todd 🌏🔥
@MrMatthewTodd
·
54m
This would obliterate the UK temperature record for the month of June which currently stands at 35.6C set in 1976.

https://x.com/MrMatthewTodd/status/2068452752527921441

Meteo who bbc use are shite

No, they aren't. For their official forecasts they use a combination of various models including the Met Office and ECMWF.

Their app on the other hand might well be automated from the GFS model and therefore a bit rubbish. The BBC app has always been rubbish whether Met Office or not.


Anyway, UKV (Met Office) has 41C for Swindon on Thursday...
https://x.com/Met4CastUK/status/2068400539675566273/photo/1

That is truly alarming.

As is Swindon doesn’t suffer enough.

Most models are now going for 38C+ in the south for Tues-Thurs, and some truly horrible nights with Cornwall registering a 29C overnight minimum on one run.

I expect the weather warning will be upgraded to Red unless those forecasts change.

Remember, the June record is "only" 35.6C. The UK statistical max is in mid July.


The government is going to have to rethink its stance on air conditioning (and other adaptations) fast, as this has ceased to be funny and/or within any sort of expected deviation from the norm.