"If Kemi Badenoch carries on like this, she’ll be elected prime minister
The leader of the Conservative Party has rediscovered a clarity and verve that will have Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves, and even Nigel Farage worried, says Emily Sheffield"
Look, I rather like Kemi, and I think when she brings her A-Game she can be very good indeed. But making an (admittedly excellent) speech in the HOC does not a future PM make.
She needs credible policies, a unified party, a strong team, and a plan. And she needs to exorcise the ghost of the previous Tory government.
- she’s started on the road towards articulating an alternative economic vision, but that is far from firmed-up and I see little that suggests the Tories are really looking at tackling some of the bigger structural problems in our economy and society; - her party don’t fully endorse her and are still in a holding pattern from the election. There’s still a sense that she’s a stopgap; - I’m far from convinced she has a top-drawer team ready to really push for power; - they still can’t break away from their record, and they’re still being judged for it. Time alone (if they have the benefit of that time) may heal that.
So I think it’s far too soon to start talking about her as the next PM. Perhaps the slimmest and palest of green shoots, but it could all fall apart again very quickly.
If I were her I’d be out of the blocks fast in the new year trying to build on this momentum and address some of these issues.
Hard to know who is going to be more put out by Kemi finding her feet and finding her voice - Farage or Jenrick.
Or Jimmy Dimly. According to most of our damper Tory contingent, it was he that was poised to sweep into the role if Kemi faltered. But now she's doing well, it's apparently a baaaaaad night for Jenrick.
Nigel should be worried if the media's capricious gaze is now turning to Kemi and he starts to look a bit old hat. If the Kemigasm continues the Reform leadership will start feeling a bit of pressure, and it'll be interesting to see how they deal with it.
"If Kemi Badenoch carries on like this, she’ll be elected prime minister
The leader of the Conservative Party has rediscovered a clarity and verve that will have Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves, and even Nigel Farage worried, says Emily Sheffield"
Look, I rather like Kemi, and I think when she brings her A-Game she can be very good indeed. But making an (admittedly excellent) speech in the HOC does not a future PM make.
She needs credible policies, a unified party, a strong team, and a plan. And she needs to exorcise the ghost of the previous Tory government.
- she’s started on the road towards articulating an alternative economic vision, but that is far from firmed-up and I see little that suggests the Tories are really looking at tackling some of the bigger structural problems in our economy and society; - her party don’t fully endorse her and are still in a holding pattern from the election. There’s still a sense that she’s a stopgap; - I’m far from convinced she has a top-drawer team ready to really push for power; - they still can’t break away from their record, and they’re still being judged for it. Time alone (if they have the benefit of that time) may heal that.
So I think it’s far too soon to start talking about her as the next PM. Perhaps the slimmest and palest of green shoots, but it could all fall apart again very quickly.
If I were her I’d be out of the blocks fast in the new year trying to build on this momentum and address some of these issues.
I also rather like Kemi, and have from the start. When she's good, she's very very good. But she needs someone to keep an eye on her. All too often she goes on themes which just sound weird outside certain right wing online bubbles (like about Christianity). If she can just get her quality control team firing properly, she'll be a good candidate. Which doesn't, of course, equate to being a good PM. But one thing at a time.
She still feels to me like someone who is developing her skills. At the time of the 2022 leadership race she felt too “green” and I think although she has improved since then she’s still on a journey. Especially from the perspective of focus, message discipline, and sensitive policymaking.
I am all for a candidate who passionately talks about what they believe in, but where she doesn’t connect the dots yet is turning the belief into practical and achievable policy aims, and explaining to people how that will improve their lives. At times she’s far too student debating society.
"If Kemi Badenoch carries on like this, she’ll be elected prime minister
The leader of the Conservative Party has rediscovered a clarity and verve that will have Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves, and even Nigel Farage worried, says Emily Sheffield"
Look, I rather like Kemi, and I think when she brings her A-Game she can be very good indeed. But making an (admittedly excellent) speech in the HOC does not a future PM make.
She needs credible policies, a unified party, a strong team, and a plan. And she needs to exorcise the ghost of the previous Tory government.
- she’s started on the road towards articulating an alternative economic vision, but that is far from firmed-up and I see little that suggests the Tories are really looking at tackling some of the bigger structural problems in our economy and society; - her party don’t fully endorse her and are still in a holding pattern from the election. There’s still a sense that she’s a stopgap; - I’m far from convinced she has a top-drawer team ready to really push for power; - they still can’t break away from their record, and they’re still being judged for it. Time alone (if they have the benefit of that time) may heal that.
So I think it’s far too soon to start talking about her as the next PM. Perhaps the slimmest and palest of green shoots, but it could all fall apart again very quickly.
If I were her I’d be out of the blocks fast in the new year trying to build on this momentum and address some of these issues.
I also rather like Kemi, and have from the start. When she's good, she's very very good. But she needs someone to keep an eye on her. All too often she goes on themes which just sound weird outside certain right wing online bubbles (like about Christianity). If she can just get her quality control team firing properly, she'll be a good candidate. Which doesn't, of course, equate to being a good PM. But one thing at a time.
She didn't 'go for a theme of Christianity', she offered an intelligent response to a question that a hack tried to make into a headline.
Fair enough - I must admit, I only saw the headline. If there was context to it, I take it back. I still think my broader point is true - she needs to up her quality control (which I expect is down to having the right team around her).
What time are we expecting Reeves' resignation letter?
She isn’t going for this.
There’s just about enough plausible deniability, and it gives the Tories far too much of a big scalp. Plus jeopardises Starmer’s position.
The damage regarding the public perception of Reeves was done a very long time ago; and this budget won’t have helped it one bit. That’s pretty much the long and short of it. She is now very toxic, but it’s hard to see a way that allows her to go without causing damage to Starmer, so they will keep her lashed to the wheel.
Yes, it was a sin of omission rather than commission and she'll get away with it. It's a bit like me not telling Mrs PtP about that fifty I had on an 8/1 winner. It's dishonest but you like to hold a bit back for tougher times if you can.
I wouldn't overegg the toxicity. The budget was generally well received and the markets reacted well. Her stock rose briefly as a consequence. Perhaps that explains the hysteria over a bit of fibbing. The Usual Suspects had to nail her for something. What she did wasn't right, but the parliamentary dishonesty bar was set pretty high a few PMs back so I don't see her falling on her sword any time soon.
Well received.??I think not. Everyone i have spoken to has been pretty angry about it
Sorry, Square, I had in mind the markets, the financial institutions, the better quality papers and journals, and even the non-partisan elements of this august site.
In Root2land things would be seen very differently, I'm sure.
Nigel should be worried if the media's capricious gaze is now turning to Kemi and he starts to look a bit old hat. If the Kemigasm continues the Reform leadership will start feeling a bit of pressure, and it'll be interesting to see how they deal with it.
People with titles and ranks often contributed little to the actual response or actively harmed it; people far down the hierarchy frequently shaped outcomes decisively. Yet the inquiry has structured itself around the former, not the latter. Witnesses have been called almost entirely on the basis of job title, not on the basis of what they actually did or knew. This is repeating the mistake that happened during the pandemic, where people were asked for opinions simply due to their job titles, not whether they knew anything about the topic... ... To my knowledge, only one of the scientists inside the No.10 building during the COVID crisis has even been asked to submit a witness statement. Importantly, these were the very people Cummings backed and supported strongly, ensuring their voices were heard - in direct opposition to a core conclusion of the report. Many of the people who were absolutely essential to the progression of testing, procurement, data, logistics, vaccines, and operational decision-making have been entirely absent from the record. Too many of those fixing the dysfunction have been omitted. Given their junior status & that they have not consented (nor have I asked), it is not appropriate for them to list their names here.
This is not a trivial procedural flaw. It goes to the heart of the matter: a late-Victorian, hierarchy-obsessed model of government combined with a legal-permanent bureaucratic state laid on top is fundamentally misaligned with the complexity and speed of 21st-century crises. The inquiry has simply replayed that model.
My dominant recollection of that crisis is that people (usually officials), often in their twenties and thirties, with relevant technical skills and/or can-do spirit, often saw a senior collection of people who happened to be in their roles at the time the crisis hit, failing badly. And they self-organised to fix it. It was almost (not literally) at the point where there were two parallel systems - the one actually getting on with stuff who had the capability to do so, and a potemkin veneer laid on top where those with the job titles gathered in formal meetings to read off scripts. I give a concrete example below. The inquiry has focussed almost entirely on the latter. It has almost entirely ignored the system that grew to initiate and build things like the realisation that a serious error had occurred in March with respect to core strategy, rapid testing, wastewater monitoring, the vaccines task force (Vallance was key to this), and the 10 Data Science Unit...
What time are we expecting Reeves' resignation letter?
She isn’t going for this.
There’s just about enough plausible deniability, and it gives the Tories far too much of a big scalp. Plus jeopardises Starmer’s position.
The damage regarding the public perception of Reeves was done a very long time ago; and this budget won’t have helped it one bit. That’s pretty much the long and short of it. She is now very toxic, but it’s hard to see a way that allows her to go without causing damage to Starmer, so they will keep her lashed to the wheel.
Yes, it was a sin of omission rather than commission and she'll get away with it. It's a bit like me not telling Mrs PtP about that fifty I had on an 8/1 winner. It's dishonest but you like to hold a bit back for tougher times if you can.
I wouldn't overegg the toxicity. The budget was generally well received and the markets reacted well. Her stock rose briefly as a consequence. Perhaps that explains the hysteria over a bit of fibbing. The Usual Suspects had to nail her for something. What she did wasn't right, but the parliamentary dishonesty bar was set pretty high a few PMs back so I don't see her falling on her sword any time soon.
Well received.??I think not. Everyone i have spoken to has been pretty angry about it
What bullshit! It is so arcane no one even understands what it's about and those that do couln't care less cos it makes no difference to anyone.
What time are we expecting Reeves' resignation letter?
She isn’t going for this.
There’s just about enough plausible deniability, and it gives the Tories far too much of a big scalp. Plus jeopardises Starmer’s position.
The damage regarding the public perception of Reeves was done a very long time ago; and this budget won’t have helped it one bit. That’s pretty much the long and short of it. She is now very toxic, but it’s hard to see a way that allows her to go without causing damage to Starmer, so they will keep her lashed to the wheel.
Yes, it was a sin of omission rather than commission and she'll get away with it. It's a bit like me not telling Mrs PtP about that fifty I had on an 8/1 winner. It's dishonest but you like to hold a bit back for tougher times if you can.
I wouldn't overegg the toxicity. The budget was generally well received and the markets reacted well. Her stock rose briefly as a consequence. Perhaps that explains the hysteria over a bit of fibbing. The Usual Suspects had to nail her for something. What she did wasn't right, but the parliamentary dishonesty bar was set pretty high a few PMs back so I don't see her falling on her sword any time soon.
Well received.??I think not. Everyone i have spoken to has been pretty angry about it
I've been quite taken aback by the openness with which my middle class public sector colleagues are a) mocking it and b) complaining about tax increases.
What time are we expecting Reeves' resignation letter?
She isn’t going for this.
There’s just about enough plausible deniability, and it gives the Tories far too much of a big scalp. Plus jeopardises Starmer’s position.
The damage regarding the public perception of Reeves was done a very long time ago; and this budget won’t have helped it one bit. That’s pretty much the long and short of it. She is now very toxic, but it’s hard to see a way that allows her to go without causing damage to Starmer, so they will keep her lashed to the wheel.
Yes, it was a sin of omission rather than commission and she'll get away with it. It's a bit like me not telling Mrs PtP about that fifty I had on an 8/1 winner. It's dishonest but you like to hold a bit back for tougher times if you can.
I wouldn't overegg the toxicity. The budget was generally well received and the markets reacted well. Her stock rose briefly as a consequence. Perhaps that explains the hysteria over a bit of fibbing. The Usual Suspects had to nail her for something. What she did wasn't right, but the parliamentary dishonesty bar was set pretty high a few PMs back so I don't see her falling on her sword any time soon.
Well received.??I think not. Everyone i have spoken to has been pretty angry about it
What bullshit! It is so arcane no one even understands what it's about and those that do couln't care less cos it makes no difference to anyone.
Roger you might find it difficult but the GBP can smell a rat ... and smell it they indeed have. In any event Reeves us putting up taxes now in order to buy the election by reducing them when the Election comes.
What time are we expecting Reeves' resignation letter?
She isn’t going for this.
There’s just about enough plausible deniability, and it gives the Tories far too much of a big scalp. Plus jeopardises Starmer’s position.
The damage regarding the public perception of Reeves was done a very long time ago; and this budget won’t have helped it one bit. That’s pretty much the long and short of it. She is now very toxic, but it’s hard to see a way that allows her to go without causing damage to Starmer, so they will keep her lashed to the wheel.
Yes, it was a sin of omission rather than commission and she'll get away with it. It's a bit like me not telling Mrs PtP about that fifty I had on an 8/1 winner. It's dishonest but you like to hold a bit back for tougher times if you can.
I wouldn't overegg the toxicity. The budget was generally well received and the markets reacted well. Her stock rose briefly as a consequence. Perhaps that explains the hysteria over a bit of fibbing. The Usual Suspects had to nail her for something. What she did wasn't right, but the parliamentary dishonesty bar was set pretty high a few PMs back so I don't see her falling on her sword any time soon.
Well received.??I think not. Everyone i have spoken to has been pretty angry about it
I've been quite taken aback by the openness with which my middle class public sector colleagues are a) mocking it and b) complaining about tax increases.
I’ve seen some anger. A bit. But mostly it’s-shit-but-about-as-shit-as-this-government.
What time are we expecting Reeves' resignation letter?
She isn’t going for this.
There’s just about enough plausible deniability, and it gives the Tories far too much of a big scalp. Plus jeopardises Starmer’s position.
The damage regarding the public perception of Reeves was done a very long time ago; and this budget won’t have helped it one bit. That’s pretty much the long and short of it. She is now very toxic, but it’s hard to see a way that allows her to go without causing damage to Starmer, so they will keep her lashed to the wheel.
Yes, it was a sin of omission rather than commission and she'll get away with it. It's a bit like me not telling Mrs PtP about that fifty I had on an 8/1 winner. It's dishonest but you like to hold a bit back for tougher times if you can.
I wouldn't overegg the toxicity. The budget was generally well received and the markets reacted well. Her stock rose briefly as a consequence. Perhaps that explains the hysteria over a bit of fibbing. The Usual Suspects had to nail her for something. What she did wasn't right, but the parliamentary dishonesty bar was set pretty high a few PMs back so I don't see her falling on her sword any time soon.
Well received.??I think not. Everyone i have spoken to has been pretty angry about it
What bullshit! It is so arcane no one even understands what it's about and those that do couln't care less cos it makes no difference to anyone.
Roger you might find it difficult but the GBP can smell a rat ... and smell it they indeed have. In any event Reeves us putting up taxes now in order to buy the election by reducing them when the Election comes.
That's possible. A Chancellor with guile! Who'd have thought..... and there she was on budget day looking like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth...
So why did she lie to her Cabinet colleagues and why did Starmer connive in that lie?
I think the answer is reasonably straightforward. She was trying to prevent a series of claims for more money from the Cabinet and the back benches. She was trying to find enough leverage to at least cut the rate of growth of spending, even if it was beyond her party to actually make cuts as were required. She also found the run up to this budget deeply frustrating with every month's figures threatening to knock her off course or back on again. She wanted a buffer in future budgets because it would make it look like she was more in control rather than being tossed around like an autumn leaf in a storm.
All of which is quite sensible, really. There are two problems, firstly a Labour party which still cannot accept the idea of austerity because they remain hooked on the fantasy that this was a Tory "choice" and secondly a top team of Chancellor and PM who are simply dishonest and cannot be trusted. There will be a price to pay for both.
Good morning
Austerity is living within your means
Labour have no idea how to achieve that
Neither, in all fairness, did the Conservatives when in Government.
No one has come up with a coherent and politically practical approach to getting borrowing down substantially - all we can do in the short term is slow the train. Talk of cutting £100 billion from benefits, as espoused by one or two on here, isn't going to happen even with Kemi Badenoch in charge.
I'd love to hear an alternative approach which makes sense but, as with the "small boats" (remember them?), there isn't an easy answer.
You need to do it gradually. It took Osborne 9 years to eliminate the huge structural deficit that he inherited. He managed to keep the economy growing, somewhat slowly, throughout that period by carefully calibrating the reduction each year. After Covid and Ukraine things are nearly as bad as they were in 2010 and we are starting with more than double the debt we had then as a share of GDP. It will take time, patience and skill, some things we seem to lack. A budget that actually increased borrowing for the next 3 years was a seriously bad step in the wrong direction. More debt is the last thing we need.
He added £555bn to the national debt, and lied about 'paying down the debt'.
Well, as I said you need to reduce a deficit gradually. If you try to do it all at once the economy collapses. This is why the Reform platform is an absurd joke. That gradualism meant that the borrowing did not stop in 2010, it continued all the way to 2019. And, when you think about it, if you are right about your £555bn, that is an average of £61bn a year. Reeves would give her eye teeth for that as would Sunak have.
Just because it's worse now, doesn't mean it was excusable then. If anything, it was less excusable, as despite the financial crash, we were still in far better shape back then than we are now.
I think Kemi has it right - cuts to the state, and spend the savings half on economy-boosting tax cuts, half on national debt payments.
What I don't know is how our national debt is structured (can you pay off the debt or are you just paying the interest before you get to it?), and whether our global creditors actually want to be paid off - presumably, like most lenders, they would prefer us to remain heavily indebted, but manageably so. Will they respond to a credible plan to pay them off by reducing our interest rate? I don't know, but something does tell me no.
If there was a credible plan to pay them off, then it would reduce the risk premium we are currently paying, so yes our interest rates would fall.
And since interest is one of our biggest costs, that would improve our budget balance further.
What actually happened
Investors responded to Osborne’s steady reductions in the deficit by accepting lower and lower rates on the debt.
The graph clearly shows where Gordon Brown's profligate overspending in the run-up to the GFC took borrowing up to unsustainable levels of, erm, less than it had been under the Tories.
Are you familiar with the concept of an economic cycle?
The cyclical nature is to have the deficit go up during recessions, down and ultimately into surpluses during times of growth, then back up when the next recession hits. Rinse and repeat.
Going into the recession before the GFC we had a budget surplus under the Tories, as you should prior to a recession. The deficit then rose counter-cyclically, as it should. It was then falling year on year.
In 2002 we were growing and had a budget surplus - great! Then we went into deficit, why? What recession happened in 2002? There was none.
There was no reason to go back into deficit from our surplus. We should have been in surplus going into the GFC, as we were before the last recession. Brown's profligacy was to increase the deficit prior to the recession. Comparing pre-recession and post-recession figures is utterly disingenuous or ignorant.
Of course there was a recession in 2002. Or at least there was in Europe, and in America, but not in Britain where Gordon Brown steered us safely around the fallout from the dot com crash using Keynesian counter-cyclical spending.
If you want to know where Brown's hubris came from, no more boom and bust, it was then.
Your mistake is to frame 2002 as the disease, when in fact it was the vaccine.
What time are we expecting Reeves' resignation letter?
She isn’t going for this.
There’s just about enough plausible deniability, and it gives the Tories far too much of a big scalp. Plus jeopardises Starmer’s position.
The damage regarding the public perception of Reeves was done a very long time ago; and this budget won’t have helped it one bit. That’s pretty much the long and short of it. She is now very toxic, but it’s hard to see a way that allows her to go without causing damage to Starmer, so they will keep her lashed to the wheel.
Yes, it was a sin of omission rather than commission and she'll get away with it. It's a bit like me not telling Mrs PtP about that fifty I had on an 8/1 winner. It's dishonest but you like to hold a bit back for tougher times if you can.
I wouldn't overegg the toxicity. The budget was generally well received and the markets reacted well. Her stock rose briefly as a consequence. Perhaps that explains the hysteria over a bit of fibbing. The Usual Suspects had to nail her for something. What she did wasn't right, but the parliamentary dishonesty bar was set pretty high a few PMs back so I don't see her falling on her sword any time soon.
Well received.??I think not. Everyone i have spoken to has been pretty angry about it
What bullshit! It is so arcane no one even understands what it's about and those that do couln't care less cos it makes no difference to anyone.
The conservatives, lib dems, reform, SNP and Plaid all attacked Reeves on the floor of the house just now so maybe your whitewash is just wishcasting
What time are we expecting Reeves' resignation letter?
She isn’t going for this.
There’s just about enough plausible deniability, and it gives the Tories far too much of a big scalp. Plus jeopardises Starmer’s position.
The damage regarding the public perception of Reeves was done a very long time ago; and this budget won’t have helped it one bit. That’s pretty much the long and short of it. She is now very toxic, but it’s hard to see a way that allows her to go without causing damage to Starmer, so they will keep her lashed to the wheel.
Yes, it was a sin of omission rather than commission and she'll get away with it. It's a bit like me not telling Mrs PtP about that fifty I had on an 8/1 winner. It's dishonest but you like to hold a bit back for tougher times if you can.
I wouldn't overegg the toxicity. The budget was generally well received and the markets reacted well. Her stock rose briefly as a consequence. Perhaps that explains the hysteria over a bit of fibbing. The Usual Suspects had to nail her for something. What she did wasn't right, but the parliamentary dishonesty bar was set pretty high a few PMs back so I don't see her falling on her sword any time soon.
Well received.??I think not. Everyone i have spoken to has been pretty angry about it
What bullshit! It is so arcane no one even understands what it's about and those that do couln't care less cos it makes no difference to anyone.
Interesting. I don't generally like it when the automatic assumption is that any judicial ruling from outside the UK is obviously from a kangaroo court. However on this occasion having heard her speak about it I found her quite convincing.
What time are we expecting Reeves' resignation letter?
She isn’t going for this.
There’s just about enough plausible deniability, and it gives the Tories far too much of a big scalp. Plus jeopardises Starmer’s position.
The damage regarding the public perception of Reeves was done a very long time ago; and this budget won’t have helped it one bit. That’s pretty much the long and short of it. She is now very toxic, but it’s hard to see a way that allows her to go without causing damage to Starmer, so they will keep her lashed to the wheel.
Yes, it was a sin of omission rather than commission and she'll get away with it. It's a bit like me not telling Mrs PtP about that fifty I had on an 8/1 winner. It's dishonest but you like to hold a bit back for tougher times if you can.
I wouldn't overegg the toxicity. The budget was generally well received and the markets reacted well. Her stock rose briefly as a consequence. Perhaps that explains the hysteria over a bit of fibbing. The Usual Suspects had to nail her for something. What she did wasn't right, but the parliamentary dishonesty bar was set pretty high a few PMs back so I don't see her falling on her sword any time soon.
Well received.??I think not. Everyone i have spoken to has been pretty angry about it
What bullshit! It is so arcane no one even understands what it's about and those that do couln't care less cos it makes no difference to anyone.
The conservatives, lib dems, reform, SNP and Plaid all attacked Reeves on the floor of the house just now so maybe your whitewash is just wishcasting
They're the opposition; that's their job.
There may be a time when an opposition politician hasn't attacked the Chancellor, but goodness knows when.
Interesting. I don't generally like it when the automatic assumption is that any judicial ruling from outside the UK is obviously from a kangaroo court. However on this occasion having heard her speak about it I found her quite convincing.
As convincing as Roman Polanski? Harvey Weinstein?
What time are we expecting Reeves' resignation letter?
She isn’t going for this.
There’s just about enough plausible deniability, and it gives the Tories far too much of a big scalp. Plus jeopardises Starmer’s position.
The damage regarding the public perception of Reeves was done a very long time ago; and this budget won’t have helped it one bit. That’s pretty much the long and short of it. She is now very toxic, but it’s hard to see a way that allows her to go without causing damage to Starmer, so they will keep her lashed to the wheel.
Yes, it was a sin of omission rather than commission and she'll get away with it. It's a bit like me not telling Mrs PtP about that fifty I had on an 8/1 winner. It's dishonest but you like to hold a bit back for tougher times if you can.
I wouldn't overegg the toxicity. The budget was generally well received and the markets reacted well. Her stock rose briefly as a consequence. Perhaps that explains the hysteria over a bit of fibbing. The Usual Suspects had to nail her for something. What she did wasn't right, but the parliamentary dishonesty bar was set pretty high a few PMs back so I don't see her falling on her sword any time soon.
Well received.??I think not. Everyone i have spoken to has been pretty angry about it
What bullshit! It is so arcane no one even understands what it's about and those that do couln't care less cos it makes no difference to anyone.
The conservatives, lib dems, reform, SNP and Plaid all attacked Reeves on the floor of the house just now so maybe your whitewash is just wishcasting
It is never advisable to follow Roger's prognostications on anything bar the Oscars.
Comments
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IG5zrQxPICk
I am all for a candidate who passionately talks about what they believe in, but where she doesn’t connect the dots yet is turning the belief into practical and achievable policy aims, and explaining to people how that will improve their lives. At times she’s far too student debating society.
I still think my broader point is true - she needs to up her quality control (which I expect is down to having the right team around her).
In Root2land things would be seen very differently, I'm sure.
https://jameswphillips.substack.com/p/all-i-want-for-christmas-is-a-functional
.. During COVID, the bureaucracy performed as though hierarchical job title implied capability. It didn’t then, and it doesn’t now.
People with titles and ranks often contributed little to the actual response or actively harmed it; people far down the hierarchy frequently shaped outcomes decisively. Yet the inquiry has structured itself around the former, not the latter. Witnesses have been called almost entirely on the basis of job title, not on the basis of what they actually did or knew. This is repeating the mistake that happened during the pandemic, where people were asked for opinions simply due to their job titles, not whether they knew anything about the topic...
... To my knowledge, only one of the scientists inside the No.10 building during the COVID crisis has even been asked to submit a witness statement. Importantly, these were the very people Cummings backed and supported strongly, ensuring their voices were heard - in direct opposition to a core conclusion of the report. Many of the people who were absolutely essential to the progression of testing, procurement, data, logistics, vaccines, and operational decision-making have been entirely absent from the record. Too many of those fixing the dysfunction have been omitted. Given their junior status & that they have not consented (nor have I asked), it is not appropriate for them to list their names here.
This is not a trivial procedural flaw. It goes to the heart of the matter: a late-Victorian, hierarchy-obsessed model of government combined with a legal-permanent bureaucratic state laid on top is fundamentally misaligned with the complexity and speed of 21st-century crises. The inquiry has simply replayed that model.
My dominant recollection of that crisis is that people (usually officials), often in their twenties and thirties, with relevant technical skills and/or can-do spirit, often saw a senior collection of people who happened to be in their roles at the time the crisis hit, failing badly. And they self-organised to fix it. It was almost (not literally) at the point where there were two parallel systems - the one actually getting on with stuff who had the capability to do so, and a potemkin veneer laid on top where those with the job titles gathered in formal meetings to read off scripts. I give a concrete example below. The inquiry has focussed almost entirely on the latter. It has almost entirely ignored the system that grew to initiate and build things like the realisation that a serious error had occurred in March with respect to core strategy, rapid testing, wastewater monitoring, the vaccines task force (Vallance was key to this), and the 10 Data Science Unit...
Who claims she’s a victim.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj38xm5nmd7o
I think it must be Russian, as I opened a couple of windows, and what looked like a general and a businessman fell out.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/bangladesh-country-policy-and-information-notes/country-policy-and-information-note-actors-of-protection-bangladesh-november-2023-accessible#:~:text=2.0, November 2023-,Executive summary,be considered on its facts.
In any event Reeves us putting up taxes now in order to buy the election by reducing them when the Election comes.
Unless you are in New Zealand. Damn....
If you want to know where Brown's hubris came from, no more boom and bust, it was then.
Your mistake is to frame 2002 as the disease, when in fact it was the vaccine.
There may be a time when an opposition politician hasn't attacked the Chancellor, but goodness knows when.
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