Politicians have given away too much power to lawyers, activists and regulators, and cannot deliver their promises, an ex-aide to the prime minister has said.
Writing in The Times,, external Paul Ovenden, who quit as Keir Starmer's director of political strategy last September after offensive messages he had sent in 2017 surfaced, said the British state had got "bigger and bigger while simultaneously and systematically emasculating itself".
He also said the case of the British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El Fattah "revealed the sheer weirdness of how Whitehall spends its time".
This is something @Sandpit and I were driving at a couple of days ago articulated very well in the article
The Stakeholder State is not a single phenomenon. Instead, it is the gradual but decisive shift of politics and power away from voters and towards groups with the time, money and institutional access to make themselves too important to ignore. In this state, the government rows with muffled oars in order to appease a complex coalition of campaign groups, regulators, litigators, trade bodies and well-networked organisations. If the language of priorities is the religion of socialism, then consultations and reviews are the sacred texts of the Stakeholder State.
Once you start noticing it, you see it everywhere: in the democratic powers handed to arm’s-length bodies or the many small government departments too powerless or captured to resist lobbying efforts. The Stakeholder State ferments between the NGO and the campaign group, the celebrity letter-writing campaign and the activist lawyers. It is given voice by political podcasts where everyone violently agrees. It is canonised through a corrupted honours system.
If you want to imagine a typical scene in the Stakeholder State, it is a government elected on a promise to build an entire generation of housing and infrastructure in just five years spending time and money lobbying itself to water down those commitments through its own quangos. If you want a vision of the future, it is endless, cheap judicial reviews enabled by the Unece Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (1998).
ah, a lot of words to say 'always sometimes else fault'
The right have always had an odd fascination with authoritarians.
"It is not possible to form a just judgment of a public figure who has attained the enormous dimensions of Adolf Hitler until his life-work as a whole is before us. Although no subsequent political action can condone wrong deeds, history is replete with examples of men who have risen to power by employing stern, grim, and even frightful methods, but who, nevertheless, when their life is revealed as a whole, have been regarded as great figures whose lives have enriched the story of mankind. So may it be with Hitler."
This was written in 1935 - incredibly nearly a whole year after Chamberlain had agreed with the Committee of Imperial Defence that Germany ought to be now selected as the "ultimate enemy" for British long term defence plans.
If only we'd had Chamberlain leading us in WWII rather than Churchill.
No. The point is rather that we should perhaps be more grateful that is was Chamberlain and not Churchill who was in government in the pre-war years.
Churchill first started warning about the threat of German rearmament as early as November 1932, and this built up into an increasing crescendo of warnings throughout the 1930s, and desperately so from about 1936 onwards.
Churchill wasn't especially popular amongst the Conservative benches, and probably would have struggled to lead them had he become Premier any sooner, but it's worth bearing in mind British public opinion wasn't particularly open to increased defence spending throughout - and that only really changed after Munich.
We have no right to criticise. The warnings are just as stark today, although of a different type, and yet we still refuse to increase defence spending, preferring to put our fingers in our ears instead.
Churchill seemed to have thought, at that period, that Hitler = Kaiser 2.0
That is, he might or might not be good for Germany. But what was good for Germany wasn't good for Britain.
So while there might or might be a war, a Germany strong enough to defeat Britain was unacceptable. To which, Churchill's answer was re-armament.
“According to a poll by Wisp, the dating app that prioritises getting singletons meeting face-to-face, Reform UK voters have officially been crowned the number one political ‘ick’ among British singles.
“Almost three-quarters (72%) of respondents said they’d be “put off” if they found out a match on a dating app was a Reform supporter.
“In a survey of 1,000 Wisp users aged 25-40, political affiliation (39%) ranked higher than smoking (22%), poor hygiene (17%), bad manners (12%), or even living with parents (10%) when it came to dating red flags.”
Nothing to stop Reform voters dating Reform voters
Isn't the point, rather, that there is an excess of young males amongst Reform voters? And a distinct deficit of females? Your thinking would be relevant to Young Conservatives c. 1950s, sure, but Reform in 2026?
Fukkers will have to adapt to reproduce asexually like aphids (with whom they share intellectual capacity) or sharks (with whom they share a system of ethics).
Sociopaths lecturing people on ethics? Got to admire the chutzpah I suppose.
Come across some social media discussion as to why the BBC is giving so little prominence to what is happening in Iran. John Simpson explained that it's all rather difficult as international media are banned from the country. A bit like Gaza.....
Of course that hasn't stopped the BBC reporting on Gaza.
Checking, the BBC news website was giving 50% more coverage to Iran this last month than to Gaza. Edit: using the search function.
Nothing that I can see on the front page with regard to the current disruption there. Whereas at the top there is a tab for Israel-Gaza war next to Home/In depth.
People like you and Bondegezou are obsessed. You probably think when someone gets accused of something in a front page spread and then a correction is printed on page 23 that's reasonable.
What a nasty reply to a perfectly neutral and, in fact, reassuring response using the actual data.
Look even John Simpson has acknowledged that the BBC isn't giving the Iran protests much attention. Notice how in your data you instead focused on coverage of Iran in the last month, NOT the protests of the last five days - which is the blindly obvious point.
John's excuse is that they are banned from Iran (just like Gaza). Although that has hardly stopped it being a lead item on BBC news for two years.
Away with you, chum. You didn't specify a time period. I picked a month as being a reasonable one, avoiding the holiday period to some extent, but with no other preconceptions. You picked one to suit yourself.
Are you aware of what is going on? The protests have exploded in the last week.
I mean I can understand you may not have heard much about it. Not as if the news gives it much prominence.
I was aware of it. And some of it from the BBC. Which is why what you were saying was so odd a priori, so I looked.
But I'm more interested in the BBC and how far it is doing its job or not.
BTW the URL you posted earlier actually had an Iran story on it, certainly just after you posted it (but you may have been unlucky with updates)./
Hmm it doesn't look like many of replies agree with her
I am not a Reeves fan (sorry for the shock, I normally hide it better) but the responses there are overly negative. It is a good thing for UK plc that money is flowing into the FTSE 100, that investment in the stock market here can produce a decent return (up over 20% in 2025), that the ratings difference between us and the US has narrowed somewhat and that there is economic activity and optimism in the City. The FTSE 100 is largely international (over 80% of sales are not in the UK) but we are seriously dependent upon the financial skills and profits of the City servicing companies listed there. Reeves is right (sudden wave of nausea there) to celebrate this, it is way over due.
Also good time to review your investments, sell any underperforming and wait for the January "beer fear" correction before reinvesting.
My pension funds have risen really sharply over the last 12 months. It is definitely time to move to more defensive holdings and cash out some of these gains. Still at least 3 years to go (longer if health allows because I am a boring sod and don't know what I would do with myself if I didn't work) but protection of what I now have is becoming key.
Politicians have given away too much power to lawyers, activists and regulators, and cannot deliver their promises, an ex-aide to the prime minister has said.
Writing in The Times,, external Paul Ovenden, who quit as Keir Starmer's director of political strategy last September after offensive messages he had sent in 2017 surfaced, said the British state had got "bigger and bigger while simultaneously and systematically emasculating itself".
He also said the case of the British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El Fattah "revealed the sheer weirdness of how Whitehall spends its time".
This is something @Sandpit and I were driving at a couple of days ago articulated very well in the article
The Stakeholder State is not a single phenomenon. Instead, it is the gradual but decisive shift of politics and power away from voters and towards groups with the time, money and institutional access to make themselves too important to ignore. In this state, the government rows with muffled oars in order to appease a complex coalition of campaign groups, regulators, litigators, trade bodies and well-networked organisations. If the language of priorities is the religion of socialism, then consultations and reviews are the sacred texts of the Stakeholder State.
Once you start noticing it, you see it everywhere: in the democratic powers handed to arm’s-length bodies or the many small government departments too powerless or captured to resist lobbying efforts. The Stakeholder State ferments between the NGO and the campaign group, the celebrity letter-writing campaign and the activist lawyers. It is given voice by political podcasts where everyone violently agrees. It is canonised through a corrupted honours system.
If you want to imagine a typical scene in the Stakeholder State, it is a government elected on a promise to build an entire generation of housing and infrastructure in it is not just five years spending time and money lobbying itself to water down those commitments through its own quangos. If you want a vision of the future, it is endless, cheap judicial reviews enabled by the Unece Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (1998).
That is as clear and insightful explanation of our post democratic state as I have read anywhere. I am really not sure if there is any way back. These groups are so amorphous and so powerful that it is not even clear how you rebel against them.
Politicians have given away too much power to lawyers, activists and regulators, and cannot deliver their promises, an ex-aide to the prime minister has said.
Writing in The Times,, external Paul Ovenden, who quit as Keir Starmer's director of political strategy last September after offensive messages he had sent in 2017 surfaced, said the British state had got "bigger and bigger while simultaneously and systematically emasculating itself".
He also said the case of the British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El Fattah "revealed the sheer weirdness of how Whitehall spends its time".
This is something @Sandpit and I were driving at a couple of days ago articulated very well in the article
The Stakeholder State is not a single phenomenon. Instead, it is the gradual but decisive shift of politics and power away from voters and towards groups with the time, money and institutional access to make themselves too important to ignore. In this state, the government rows with muffled oars in order to appease a complex coalition of campaign groups, regulators, litigators, trade bodies and well-networked organisations. If the language of priorities is the religion of socialism, then consultations and reviews are the sacred texts of the Stakeholder State.
Once you start noticing it, you see it everywhere: in the democratic powers handed to arm’s-length bodies or the many small government departments too powerless or captured to resist lobbying efforts. The Stakeholder State ferments between the NGO and the campaign group, the celebrity letter-writing campaign and the activist lawyers. It is given voice by political podcasts where everyone violently agrees. It is canonised through a corrupted honours system.
If you want to imagine a typical scene in the Stakeholder State, it is a government elected on a promise to build an entire generation of housing and infrastructure in it is not just five years spending time and money lobbying itself to water down those commitments through its own quangos. If you want a vision of the future, it is endless, cheap judicial reviews enabled by the Unece Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (1998).
That is as clear and insightful explanation of our post democratic state as I have read anywhere. I am really not sure if there is any way back. These groups are so amorphous and so powerful that it is not even clear how you rebel against them.
Is it?
It sounds to me like how democracy works. Governments have to follow the rules, and interested parties are allowed to lobby for their preferred outcomes.
The alternative is a capricious tyranny.
The very epitome of democracy, this.
If you want to imagine a typical scene in the Stakeholder State, it is a government elected on a promise to build an entire generation of housing and infrastructure in it is not just five years spending time and money lobbying itself to water down those commitments through its own quangos
You need understand that the Democracy is too important to be left to the whims of the Head Count scum.
See the elective arrangements of the Republican Roman Senate.
In some ways, modern government is like the Roman State in its periods of decline. Governments are increasingly ineffectual and unable make their will count. They pass shrill legislation, denouncing whatever the bad thing is that the moment, while ignoring the essentials.
The right have always had an odd fascination with authoritarians.
"It is not possible to form a just judgment of a public figure who has attained the enormous dimensions of Adolf Hitler until his life-work as a whole is before us. Although no subsequent political action can condone wrong deeds, history is replete with examples of men who have risen to power by employing stern, grim, and even frightful methods, but who, nevertheless, when their life is revealed as a whole, have been regarded as great figures whose lives have enriched the story of mankind. So may it be with Hitler."
This was written in 1935 - incredibly nearly a whole year after Chamberlain had agreed with the Committee of Imperial Defence that Germany ought to be now selected as the "ultimate enemy" for British long term defence plans.
If only we'd had Chamberlain leading us in WWII rather than Churchill.
No. The point is rather that we should perhaps be more grateful that is was Chamberlain and not Churchill who was in government in the pre-war years.
Churchill first started warning about the threat of German rearmament as early as November 1932, and this built up into an increasing crescendo of warnings throughout the 1930s, and desperately so from about 1936 onwards.
Churchill wasn't especially popular amongst the Conservative benches, and probably would have struggled to lead them had he become Premier any sooner, but it's worth bearing in mind British public opinion wasn't particularly open to increased defence spending throughout - and that only really changed after Munich.
We have no right to criticise. The warnings are just as stark today, although of a different type, and yet we still refuse to increase defence spending, preferring to put our fingers in our ears instead.
Churchill seemed to have thought, at that period, that Hitler = Kaiser 2.0
That is, he might or might not be good for Germany. But what was good for Germany wasn't good for Britain.
So while there might or might be a war, a Germany strong enough to defeat Britain was unacceptable. To which, Churchill's answer was re-armament.
And, this was at a stage when the vast majority of Nazi evil had yet to be perpetrated. Kristallnacht, and the occupation of Bohemia/Moravia were probably where the scales dropped from the eyes of everyone, apart from creatures like Unity Mitford and Captain Ramsay.
Hmm it doesn't look like many of replies agree with her
I am not a Reeves fan (sorry for the shock, I normally hide it better) but the responses there are overly negative. It is a good thing for UK plc that money is flowing into the FTSE 100, that investment in the stock market here can produce a decent return (up over 20% in 2025), that the ratings difference between us and the US has narrowed somewhat and that there is economic activity and optimism in the City. The FTSE 100 is largely international (over 80% of sales are not in the UK) but we are seriously dependent upon the financial skills and profits of the City servicing companies listed there. Reeves is right (sudden wave of nausea there) to celebrate this, it is way over due.
"Reeves taking the credit" shows a lack of reading comprehension.
I'm no more her admirer than you are, but some criticisms are just silly.
Politicians have given away too much power to lawyers, activists and regulators, and cannot deliver their promises, an ex-aide to the prime minister has said.
Writing in The Times,, external Paul Ovenden, who quit as Keir Starmer's director of political strategy last September after offensive messages he had sent in 2017 surfaced, said the British state had got "bigger and bigger while simultaneously and systematically emasculating itself".
He also said the case of the British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El Fattah "revealed the sheer weirdness of how Whitehall spends its time".
This is something @Sandpit and I were driving at a couple of days ago articulated very well in the article
The Stakeholder State is not a single phenomenon. Instead, it is the gradual but decisive shift of politics and power away from voters and towards groups with the time, money and institutional access to make themselves too important to ignore. In this state, the government rows with muffled oars in order to appease a complex coalition of campaign groups, regulators, litigators, trade bodies and well-networked organisations. If the language of priorities is the religion of socialism, then consultations and reviews are the sacred texts of the Stakeholder State.
Once you start noticing it, you see it everywhere: in the democratic powers handed to arm’s-length bodies or the many small government departments too powerless or captured to resist lobbying efforts. The Stakeholder State ferments between the NGO and the campaign group, the celebrity letter-writing campaign and the activist lawyers. It is given voice by political podcasts where everyone violently agrees. It is canonised through a corrupted honours system.
If you want to imagine a typical scene in the Stakeholder State, it is a government elected on a promise to build an entire generation of housing and infrastructure in it is not just five years spending time and money lobbying itself to water down those commitments through its own quangos. If you want a vision of the future, it is endless, cheap judicial reviews enabled by the Unece Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (1998).
That is as clear and insightful explanation of our post democratic state as I have read anywhere. I am really not sure if there is any way back. These groups are so amorphous and so powerful that it is not even clear how you rebel against them.
You ignore them.
You will meet enormous systemic resistance. But once you stop funding them to oppose your own policies....
The original article is punchier
“We don’t have to keep picking the pockets of the productive parts of our economy in order to fund inflation-busting pension increases for millionaires or an unsustainable welfare system. We don’t have to strangle small businesses at birth with regulatory burdens. We don’t have to fatten the pockets of wind-turbine operators by paying them not to produce energy. We don’t have to import antisemitic Islamists who wish us harm. And we certainly don’t have to treat British citizenship as a scrap of paper. On all this and more, we can simply choose not to.”
It’s a call to arms, it really is.
The rejection of regional/nodal energy pricing is the single biggest disappointment so far IMO. That really does speak to regulatory capture, and we will continue building turbines miles away from population centres and without sufficient transmission infrastructure as a result. That decision will cost us billions in lost economic output and government spending.
I'm not sure zonal pricing is a good example of regulatory capture. Zonal pricing had a very high publicity lobby behind it (lots of lobbying the other way to be fair). There are pluses and minuses with both approaches and the government made a decision with a rationale. Obviously you don't agree with the decision or rationale but government is there to make these kinds of decisions.
Politicians have given away too much power to lawyers, activists and regulators, and cannot deliver their promises, an ex-aide to the prime minister has said.
Writing in The Times,, external Paul Ovenden, who quit as Keir Starmer's director of political strategy last September after offensive messages he had sent in 2017 surfaced, said the British state had got "bigger and bigger while simultaneously and systematically emasculating itself".
He also said the case of the British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El Fattah "revealed the sheer weirdness of how Whitehall spends its time".
This is something @Sandpit and I were driving at a couple of days ago articulated very well in the article
The Stakeholder State is not a single phenomenon. Instead, it is the gradual but decisive shift of politics and power away from voters and towards groups with the time, money and institutional access to make themselves too important to ignore. In this state, the government rows with muffled oars in order to appease a complex coalition of campaign groups, regulators, litigators, trade bodies and well-networked organisations. If the language of priorities is the religion of socialism, then consultations and reviews are the sacred texts of the Stakeholder State.
Once you start noticing it, you see it everywhere: in the democratic powers handed to arm’s-length bodies or the many small government departments too powerless or captured to resist lobbying efforts. The Stakeholder State ferments between the NGO and the campaign group, the celebrity letter-writing campaign and the activist lawyers. It is given voice by political podcasts where everyone violently agrees. It is canonised through a corrupted honours system.
If you want to imagine a typical scene in the Stakeholder State, it is a government elected on a promise to build an entire generation of housing and infrastructure in it is not just five years spending time and money lobbying itself to water down those commitments through its own quangos. If you want a vision of the future, it is endless, cheap judicial reviews enabled by the Unece Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (1998).
That is as clear and insightful explanation of our post democratic state as I have read anywhere. I am really not sure if there is any way back. These groups are so amorphous and so powerful that it is not even clear how you rebel against them.
Politicians have given away too much power to lawyers, activists and regulators, and cannot deliver their promises, an ex-aide to the prime minister has said.
Writing in The Times,, external Paul Ovenden, who quit as Keir Starmer's director of political strategy last September after offensive messages he had sent in 2017 surfaced, said the British state had got "bigger and bigger while simultaneously and systematically emasculating itself".
He also said the case of the British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El Fattah "revealed the sheer weirdness of how Whitehall spends its time".
This is something @Sandpit and I were driving at a couple of days ago articulated very well in the article
The Stakeholder State is not a single phenomenon. Instead, it is the gradual but decisive shift of politics and power away from voters and towards groups with the time, money and institutional access to make themselves too important to ignore. In this state, the government rows with muffled oars in order to appease a complex coalition of campaign groups, regulators, litigators, trade bodies and well-networked organisations. If the language of priorities is the religion of socialism, then consultations and reviews are the sacred texts of the Stakeholder State.
Once you start noticing it, you see it everywhere: in the democratic powers handed to arm’s-length bodies or the many small government departments too powerless or captured to resist lobbying efforts. The Stakeholder State ferments between the NGO and the campaign group, the celebrity letter-writing campaign and the activist lawyers. It is given voice by political podcasts where everyone violently agrees. It is canonised through a corrupted honours system.
If you want to imagine a typical scene in the Stakeholder State, it is a government elected on a promise to build an entire generation of housing and infrastructure in it is not just five years spending time and money lobbying itself to water down those commitments through its own quangos. If you want a vision of the future, it is endless, cheap judicial reviews enabled by the Unece Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (1998).
That is as clear and insightful explanation of our post democratic state as I have read anywhere. I am really not sure if there is any way back. These groups are so amorphous and so powerful that it is not even clear how you rebel against them.
Is it?
It sounds to me like how democracy works. Governments have to follow the rules, and interested parties are allowed to lobby for their preferred outcomes.
The alternative is a capricious tyranny.
The very epitome of democracy, this.
If you want to imagine a typical scene in the Stakeholder State, it is a government elected on a promise to build an entire generation of housing and infrastructure in it is not just five years spending time and money lobbying itself to water down those commitments through its own quangos
You need understand that the Democracy is too important to be left to the whims of the Head Count scum.
See the elective arrangements of the Republican Roman Senate.
In some ways, modern government is like the Roman State in its periods of decline. Governments are increasingly ineffectual and unable make their will count. They pass shrill legislation, denouncing whatever the bad thing is that the moment, while ignoring the essentials.
Politicians have given away too much power to lawyers, activists and regulators, and cannot deliver their promises, an ex-aide to the prime minister has said.
Writing in The Times,, external Paul Ovenden, who quit as Keir Starmer's director of political strategy last September after offensive messages he had sent in 2017 surfaced, said the British state had got "bigger and bigger while simultaneously and systematically emasculating itself".
He also said the case of the British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El Fattah "revealed the sheer weirdness of how Whitehall spends its time".
This is something @Sandpit and I were driving at a couple of days ago articulated very well in the article
The Stakeholder State is not a single phenomenon. Instead, it is the gradual but decisive shift of politics and power away from voters and towards groups with the time, money and institutional access to make themselves too important to ignore. In this state, the government rows with muffled oars in order to appease a complex coalition of campaign groups, regulators, litigators, trade bodies and well-networked organisations. If the language of priorities is the religion of socialism, then consultations and reviews are the sacred texts of the Stakeholder State.
Once you start noticing it, you see it everywhere: in the democratic powers handed to arm’s-length bodies or the many small government departments too powerless or captured to resist lobbying efforts. The Stakeholder State ferments between the NGO and the campaign group, the celebrity letter-writing campaign and the activist lawyers. It is given voice by political podcasts where everyone violently agrees. It is canonised through a corrupted honours system.
If you want to imagine a typical scene in the Stakeholder State, it is a government elected on a promise to build an entire generation of housing and infrastructure in it is not just five years spending time and money lobbying itself to water down those commitments through its own quangos. If you want a vision of the future, it is endless, cheap judicial reviews enabled by the Unece Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (1998).
That is as clear and insightful explanation of our post democratic state as I have read anywhere. I am really not sure if there is any way back. These groups are so amorphous and so powerful that it is not even clear how you rebel against them.
Politicians have given away too much power to lawyers, activists and regulators, and cannot deliver their promises, an ex-aide to the prime minister has said.
Writing in The Times,, external Paul Ovenden, who quit as Keir Starmer's director of political strategy last September after offensive messages he had sent in 2017 surfaced, said the British state had got "bigger and bigger while simultaneously and systematically emasculating itself".
He also said the case of the British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El Fattah "revealed the sheer weirdness of how Whitehall spends its time".
This is something @Sandpit and I were driving at a couple of days ago articulated very well in the article
The Stakeholder State is not a single phenomenon. Instead, it is the gradual but decisive shift of politics and power away from voters and towards groups with the time, money and institutional access to make themselves too important to ignore. In this state, the government rows with muffled oars in order to appease a complex coalition of campaign groups, regulators, litigators, trade bodies and well-networked organisations. If the language of priorities is the religion of socialism, then consultations and reviews are the sacred texts of the Stakeholder State.
Once you start noticing it, you see it everywhere: in the democratic powers handed to arm’s-length bodies or the many small government departments too powerless or captured to resist lobbying efforts. The Stakeholder State ferments between the NGO and the campaign group, the celebrity letter-writing campaign and the activist lawyers. It is given voice by political podcasts where everyone violently agrees. It is canonised through a corrupted honours system.
If you want to imagine a typical scene in the Stakeholder State, it is a government elected on a promise to build an entire generation of housing and infrastructure in it is not just five years spending time and money lobbying itself to water down those commitments through its own quangos. If you want a vision of the future, it is endless, cheap judicial reviews enabled by the Unece Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (1998).
That is as clear and insightful explanation of our post democratic state as I have read anywhere. I am really not sure if there is any way back. These groups are so amorphous and so powerful that it is not even clear how you rebel against them.
Is it?
It sounds to me like how democracy works. Governments have to follow the rules, and interested parties are allowed to lobby for their preferred outcomes.
The alternative is a capricious tyranny.
The very epitome of democracy, this.
If you want to imagine a typical scene in the Stakeholder State, it is a government elected on a promise to build an entire generation of housing and infrastructure in it is not just five years spending time and money lobbying itself to water down those commitments through its own quangos
You need understand that the Democracy is too important to be left to the whims of the Head Count scum.
See the elective arrangements of the Republican Roman Senate.
In some ways, modern government is like the Roman State in its periods of decline. Governments are increasingly ineffectual and unable make their will count. They pass shrill legislation, denouncing whatever the bad thing is that the moment, while ignoring the essentials.
And we know how that story ends.
Circuses!
Increases in the Corn Dole Universal Credit and retirement benefits for the soldiers State Pensions
The right have always had an odd fascination with authoritarians.
"It is not possible to form a just judgment of a public figure who has attained the enormous dimensions of Adolf Hitler until his life-work as a whole is before us. Although no subsequent political action can condone wrong deeds, history is replete with examples of men who have risen to power by employing stern, grim, and even frightful methods, but who, nevertheless, when their life is revealed as a whole, have been regarded as great figures whose lives have enriched the story of mankind. So may it be with Hitler."
This was written in 1935 - incredibly nearly a whole year after Chamberlain had agreed with the Committee of Imperial Defence that Germany ought to be now selected as the "ultimate enemy" for British long term defence plans.
If only we'd had Chamberlain leading us in WWII rather than Churchill.
No. The point is rather that we should perhaps be more grateful that is was Chamberlain and not Churchill who was in government in the pre-war years.
Churchill first started warning about the threat of German rearmament as early as November 1932, and this built up into an increasing crescendo of warnings throughout the 1930s, and desperately so from about 1936 onwards.
Churchill wasn't especially popular amongst the Conservative benches, and probably would have struggled to lead them had he become Premier any sooner, but it's worth bearing in mind British public opinion wasn't particularly open to increased defence spending throughout - and that only really changed after Munich.
We have no right to criticise. The warnings are just as stark today, although of a different type, and yet we still refuse to increase defence spending, preferring to put our fingers in our ears instead.
Churchill seemed to have thought, at that period, that Hitler = Kaiser 2.0
That is, he might or might not be good for Germany. But what was good for Germany wasn't good for Britain.
So while there might or might be a war, a Germany strong enough to defeat Britain was unacceptable. To which, Churchill's answer was re-armament.
And, this was at a stage when the vast majority of Nazi evil had yet to be perpetrated. Kristallnacht, and the occupation of Bohemia/Moravia were probably where the scales dropped from the eyes of everyone, apart from creatures like Unity Mitford and Captain Ramsay.
Don't understand. There was clear rearmament and planning for it throughout the 1930s. RAF, for instance, was planned out - essentially creating cadres first for expansion; National factories established for expansion and movement from bombed areas, etc. etc. And a lot of that was under Chamberlain (as chancellor IIRC? and then PM).
There was such a thing as rearming too early and then finding your kit was out of date. As the French and Poles found with their planes (their tanks with those one man turrets unlike UK and Germany are an interesting question, perhaps more to do with their trench warfare doctrine).
Hmm it doesn't look like many of replies agree with her
I am not a Reeves fan (sorry for the shock, I normally hide it better) but the responses there are overly negative. It is a good thing for UK plc that money is flowing into the FTSE 100, that investment in the stock market here can produce a decent return (up over 20% in 2025), that the ratings difference between us and the US has narrowed somewhat and that there is economic activity and optimism in the City. The FTSE 100 is largely international (over 80% of sales are not in the UK) but we are seriously dependent upon the financial skills and profits of the City servicing companies listed there. Reeves is right (sudden wave of nausea there) to celebrate this, it is way over due.
Also good time to review your investments, sell any underperforming and wait for the January "beer fear" correction before reinvesting.
My pension funds have risen really sharply over the last 12 months. It is definitely time to move to more defensive holdings and cash out some of these gains. Still at least 3 years to go (longer if health allows because I am a boring sod and don't know what I would do with myself if I didn't work) but protection of what I now have is becoming key.
Sounds like you are on a good footing David
With hindsight, more money into S&S ISAs at start of 2025 would have been a smart move, I'm not confident enough of short terms gains continuing to put more into them right now
Looks like electronics, pharmaceuticals and financial services are all big performers recently, I would expect the former to keep performing strong with the money being invested in AI and tech
Hmm it doesn't look like many of replies agree with her
I am not a Reeves fan (sorry for the shock, I normally hide it better) but the responses there are overly negative. It is a good thing for UK plc that money is flowing into the FTSE 100, that investment in the stock market here can produce a decent return (up over 20% in 2025), that the ratings difference between us and the US has narrowed somewhat and that there is economic activity and optimism in the City. The FTSE 100 is largely international (over 80% of sales are not in the UK) but we are seriously dependent upon the financial skills and profits of the City servicing companies listed there. Reeves is right (sudden wave of nausea there) to celebrate this, it is way over due.
Yes. UK shares have been undervalued for quite some time.
I imagine that the Orange Golgothan has taken the shine off US shares, too.
Yes, my wife was just mentioning that.
I think that there is a bubble in the US around AI and tech stocks and that has bled over here a bit, that the US is no longer looking quite the safe haven it once did because of Trump's lunacy, that (as you say) our stocks have been seriously underrated for a while so there is plenty of gain potential without getting anywhere near American silliness and the fiscal policies of most of the G7 (including us) are still inflationary resulting in assets looking far more attractive than cash. This trend may still have a bit to go. Or not. Faites vos jeux.
The right have always had an odd fascination with authoritarians.
"It is not possible to form a just judgment of a public figure who has attained the enormous dimensions of Adolf Hitler until his life-work as a whole is before us. Although no subsequent political action can condone wrong deeds, history is replete with examples of men who have risen to power by employing stern, grim, and even frightful methods, but who, nevertheless, when their life is revealed as a whole, have been regarded as great figures whose lives have enriched the story of mankind. So may it be with Hitler."
This was written in 1935 - incredibly nearly a whole year after Chamberlain had agreed with the Committee of Imperial Defence that Germany ought to be now selected as the "ultimate enemy" for British long term defence plans.
If only we'd had Chamberlain leading us in WWII rather than Churchill.
No. The point is rather that we should perhaps be more grateful that is was Chamberlain and not Churchill who was in government in the pre-war years.
Churchill first started warning about the threat of German rearmament as early as November 1932, and this built up into an increasing crescendo of warnings throughout the 1930s, and desperately so from about 1936 onwards.
Churchill wasn't especially popular amongst the Conservative benches, and probably would have struggled to lead them had he become Premier any sooner, but it's worth bearing in mind British public opinion wasn't particularly open to increased defence spending throughout - and that only really changed after Munich.
We have no right to criticise. The warnings are just as stark today, although of a different type, and yet we still refuse to increase defence spending, preferring to put our fingers in our ears instead.
Popular myth.
Chamberlain strongly advocated for rearmament within government, as has received little or no credit for it.
https://x.com/CalumDouglas1/status/2006310404989804672 ...British defence spending flat-lined during Churchills tenure as Chancellor in the 20`s, although, this was a period of severe austerity, and you cant propose that this was entirely his fault.
The RAF museum also proposes that despite Churchill being out of office after 1929:
"His constant warnings were a constant source of irritation but they did force an often reluctant government into embarking on ever larger and more comprehensive re-armament programmes."
This is a comforting but essentially misleading statement, in that it implies that the defence of the Empire was something left to the four winds in Parliment, and therefore amenable to change through the complaints of a back-bencher which is just preposterous fantasy.
Wikipedia states that Churchill was in 1934 able to warn parliment with "authority" because he had been given some data on German re-armament "clandestinely" by two MP`s, as if there was not already an entire state defence infrastructure which reguarly gave such briefings to the Cabinet (including Chamberlain) with far more detail than anything Churchill had.
Chamberlain of course simply could not leave the briefling room after a Committee of Imperial Defence meeting (the deliberations of which were quite literally a state Secret at that time, and were only declassified in the 1970`s and 1980`s) and make a speech in parliment in 1934 saying that he had agreed that Germany was to be designated the ultimate threat to the Empire and that he had also agreed to budget for a 5 year re-armament strategy to be ready for war with Hitler by 1939 (all of which was exactly what was happening in those meetings) - it was the C.I.D. said of the utmost importace that as much as practical was to be kept from the public, because all this required as a pre-requisite that Britain keep Hitler on as friendly terms as possible until quote: "circimstances are likely to impose a concrete limit". Which would obviously be impossible were Chamberlain to stand up in Parliment and announce we considered Hitler the No.1 threat to the Empire in Feb 1934, and that Britain was going to be turned into a war economy to be ready to oppose him as fast as finances allowed over the next half decade...
Politicians have given away too much power to lawyers, activists and regulators, and cannot deliver their promises, an ex-aide to the prime minister has said.
Writing in The Times,, external Paul Ovenden, who quit as Keir Starmer's director of political strategy last September after offensive messages he had sent in 2017 surfaced, said the British state had got "bigger and bigger while simultaneously and systematically emasculating itself".
He also said the case of the British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El Fattah "revealed the sheer weirdness of how Whitehall spends its time".
This is something @Sandpit and I were driving at a couple of days ago articulated very well in the article
The Stakeholder State is not a single phenomenon. Instead, it is the gradual but decisive shift of politics and power away from voters and towards groups with the time, money and institutional access to make themselves too important to ignore. In this state, the government rows with muffled oars in order to appease a complex coalition of campaign groups, regulators, litigators, trade bodies and well-networked organisations. If the language of priorities is the religion of socialism, then consultations and reviews are the sacred texts of the Stakeholder State.
Once you start noticing it, you see it everywhere: in the democratic powers handed to arm’s-length bodies or the many small government departments too powerless or captured to resist lobbying efforts. The Stakeholder State ferments between the NGO and the campaign group, the celebrity letter-writing campaign and the activist lawyers. It is given voice by political podcasts where everyone violently agrees. It is canonised through a corrupted honours system.
If you want to imagine a typical scene in the Stakeholder State, it is a government elected on a promise to build an entire generation of housing and infrastructure in it is not just five years spending time and money lobbying itself to water down those commitments through its own quangos. If you want a vision of the future, it is endless, cheap judicial reviews enabled by the Unece Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (1998).
That is as clear and insightful explanation of our post democratic state as I have read anywhere. I am really not sure if there is any way back. These groups are so amorphous and so powerful that it is not even clear how you rebel against them.
You ignore them.
You will meet enormous systemic resistance. But once you stop funding them to oppose your own policies....
The original article is punchier
“We don’t have to keep picking the pockets of the productive parts of our economy in order to fund inflation-busting pension increases for millionaires or an unsustainable welfare system. We don’t have to strangle small businesses at birth with regulatory burdens. We don’t have to fatten the pockets of wind-turbine operators by paying them not to produce energy. We don’t have to import antisemitic Islamists who wish us harm. And we certainly don’t have to treat British citizenship as a scrap of paper. On all this and more, we can simply choose not to.”
It’s a call to arms, it really is.
The rejection of regional/nodal energy pricing is the single biggest disappointment so far IMO. That really does speak to regulatory capture, and we will continue building turbines miles away from population centres and without sufficient transmission infrastructure as a result. That decision will cost us billions in lost economic output and government spending.
I'm not sure zonal pricing is a good example of regulatory capture. Zonal pricing had a very high publicity lobby behind it (lots of lobbying the other way to be fair). There are pluses and minuses with both approaches and the government made a decision with a rationale. Obviously you don't agree with the decision or rationale but government is there to make these kinds of decisions.
They did it to protect their base, as all governments do. Why would London based Keir Starmer and Ed Miliband want to serve the interests of sparsely populated rural areas who don't vote for them
Politicians have given away too much power to lawyers, activists and regulators, and cannot deliver their promises, an ex-aide to the prime minister has said.
Writing in The Times,, external Paul Ovenden, who quit as Keir Starmer's director of political strategy last September after offensive messages he had sent in 2017 surfaced, said the British state had got "bigger and bigger while simultaneously and systematically emasculating itself".
He also said the case of the British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El Fattah "revealed the sheer weirdness of how Whitehall spends its time".
This is something @Sandpit and I were driving at a couple of days ago articulated very well in the article
The Stakeholder State is not a single phenomenon. Instead, it is the gradual but decisive shift of politics and power away from voters and towards groups with the time, money and institutional access to make themselves too important to ignore. In this state, the government rows with muffled oars in order to appease a complex coalition of campaign groups, regulators, litigators, trade bodies and well-networked organisations. If the language of priorities is the religion of socialism, then consultations and reviews are the sacred texts of the Stakeholder State.
Once you start noticing it, you see it everywhere: in the democratic powers handed to arm’s-length bodies or the many small government departments too powerless or captured to resist lobbying efforts. The Stakeholder State ferments between the NGO and the campaign group, the celebrity letter-writing campaign and the activist lawyers. It is given voice by political podcasts where everyone violently agrees. It is canonised through a corrupted honours system.
If you want to imagine a typical scene in the Stakeholder State, it is a government elected on a promise to build an entire generation of housing and infrastructure in it is not just five years spending time and money lobbying itself to water down those commitments through its own quangos. If you want a vision of the future, it is endless, cheap judicial reviews enabled by the Unece Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (1998).
That is as clear and insightful explanation of our post democratic state as I have read anywhere. I am really not sure if there is any way back. These groups are so amorphous and so powerful that it is not even clear how you rebel against them.
Politicians have given away too much power to lawyers, activists and regulators, and cannot deliver their promises, an ex-aide to the prime minister has said.
Writing in The Times,, external Paul Ovenden, who quit as Keir Starmer's director of political strategy last September after offensive messages he had sent in 2017 surfaced, said the British state had got "bigger and bigger while simultaneously and systematically emasculating itself".
He also said the case of the British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El Fattah "revealed the sheer weirdness of how Whitehall spends its time".
This is something @Sandpit and I were driving at a couple of days ago articulated very well in the article
The Stakeholder State is not a single phenomenon. Instead, it is the gradual but decisive shift of politics and power away from voters and towards groups with the time, money and institutional access to make themselves too important to ignore. In this state, the government rows with muffled oars in order to appease a complex coalition of campaign groups, regulators, litigators, trade bodies and well-networked organisations. If the language of priorities is the religion of socialism, then consultations and reviews are the sacred texts of the Stakeholder State.
Once you start noticing it, you see it everywhere: in the democratic powers handed to arm’s-length bodies or the many small government departments too powerless or captured to resist lobbying efforts. The Stakeholder State ferments between the NGO and the campaign group, the celebrity letter-writing campaign and the activist lawyers. It is given voice by political podcasts where everyone violently agrees. It is canonised through a corrupted honours system.
If you want to imagine a typical scene in the Stakeholder State, it is a government elected on a promise to build an entire generation of housing and infrastructure in it is not just five years spending time and money lobbying itself to water down those commitments through its own quangos. If you want a vision of the future, it is endless, cheap judicial reviews enabled by the Unece Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (1998).
That is as clear and insightful explanation of our post democratic state as I have read anywhere. I am really not sure if there is any way back. These groups are so amorphous and so powerful that it is not even clear how you rebel against them.
Is it?
It sounds to me like how democracy works. Governments have to follow the rules, and interested parties are allowed to lobby for their preferred outcomes.
The alternative is a capricious tyranny.
The very epitome of democracy, this.
If you want to imagine a typical scene in the Stakeholder State, it is a government elected on a promise to build an entire generation of housing and infrastructure in it is not just five years spending time and money lobbying itself to water down those commitments through its own quangos
You need understand that the Democracy is too important to be left to the whims of the Head Count scum.
See the elective arrangements of the Republican Roman Senate.
In some ways, modern government is like the Roman State in its periods of decline. Governments are increasingly ineffectual and unable make their will count. They pass shrill legislation, denouncing whatever the bad thing is that the moment, while ignoring the essentials.
Reform may be favourites to win most seats at the next GE, but even so I dare say 'the government' will be back in power.
Good morning, everybody.
For all the noise about culling the woke Civil Service, that probably goes doubly for Reform. They have nobody with experience of getting the machine to do stuff. Danny Kruger never made it beyond PPS, which is amazing given the ministerial churn 2019-24.
Team Sir Humphrey is likely to run rings around them. If it weren't my country, it would be hilarious to watch.
Then Team Sir Humphrey is probably very keen to have Reform in.
Am I the only one feeling optimistic about UK economy?
Inflation coming down, wages up? Competent management after the Johnson/Truss shitshow and a govt that is pushing ahead with sorely needed planning reform and energy investment....
Indoor fireworks always seem the most stupid things.
About 20 years ago there was a bar on Oxford Road in Manchester that hired a fire breather/fire dancers for Halloween.
Because it was cold and wet they decided to bring the show inside.
Which is when I left.
A few years ago, I recall a pub in Acton burnt down because of an indoor circus event. Around NYE as well, iirc. Fortunately, I don't think there were any casualties, but it was a long time before the pub was able to reopen.
Politicians have given away too much power to lawyers, activists and regulators, and cannot deliver their promises, an ex-aide to the prime minister has said.
Writing in The Times,, external Paul Ovenden, who quit as Keir Starmer's director of political strategy last September after offensive messages he had sent in 2017 surfaced, said the British state had got "bigger and bigger while simultaneously and systematically emasculating itself".
He also said the case of the British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El Fattah "revealed the sheer weirdness of how Whitehall spends its time".
This is something @Sandpit and I were driving at a couple of days ago articulated very well in the article
The Stakeholder State is not a single phenomenon. Instead, it is the gradual but decisive shift of politics and power away from voters and towards groups with the time, money and institutional access to make themselves too important to ignore. In this state, the government rows with muffled oars in order to appease a complex coalition of campaign groups, regulators, litigators, trade bodies and well-networked organisations. If the language of priorities is the religion of socialism, then consultations and reviews are the sacred texts of the Stakeholder State.
Once you start noticing it, you see it everywhere: in the democratic powers handed to arm’s-length bodies or the many small government departments too powerless or captured to resist lobbying efforts. The Stakeholder State ferments between the NGO and the campaign group, the celebrity letter-writing campaign and the activist lawyers. It is given voice by political podcasts where everyone violently agrees. It is canonised through a corrupted honours system.
If you want to imagine a typical scene in the Stakeholder State, it is a government elected on a promise to build an entire generation of housing and infrastructure in it is not just five years spending time and money lobbying itself to water down those commitments through its own quangos. If you want a vision of the future, it is endless, cheap judicial reviews enabled by the Unece Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (1998).
That is as clear and insightful explanation of our post democratic state as I have read anywhere. I am really not sure if there is any way back. These groups are so amorphous and so powerful that it is not even clear how you rebel against them.
You ignore them.
You will meet enormous systemic resistance. But once you stop funding them to oppose your own policies....
The original article is punchier
“We don’t have to keep picking the pockets of the productive parts of our economy in order to fund inflation-busting pension increases for millionaires or an unsustainable welfare system. We don’t have to strangle small businesses at birth with regulatory burdens. We don’t have to fatten the pockets of wind-turbine operators by paying them not to produce energy. We don’t have to import antisemitic Islamists who wish us harm. And we certainly don’t have to treat British citizenship as a scrap of paper. On all this and more, we can simply choose not to.”
It’s a call to arms, it really is.
The rejection of regional/nodal energy pricing is the single biggest disappointment so far IMO. That really does speak to regulatory capture, and we will continue building turbines miles away from population centres and without sufficient transmission infrastructure as a result. That decision will cost us billions in lost economic output and government spending.
I'm not sure zonal pricing is a good example of regulatory capture. Zonal pricing had a very high publicity lobby behind it (lots of lobbying the other way to be fair). There are pluses and minuses with both approaches and the government made a decision with a rationale. Obviously you don't agree with the decision or rationale but government is there to make these kinds of decisions.
They did it to protect their base, as all governments do. Why would London based Keir Starmer and Ed Miliband want to serve the interests of sparsely populated rural areas who don't vote for them
You don't know that and I think you're wrong. At least the arguments for and against, of which there are many, were all about investment. And you had the ludicrous example of the Scottish government arguing at the same time for lower prices in Scotland due to abundance of renewables and the need to maintain common pricing for those renewables so investments are protected.
The right have always had an odd fascination with authoritarians.
"It is not possible to form a just judgment of a public figure who has attained the enormous dimensions of Adolf Hitler until his life-work as a whole is before us. Although no subsequent political action can condone wrong deeds, history is replete with examples of men who have risen to power by employing stern, grim, and even frightful methods, but who, nevertheless, when their life is revealed as a whole, have been regarded as great figures whose lives have enriched the story of mankind. So may it be with Hitler."
This was written in 1935 - incredibly nearly a whole year after Chamberlain had agreed with the Committee of Imperial Defence that Germany ought to be now selected as the "ultimate enemy" for British long term defence plans.
If only we'd had Chamberlain leading us in WWII rather than Churchill.
No. The point is rather that we should perhaps be more grateful that is was Chamberlain and not Churchill who was in government in the pre-war years.
Churchill first started warning about the threat of German rearmament as early as November 1932, and this built up into an increasing crescendo of warnings throughout the 1930s, and desperately so from about 1936 onwards.
Churchill wasn't especially popular amongst the Conservative benches, and probably would have struggled to lead them had he become Premier any sooner, but it's worth bearing in mind British public opinion wasn't particularly open to increased defence spending throughout - and that only really changed after Munich.
We have no right to criticise. The warnings are just as stark today, although of a different type, and yet we still refuse to increase defence spending, preferring to put our fingers in our ears instead.
Churchill seemed to have thought, at that period, that Hitler = Kaiser 2.0
That is, he might or might not be good for Germany. But what was good for Germany wasn't good for Britain.
So while there might or might be a war, a Germany strong enough to defeat Britain was unacceptable. To which, Churchill's answer was re-armament.
And, this was at a stage when the vast majority of Nazi evil had yet to be perpetrated. Kristallnacht, and the occupation of Bohemia/Moravia were probably where the scales dropped from the eyes of everyone, apart from creatures like Unity Mitford and Captain Ramsay.
Don't understand. There was clear rearmament and planning for it throughout the 1930s. RAF, for instance, was planned out - essentially creating cadres first for expansion; National factories established for expansion and movement from bombed areas, etc. etc. And a lot of that was under Chamberlain (as chancellor IIRC? and then PM).
There was such a thing as rearming too early and then finding your kit was out of date. As the French and Poles found with their planes (their tanks with those one man turrets unlike UK and Germany are an interesting question, perhaps more to do with their trench warfare doctrine).
I’m sure I read somewhere that the French one man turret policy was down to perceived manpower shortages after WWI. Obviously Germany suffered as great or greater slaughter but seemed to have had different priorities in tank design.
The right have always had an odd fascination with authoritarians.
"It is not possible to form a just judgment of a public figure who has attained the enormous dimensions of Adolf Hitler until his life-work as a whole is before us. Although no subsequent political action can condone wrong deeds, history is replete with examples of men who have risen to power by employing stern, grim, and even frightful methods, but who, nevertheless, when their life is revealed as a whole, have been regarded as great figures whose lives have enriched the story of mankind. So may it be with Hitler."
This was written in 1935 - incredibly nearly a whole year after Chamberlain had agreed with the Committee of Imperial Defence that Germany ought to be now selected as the "ultimate enemy" for British long term defence plans.
If only we'd had Chamberlain leading us in WWII rather than Churchill.
No. The point is rather that we should perhaps be more grateful that is was Chamberlain and not Churchill who was in government in the pre-war years.
Churchill first started warning about the threat of German rearmament as early as November 1932, and this built up into an increasing crescendo of warnings throughout the 1930s, and desperately so from about 1936 onwards.
Churchill wasn't especially popular amongst the Conservative benches, and probably would have struggled to lead them had he become Premier any sooner, but it's worth bearing in mind British public opinion wasn't particularly open to increased defence spending throughout - and that only really changed after Munich.
We have no right to criticise. The warnings are just as stark today, although of a different type, and yet we still refuse to increase defence spending, preferring to put our fingers in our ears instead.
Churchill seemed to have thought, at that period, that Hitler = Kaiser 2.0
That is, he might or might not be good for Germany. But what was good for Germany wasn't good for Britain.
So while there might or might be a war, a Germany strong enough to defeat Britain was unacceptable. To which, Churchill's answer was re-armament.
And, this was at a stage when the vast majority of Nazi evil had yet to be perpetrated. Kristallnacht, and the occupation of Bohemia/Moravia were probably where the scales dropped from the eyes of everyone, apart from creatures like Unity Mitford and Captain Ramsay.
Don't understand. There was clear rearmament and planning for it throughout the 1930s. RAF, for instance, was planned out - essentially creating cadres first for expansion; National factories established for expansion and movement from bombed areas, etc. etc. And a lot of that was under Chamberlain (as chancellor IIRC? and then PM).
There was such a thing as rearming too early and then finding your kit was out of date. As the French and Poles found with their planes (their tanks with those one man turrets unlike UK and Germany are an interesting question, perhaps more to do with their trench warfare doctrine).
Churchill advocated re-armament from the point where the pocket battleships were laid down - by the German Government *before* the Nazis.
He was part of group pushing Baldwin and later Chamberlin.
Churchill did so, at first, on the old basis that if another power had the ability to win a war with Britain, Britain was in danger. No matter the policies, sentiments etc.
Re-armament was unpopular in large sections of country. Much of the Left hated it as well - there was a widespread belief that armaments caused wars. As Orwell commented, there were many who wanted to oppose Hitler, with empty hands.
U.K. re-armament was deep. In fact we didn’t pivot to mass production of weapons, rather than building the factories, until just before the war.
The original plan was to do the pivot in 1940-1941. This was because German Rearmament would peak around 1942.
The plan was an RN with a huge fleet of carriers *and* battleships. 400mph cannon armed fighters for the RAF. 5,000 of the Standard Bomber project bombers - cannon armed, 300mph cruise with more bomb load than a Lancaster. 17lbr for all anti-tank guns etc etc.
Hitler went early (some say because of the German economy running out of road).
Politicians have given away too much power to lawyers, activists and regulators, and cannot deliver their promises, an ex-aide to the prime minister has said.
Writing in The Times,, external Paul Ovenden, who quit as Keir Starmer's director of political strategy last September after offensive messages he had sent in 2017 surfaced, said the British state had got "bigger and bigger while simultaneously and systematically emasculating itself".
He also said the case of the British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El Fattah "revealed the sheer weirdness of how Whitehall spends its time".
This is something @Sandpit and I were driving at a couple of days ago articulated very well in the article
The Stakeholder State is not a single phenomenon. Instead, it is the gradual but decisive shift of politics and power away from voters and towards groups with the time, money and institutional access to make themselves too important to ignore. In this state, the government rows with muffled oars in order to appease a complex coalition of campaign groups, regulators, litigators, trade bodies and well-networked organisations. If the language of priorities is the religion of socialism, then consultations and reviews are the sacred texts of the Stakeholder State.
Once you start noticing it, you see it everywhere: in the democratic powers handed to arm’s-length bodies or the many small government departments too powerless or captured to resist lobbying efforts. The Stakeholder State ferments between the NGO and the campaign group, the celebrity letter-writing campaign and the activist lawyers. It is given voice by political podcasts where everyone violently agrees. It is canonised through a corrupted honours system.
If you want to imagine a typical scene in the Stakeholder State, it is a government elected on a promise to build an entire generation of housing and infrastructure in it is not just five years spending time and money lobbying itself to water down those commitments through its own quangos. If you want a vision of the future, it is endless, cheap judicial reviews enabled by the Unece Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (1998).
That is as clear and insightful explanation of our post democratic state as I have read anywhere. I am really not sure if there is any way back. These groups are so amorphous and so powerful that it is not even clear how you rebel against them.
You ignore them.
You will meet enormous systemic resistance. But once you stop funding them to oppose your own policies....
The original article is punchier
“We don’t have to keep picking the pockets of the productive parts of our economy in order to fund inflation-busting pension increases for millionaires or an unsustainable welfare system. We don’t have to strangle small businesses at birth with regulatory burdens. We don’t have to fatten the pockets of wind-turbine operators by paying them not to produce energy. We don’t have to import antisemitic Islamists who wish us harm. And we certainly don’t have to treat British citizenship as a scrap of paper. On all this and more, we can simply choose not to.”
It’s a call to arms, it really is.
The rejection of regional/nodal energy pricing is the single biggest disappointment so far IMO. That really does speak to regulatory capture, and we will continue building turbines miles away from population centres and without sufficient transmission infrastructure as a result. That decision will cost us billions in lost economic output and government spending.
I'm not sure zonal pricing is a good example of regulatory capture. Zonal pricing had a very high publicity lobby behind it (lots of lobbying the other way to be fair). There are pluses and minuses with both approaches and the government made a decision with a rationale. Obviously you don't agree with the decision or rationale but government is there to make these kinds of decisions.
They did it to protect their base, as all governments do. Why would London based Keir Starmer and Ed Miliband want to serve the interests of sparsely populated rural areas who don't vote for them
Or give a ‘region’ the tools to build an independent economy.
Am I the only one feeling optimistic about UK economy?
Inflation coming down, wages up? Competent management after the Johnson/Truss shitshow and a govt that is pushing ahead with sorely needed planning reform and energy investment....
Well, I am certainly not. Our last real downturn was Covid in 2020. 6 years on now and we are running a deficit of £125bn+ and increasing it year on year not to fund a boom but to keep things on something close to an even keel where we worry about tenths of a percent of growth. We continue our policy of a dangerous trade deficit and are bottom of the G7 table for investment.
This is simply not a sustainable position. As Cameron once put it we are not fixing the roof whilst the sun is shining. If we have a downturn this year counter measures in the form of boosting public spending to offset it may simply be unaffordable as we find people are not willing to lend us yet more money. If something is unsustainable it will eventually stop. And when it does I fear we will see a recession that will make 2008 look like a walk in the park.
It may not happen in 2026 but sooner or later there is going to be a reckoning for this profligacy.
Hmm it doesn't look like many of replies agree with her
I am not a Reeves fan (sorry for the shock, I normally hide it better) but the responses there are overly negative. It is a good thing for UK plc that money is flowing into the FTSE 100, that investment in the stock market here can produce a decent return (up over 20% in 2025), that the ratings difference between us and the US has narrowed somewhat and that there is economic activity and optimism in the City. The FTSE 100 is largely international (over 80% of sales are not in the UK) but we are seriously dependent upon the financial skills and profits of the City servicing companies listed there. Reeves is right (sudden wave of nausea there) to celebrate this, it is way over due.
Yes. UK shares have been undervalued for quite some time.
I imagine that the Orange Golgothan has taken the shine off US shares, too.
I think a lot of people are feeling overexposed to tech and the US.
The right have always had an odd fascination with authoritarians.
"It is not possible to form a just judgment of a public figure who has attained the enormous dimensions of Adolf Hitler until his life-work as a whole is before us. Although no subsequent political action can condone wrong deeds, history is replete with examples of men who have risen to power by employing stern, grim, and even frightful methods, but who, nevertheless, when their life is revealed as a whole, have been regarded as great figures whose lives have enriched the story of mankind. So may it be with Hitler."
This was written in 1935 - incredibly nearly a whole year after Chamberlain had agreed with the Committee of Imperial Defence that Germany ought to be now selected as the "ultimate enemy" for British long term defence plans.
If only we'd had Chamberlain leading us in WWII rather than Churchill.
No. The point is rather that we should perhaps be more grateful that is was Chamberlain and not Churchill who was in government in the pre-war years.
Churchill first started warning about the threat of German rearmament as early as November 1932, and this built up into an increasing crescendo of warnings throughout the 1930s, and desperately so from about 1936 onwards.
Churchill wasn't especially popular amongst the Conservative benches, and probably would have struggled to lead them had he become Premier any sooner, but it's worth bearing in mind British public opinion wasn't particularly open to increased defence spending throughout - and that only really changed after Munich.
We have no right to criticise. The warnings are just as stark today, although of a different type, and yet we still refuse to increase defence spending, preferring to put our fingers in our ears instead.
Churchill seemed to have thought, at that period, that Hitler = Kaiser 2.0
That is, he might or might not be good for Germany. But what was good for Germany wasn't good for Britain.
So while there might or might be a war, a Germany strong enough to defeat Britain was unacceptable. To which, Churchill's answer was re-armament.
And, this was at a stage when the vast majority of Nazi evil had yet to be perpetrated. Kristallnacht, and the occupation of Bohemia/Moravia were probably where the scales dropped from the eyes of everyone, apart from creatures like Unity Mitford and Captain Ramsay.
Don't understand. There was clear rearmament and planning for it throughout the 1930s. RAF, for instance, was planned out - essentially creating cadres first for expansion; National factories established for expansion and movement from bombed areas, etc. etc. And a lot of that was under Chamberlain (as chancellor IIRC? and then PM).
There was such a thing as rearming too early and then finding your kit was out of date. As the French and Poles found with their planes (their tanks with those one man turrets unlike UK and Germany are an interesting question, perhaps more to do with their trench warfare doctrine).
The Committee for Imperial Defence minutes show very clearly that in 1934 the government was planning for fighting a war with Germany in 1939.
..1934, Chamberlain points out that expanding the RAF will also require a lot of funds for infrastructure, quite apart from just the aeroplanes, he suggests that ought we not to start building these facilities NOW, so that they could be carried out at a normal pace, and hence be completed on time and for less money, than waiting until war was almost upon us then embarking on an emergency construction project... https://x.com/CalumDouglas1/status/2005772432422928774
Politicians have given away too much power to lawyers, activists and regulators, and cannot deliver their promises, an ex-aide to the prime minister has said.
Writing in The Times,, external Paul Ovenden, who quit as Keir Starmer's director of political strategy last September after offensive messages he had sent in 2017 surfaced, said the British state had got "bigger and bigger while simultaneously and systematically emasculating itself".
He also said the case of the British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El Fattah "revealed the sheer weirdness of how Whitehall spends its time".
This is something @Sandpit and I were driving at a couple of days ago articulated very well in the article
The Stakeholder State is not a single phenomenon. Instead, it is the gradual but decisive shift of politics and power away from voters and towards groups with the time, money and institutional access to make themselves too important to ignore. In this state, the government rows with muffled oars in order to appease a complex coalition of campaign groups, regulators, litigators, trade bodies and well-networked organisations. If the language of priorities is the religion of socialism, then consultations and reviews are the sacred texts of the Stakeholder State.
Once you start noticing it, you see it everywhere: in the democratic powers handed to arm’s-length bodies or the many small government departments too powerless or captured to resist lobbying efforts. The Stakeholder State ferments between the NGO and the campaign group, the celebrity letter-writing campaign and the activist lawyers. It is given voice by political podcasts where everyone violently agrees. It is canonised through a corrupted honours system.
If you want to imagine a typical scene in the Stakeholder State, it is a government elected on a promise to build an entire generation of housing and infrastructure in it is not just five years spending time and money lobbying itself to water down those commitments through its own quangos. If you want a vision of the future, it is endless, cheap judicial reviews enabled by the Unece Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (1998).
That is as clear and insightful explanation of our post democratic state as I have read anywhere. I am really not sure if there is any way back. These groups are so amorphous and so powerful that it is not even clear how you rebel against them.
You ignore them.
You will meet enormous systemic resistance. But once you stop funding them to oppose your own policies....
The original article is punchier
“We don’t have to keep picking the pockets of the productive parts of our economy in order to fund inflation-busting pension increases for millionaires or an unsustainable welfare system. We don’t have to strangle small businesses at birth with regulatory burdens. We don’t have to fatten the pockets of wind-turbine operators by paying them not to produce energy. We don’t have to import antisemitic Islamists who wish us harm. And we certainly don’t have to treat British citizenship as a scrap of paper. On all this and more, we can simply choose not to.”
It’s a call to arms, it really is.
The rejection of regional/nodal energy pricing is the single biggest disappointment so far IMO. That really does speak to regulatory capture, and we will continue building turbines miles away from population centres and without sufficient transmission infrastructure as a result. That decision will cost us billions in lost economic output and government spending.
I'm not sure zonal pricing is a good example of regulatory capture. Zonal pricing had a very high publicity lobby behind it (lots of lobbying the other way to be fair). There are pluses and minuses with both approaches and the government made a decision with a rationale. Obviously you don't agree with the decision or rationale but government is there to make these kinds of decisions.
They did it to protect their base, as all governments do. Why would London based Keir Starmer and Ed Miliband want to serve the interests of sparsely populated rural areas who don't vote for them
You don't know that and I think you're wrong. At least the arguments for and against, of which there are many, were all about investment. And you had the ludicrous example of the Scottish government arguing at the same time for lower prices in Scotland due to abundance of renewables and the need to maintain common pricing for those renewables so investments are protected.
They're entirely within their rights to do whatever they want, sadly we cant see the cabinet discussion papers for a good number of years yet, if ever. It may be a decision which bites Labour on the behind at the elections this year if enough people paid attention to it, sadly I dont think there is enough interest from the public on the specifics.
I don't think Scotgov have been word perfect on this either, particularly for communities which are putting up genuine reasons for objecting to projects and seeing these then being steam rollered through.
But at the end of the day energy is not wholly devolved, and Mr Miliband carries the can for bills being so high. He obviously decided it was in his better interests to cut the levy than go for regional pricing
Politicians have given away too much power to lawyers, activists and regulators, and cannot deliver their promises, an ex-aide to the prime minister has said.
Writing in The Times,, external Paul Ovenden, who quit as Keir Starmer's director of political strategy last September after offensive messages he had sent in 2017 surfaced, said the British state had got "bigger and bigger while simultaneously and systematically emasculating itself".
He also said the case of the British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El Fattah "revealed the sheer weirdness of how Whitehall spends its time".
This is something @Sandpit and I were driving at a couple of days ago articulated very well in the article
The Stakeholder State is not a single phenomenon. Instead, it is the gradual but decisive shift of politics and power away from voters and towards groups with the time, money and institutional access to make themselves too important to ignore. In this state, the government rows with muffled oars in order to appease a complex coalition of campaign groups, regulators, litigators, trade bodies and well-networked organisations. If the language of priorities is the religion of socialism, then consultations and reviews are the sacred texts of the Stakeholder State.
Once you start noticing it, you see it everywhere: in the democratic powers handed to arm’s-length bodies or the many small government departments too powerless or captured to resist lobbying efforts. The Stakeholder State ferments between the NGO and the campaign group, the celebrity letter-writing campaign and the activist lawyers. It is given voice by political podcasts where everyone violently agrees. It is canonised through a corrupted honours system.
If you want to imagine a typical scene in the Stakeholder State, it is a government elected on a promise to build an entire generation of housing and infrastructure in it is not just five years spending time and money lobbying itself to water down those commitments through its own quangos. If you want a vision of the future, it is endless, cheap judicial reviews enabled by the Unece Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (1998).
That is as clear and insightful explanation of our post democratic state as I have read anywhere. I am really not sure if there is any way back. These groups are so amorphous and so powerful that it is not even clear how you rebel against them.
You ignore them.
You will meet enormous systemic resistance. But once you stop funding them to oppose your own policies....
The original article is punchier
“We don’t have to keep picking the pockets of the productive parts of our economy in order to fund inflation-busting pension increases for millionaires or an unsustainable welfare system. We don’t have to strangle small businesses at birth with regulatory burdens. We don’t have to fatten the pockets of wind-turbine operators by paying them not to produce energy. We don’t have to import antisemitic Islamists who wish us harm. And we certainly don’t have to treat British citizenship as a scrap of paper. On all this and more, we can simply choose not to.”
It’s a call to arms, it really is.
The rejection of regional/nodal energy pricing is the single biggest disappointment so far IMO. That really does speak to regulatory capture, and we will continue building turbines miles away from population centres and without sufficient transmission infrastructure as a result. That decision will cost us billions in lost economic output and government spending.
I'm not sure zonal pricing is a good example of regulatory capture. Zonal pricing had a very high publicity lobby behind it (lots of lobbying the other way to be fair). There are pluses and minuses with both approaches and the government made a decision with a rationale. Obviously you don't agree with the decision or rationale but government is there to make these kinds of decisions.
My suspicion is that the government really didn't want to see a collapse in new development, as happened in AR5 when the strike price was too low. Lots of well-meaning folks would have been stupidly myopic about it - "renewables good" is about the limit of their thinking on this. It would have been a WFP style disaster given this is the kind of thing Labour are supposed to be good for, and the long-term benefits of implementing it would only come through in 5-10 years at the earliest.
Something like 40% of Scottish wind power is currently not utilised - that is insane and yet we are still building more up here. Either incentivise firms to invest here based on that abundant electricity, or build turbines elsewhere.
The right have always had an odd fascination with authoritarians.
"It is not possible to form a just judgment of a public figure who has attained the enormous dimensions of Adolf Hitler until his life-work as a whole is before us. Although no subsequent political action can condone wrong deeds, history is replete with examples of men who have risen to power by employing stern, grim, and even frightful methods, but who, nevertheless, when their life is revealed as a whole, have been regarded as great figures whose lives have enriched the story of mankind. So may it be with Hitler."
This was written in 1935 - incredibly nearly a whole year after Chamberlain had agreed with the Committee of Imperial Defence that Germany ought to be now selected as the "ultimate enemy" for British long term defence plans.
If only we'd had Chamberlain leading us in WWII rather than Churchill.
No. The point is rather that we should perhaps be more grateful that is was Chamberlain and not Churchill who was in government in the pre-war years.
Churchill first started warning about the threat of German rearmament as early as November 1932, and this built up into an increasing crescendo of warnings throughout the 1930s, and desperately so from about 1936 onwards.
Churchill wasn't especially popular amongst the Conservative benches, and probably would have struggled to lead them had he become Premier any sooner, but it's worth bearing in mind British public opinion wasn't particularly open to increased defence spending throughout - and that only really changed after Munich.
We have no right to criticise. The warnings are just as stark today, although of a different type, and yet we still refuse to increase defence spending, preferring to put our fingers in our ears instead.
Churchill seemed to have thought, at that period, that Hitler = Kaiser 2.0
That is, he might or might not be good for Germany. But what was good for Germany wasn't good for Britain.
So while there might or might be a war, a Germany strong enough to defeat Britain was unacceptable. To which, Churchill's answer was re-armament.
And, this was at a stage when the vast majority of Nazi evil had yet to be perpetrated. Kristallnacht, and the occupation of Bohemia/Moravia were probably where the scales dropped from the eyes of everyone, apart from creatures like Unity Mitford and Captain Ramsay.
Don't understand. There was clear rearmament and planning for it throughout the 1930s. RAF, for instance, was planned out - essentially creating cadres first for expansion; National factories established for expansion and movement from bombed areas, etc. etc. And a lot of that was under Chamberlain (as chancellor IIRC? and then PM).
There was such a thing as rearming too early and then finding your kit was out of date. As the French and Poles found with their planes (their tanks with those one man turrets unlike UK and Germany are an interesting question, perhaps more to do with their trench warfare doctrine).
The Committee for Imperial Defence minutes show very clearly that in 1934 the government was planning for fighting a war with Germany in 1939.
..1934, Chamberlain points out that expanding the RAF will also require a lot of funds for infrastructure, quite apart from just the aeroplanes, he suggests that ought we not to start building these facilities NOW, so that they could be carried out at a normal pace, and hence be completed on time and for less money, than waiting until war was almost upon us then embarking on an emergency construction project... https://x.com/CalumDouglas1/status/2005772432422928774
I have always thought that the more we learn of that period the more the ridicule that Chamberlain received for his "peace in our time" response to Munich agreement was grossly unfair. If we ever, in our history, applied the principle si vis pacem, para bellum, it was in the second half of the 1930s and he was the one that drove it. He's long overdue a reassessment.
The right have always had an odd fascination with authoritarians.
"It is not possible to form a just judgment of a public figure who has attained the enormous dimensions of Adolf Hitler until his life-work as a whole is before us. Although no subsequent political action can condone wrong deeds, history is replete with examples of men who have risen to power by employing stern, grim, and even frightful methods, but who, nevertheless, when their life is revealed as a whole, have been regarded as great figures whose lives have enriched the story of mankind. So may it be with Hitler."
This was written in 1935 - incredibly nearly a whole year after Chamberlain had agreed with the Committee of Imperial Defence that Germany ought to be now selected as the "ultimate enemy" for British long term defence plans.
If only we'd had Chamberlain leading us in WWII rather than Churchill.
No. The point is rather that we should perhaps be more grateful that is was Chamberlain and not Churchill who was in government in the pre-war years.
Churchill first started warning about the threat of German rearmament as early as November 1932, and this built up into an increasing crescendo of warnings throughout the 1930s, and desperately so from about 1936 onwards.
Churchill wasn't especially popular amongst the Conservative benches, and probably would have struggled to lead them had he become Premier any sooner, but it's worth bearing in mind British public opinion wasn't particularly open to increased defence spending throughout - and that only really changed after Munich.
We have no right to criticise. The warnings are just as stark today, although of a different type, and yet we still refuse to increase defence spending, preferring to put our fingers in our ears instead.
Churchill seemed to have thought, at that period, that Hitler = Kaiser 2.0
That is, he might or might not be good for Germany. But what was good for Germany wasn't good for Britain.
So while there might or might be a war, a Germany strong enough to defeat Britain was unacceptable. To which, Churchill's answer was re-armament.
And, this was at a stage when the vast majority of Nazi evil had yet to be perpetrated. Kristallnacht, and the occupation of Bohemia/Moravia were probably where the scales dropped from the eyes of everyone, apart from creatures like Unity Mitford and Captain Ramsay.
Don't understand. There was clear rearmament and planning for it throughout the 1930s. RAF, for instance, was planned out - essentially creating cadres first for expansion; National factories established for expansion and movement from bombed areas, etc. etc. And a lot of that was under Chamberlain (as chancellor IIRC? and then PM).
There was such a thing as rearming too early and then finding your kit was out of date. As the French and Poles found with their planes (their tanks with those one man turrets unlike UK and Germany are an interesting question, perhaps more to do with their trench warfare doctrine).
Churchill advocated re-armament from the point where the pocket battleships were laid down - by the German Government *before* the Nazis.
He was part of group pushing Baldwin and later Chamberlin.
Churchill did so, at first, on the old basis that if another power had the ability to win a war with Britain, Britain was in danger. No matter the policies, sentiments etc.
Re-armament was unpopular in large sections of country. Much of the Left hated it as well - there was a widespread belief that armaments caused wars. As Orwell commented, there were many who wanted to oppose Hitler, with empty hands.
The left were the most dishonest in perpetrating what became postwar myths.
Michael Foot, for example, having been a strong advocate of disarmament himself, was one of the authors of The Guilty Men, which lambasted (amongst others) Chamberlain for appeasement, and did much to cement Chamberlain's reputation as a deluded pacifist.
Postwar, of course, Chamberlain was not around to defend himself.
MILL REEF was beaten by the other champion of that generation, BRIGADIER GERARD, in the 1971 2000 Guineas which many still consider the best renewal of the classic (I don't, 1984 was better) but went on to win the Derby, King George and Arc.
"Call for circumcision safeguards after baby death A coroner has warned that further babies could die unless the government introduces regulation of non-therapeutic male circumcision following the death of a six-month-old boy in west London.
The coroner said there are no national safeguards governing non-therapeutic male circumcision, with no requirements for training, accreditation or registration of those carrying out the procedure, and no rules on record keeping, infection control or aftercare.He also pointed to the lack of a system for obtaining consent prior to the procedure being carried out."
Politicians have given away too much power to lawyers, activists and regulators, and cannot deliver their promises, an ex-aide to the prime minister has said.
Writing in The Times,, external Paul Ovenden, who quit as Keir Starmer's director of political strategy last September after offensive messages he had sent in 2017 surfaced, said the British state had got "bigger and bigger while simultaneously and systematically emasculating itself".
He also said the case of the British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El Fattah "revealed the sheer weirdness of how Whitehall spends its time".
This is something @Sandpit and I were driving at a couple of days ago articulated very well in the article
The Stakeholder State is not a single phenomenon. Instead, it is the gradual but decisive shift of politics and power away from voters and towards groups with the time, money and institutional access to make themselves too important to ignore. In this state, the government rows with muffled oars in order to appease a complex coalition of campaign groups, regulators, litigators, trade bodies and well-networked organisations. If the language of priorities is the religion of socialism, then consultations and reviews are the sacred texts of the Stakeholder State.
Once you start noticing it, you see it everywhere: in the democratic powers handed to arm’s-length bodies or the many small government departments too powerless or captured to resist lobbying efforts. The Stakeholder State ferments between the NGO and the campaign group, the celebrity letter-writing campaign and the activist lawyers. It is given voice by political podcasts where everyone violently agrees. It is canonised through a corrupted honours system.
If you want to imagine a typical scene in the Stakeholder State, it is a government elected on a promise to build an entire generation of housing and infrastructure in it is not just five years spending time and money lobbying itself to water down those commitments through its own quangos. If you want a vision of the future, it is endless, cheap judicial reviews enabled by the Unece Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (1998).
That is as clear and insightful explanation of our post democratic state as I have read anywhere. I am really not sure if there is any way back. These groups are so amorphous and so powerful that it is not even clear how you rebel against them.
Is it?
It sounds to me like how democracy works. Governments have to follow the rules, and interested parties are allowed to lobby for their preferred outcomes.
The alternative is a capricious tyranny.
Nearly the entire history of democracy has been without the government funding special interest groups specifically to lobby the government to do/not do things.
And being pre-consulted on every piece of legislation.
Said special interest groups being essentially beyond scrutiny.
That's been government policy for decades, though. QUANGOs are bad, so they got turned into FANGOs. Who then use their autonomy to lobby the government.
There are a couple of other problems, though.
One is that there are so many pre-existing laws to tiptoe round. And Chesterton's Fence applies to all of them.
The other is that lots more of us have the time to oppose things we don't like. Those "write to your MP" websites seemed like a brilliant idea at the time, but they probably weren't.
A counter example to the usual bullshit is the offshore wind planning process - which got streamlined, so that if your ducks (and documents) are in a line, approval is almost automatic.
A number of groups in the Enquiry Industrial Complex said that this was an attack on democracy - because, apparently, 20 years planning enquiries are a democratic fundamental.
Democracy is that everyone gets to have a say, but not that everyone is listened to.
I don't see it as a problem that civil society groups object to government reforms. I would expect government to be challenged.
If the government had a sense of purpose and knew what it was doing it wouldn't have a problem with mostly ignoring objections, saving those occasions when it became apparent it had made a mistake.
Searle lives with a rare eyesight condition called Autosomal Dominant Optic Atrophy - which affects vision by causing the optic nerve to become progressively thinner.
On particularly bad days, Searle is unable to see where his darts land but he hopes his tale can serve as an inspiration to other sufferers.
"It was only in the last 18 months that I realised what the diagnosis was," said Searle.
"It's been bad for as long as I can remember.
"There's no cure for what I've got so I'm stuck with it. I wear contact lenses now to try and take a bit of the blurriness away from my vision.
"But sometimes on stage I'm asking the caller what I've scored and it puts me in a bit of a difficult position.
Politicians have given away too much power to lawyers, activists and regulators, and cannot deliver their promises, an ex-aide to the prime minister has said.
Writing in The Times,, external Paul Ovenden, who quit as Keir Starmer's director of political strategy last September after offensive messages he had sent in 2017 surfaced, said the British state had got "bigger and bigger while simultaneously and systematically emasculating itself".
He also said the case of the British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El Fattah "revealed the sheer weirdness of how Whitehall spends its time".
This is something @Sandpit and I were driving at a couple of days ago articulated very well in the article
The Stakeholder State is not a single phenomenon. Instead, it is the gradual but decisive shift of politics and power away from voters and towards groups with the time, money and institutional access to make themselves too important to ignore. In this state, the government rows with muffled oars in order to appease a complex coalition of campaign groups, regulators, litigators, trade bodies and well-networked organisations. If the language of priorities is the religion of socialism, then consultations and reviews are the sacred texts of the Stakeholder State.
Once you start noticing it, you see it everywhere: in the democratic powers handed to arm’s-length bodies or the many small government departments too powerless or captured to resist lobbying efforts. The Stakeholder State ferments between the NGO and the campaign group, the celebrity letter-writing campaign and the activist lawyers. It is given voice by political podcasts where everyone violently agrees. It is canonised through a corrupted honours system.
If you want to imagine a typical scene in the Stakeholder State, it is a government elected on a promise to build an entire generation of housing and infrastructure in it is not just five years spending time and money lobbying itself to water down those commitments through its own quangos. If you want a vision of the future, it is endless, cheap judicial reviews enabled by the Unece Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (1998).
That is as clear and insightful explanation of our post democratic state as I have read anywhere. I am really not sure if there is any way back. These groups are so amorphous and so powerful that it is not even clear how you rebel against them.
You ignore them.
You will meet enormous systemic resistance. But once you stop funding them to oppose your own policies....
A starting point would be to defund any organisation involved in the Alaa Abd el-Fattah campagin, no matter how worthy.
The right have always had an odd fascination with authoritarians.
"It is not possible to form a just judgment of a public figure who has attained the enormous dimensions of Adolf Hitler until his life-work as a whole is before us. Although no subsequent political action can condone wrong deeds, history is replete with examples of men who have risen to power by employing stern, grim, and even frightful methods, but who, nevertheless, when their life is revealed as a whole, have been regarded as great figures whose lives have enriched the story of mankind. So may it be with Hitler."
This was written in 1935 - incredibly nearly a whole year after Chamberlain had agreed with the Committee of Imperial Defence that Germany ought to be now selected as the "ultimate enemy" for British long term defence plans.
If only we'd had Chamberlain leading us in WWII rather than Churchill.
No. The point is rather that we should perhaps be more grateful that is was Chamberlain and not Churchill who was in government in the pre-war years.
Churchill first started warning about the threat of German rearmament as early as November 1932, and this built up into an increasing crescendo of warnings throughout the 1930s, and desperately so from about 1936 onwards.
Churchill wasn't especially popular amongst the Conservative benches, and probably would have struggled to lead them had he become Premier any sooner, but it's worth bearing in mind British public opinion wasn't particularly open to increased defence spending throughout - and that only really changed after Munich.
We have no right to criticise. The warnings are just as stark today, although of a different type, and yet we still refuse to increase defence spending, preferring to put our fingers in our ears instead.
Churchill seemed to have thought, at that period, that Hitler = Kaiser 2.0
That is, he might or might not be good for Germany. But what was good for Germany wasn't good for Britain.
So while there might or might be a war, a Germany strong enough to defeat Britain was unacceptable. To which, Churchill's answer was re-armament.
And, this was at a stage when the vast majority of Nazi evil had yet to be perpetrated. Kristallnacht, and the occupation of Bohemia/Moravia were probably where the scales dropped from the eyes of everyone, apart from creatures like Unity Mitford and Captain Ramsay.
Don't understand. There was clear rearmament and planning for it throughout the 1930s. RAF, for instance, was planned out - essentially creating cadres first for expansion; National factories established for expansion and movement from bombed areas, etc. etc. And a lot of that was under Chamberlain (as chancellor IIRC? and then PM).
There was such a thing as rearming too early and then finding your kit was out of date. As the French and Poles found with their planes (their tanks with those one man turrets unlike UK and Germany are an interesting question, perhaps more to do with their trench warfare doctrine).
Churchill advocated re-armament from the point where the pocket battleships were laid down - by the German Government *before* the Nazis.
He was part of group pushing Baldwin and later Chamberlin.
Churchill did so, at first, on the old basis that if another power had the ability to win a war with Britain, Britain was in danger. No matter the policies, sentiments etc.
Re-armament was unpopular in large sections of country. Much of the Left hated it as well - there was a widespread belief that armaments caused wars. As Orwell commented, there were many who wanted to oppose Hitler, with empty hands.
The left were the most dishonest in perpetrating what became postwar myths.
Michael Foot, for example, having been a strong advocate of disarmament himself, was one of the authors of The Guilty Men, which lambasted (amongst others) Chamberlain for appeasement, and did much to cement Chamberlain's reputation as a deluded pacifist.
Postwar, of course, Chamberlain was not around to defend himself.
Come on, people are allowed to change their views - this was before the age of Twitter when a tweet from a decade ago comes back as a millstone round your vitals.
I can understand, particularly from the perspective of those who fought on the Western Front in particular, the abhorrence of future conflict since it seemed likely cities would be destroyed by aerial attack and chemical weapons would be widely used with horrendous civilian casualties.
We know a lot now we didn't know then - had we resisted the German re-militarisation of the Rhineland, Hitler would likely have been forced to back off and face a political and military crisis. Many also saw the real enemy as Stalin and Communism and saw the ardent anti-Communist Hitler as a potentially useful ally in that struggle. I doubt many read Mein Kampf where Hitler's intentions were clearly stated.
As has been said, following the Anschluss and Munich, minds quickly changed and let's not forget Britain was the only country who fought every day of the war and didn't go to war because we were attacked - we went to war on the principle of protecting our ally, Poland. We failed at the time but that's not to in any way undermine what we achieved despite our national bankruptcy.
We saved the world from what would been a terrible nightmare.
Am I the only one feeling optimistic about UK economy?
Inflation coming down, wages up? Competent management after the Johnson/Truss shitshow and a govt that is pushing ahead with sorely needed planning reform and energy investment....
Yes.
The planning reforms are totally inadequate, and housebuilding has actually fallen not risen, especially in London where houses are actually needed, the energy reforms will increase, rather than reduce the cost of energy, and the massive extra burdens the government has placed on the private sector will reduce the size of the economy, not increase it.
I've no idea where you get the idea that Reeves and Starmer are competent - both are completely out of their depth. And the real Chancellor, Bell, has spent his career working for the Guardian and lefty think tanks and has precisely the level of understanding of the private sector you'd expect for someone with that CV.
So the economy will continue to stagnate, even assuming there are no external shocks, and people will have to fight harder and harder to maintain their standards of living until we get a government that looks on the private sector as something to be nurtured not plundered.
Am I the only one feeling optimistic about UK economy?
Inflation coming down, wages up? Competent management after the Johnson/Truss shitshow and a govt that is pushing ahead with sorely needed planning reform and energy investment....
Yes.
The planning reforms are totally inadequate, and housebuilding has actually fallen not risen, especially in London where houses are actually needed, the energy reforms will increase, rather than reduce the cost of energy, and the massive extra burdens the government has placed on the private sector will reduce the size of the economy, not increase it.
I've no idea where you get the idea that Reeves and Starmer are competent - both are completely out of their depth. And the real Chancellor, Bell, has spent his career working for the Guardian and lefty think tanks and has precisely the level of understanding of the private sector you'd expect for someone with that CV.
So the economy will continue to stagnate, even assuming there are no external shocks, and people will have to fight harder and harder to maintain their standards of living until we get a government that looks on the private sector as something to be nurtured not plundered.
You're not giving Reeves enough credit. She's solving the demand side of the housing equation by discouraging job creation and driving away people with money.
Hitler went early (some say because of the German economy running out of road).
Hitler was an enthusiast. With things running his way he had no ability to hold himself in check. And then, also, he miscalculated and believed that Britain and France would back down over Poland, just as they had done over Czechoslovakia. He didn't intend for the war to start in 1939.
The right have always had an odd fascination with authoritarians.
"It is not possible to form a just judgment of a public figure who has attained the enormous dimensions of Adolf Hitler until his life-work as a whole is before us. Although no subsequent political action can condone wrong deeds, history is replete with examples of men who have risen to power by employing stern, grim, and even frightful methods, but who, nevertheless, when their life is revealed as a whole, have been regarded as great figures whose lives have enriched the story of mankind. So may it be with Hitler."
This was written in 1935 - incredibly nearly a whole year after Chamberlain had agreed with the Committee of Imperial Defence that Germany ought to be now selected as the "ultimate enemy" for British long term defence plans.
If only we'd had Chamberlain leading us in WWII rather than Churchill.
No. The point is rather that we should perhaps be more grateful that is was Chamberlain and not Churchill who was in government in the pre-war years.
Churchill first started warning about the threat of German rearmament as early as November 1932, and this built up into an increasing crescendo of warnings throughout the 1930s, and desperately so from about 1936 onwards.
Churchill wasn't especially popular amongst the Conservative benches, and probably would have struggled to lead them had he become Premier any sooner, but it's worth bearing in mind British public opinion wasn't particularly open to increased defence spending throughout - and that only really changed after Munich.
We have no right to criticise. The warnings are just as stark today, although of a different type, and yet we still refuse to increase defence spending, preferring to put our fingers in our ears instead.
Churchill seemed to have thought, at that period, that Hitler = Kaiser 2.0
That is, he might or might not be good for Germany. But what was good for Germany wasn't good for Britain.
So while there might or might be a war, a Germany strong enough to defeat Britain was unacceptable. To which, Churchill's answer was re-armament.
And, this was at a stage when the vast majority of Nazi evil had yet to be perpetrated. Kristallnacht, and the occupation of Bohemia/Moravia were probably where the scales dropped from the eyes of everyone, apart from creatures like Unity Mitford and Captain Ramsay.
Don't understand. There was clear rearmament and planning for it throughout the 1930s. RAF, for instance, was planned out - essentially creating cadres first for expansion; National factories established for expansion and movement from bombed areas, etc. etc. And a lot of that was under Chamberlain (as chancellor IIRC? and then PM).
There was such a thing as rearming too early and then finding your kit was out of date. As the French and Poles found with their planes (their tanks with those one man turrets unlike UK and Germany are an interesting question, perhaps more to do with their trench warfare doctrine).
Churchill advocated re-armament from the point where the pocket battleships were laid down - by the German Government *before* the Nazis.
He was part of group pushing Baldwin and later Chamberlin.
Churchill did so, at first, on the old basis that if another power had the ability to win a war with Britain, Britain was in danger. No matter the policies, sentiments etc.
Re-armament was unpopular in large sections of country. Much of the Left hated it as well - there was a widespread belief that armaments caused wars. As Orwell commented, there were many who wanted to oppose Hitler, with empty hands.
The left were the most dishonest in perpetrating what became postwar myths.
Michael Foot, for example, having been a strong advocate of disarmament himself, was one of the authors of The Guilty Men, which lambasted (amongst others) Chamberlain for appeasement, and did much to cement Chamberlain's reputation as a deluded pacifist.
Postwar, of course, Chamberlain was not around to defend himself.
Come on, people are allowed to change their views - this was before the age of Twitter when a tweet from a decade ago comes back as a millstone round your vitals.
I can understand, particularly from the perspective of those who fought on the Western Front in particular, the abhorrence of future conflict since it seemed likely cities would be destroyed by aerial attack and chemical weapons would be widely used with horrendous civilian casualties.
We know a lot now we didn't know then - had we resisted the German re-militarisation of the Rhineland, Hitler would likely have been forced to back off and face a political and military crisis. Many also saw the real enemy as Stalin and Communism and saw the ardent anti-Communist Hitler as a potentially useful ally in that struggle. I doubt many read Mein Kampf where Hitler's intentions were clearly stated.
As has been said, following the Anschluss and Munich, minds quickly changed and let's not forget Britain was the only country who fought every day of the war and didn't go to war because we were attacked - we went to war on the principle of protecting our ally, Poland. We failed at the time but that's not to in any way undermine what we achieved despite our national bankruptcy.
We saved the world from what would been a terrible nightmare.
You really can't beat the observation that the US provided the money, Russia provided the blood and we provided the time. It is WW2 in a sentence.
Politicians have given away too much power to lawyers, activists and regulators, and cannot deliver their promises, an ex-aide to the prime minister has said.
Writing in The Times,, external Paul Ovenden, who quit as Keir Starmer's director of political strategy last September after offensive messages he had sent in 2017 surfaced, said the British state had got "bigger and bigger while simultaneously and systematically emasculating itself".
He also said the case of the British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El Fattah "revealed the sheer weirdness of how Whitehall spends its time".
This is something @Sandpit and I were driving at a couple of days ago articulated very well in the article
The Stakeholder State is not a single phenomenon. Instead, it is the gradual but decisive shift of politics and power away from voters and towards groups with the time, money and institutional access to make themselves too important to ignore. In this state, the government rows with muffled oars in order to appease a complex coalition of campaign groups, regulators, litigators, trade bodies and well-networked organisations. If the language of priorities is the religion of socialism, then consultations and reviews are the sacred texts of the Stakeholder State.
Once you start noticing it, you see it everywhere: in the democratic powers handed to arm’s-length bodies or the many small government departments too powerless or captured to resist lobbying efforts. The Stakeholder State ferments between the NGO and the campaign group, the celebrity letter-writing campaign and the activist lawyers. It is given voice by political podcasts where everyone violently agrees. It is canonised through a corrupted honours system.
If you want to imagine a typical scene in the Stakeholder State, it is a government elected on a promise to build an entire generation of housing and infrastructure in just five years spending time and money lobbying itself to water down those commitments through its own quangos. If you want a vision of the future, it is endless, cheap judicial reviews enabled by the Unece Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (1998).
ah, a lot of words to say 'always sometimes else fault'
Even by your standards that, well one could hardly call it a critique, makes no sense.
Politicians have given away too much power to lawyers, activists and regulators, and cannot deliver their promises, an ex-aide to the prime minister has said.
Writing in The Times,, external Paul Ovenden, who quit as Keir Starmer's director of political strategy last September after offensive messages he had sent in 2017 surfaced, said the British state had got "bigger and bigger while simultaneously and systematically emasculating itself".
He also said the case of the British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El Fattah "revealed the sheer weirdness of how Whitehall spends its time".
This is something @Sandpit and I were driving at a couple of days ago articulated very well in the article
The Stakeholder State is not a single phenomenon. Instead, it is the gradual but decisive shift of politics and power away from voters and towards groups with the time, money and institutional access to make themselves too important to ignore. In this state, the government rows with muffled oars in order to appease a complex coalition of campaign groups, regulators, litigators, trade bodies and well-networked organisations. If the language of priorities is the religion of socialism, then consultations and reviews are the sacred texts of the Stakeholder State.
Once you start noticing it, you see it everywhere: in the democratic powers handed to arm’s-length bodies or the many small government departments too powerless or captured to resist lobbying efforts. The Stakeholder State ferments between the NGO and the campaign group, the celebrity letter-writing campaign and the activist lawyers. It is given voice by political podcasts where everyone violently agrees. It is canonised through a corrupted honours system.
If you want to imagine a typical scene in the Stakeholder State, it is a government elected on a promise to build an entire generation of housing and infrastructure in it is not just five years spending time and money lobbying itself to water down those commitments through its own quangos. If you want a vision of the future, it is endless, cheap judicial reviews enabled by the Unece Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (1998).
That is as clear and insightful explanation of our post democratic state as I have read anywhere. I am really not sure if there is any way back. These groups are so amorphous and so powerful that it is not even clear how you rebel against them.
You ignore them.
You will meet enormous systemic resistance. But once you stop funding them to oppose your own policies....
A starting point would be to defund any organisation involved in the Alaa Abd el-Fattah campagin, no matter how worthy.
It that would mean the politicians and slebs who cheerfully jumped on the bandwagon would have to take account for their actions.
Am I the only one feeling optimistic about UK economy?
Inflation coming down, wages up? Competent management after the Johnson/Truss shitshow and a govt that is pushing ahead with sorely needed planning reform and energy investment....
Yes.
The planning reforms are totally inadequate, and housebuilding has actually fallen not risen, especially in London where houses are actually needed, the energy reforms will increase, rather than reduce the cost of energy, and the massive extra burdens the government has placed on the private sector will reduce the size of the economy, not increase it.
I've no idea where you get the idea that Reeves and Starmer are competent - both are completely out of their depth. And the real Chancellor, Bell, has spent his career working for the Guardian and lefty think tanks and has precisely the level of understanding of the private sector you'd expect for someone with that CV.
So the economy will continue to stagnate, even assuming there are no external shocks, and people will have to fight harder and harder to maintain their standards of living until we get a government that looks on the private sector as something to be nurtured not plundered.
The truth about London housebuilding is more complex. There are new flats being built BUT they are not being sold because the prices which the developers have to charge to offset the costs of construction (including Housing Infrastructure levy and Carbon Offset whatever and Section 106) mean they cannot build to make money on many sites and the demand just isn't there at the prices being charged.
The alternative is rent and in my part of town most of the new build flats are going for rent not for outright buyers.
The other side is none of this is helping the families and others on local authority housing waiting lists who are the ones who really need hosuing but nobody, it seems, is willing to build new properties for the people who need them but only for the people who can afford them.
Politicians have given away too much power to lawyers, activists and regulators, and cannot deliver their promises, an ex-aide to the prime minister has said.
Writing in The Times,, external Paul Ovenden, who quit as Keir Starmer's director of political strategy last September after offensive messages he had sent in 2017 surfaced, said the British state had got "bigger and bigger while simultaneously and systematically emasculating itself".
He also said the case of the British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El Fattah "revealed the sheer weirdness of how Whitehall spends its time".
This is something @Sandpit and I were driving at a couple of days ago articulated very well in the article
The Stakeholder State is not a single phenomenon. Instead, it is the gradual but decisive shift of politics and power away from voters and towards groups with the time, money and institutional access to make themselves too important to ignore. In this state, the government rows with muffled oars in order to appease a complex coalition of campaign groups, regulators, litigators, trade bodies and well-networked organisations. If the language of priorities is the religion of socialism, then consultations and reviews are the sacred texts of the Stakeholder State.
Once you start noticing it, you see it everywhere: in the democratic powers handed to arm’s-length bodies or the many small government departments too powerless or captured to resist lobbying efforts. The Stakeholder State ferments between the NGO and the campaign group, the celebrity letter-writing campaign and the activist lawyers. It is given voice by political podcasts where everyone violently agrees. It is canonised through a corrupted honours system.
If you want to imagine a typical scene in the Stakeholder State, it is a government elected on a promise to build an entire generation of housing and infrastructure in just five years spending time and money lobbying itself to water down those commitments through its own quangos. If you want a vision of the future, it is endless, cheap judicial reviews enabled by the Unece Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (1998).
ah, a lot of words to say 'always sometimes else fault'
Uber has swerved paying millions of pounds to the UK exchequer under Rachel Reeves’s new “taxi tax” after the ride-hailing app rewrote contracts with its drivers.
“If Iran shots and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” - President DONALD J. TRUMP
The right have always had an odd fascination with authoritarians.
"It is not possible to form a just judgment of a public figure who has attained the enormous dimensions of Adolf Hitler until his life-work as a whole is before us. Although no subsequent political action can condone wrong deeds, history is replete with examples of men who have risen to power by employing stern, grim, and even frightful methods, but who, nevertheless, when their life is revealed as a whole, have been regarded as great figures whose lives have enriched the story of mankind. So may it be with Hitler."
This was written in 1935 - incredibly nearly a whole year after Chamberlain had agreed with the Committee of Imperial Defence that Germany ought to be now selected as the "ultimate enemy" for British long term defence plans.
If only we'd had Chamberlain leading us in WWII rather than Churchill.
No. The point is rather that we should perhaps be more grateful that is was Chamberlain and not Churchill who was in government in the pre-war years.
Churchill first started warning about the threat of German rearmament as early as November 1932, and this built up into an increasing crescendo of warnings throughout the 1930s, and desperately so from about 1936 onwards.
Churchill wasn't especially popular amongst the Conservative benches, and probably would have struggled to lead them had he become Premier any sooner, but it's worth bearing in mind British public opinion wasn't particularly open to increased defence spending throughout - and that only really changed after Munich.
We have no right to criticise. The warnings are just as stark today, although of a different type, and yet we still refuse to increase defence spending, preferring to put our fingers in our ears instead.
Churchill seemed to have thought, at that period, that Hitler = Kaiser 2.0
That is, he might or might not be good for Germany. But what was good for Germany wasn't good for Britain.
So while there might or might be a war, a Germany strong enough to defeat Britain was unacceptable. To which, Churchill's answer was re-armament.
And, this was at a stage when the vast majority of Nazi evil had yet to be perpetrated. Kristallnacht, and the occupation of Bohemia/Moravia were probably where the scales dropped from the eyes of everyone, apart from creatures like Unity Mitford and Captain Ramsay.
Don't understand. There was clear rearmament and planning for it throughout the 1930s. RAF, for instance, was planned out - essentially creating cadres first for expansion; National factories established for expansion and movement from bombed areas, etc. etc. And a lot of that was under Chamberlain (as chancellor IIRC? and then PM).
There was such a thing as rearming too early and then finding your kit was out of date. As the French and Poles found with their planes (their tanks with those one man turrets unlike UK and Germany are an interesting question, perhaps more to do with their trench warfare doctrine).
Churchill advocated re-armament from the point where the pocket battleships were laid down - by the German Government *before* the Nazis.
He was part of group pushing Baldwin and later Chamberlin.
Churchill did so, at first, on the old basis that if another power had the ability to win a war with Britain, Britain was in danger. No matter the policies, sentiments etc.
Re-armament was unpopular in large sections of country. Much of the Left hated it as well - there was a widespread belief that armaments caused wars. As Orwell commented, there were many who wanted to oppose Hitler, with empty hands.
The left were the most dishonest in perpetrating what became postwar myths.
Michael Foot, for example, having been a strong advocate of disarmament himself, was one of the authors of The Guilty Men, which lambasted (amongst others) Chamberlain for appeasement, and did much to cement Chamberlain's reputation as a deluded pacifist.
Postwar, of course, Chamberlain was not around to defend himself.
Come on, people are allowed to change their views - this was before the age of Twitter when a tweet from a decade ago comes back as a millstone round your vitals.
I can understand, particularly from the perspective of those who fought on the Western Front in particular, the abhorrence of future conflict since it seemed likely cities would be destroyed by aerial attack and chemical weapons would be widely used with horrendous civilian casualties.
We know a lot now we didn't know then - had we resisted the German re-militarisation of the Rhineland, Hitler would likely have been forced to back off and face a political and military crisis. Many also saw the real enemy as Stalin and Communism and saw the ardent anti-Communist Hitler as a potentially useful ally in that struggle. I doubt many read Mein Kampf where Hitler's intentions were clearly stated.
As has been said, following the Anschluss and Munich, minds quickly changed and let's not forget Britain was the only country who fought every day of the war and didn't go to war because we were attacked - we went to war on the principle of protecting our ally, Poland. We failed at the time but that's not to in any way undermine what we achieved despite our national bankruptcy.
We saved the world from what would been a terrible nightmare.
You really can't beat the observation that the US provided the money, Russia provided the blood and we provided the time. It is WW2 in a sentence.
Indeed but the other side of that is both the USSR and USA only joined the war when directly attacked by Germany and Japan respectively and then Hitler declared war on the USA which legitimised Roosevelt's desire to sort out Europe before the Pacific. The American industrial production and armament numbers are staggering once the economy moved to a war time stance - they kept both us and the Russians going in terms of materiel and equipment.
The other thing is the Continental United States was never seriously attacked, production could continue - did I read somewhere by 1945, the US Navy was bigger than the German, Italian, Japanese and Royal Navies combined? The Americans started with five aircraft carriers and ended with twenty four, I believe.
“If Iran shots and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” - President DONALD J. TRUMP
Shots? Is misspelling simple words a symptom of encroaching dementia?
“If Iran shots and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” - President DONALD J. TRUMP
Shots? Is misspelling simple words a symptom of encroaching dementia?
“If Iran shots and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” - President DONALD J. TRUMP
Yes but what and who are the Iranian Opposition? I can understand a lot of people disliking the theocracy but that doesn't mean what follows it will be either democracy or stability. Will a figure emerge as in Syria with some questionable connections but who can unite the population? Will such "unity" come at a cost in terms of ethnic violence which can presumably be masked and ignored?
Am I the only one feeling optimistic about UK economy?
Inflation coming down, wages up? Competent management after the Johnson/Truss shitshow and a govt that is pushing ahead with sorely needed planning reform and energy investment....
Yes.
The planning reforms are totally inadequate, and housebuilding has actually fallen not risen, especially in London where houses are actually needed, the energy reforms will increase, rather than reduce the cost of energy, and the massive extra burdens the government has placed on the private sector will reduce the size of the economy, not increase it.
I've no idea where you get the idea that Reeves and Starmer are competent - both are completely out of their depth. And the real Chancellor, Bell, has spent his career working for the Guardian and lefty think tanks and has precisely the level of understanding of the private sector you'd expect for someone with that CV.
So the economy will continue to stagnate, even assuming there are no external shocks, and people will have to fight harder and harder to maintain their standards of living until we get a government that looks on the private sector as something to be nurtured not plundered.
The truth about London housebuilding is more complex. There are new flats being built BUT they are not being sold because the prices which the developers have to charge to offset the costs of construction (including Housing Infrastructure levy and Carbon Offset whatever and Section 106) mean they cannot build to make money on many sites and the demand just isn't there at the prices being charged.
The alternative is rent and in my part of town most of the new build flats are going for rent not for outright buyers.
The other side is none of this is helping the families and others on local authority housing waiting lists who are the ones who really need hosuing but nobody, it seems, is willing to build new properties for the people who need them but only for the people who can afford them.
Normally 40% of news homes have to be affordable or social under local plans
“If Iran shots and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” - President DONALD J. TRUMP
Yes but what and who are the Iranian Opposition? I can understand a lot of people disliking the theocracy but that doesn't mean what follows it will be either democracy or stability. Will a figure emerge as in Syria with some questionable connections but who can unite the population? Will such "unity" come at a cost in terms of ethnic violence which can presumably be masked and ignored?
Its a bit like the last time there was an uprising in Turkey. The bloke the uprising was supporting looked on paper far less platible than Erdoğan.
“If Iran shots and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” - President DONALD J. TRUMP
Yes but what and who are the Iranian Opposition? I can understand a lot of people disliking the theocracy but that doesn't mean what follows it will be either democracy or stability. Will a figure emerge as in Syria with some questionable connections but who can unite the population? Will such "unity" come at a cost in terms of ethnic violence which can presumably be masked and ignored?
Am I the only one feeling optimistic about UK economy?
Inflation coming down, wages up? Competent management after the Johnson/Truss shitshow and a govt that is pushing ahead with sorely needed planning reform and energy investment....
borrowing up, taxes up, benefits up, govt that would struggle to run a bath, not so sure
Am I the only one feeling optimistic about UK economy?
Inflation coming down, wages up? Competent management after the Johnson/Truss shitshow and a govt that is pushing ahead with sorely needed planning reform and energy investment....
borrowing up, taxes up, benefits up, govt that would struggle to run a bath, not so sure
Of course when the bath overflowed and flooded the downstairs causing £1000s of damage, Starmer would claim nobody told him they had authorised the running of said bath, never crossed his desk. But now we must hire in a contractor with a history of engineering suicide bombs in the Syrian civil war and lots of anti-semitic tweets because rules or something according to his mate Hermer, and pay them £250k to do the job when it should only cost £10k.
And it was later found the Tories hired the same bloke to redecorate #10 a few years ago.
Uber has swerved paying millions of pounds to the UK exchequer under Rachel Reeves’s new “taxi tax” after the ride-hailing app rewrote contracts with its drivers.
You underestimate HMRC. This will go to the UTT which if you have ever been is as dry as dry can be. But they will look at these contracts in detail to see the ‘intent’.
I notice the much heralded one in, one out, shake it all about policy, that we all laughed when they briefed 50 a week was probably what they were aiming for during the pilot phase to really smahed the gangs....total sent back, 193. total accepted 195 in what, 4-5 months?
Am I the only one feeling optimistic about UK economy?
Inflation coming down, wages up? Competent management after the Johnson/Truss shitshow and a govt that is pushing ahead with sorely needed planning reform and energy investment....
borrowing up, taxes up, benefits up, govt that would struggle to run a bath, not so sure
Of course when the bath overflowed and flooded the downstairs causing £1000s of damage, Starmer would claim nobody told him they had authorised the running of said bath, never crossed his desk. But now we must hire in a contractor with a history of engineering suicide bombs in the Syrian civil war and lots of anti-semitic tweets because rules or something according to his mate Hermer, and pay them £250k to do the job when it should only cost £10k.
And it was later found the Tories hired the same bloke to redecorate #10 a few years ago.
But running a bath without a 20 year structure of public enquiries and legal cases would Break Democracy.
The right have always had an odd fascination with authoritarians.
"It is not possible to form a just judgment of a public figure who has attained the enormous dimensions of Adolf Hitler until his life-work as a whole is before us. Although no subsequent political action can condone wrong deeds, history is replete with examples of men who have risen to power by employing stern, grim, and even frightful methods, but who, nevertheless, when their life is revealed as a whole, have been regarded as great figures whose lives have enriched the story of mankind. So may it be with Hitler."
This was written in 1935 - incredibly nearly a whole year after Chamberlain had agreed with the Committee of Imperial Defence that Germany ought to be now selected as the "ultimate enemy" for British long term defence plans.
If only we'd had Chamberlain leading us in WWII rather than Churchill.
No. The point is rather that we should perhaps be more grateful that is was Chamberlain and not Churchill who was in government in the pre-war years.
Churchill first started warning about the threat of German rearmament as early as November 1932, and this built up into an increasing crescendo of warnings throughout the 1930s, and desperately so from about 1936 onwards.
Churchill wasn't especially popular amongst the Conservative benches, and probably would have struggled to lead them had he become Premier any sooner, but it's worth bearing in mind British public opinion wasn't particularly open to increased defence spending throughout - and that only really changed after Munich.
We have no right to criticise. The warnings are just as stark today, although of a different type, and yet we still refuse to increase defence spending, preferring to put our fingers in our ears instead.
Churchill seemed to have thought, at that period, that Hitler = Kaiser 2.0
That is, he might or might not be good for Germany. But what was good for Germany wasn't good for Britain.
So while there might or might be a war, a Germany strong enough to defeat Britain was unacceptable. To which, Churchill's answer was re-armament.
And, this was at a stage when the vast majority of Nazi evil had yet to be perpetrated. Kristallnacht, and the occupation of Bohemia/Moravia were probably where the scales dropped from the eyes of everyone, apart from creatures like Unity Mitford and Captain Ramsay.
Don't understand. There was clear rearmament and planning for it throughout the 1930s. RAF, for instance, was planned out - essentially creating cadres first for expansion; National factories established for expansion and movement from bombed areas, etc. etc. And a lot of that was under Chamberlain (as chancellor IIRC? and then PM).
There was such a thing as rearming too early and then finding your kit was out of date. As the French and Poles found with their planes (their tanks with those one man turrets unlike UK and Germany are an interesting question, perhaps more to do with their trench warfare doctrine).
The Committee for Imperial Defence minutes show very clearly that in 1934 the government was planning for fighting a war with Germany in 1939.
..1934, Chamberlain points out that expanding the RAF will also require a lot of funds for infrastructure, quite apart from just the aeroplanes, he suggests that ought we not to start building these facilities NOW, so that they could be carried out at a normal pace, and hence be completed on time and for less money, than waiting until war was almost upon us then embarking on an emergency construction project... https://x.com/CalumDouglas1/status/2005772432422928774
I have always thought that the more we learn of that period the more the ridicule that Chamberlain received for his "peace in our time" response to Munich agreement was grossly unfair. If we ever, in our history, applied the principle si vis pacem, para bellum, it was in the second half of the 1930s and he was the one that drove it. He's long overdue a reassessment.
I think he’s had a reassessment in history circles. Indeed, we’ve had the backlash to the reassessment saying that, no, Chamberlain was largely at fault.
“If Iran shots and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” - President DONALD J. TRUMP
Totally irrelevant side issue, but why does he always include that last sentence?
Obviously David Aaronovitch is pro Hamas/ an antisemite.
Some people now seem to be implying that the BBC is deliberately (or out of unconscious bias) not covering events in Iran.
This too is nonsense, I'm afraid. It is hard - and slow - to verify and evaluate social media reports of events in a country to which you have no access.
During the nearly ten years that I have been presenting The Briefing Room we have done I think four separate programmes arising out of major upheavals in Iran (plus others on aspects, ie the IRGC).
Before this the last one was the "hijab rebellion". In each case we have been trying to work out if this time what was happening was terminal for the regime. In each case it wasn't.
These are not easy things to report or analyse. But the idea that there might be some hidden bias towards the theocrats is just ridiculous.
We don't have to vote Labour again either so we avoid most of that being repeated
The Tories presided over exactly the same dysfunction for 14 years. Ever since Blair, both main parties have been fully signed up to the Stakeholder State. Unless they can convincingly argue that they can be trusted to dismantle it, there's no reason not to give Reform a chance to see if they can do it.
Am I the only one feeling optimistic about UK economy?
Inflation coming down, wages up? Competent management after the Johnson/Truss shitshow and a govt that is pushing ahead with sorely needed planning reform and energy investment....
Well, I am certainly not. Our last real downturn was Covid in 2020. 6 years on now and we are running a deficit of £125bn+ and increasing it year on year not to fund a boom but to keep things on something close to an even keel where we worry about tenths of a percent of growth. We continue our policy of a dangerous trade deficit and are bottom of the G7 table for investment.
This is simply not a sustainable position. As Cameron once put it we are not fixing the roof whilst the sun is shining. If we have a downturn this year counter measures in the form of boosting public spending to offset it may simply be unaffordable as we find people are not willing to lend us yet more money. If something is unsustainable it will eventually stop. And when it does I fear we will see a recession that will make 2008 look like a walk in the park.
It may not happen in 2026 but sooner or later there is going to be a reckoning for this profligacy.
All real problems, but no quick solution. Medium term the solution is growth. And I think this govt will deliver that.
We don't have to vote Labour again either so we avoid most of that being repeated
The Tories presided over exactly the same dysfunction for 14 years. Ever since Blair, both main parties have been fully signed up to the Stakeholder State. Unless they can convincingly argue that they can be trusted to dismantle it, there's no reason not to give Reform a chance to see if they can do it.
Colours nailed to the mast. Fair enough. Although a major U turn from our former Eurofederalist.
We don't have to vote Labour again either so we avoid most of that being repeated
The Tories presided over exactly the same dysfunction for 14 years. Ever since Blair, both main parties have been fully signed up to the Stakeholder State. Unless they can convincingly argue that they can be trusted to dismantle it, there's no reason not to give Reform a chance to see if they can do it.
We don't have to vote Labour again either so we avoid most of that being repeated
Are you advocating Reform or the LDs, being as your lot were equally chaotic?
Anyway, I'm shocked at your admission that "we don't have to vote Labour again", suggesting you did last time around. Understandable mind.
I didn't.
The author is whinging about welfare being splurged, well it was Labour backbenchers who forced the scrapping of the 2 child benefit cap the last Tory government brought in and Starmer and Reeves who abandoned welfare reform.
It is Labour who has increased the minimum wage and NI for employers and which is bringing in new administrative burdens on small businesses and the extra regulatory burdens he is also whinging about with the new Employment Rights Act.
It is Ed Miliband paying wind turbine operators not to produce energy and Labour importing antisemitic Islamists as with the recent Egyptian brought to the UK, two further whinges from the author.
Kemi even suggested means testing the triple lock so it only went to low income not millionaire pensioners but she had to backtrack after Labour shouted her down
We don't have to vote Labour again either so we avoid most of that being repeated
The Tories presided over exactly the same dysfunction for 14 years. Ever since Blair, both main parties have been fully signed up to the Stakeholder State. Unless they can convincingly argue that they can be trusted to dismantle it, there's no reason not to give Reform a chance to see if they can do it.
Reform want to keep the triple lock and not restore the 2 child benefit cap, unlike Kemi. Net immigration is now falling anyway due to tighter visa measures Sunak and Cleverly brought in
We don't have to vote Labour again either so we avoid most of that being repeated
Are you advocating Reform or the LDs, being as your lot were equally chaotic?
Anyway, I'm shocked at your admission that "we don't have to vote Labour again", suggesting you did last time around. Understandable mind.
I didn't.
The author is whinging about welfare being splurged, well it was Labour backbenchers who forced the scrapping of the 2 child benefit cap the last Tory government brought in and Starmer and Reeves who abandoned welfare reform.
It is Labour who has increased the minimum wage and NI for employers and which is bringing in new administrative burdens on small businesses and the extra regulatory burdens he is also whinging about with the new Employment Rights Act.
It is Ed Miliband paying wind turbine operators not to produce energy and Labour importing antisemitic Islamists as with the recent Egyptian brought to the UK, two further whinges from the author.
Kemi even suggested means testing the triple lock so it only went to low income not millionaire pensioners but she had to backtrack after Labour shouted her down
An opposition having to abandon policy because the government "shouts them down" doesn't suggest one which is ready for taking their place.
Comments
That is, he might or might not be good for Germany. But what was good for Germany wasn't good for Britain.
So while there might or might be a war, a Germany strong enough to defeat Britain was unacceptable. To which, Churchill's answer was re-armament.
Photo possibly showing sparklers stuck in champagne bottles setting fire to the ceiling
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c8xdxvj2qjdt
But I'm more interested in the BBC and how far it is doing its job or not.
BTW the URL you posted earlier actually had an Iran story on it, certainly just after you posted it (but you may have been unlucky with updates)./
Because it was cold and wet they decided to bring the show inside.
Which is when I left.
I'm no more her admirer than you are, but some criticisms are just silly.
There was such a thing as rearming too early and then finding your kit was out of date. As the French and Poles found with their planes (their tanks with those one man turrets unlike UK and Germany are an interesting question, perhaps more to do with their trench warfare doctrine).
With hindsight, more money into S&S ISAs at start of 2025 would have been a smart move, I'm not confident enough of short terms gains continuing to put more into them right now
Looks like electronics, pharmaceuticals and financial services are all big performers recently, I would expect the former to keep performing strong with the money being invested in AI and tech
I think that there is a bubble in the US around AI and tech stocks and that has bled over here a bit, that the US is no longer looking quite the safe haven it once did because of Trump's lunacy, that (as you say) our stocks have been seriously underrated for a while so there is plenty of gain potential without getting anywhere near American silliness and the fiscal policies of most of the G7 (including us) are still inflationary resulting in assets looking far more attractive than cash. This trend may still have a bit to go. Or not. Faites vos jeux.
Chamberlain strongly advocated for rearmament within government, as has received little or no credit for it.
https://x.com/CalumDouglas1/status/2006310404989804672
...British defence spending flat-lined during Churchills tenure as Chancellor in the 20`s, although, this was a period of severe austerity, and you cant propose that this was entirely his fault.
The RAF museum also proposes that despite Churchill being out of office after 1929:
"His constant warnings were a constant source of irritation but they did force an often reluctant government into embarking on ever larger and more comprehensive re-armament programmes."
This is a comforting but essentially misleading statement, in that it implies that the defence of the Empire was something left to the four winds in Parliment, and therefore amenable to change through the complaints of a back-bencher which is just preposterous fantasy.
Wikipedia states that Churchill was in 1934 able to warn parliment with "authority" because he had been given some data on German re-armament "clandestinely" by two MP`s, as if there was not already an entire state defence infrastructure which reguarly gave such briefings to the Cabinet (including Chamberlain) with far more detail than anything Churchill had.
Chamberlain of course simply could not leave the briefling room after a Committee of Imperial Defence meeting (the deliberations of which were quite literally a state Secret at that time, and were only declassified in the 1970`s and 1980`s) and make a speech in parliment in 1934 saying that he had agreed that Germany was to be designated the ultimate threat to the Empire and that he had also agreed to budget for a 5 year re-armament strategy to be ready for war with Hitler by 1939 (all of which was exactly what was happening in those meetings) - it was the C.I.D. said of the utmost importace that as much as practical was to be kept from the public, because all this required as a pre-requisite that Britain keep Hitler on as friendly terms as possible until quote: "circimstances are likely to impose a concrete limit". Which would obviously be impossible were Chamberlain to stand up in Parliment and announce we considered Hitler the No.1 threat to the Empire in Feb 1934, and that Britain was going to be turned into a war economy to be ready to oppose him as fast as finances allowed over the next half decade...
Inflation coming down, wages up? Competent management after the Johnson/Truss shitshow and a govt that is pushing ahead with sorely needed planning reform and energy investment....
He was part of group pushing Baldwin and later Chamberlin.
Churchill did so, at first, on the old basis that if another power had the ability to win a war with Britain, Britain was in danger. No matter the policies, sentiments etc.
Re-armament was unpopular in large sections of country. Much of the Left hated it as well - there was a widespread belief that armaments caused wars. As Orwell commented, there were many who wanted to oppose Hitler, with empty hands.
U.K. re-armament was deep. In fact we didn’t pivot to mass production of weapons, rather than building the factories, until just before the war.
The original plan was to do the pivot in 1940-1941. This was because German Rearmament would peak around 1942.
The plan was an RN with a huge fleet of carriers *and* battleships. 400mph cannon armed fighters for the RAF. 5,000 of the Standard Bomber project bombers - cannon armed, 300mph cruise with more bomb load than a Lancaster. 17lbr for all anti-tank guns etc etc.
Hitler went early (some say because of the German economy running out of road).
This is simply not a sustainable position. As Cameron once put it we are not fixing the roof whilst the sun is shining. If we have a downturn this year counter measures in the form of boosting public spending to offset it may simply be unaffordable as we find people are not willing to lend us yet more money. If something is unsustainable it will eventually stop. And when it does I fear we will see a recession that will make 2008 look like a walk in the park.
It may not happen in 2026 but sooner or later there is going to be a reckoning for this profligacy.
..1934, Chamberlain points out that expanding the RAF will also require a lot of funds for infrastructure, quite apart from just the aeroplanes, he suggests that ought we not to start building these facilities NOW, so that they could be carried out at a normal pace, and hence be completed on time and for less money, than waiting until war was almost upon us then embarking on an emergency construction project...
https://x.com/CalumDouglas1/status/2005772432422928774
I don't think Scotgov have been word perfect on this either, particularly for communities which are putting up genuine reasons for objecting to projects and seeing these then being steam rollered through.
But at the end of the day energy is not wholly devolved, and Mr Miliband carries the can for bills being so high. He obviously decided it was in his better interests to cut the levy than go for regional pricing
Something like 40% of Scottish wind power is currently not utilised - that is insane and yet we are still building more up here. Either incentivise firms to invest here based on that abundant electricity, or build turbines elsewhere.
Michael Foot, for example, having been a strong advocate of disarmament himself, was one of the authors of The Guilty Men, which lambasted (amongst others) Chamberlain for appeasement, and did much to cement Chamberlain's reputation as a deluded pacifist.
Postwar, of course, Chamberlain was not around to defend himself.
https://www.racingpost.com/news/obituaries/ian-balding-obituary-from-cheltenham-festival-winning-rider-to-trainer-to-the-queen-the-man-behind-mill-reef-ap6NU1u78Fak/
MILL REEF was beaten by the other champion of that generation, BRIGADIER GERARD, in the 1971 2000 Guineas which many still consider the best renewal of the classic (I don't, 1984 was better) but went on to win the Derby, King George and Arc.
A coroner has warned that further babies could die unless the government introduces regulation of non-therapeutic male circumcision following the death of a six-month-old boy in west London.
The coroner said there are no national safeguards governing non-therapeutic male circumcision, with no requirements for training, accreditation or registration of those carrying out the procedure, and no rules on record keeping, infection control or aftercare.He also pointed to the lack of a system for obtaining consent prior to the procedure being carried out."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqj2r8x2k4yo
I don't see it as a problem that civil society groups object to government reforms. I would expect government to be challenged.
If the government had a sense of purpose and knew what it was doing it wouldn't have a problem with mostly ignoring objections, saving those occasions when it became apparent it had made a mistake.
On particularly bad days, Searle is unable to see where his darts land but he hopes his tale can serve as an inspiration to other sufferers.
"It was only in the last 18 months that I realised what the diagnosis was," said Searle.
"It's been bad for as long as I can remember.
"There's no cure for what I've got so I'm stuck with it. I wear contact lenses now to try and take a bit of the blurriness away from my vision.
"But sometimes on stage I'm asking the caller what I've scored and it puts me in a bit of a difficult position.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/darts/articles/c23rkz50x83o
That sounds shall we say suboptimal for a dart player....
I can understand, particularly from the perspective of those who fought on the Western Front in particular, the abhorrence of future conflict since it seemed likely cities would be destroyed by aerial attack and chemical weapons would be widely used with horrendous civilian casualties.
We know a lot now we didn't know then - had we resisted the German re-militarisation of the Rhineland, Hitler would likely have been forced to back off and face a political and military crisis. Many also saw the real enemy as Stalin and Communism and saw the ardent anti-Communist Hitler as a potentially useful ally in that struggle. I doubt many read Mein Kampf where Hitler's intentions were clearly stated.
As has been said, following the Anschluss and Munich, minds quickly changed and let's not forget Britain was the only country who fought every day of the war and didn't go to war because we were attacked - we went to war on the principle of protecting our ally, Poland. We failed at the time but that's not to in any way undermine what we achieved despite our national bankruptcy.
We saved the world from what would been a terrible nightmare.
The planning reforms are totally inadequate, and housebuilding has actually fallen not risen, especially in London where houses are actually needed, the energy reforms will increase, rather than reduce the cost of energy, and the massive extra burdens the government has placed on the private sector will reduce the size of the economy, not increase it.
I've no idea where you get the idea that Reeves and Starmer are competent - both are completely out of their depth. And the real Chancellor, Bell, has spent his career working for the Guardian and lefty think tanks and has precisely the level of understanding of the private sector you'd expect for someone with that CV.
So the economy will continue to stagnate, even assuming there are no external shocks, and people will have to fight harder and harder to maintain their standards of living until we get a government that looks on the private sector as something to be nurtured not plundered.
The alternative is rent and in my part of town most of the new build flats are going for rent not for outright buyers.
The other side is none of this is helping the families and others on local authority housing waiting lists who are the ones who really need hosuing but nobody, it seems, is willing to build new properties for the people who need them but only for the people who can afford them.
Donald Trump has told Iran that the US is “locked and loaded” and will intervene if Tehran kills any more anti-regime protesters...
Uber has swerved paying millions of pounds to the UK exchequer under Rachel Reeves’s new “taxi tax” after the ride-hailing app rewrote contracts with its drivers.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/02/uber-avoids-new-uk-taxi-tax-rewriting-driver-contracts
“If Iran shots and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” - President DONALD J. TRUMP
The other thing is the Continental United States was never seriously attacked, production could continue - did I read somewhere by 1945, the US Navy was bigger than the German, Italian, Japanese and Royal Navies combined? The Americans started with five aircraft carriers and ended with twenty four, I believe.
Is misspelling simple words a symptom of encroaching dementia?
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-882053
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reza_Pahlavi,_Crown_Prince_of_Iran
https://x.com/johnrentoul/status/2007021891987587545?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
And it was later found the Tories hired the same bloke to redecorate #10 a few years ago.
See previous tax avoidance arrangements
Some people now seem to be implying that the BBC is deliberately (or out of unconscious bias) not covering events in Iran.
This too is nonsense, I'm afraid. It is hard - and slow - to verify and evaluate social media reports of events in a country to which you have no access.
During the nearly ten years that I have been presenting The Briefing Room we have done I think four separate programmes arising out of major upheavals in Iran (plus others on aspects, ie the IRGC).
Before this the last one was the "hijab rebellion". In each case we have been trying to work out if this time what was happening was terminal for the regime. In each case it wasn't.
These are not easy things to report or analyse. But the idea that there might be some hidden bias towards the theocrats is just ridiculous.
https://x.com/daaronovitch/status/2007077357018882165?s=46
Ever since HSBC stopped being their bankers.
Anyway, I'm shocked at your admission that "we don't have to vote Labour again", suggesting you did last time around. Understandable mind.
The author is whinging about welfare being splurged, well it was Labour backbenchers who forced the scrapping of the 2 child benefit cap the last Tory government brought in and Starmer and Reeves who abandoned welfare reform.
It is Labour who has increased the minimum wage and NI for employers and which is bringing in new administrative burdens on small businesses and the extra regulatory burdens he is also whinging about with the new Employment Rights Act.
It is Ed Miliband paying wind turbine operators not to produce energy and Labour importing antisemitic Islamists as with the recent Egyptian brought to the UK, two further whinges from the author.
Kemi even suggested means testing the triple lock so it only went to low income not millionaire pensioners but she had to backtrack after Labour shouted her down
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/01/01/decline-in-reading-is-a-national-security-threat-says-phill/