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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Chancellor Hammond may not be PM (yet) but he’s the one currently running the show & shaping Brexit
Today’s Times front page is the latest reminder of the rise and rise of Chancellor Philip Hammond in the government suggesting that he’s positioning himself as the next party leader and PM.
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He is clearly isolated, and unlikely to be given a position in any subsequent government.
Corbyn is no fan of Hammond.
An Aussie friend of mine who lives here posted on fb this excellent piece about progressives not understanding the working classes in Aus; applies to UK too.
I think it is bang on. I'm lucky enough to have one parent from the old working class and one from the public school educated middle classes. Family parties are quite starkly different!
https://meanjin.com.au/essays/in-defence-of-the-bad-white-working-class/
*I'm also on Team Hunt.
Nelson on Hammond today..
F1: Hungary post-mortem analysis up here:
http://enormo-haddock.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/hungary-post-race-analysis-2017.html
Having slept on it, I've decided it was stupid of me not to split a stake between Sainz and Vandoorne to win that group. But there we are. It's easier picking winners after events than before.
On-topic: I wonder if this harms or helps his leadership prospects.
Where I'm not sure I agree with either this header or Rentoul is in the conclusion they draw that Hammond is seizing power within the government of his own volition. I think it most unlikely that he would be saying such things without May's approval. That would be true of his original 'Singapore of Europe' comments too.
As he was not associated with some of the - ahem - less successful aspects of the manifesto, however, he is well placed to row back on them. He is also, as a generally respected and very senior figure, likely to be heeded. My guess is that this is an agreed strategy to take some of the heat off the PM and prepare the ground for a new approach that she can later say she was bounced into.
What such comments really do show is how disastrous an error it was not to have him duffing up John Macdonnell during the campaign. Even that pales into insignificance besides not consulting him over key issues in the manifesto.
Whatever Theresa May's qualifications to be PM, she has displayed a judgment of personnel almost as lousy as Gordon Brown's - and that is saying something.
https://twitter.com/steve_hawkes/status/891910200478838784
A major part of this, however, is the zombification of May. Had she got her large majority Hammond would not be in a job. As it is she not only can't sack him, she can't even contradict him. I still struggle to see this government remaining viable for an extended period.
Given his seniority and his recent comments on a brief transitional deal that may be an encouraging sign.
Or of course it is possible he is as delusional as a Momentum activist and has interpreted a secret handshake from Barnier as a sign we may be allowed to apply rules French fashion allowing us to stay in. But - TGOHF notwithstanding - I think he's shrewder than that.
The same goes for Heseltine, who transformed London.
But sadly, some view everything through the prism of the EU, and people are judged not on ability, or record, but on how EUphobic they are.
(*) In all senses
I would certainly take Thornberry over Boris, Starmer over Davis, Ashworth over Hunt and Rayner over Greening, McDonald over Grayling, and can't see much between most of the rest. Though Hammond is certainly more reassuring than McDonnell.
Having a zombie Prime Minister is not good for the country and makes Corbyn inevitable as PM.
Greening and Hunt have been cabinet ministers for years; the latter has survived (more than?) half of his producer interests hating his guts. What on earth have Ashworth and Rayner done apart from moan?
Greening is weak and ineffectual. Rayner is a more malicious and less intelligent version of Gove. Her policies would, as I have pointed out many times, have pushed the entire state education system from crisis to total collapse in twelve months.
Thornberry still insists she was a Colonel in the British Army. She knows this is not true and yet she persists with it. She even knows it's a crime to say it, yet she doesn't care. Her over Boris - not sure I'd go that far. Macdonald I know nothing about, Starmer I intensely distrust for other reasons which we needn't go into here as I can't prove them.
Ashworth I entirely agree with.
But to suggest Corbyn's shadow cabinet is stronger than or even equal to May's cabinet is to go much too far. A case could be made that there should be a stronger shadow cabinet - the likes of Cooper, Benn, Leslie, even Creagh (never thought I'd see myself write that) languishing on the back benches could be a far more formidable opposition and might even be in government now. But this shower - forget it.
She's like General Patton in charge of FUSAG.
Well they do, but not for long
'Cause when I get fit and grow bionic arms
The whole world's gonna wish it weren't born
The Nation? Not sure. It's fecked anyway.
The crunch point is A-level and GCSE and her proposals on that (diverting funds to pay for lifelong learning) and secondary education more generally were not merely misguided but actively and to all appearances deliberately harmful. Of course, if she, Corbyn and Macdonnell wish to abolish private education, that's a fair position to take, but they need to do it openly, honestly and with realism about the huge strain that would impose on the state sector and the massive extra costs required.
The lemmings have leapt over the cliff. The more positive amongst them are eyeing the better places to land.
We cannot grow our way out, because we have too few resources to do so. We cannot cut our way out, because 40% have just voted for a nutter promising to increase our borrowing sixfold just for starters. We cannot tax our way out, because the Commons wouldn't pass the budget. That realistically leaves default which would have forced us out of Europe anyway.
But can any politician sell a default, with the real hardship that would entail, to the electorate?
'Beginning to wonder if wolf is being cried? You won't be alone!. Tune in to NHS in crisis at 11.35 today'
Even if you agree with what he is saying, it is an absolute disgrace the way he is going about it. Negotiations with the EU depend on a united front and, specifically, the EU believing that the UK will walk away if the deal is unacceptable. This is the mistake that Cameron made and May was always quite right to make this clear.
The other critical risk for the UK is the EU playing for time - when we get close to the end they will feel they can extort a deal because we won't risk the 'cliff edge'. The UK should not negotiate past May 2018 unless there is a clear deal coming together because it does not give us time to prepare in case there is no acceptable deal.
What the UK cannot have is no clear FTA agreed, only a 'transitional road to nowhere' where only the transition is agreed before Brexit. In that case, we will be at the mercy of the EU for years. If there is an agreed deal as part of the Brexit process, a transition period might make sense, but that is something to discuss at that time. Bringing it up now encourages the EU to play for time and not negotiate the FTA seriously.
Hammond is undermining the entire negotiation strategy, not for the national interest, but to bolster his own position. There can and should be disagreements in the Cabinet, but once a position is agreed everyone has to get on board and leave it to Davis and May. Hammond has no role in the negotiation.
Cabinet government cannot survive if one of the members wants to run his own strategy. She delivered the ultimatum that Cabinet members had to behave, and Hammond has played up immediately. I now believe that May will have no choice but to dismiss Hammond if she wants to survive.
Just for the record and to clarify, the only party to finish in the top three in terms of voteshare that I have never voted for is UKIP. I have also voted for Plaid Cymru (obviously only when I lived in Wales - they don't stand in Cannock).
I voted Conservative this time around. No way would I vote for somebody as personally loathsome as Corbyn, especially given he also had such stupid and disastrous policies. But had Yvette Cooper been leading, I would have cheerfully voted Labour as the local candidate - Paul Dadge - was highly impressive.
And you may notice I considered the weaknesses of the Conservative ministers too, before concluding that in most cases and with the dazzling exception of the highly impressive Ashworth compared to the egregious Hunt they were less serious than those of their Labour counterparts.
I do hope that helps.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/07/the-myth-of-britains-decline/
Before the Brexit vote, some dreamers could legitimately claim that the EU was a paper tiger that would fall apart as soon as one country decided to leave. That domino effect has failed. We now know that whether the UK is in or out, the EU is here to stay, and we have to make our decisions on that basis.
https://www.amazon.com/Weary-Titan-Experience-Relative-1895-1905/dp/0691148007
Not sure I totally agree with it everywhere. However the one really frightening sign of decline which the author seems to have overlooked is that the field for principal of an Oxford college was so thin that Will Hutton was somehow appointed.
With that, I have to go and do some paperwork. Have a good morning everyone.
Next up: 'Brexit means Brexit' u-turn anyone?
Isn't it funny how people with extreme views, whether right or left, so often seem assume they are in the majority!
Stay or leave, divisions are here to stay. The only way I see them easing rather than deepening is if we leave, and things gradually reach a political equilibrium.
On topic, it strikes me that all non-Tories would prefer to see Hammond in charge and see him as the grown-up, but that Tories are getting fed up with him. A pity given who gets to vote in Tory leadership contests. For me it's striking how he seems to be making real efforts to govern in the national interest, unite the country and address the crippling divisions that Brexit has revealed. Compared to the Tories who seem ever more a faction in their interest it's no surprise he's getting so much grief. But perhaps that's my own prejudices hoping that he speaks for a wider group than he may do.
We have not been lucky (to put it mildly) in our Education Secretaries for quite some time now.