Sounds like testing the water for a leadership run:
In his resignation letter, Al Carns said: “Too many working people in this country feel insecure even when they are doing everything right. They work hard, contribute, pay their taxes and still feel one setback away from trouble. Public confidence in our institutions is weakening and politics increasingly looks performative while everyday life gets harder.
“The machinery of government itself has been left to decay. Decisions that should take days, take months. Departments fight each other instead of the problem. Officials and ministers who know the truth are not always rewarded for telling it. We are trying to govern a more dangerous world with processes designed for a calmer one, and the gap is now showing in the things that matter most.
“National resilience is about more than defence in the narrow sense. A strong country is not simply one with capable armed forces. It is one where working people feel economically secure, public services function, energy is resilient, communities are stable and young people can see a future worth working towards.”
As a Tory I could vote for that pitch, just depends on the route to that.
I wonder how many games in this WC are going to finish 11 aside. Hopefully the players will take notice and be a lot more careful but frankly 2 of those red cards seemed absurd to me.
It could go two ways, teams who start later are at an advantage as they learn and adapt to new strange interpretations or as sometimes happens the powers that be aske them to tone it down having started with a no-nonsense disciplinary approach. No idea how it will go. Depends what Donald wants Gianni to do I guess.
We will see how many USA players are sent off.
Any more than 8 of the 24 on the pitch we know the fix is in.
Sounds like testing the water for a leadership run:
In his resignation letter, Al Carns said: “Too many working people in this country feel insecure even when they are doing everything right. They work hard, contribute, pay their taxes and still feel one setback away from trouble. Public confidence in our institutions is weakening and politics increasingly looks performative while everyday life gets harder.
“The machinery of government itself has been left to decay. Decisions that should take days, take months. Departments fight each other instead of the problem. Officials and ministers who know the truth are not always rewarded for telling it. We are trying to govern a more dangerous world with processes designed for a calmer one, and the gap is now showing in the things that matter most.
“National resilience is about more than defence in the narrow sense. A strong country is not simply one with capable armed forces. It is one where working people feel economically secure, public services function, energy is resilient, communities are stable and young people can see a future worth working towards.”
As a Tory I could vote for that pitch, just depends on the route to that.
Sounds like it was written by AI?
I think Carns just don’t want to end up as a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard so he’s getting ahead of it.
Sounds like testing the water for a leadership run:
In his resignation letter, Al Carns said: “Too many working people in this country feel insecure even when they are doing everything right. They work hard, contribute, pay their taxes and still feel one setback away from trouble. Public confidence in our institutions is weakening and politics increasingly looks performative while everyday life gets harder.
“The machinery of government itself has been left to decay. Decisions that should take days, take months. Departments fight each other instead of the problem. Officials and ministers who know the truth are not always rewarded for telling it. We are trying to govern a more dangerous world with processes designed for a calmer one, and the gap is now showing in the things that matter most.
“National resilience is about more than defence in the narrow sense. A strong country is not simply one with capable armed forces. It is one where working people feel economically secure, public services function, energy is resilient, communities are stable and young people can see a future worth working towards.”
As a Tory I could vote for that pitch, just depends on the route to that.
Sounds like it was written by AI?
I think Carns just don’t want to end up as a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard so he’s getting ahead of it.
He's already said he wants to run for leader. Needs Burnham to lose the by-election though.
So, we are spending nearly £60bn on defence this year. We struggle to put a single ship to sea. Our carriers seem to spend all their time in dock. We have a pitiful number of planes. Our army is one of the smallest we have ever had and almost certainly incapable of putting 5k soldiers on the front line for anything other than the briefest of times (which is how long their ammunition would last anyway).
John Healey may well be right that we need to invest in defence but what, as Secretary of State, has he done to improve our return on that £60bn. Last time I checked we had something like 31 flag officers for that frigate that we managed, with a fair bit of effort, to make seaworthy. According to CoPilot, the British Army currently has three full generals, nine lieutenant generals, and approximately 44 major generals on active duty. How many of these are in charge of a platoon? The money blown on the Atlas vehicle is almost beyond belief.
This chronic waste of resources is by no means all Healey's fault, of course, but I see precious little evidence that he has done much, if anything, to improve this chronic situation.
There's certainly a lot of waste and the MoD's procurement process is a disaster that needs nuked from orbit, but I think it's fair to point out that a lot of the current operational issues are down to penny pinching in the last 20 years.
A ship that develops problems gets tied up at Portsmouth because there's no money in this year's budget to fix it. It sits there for two or three years, quietly deteriorating. When the money is found for repairs engineers get aboard and find those years of neglect have caused a whole set of new issues the repair budget can't cover. So it sits there for more months or years, and eventually gets raided for parts, further increasing the cost of actually getting it back into service.
Lack of a stable pipeline for new ships and submarines exacerbates this by forcing the few serviceable units to be worked to death (see Type 23).
MoD procurement has been a problem for decades. In the early 80s Michael Heseltine drafted Peter (now Lord) Levene in to try to sort it. It does seem to be an area that requires root and branch reform. Maybe the shock of the Ukraine war, with the use of droned, will finally initiate something?
How. How is it possible that only two years after a landslide win this Labour government is collapsing in chaos?
No plan for government.
Worse than that. I'm not sure any of them has any idea why they are in the business of politics at all other than there's some jobs in it as a spad and well, the other side are worse, so we are the best etc.
How. How is it possible that only two years after a landslide win this Labour government is collapsing in chaos?
Starmer is a very poor leader. Like, really poor. (I'm sure a better writer than me could come up with a Hitchhiker's style soliloquy about how mind-bendingly poor Starmer has been.)
He only won a landslide because he was up against the weakest performance by the Tory party in its history, after that party foisted a Prime Minister onto the country so inept they had to replace her in less than 50 days.
In those circumstances any averagely competent leader would have won a landslide of Baldwin (1931) proportions.
The landslide that Starmer did win probably bought him an extra year as PM. That and the split and weak nature of the opposition.
I have my doubts about Burnham. And I think Labour should be working out what to do different rather than concentrate on who to do it differently with. But Starmer is actively making the situation worse and has to go.
Sounds like testing the water for a leadership run:
In his resignation letter, Al Carns said: “Too many working people in this country feel insecure even when they are doing everything right. They work hard, contribute, pay their taxes and still feel one setback away from trouble. Public confidence in our institutions is weakening and politics increasingly looks performative while everyday life gets harder.
“The machinery of government itself has been left to decay. Decisions that should take days, take months. Departments fight each other instead of the problem. Officials and ministers who know the truth are not always rewarded for telling it. We are trying to govern a more dangerous world with processes designed for a calmer one, and the gap is now showing in the things that matter most.
“National resilience is about more than defence in the narrow sense. A strong country is not simply one with capable armed forces. It is one where working people feel economically secure, public services function, energy is resilient, communities are stable and young people can see a future worth working towards.”
As a Tory I could vote for that pitch, just depends on the route to that.
"... It is also one where motherhood is celebrated, and tax rebates are given for apple pies... "
Unless he's articulating how he thinks we should be achieving these goals, it's all just meaningless waffle.
I mean, even the baby eating Tories don't actually want people feeling economically insecure, disfunctional public services, fragile energy supplies, unstable futures or you people bereft of a future, not least because it's all pretty unpopular with the voters.
The problem at present is that everyone wants all these the things, and they all want someone else to pay for it.
How. How is it possible that only two years after a landslide win this Labour government is collapsing in chaos?
Starmer is a very poor leader. Like, really poor. (I'm sure a better writer than me could come up with a Hitchhiker's style soliloquy about how mind-bendingly poor Starmer has been.)
He only won a landslide because he was up against the weakest performance by the Tory party in its history, after that party foisted a Prime Minister onto the country so inept they had to replace her in less than 50 days.
In those circumstances any averagely competent leader would have won a landslide of Baldwin (1931) proportions.
The landslide that Starmer did win probably bought him an extra year as PM. That and the split and weak nature of the opposition.
I have my doubts about Burnham. And I think Labour should be working out what to do different rather than concentrate on who to do it differently with. But Starmer is actively making the situation worse and has to go.
If you were Labour leader and looking a year or two away from a GE in which the worst combination of Liz Truss shite/Johnson open borders/Sunak mud sludge do nothing policy other than AI was the opposition --- would you not sit down with the great and the good in policy world and actually construction a manifesto and political economy policy that mattered??
The bottom line tonight is that the military establishment didn’t win the argument with Labour cabinet and MPs that they needed to cut spending, raise borrowing, raise taxes or cut welfare to fund higher defence spending.
Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves do not agree with John Healey even now, and while I’m sure mast Labour MPs would like to raise defence spending more, there’s no consensus what gives to achieve this.
Paul Mason @paulmasonnews I want to explain why the Defence world is devastated at John Healey's resignation. In every other Dept of State, the worst thing imaginable is manageable - pandemic, flood, riot, even a bond market selloff. Defence people prep, 24/7 for the unimaginable. Today someone stood up for Defence - not "against" HMG but against the public complacency that's limiting HMG's options. No other SecDef has done this... so let's hope this turns the tide.
Paul Mason @paulmasonnews I want to explain why the Defence world is devastated at John Healey's resignation. In every other Dept of State, the worst thing imaginable is manageable - pandemic, flood, riot, even a bond market selloff. Defence people prep, 24/7 for the unimaginable. Today someone stood up for Defence - not "against" HMG but against the public complacency that's limiting HMG's options. No other SecDef has done this... so let's hope this turns the tide.
Paul Mason @paulmasonnews I want to explain why the Defence world is devastated at John Healey's resignation. In every other Dept of State, the worst thing imaginable is manageable - pandemic, flood, riot, even a bond market selloff. Defence people prep, 24/7 for the unimaginable. Today someone stood up for Defence - not "against" HMG but against the public complacency that's limiting HMG's options. No other SecDef has done this... so let's hope this turns the tide.
How. How is it possible that only two years after a landslide win this Labour government is collapsing in chaos?
Starmer is a very poor leader. Like, really poor. (I'm sure a better writer than me could come up with a Hitchhiker's style soliloquy about how mind-bendingly poor Starmer has been.)
He only won a landslide because he was up against the weakest performance by the Tory party in its history, after that party foisted a Prime Minister onto the country so inept they had to replace her in less than 50 days.
In those circumstances any averagely competent leader would have won a landslide of Baldwin (1931) proportions.
The landslide that Starmer did win probably bought him an extra year as PM. That and the split and weak nature of the opposition.
I have my doubts about Burnham. And I think Labour should be working out what to do different rather than concentrate on who to do it differently with. But Starmer is actively making the situation worse and has to go.
If you were Labour leader and looking a year or two away from a GE in which the worst combination of Liz Truss shite/Johnson open borders/Sunak mud sludge do nothing policy other than AI was the opposition --- would you not sit down with the great and the good in policy world and actually construction a manifesto and political economy policy that mattered??
But that would involve making a decision or two and sticking to them.
Al Carns and Cummings are on the same page as far as machinery of government goes???
On the UK's gravestone it will read "Dominic Cummings was right".
But he thought Brexit was a good idea. He needs some huge entries on the other side of the ledger to counter that. Not sure a perpetual rage against the machine is quite enough.
Paul Mason @paulmasonnews I want to explain why the Defence world is devastated at John Healey's resignation. In every other Dept of State, the worst thing imaginable is manageable - pandemic, flood, riot, even a bond market selloff. Defence people prep, 24/7 for the unimaginable. Today someone stood up for Defence - not "against" HMG but against the public complacency that's limiting HMG's options. No other SecDef has done this... so let's hope this turns the tide.
How. How is it possible that only two years after a landslide win this Labour government is collapsing in chaos?
Starmer is a very poor leader. Like, really poor. (I'm sure a better writer than me could come up with a Hitchhiker's style soliloquy about how mind-bendingly poor Starmer has been.)
He only won a landslide because he was up against the weakest performance by the Tory party in its history, after that party foisted a Prime Minister onto the country so inept they had to replace her in less than 50 days.
In those circumstances any averagely competent leader would have won a landslide of Baldwin (1931) proportions.
The landslide that Starmer did win probably bought him an extra year as PM. That and the split and weak nature of the opposition.
I have my doubts about Burnham. And I think Labour should be working out what to do different rather than concentrate on who to do it differently with. But Starmer is actively making the situation worse and has to go.
If you were Labour leader and looking a year or two away from a GE in which the worst combination of Liz Truss shite/Johnson open borders/Sunak mud sludge do nothing policy other than AI was the opposition --- would you not sit down with the great and the good in policy world and actually construction a manifesto and political economy policy that mattered??
But that would involve making a decision or two and sticking to them.
Indeed. The Ming Vase Strategy has destroyed Starmer.
Worked for Blair because he actually had a shed load of ideas/policy/minsters and, most of all, Gordon Brown, with ideas behind the softly softly.
How. How is it possible that only two years after a landslide win this Labour government is collapsing in chaos?
Starmer is a very poor leader. Like, really poor. (I'm sure a better writer than me could come up with a Hitchhiker's style soliloquy about how mind-bendingly poor Starmer has been.)
He only won a landslide because he was up against the weakest performance by the Tory party in its history, after that party foisted a Prime Minister onto the country so inept they had to replace her in less than 50 days.
In those circumstances any averagely competent leader would have won a landslide of Baldwin (1931) proportions.
The landslide that Starmer did win probably bought him an extra year as PM. That and the split and weak nature of the opposition.
I have my doubts about Burnham. And I think Labour should be working out what to do different rather than concentrate on who to do it differently with. But Starmer is actively making the situation worse and has to go.
If you were Labour leader and looking a year or two away from a GE in which the worst combination of Liz Truss shite/Johnson open borders/Sunak mud sludge do nothing policy other than AI was the opposition --- would you not sit down with the great and the good in policy world and actually construction a manifesto and political economy policy that mattered??
Easier said than done.
Starmer did have to be Kinnock and Blair (or Hague and Cameron) in a single term. That task- going from internal party cleanup to a new government- is an awful lot to ask, and I don't think it was the plan in 2020. It only really became an issue when the Conservative government exploded in 2022.
The other thing is that the extent of the shitty intray left by the last lot was unusual, and in some ways pretty spiteful. HS2, the prisons fiasco, the unaccounted pay round, the unfunded NI cuts... Sunak and Hunt were not classy people in their second year. And no plan survives being punched in the face.
So yeah, Starmer is a duffer and rapidly moving from "failing" to "failed". But the other stories today are a strong hint that, however mediocre he is, the obvious alternatives are showing themselves to be obviously worse.
Badenoch: worse Burnham: worse Farage: much much worse
Sounds like testing the water for a leadership run:
In his resignation letter, Al Carns said: “Too many working people in this country feel insecure even when they are doing everything right. They work hard, contribute, pay their taxes and still feel one setback away from trouble. Public confidence in our institutions is weakening and politics increasingly looks performative while everyday life gets harder.
“The machinery of government itself has been left to decay. Decisions that should take days, take months. Departments fight each other instead of the problem. Officials and ministers who know the truth are not always rewarded for telling it. We are trying to govern a more dangerous world with processes designed for a calmer one, and the gap is now showing in the things that matter most.
“National resilience is about more than defence in the narrow sense. A strong country is not simply one with capable armed forces. It is one where working people feel economically secure, public services function, energy is resilient, communities are stable and young people can see a future worth working towards.”
As a Tory I could vote for that pitch, just depends on the route to that.
He's written a similar article before (https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-politics/2026/05/how-labour-can-win-again ). It's long on emotive analysis and very, very short on actual solutions. I don't think he knows how to fix things and he has plummetted in my estimation as a result. Indeed, you could say that about the Labour Party as a whole now, or even the other parties.
SKS will have everyone resigning like Boris did at the end, if he's not careful
Kemi gave an honest answer... Politicians that don't lie and evade and who actually tell the truth, should be applauded. Kemi's gone up another notch in my estimation.
Now, whether I like the answer is another matter...
Paul Mason @paulmasonnews I want to explain why the Defence world is devastated at John Healey's resignation. In every other Dept of State, the worst thing imaginable is manageable - pandemic, flood, riot, even a bond market selloff. Defence people prep, 24/7 for the unimaginable. Today someone stood up for Defence - not "against" HMG but against the public complacency that's limiting HMG's options. No other SecDef has done this... so let's hope this turns the tide.
The bottom line tonight is that the military establishment didn’t win the argument with Labour cabinet and MPs that they needed to cut spending, raise borrowing, raise taxes or cut welfare to fund higher defence spending.
Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves do not agree with John Healey even now, and while I’m sure mast Labour MPs would like to raise defence spending more, there’s no consensus what gives to achieve this.
This sounds about right. Whether there's enough money allocated or not - whatever the 'correct' amount is - the party (and parliament generally I imagine) cannot agree what it should be spent on or where the money comes from.
How. How is it possible that only two years after a landslide win this Labour government is collapsing in chaos?
Starmer is a very poor leader. Like, really poor. (I'm sure a better writer than me could come up with a Hitchhiker's style soliloquy about how mind-bendingly poor Starmer has been.)
He only won a landslide because he was up against the weakest performance by the Tory party in its history, after that party foisted a Prime Minister onto the country so inept they had to replace her in less than 50 days.
In those circumstances any averagely competent leader would have won a landslide of Baldwin (1931) proportions.
The landslide that Starmer did win probably bought him an extra year as PM. That and the split and weak nature of the opposition.
I have my doubts about Burnham. And I think Labour should be working out what to do different rather than concentrate on who to do it differently with. But Starmer is actively making the situation worse and has to go.
If you were Labour leader and looking a year or two away from a GE in which the worst combination of Liz Truss shite/Johnson open borders/Sunak mud sludge do nothing policy other than AI was the opposition --- would you not sit down with the great and the good in policy world and actually construction a manifesto and political economy policy that mattered??
But that would involve making a decision or two and sticking to them.
Indeed. The Ming Vase Strategy has destroyed Starmer.
Worked for Blair because he actually had a shed load of ideas/policy/minsters and, most of all, Gordon Brown, with ideas behind the softly softly.
This time...
Also the economy was basically ok, so the spending taps could be turned on. Not so much this time.
Al Carns and Cummings are on the same page as far as machinery of government goes???
On the UK's gravestone it will read "Dominic Cummings was right".
It really won't. The gravestone will read "It was me, I broke Britain!"
I don't know about that, but he seems to have the biggest ego this side of the Atlantic, and even if for sake of argument he lives up to that ego, in politics you need to be able to persuade people to do what you want them to do, to want to work with you. Bemoaning that no-one listens to you because you act like an arse despite being right all the time is probably satisfying, but even if we don't want slick but empty headed leaders we do still need some with some personal skills, as leading 350 MPs requires some co-operative ability.
How. How is it possible that only two years after a landslide win this Labour government is collapsing in chaos?
Starmer is a very poor leader. Like, really poor. (I'm sure a better writer than me could come up with a Hitchhiker's style soliloquy about how mind-bendingly poor Starmer has been.)
He only won a landslide because he was up against the weakest performance by the Tory party in its history, after that party foisted a Prime Minister onto the country so inept they had to replace her in less than 50 days.
In those circumstances any averagely competent leader would have won a landslide of Baldwin (1931) proportions.
The landslide that Starmer did win probably bought him an extra year as PM. That and the split and weak nature of the opposition.
I have my doubts about Burnham. And I think Labour should be working out what to do different rather than concentrate on who to do it differently with. But Starmer is actively making the situation worse and has to go.
If you were Labour leader and looking a year or two away from a GE in which the worst combination of Liz Truss shite/Johnson open borders/Sunak mud sludge do nothing policy other than AI was the opposition --- would you not sit down with the great and the good in policy world and actually construction a manifesto and political economy policy that mattered??
But that would involve making a decision or two and sticking to them.
Indeed. The Ming Vase Strategy has destroyed Starmer.
Worked for Blair because he actually had a shed load of ideas/policy/minsters and, most of all, Gordon Brown, with ideas behind the softly softly.
This time...
Also the economy was basically ok, so the spending taps could be turned on. Not so much this time.
Yes, things are pretty constrained even before you get into the self imposed political straitjackets parties often put themselves in.
And half the country no longer even cares about seeking to grow the economy as a goal, or only in a theoretical sense, so strategies from politicians to improve it often seem piecemeal or half hearted.
Why on earth would Jarvis take this job? Surely he had a shout of a place in the next Cabinet which may now be gone…?
Madness.
No idea why he accepted this.
Someone has to do it. He could always immediately turn on Starmer anyway like Zahawi did with Boris, if he wanted to cement a reputation as a complete snake.
Tonight’s resignations from government are about the kind of leadership our country and this Labour Government needs. And if this government with 3 years to run can meet the considerable national and international challenges and threats.
Is this effectively an attempted military coup? Starmer needs to reassert civilian control and sack anyone involved in plotting against him.
No
Reminds me to finish watching A Very British Coup on YouTube
"...You, the people, must decide whether you prefer to be ruled by an elected government or by people you've never heard of, people you've never voted for. People who remain quietly behind the scenes, generation after generation. Yay, even unto the Middle Ages..."
How. How is it possible that only two years after a landslide win this Labour government is collapsing in chaos?
Starmer is a very poor leader. Like, really poor. (I'm sure a better writer than me could come up with a Hitchhiker's style soliloquy about how mind-bendingly poor Starmer has been.)
He only won a landslide because he was up against the weakest performance by the Tory party in its history, after that party foisted a Prime Minister onto the country so inept they had to replace her in less than 50 days.
In those circumstances any averagely competent leader would have won a landslide of Baldwin (1931) proportions.
The landslide that Starmer did win probably bought him an extra year as PM. That and the split and weak nature of the opposition.
I have my doubts about Burnham. And I think Labour should be working out what to do different rather than concentrate on who to do it differently with. But Starmer is actively making the situation worse and has to go.
If you were Labour leader and looking a year or two away from a GE in which the worst combination of Liz Truss shite/Johnson open borders/Sunak mud sludge do nothing policy other than AI was the opposition --- would you not sit down with the great and the good in policy world and actually construction a manifesto and political economy policy that mattered??
Yes. Yes I would. And then I would advocate for it.
I think the public are a bit easier to win over then people imagine, given a leader with a sense of purpose, some self-confidence and a way with words.
Are his comments on Northern Ireland prosecutions consistent with being in the Labour party? Maybe he should defect to the Tories.
Whilst that is jest, if wikipedia is right only three MPs have ever gone directly from Labour to the Tories (2 due to opposing nationalisation of steel), the last being 49 years ago.
Which is interesting as 7 Tory MPs have gone the other way in that time.
The bottom line tonight is that the military establishment didn’t win the argument with Labour cabinet and MPs that they needed to cut spending, raise borrowing, raise taxes or cut welfare to fund higher defence spending.
Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves do not agree with John Healey even now, and while I’m sure mast Labour MPs would like to raise defence spending more, there’s no consensus what gives to achieve this.
This sounds about right. Whether there's enough money allocated or not - whatever the 'correct' amount is - the party (and parliament generally I imagine) cannot agree what it should be spent on or where the money comes from.
That isn't going to change.
Defence spending is insurance, no one with any sense spends more on insurance than they have to... There are more productive ways to spend the money
The bottom line tonight is that the military establishment didn’t win the argument with Labour cabinet and MPs that they needed to cut spending, raise borrowing, raise taxes or cut welfare to fund higher defence spending.
Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves do not agree with John Healey even now, and while I’m sure mast Labour MPs would like to raise defence spending more, there’s no consensus what gives to achieve this.
This sounds about right. Whether there's enough money allocated or not - whatever the 'correct' amount is - the party (and parliament generally I imagine) cannot agree what it should be spent on or where the money comes from.
That isn't going to change.
Defence spending is insurance, no one with any sense spends more on insurance than they have to... There are more productive ways to spend the money
Depends on the magnitude of the risk being insured. Defence seems rather existential. Perhaps less for us than the Baltics, but still.
I don't get the strategy/tactics of all these resignations just 7 days before a crucial by-election.
It's not strategy or tactics. It's principle. They weren't prepared to lie to the public by saying that the Defence Investment Plan was great for Britain and it's Defence when they are convinced that it isn't good enough and leaves Britain vulnerable.
That was the choice. The timing was forced by the timing of the final decisions on the plan.
How. How is it possible that only two years after a landslide win this Labour government is collapsing in chaos?
Starmer is a very poor leader. Like, really poor. (I'm sure a better writer than me could come up with a Hitchhiker's style soliloquy about how mind-bendingly poor Starmer has been.)
He only won a landslide because he was up against the weakest performance by the Tory party in its history, after that party foisted a Prime Minister onto the country so inept they had to replace her in less than 50 days.
In those circumstances any averagely competent leader would have won a landslide of Baldwin (1931) proportions.
The landslide that Starmer did win probably bought him an extra year as PM. That and the split and weak nature of the opposition.
I have my doubts about Burnham. And I think Labour should be working out what to do different rather than concentrate on who to do it differently with. But Starmer is actively making the situation worse and has to go.
If you were Labour leader and looking a year or two away from a GE in which the worst combination of Liz Truss shite/Johnson open borders/Sunak mud sludge do nothing policy other than AI was the opposition --- would you not sit down with the great and the good in policy world and actually construction a manifesto and political economy policy that mattered??
Yes. Yes I would. And then I would advocate for it.
I think the public are a bit easier to win over then people imagine, given a leader with a sense of purpose, some self-confidence and a way with words.
I'm not sure if they are, but I know one of the roles of a political leader should be to attempt it a bit more often than they do.
The bottom line tonight is that the military establishment didn’t win the argument with Labour cabinet and MPs that they needed to cut spending, raise borrowing, raise taxes or cut welfare to fund higher defence spending.
Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves do not agree with John Healey even now, and while I’m sure mast Labour MPs would like to raise defence spending more, there’s no consensus what gives to achieve this.
This sounds about right. Whether there's enough money allocated or not - whatever the 'correct' amount is - the party (and parliament generally I imagine) cannot agree what it should be spent on or where the money comes from.
That isn't going to change.
Defence spending is insurance, no one with any sense spends more on insurance than they have to... There are more productive ways to spend the money
Depends on the magnitude of the risk being insured. Defence seems rather existential. Perhaps less for us than the Baltics, but still.
What existential threat does the UK face? Russia is bogged down in Ukraine and no other country is going to aid Ukraine by openly going to war with Russia. We've got more sense than to get involved in Trump's overseas adventures, who else is a direct threat? The MOD will just waste any extra money on new toys that are years late and don't work The biggest threat to the UK is a civil war with coked-up racist wankers
You may recall my repeated recommendation of "Late Soviet Britain" by Dr Abby Innes. Well, today's moanfest (sorry, but it is getting that way) from the New Statesman points out that the subcontracting of housing of asylum seekers to Serco is causing problems.
We've spent nearly fifty years thinking that the way to do Government is to contract-out activities to private companies, and the evidence continually is that just it doesn't work. Neverthless we keep doing this. We are governed by idiots.
Removal of the foreskin reduces the chance of transmission.
That part of the program can be used to make an argument either way for infant circumcision, just as you can for infant vaccination. It's not an argument I care to join, but thought some of you might be interested in the public health angle.
(For the record: I was circumcised shortly after birth, as was routine in my part of rural Washington state. I can't say it mattered to me one way or another, since it didn't distinguish me from any of the other boys I knew.)
Removal of the foreskin reduces the chance of transmission.
That part of the program can be used to make an argument either way for infant circumcision, just as you can for infant vaccination. It's not an argument I care to join, but thought some of you might be interested in the public health angle.
(For the record: I was circumcised shortly after birth, as was routine in my part of rural Washington state. I can't say it mattered to me one way or another, since it didn't distinguish me from any of the other boys I knew.)
Why is the US the only country in the world that does this for non-religious reasons? (on a large scale)
Removal of the foreskin reduces the chance of transmission.
That part of the program can be used to make an argument either way for infant circumcision, just as you can for infant vaccination. It's not an argument I care to join, but thought some of you might be interested in the public health angle.
(For the record: I was circumcised shortly after birth, as was routine in my part of rural Washington state. I can't say it mattered to me one way or another, since it didn't distinguish me from any of the other boys I knew.)
Why is the US the only country in the world that does this for non-religious reasons? (on a large scale)
I’m reminded my mother once told me that she had considered having me circumcised as an infant but decided not to as the health benefits seemed marginal at that time. I thought it odd when she said it (as I had assumed it was only done for religious reasons) but apparently before the 1950s it was considered a ‘thing to do’. A medical report published in 1949 debunked that idea so the rate of UK male circumcision had fallen from 20% to 10% by my birth. I suspect finances may also have been a factor as that wasn’t made free under the NHS.
The bottom line tonight is that the military establishment didn’t win the argument with Labour cabinet and MPs that they needed to cut spending, raise borrowing, raise taxes or cut welfare to fund higher defence spending.
Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves do not agree with John Healey even now, and while I’m sure mast Labour MPs would like to raise defence spending more, there’s no consensus what gives to achieve this.
This sounds about right. Whether there's enough money allocated or not - whatever the 'correct' amount is - the party (and parliament generally I imagine) cannot agree what it should be spent on or where the money comes from.
That isn't going to change.
Defence spending is insurance, no one with any sense spends more on insurance than they have to... There are more productive ways to spend the money
Depends on the magnitude of the risk being insured. Defence seems rather existential. Perhaps less for us than the Baltics, but still.
What existential threat does the UK face? Russia is bogged down in Ukraine and no other country is going to aid Ukraine by openly going to war with Russia. We've got more sense than to get involved in Trump's overseas adventures, who else is a direct threat? The MOD will just waste any extra money on new toys that are years late and don't work The biggest threat to the UK is a civil war with coked-up racist wankers
This spasm of angst over defence spending is as fucking ludicrous as you'd expect from the one dimensional thinking numbnuts that advance it.
On one hand, the Russian armed forces are a broken joke who are about to be kicked out of Donetsk and on the other hand we have to give many billions to BAE, LockheedMartin, Elbit, etc. to defend against them.
Also, the MoD couldn't buy a scratchcard without fucking it up but apparently giving them many billions to give to BAE et al is somehow, and in direct contravention of all observable evidence, going to deliver value for money, credible defence solutions this time.
Removal of the foreskin reduces the chance of transmission.
That part of the program can be used to make an argument either way for infant circumcision, just as you can for infant vaccination. It's not an argument I care to join, but thought some of you might be interested in the public health angle.
(For the record: I was circumcised shortly after birth, as was routine in my part of rural Washington state. I can't say it mattered to me one way or another, since it didn't distinguish me from any of the other boys I knew.)
Why is the US the only country in the world that does this for non-religious reasons? (on a large scale)
I’m reminded my mother once told me that she had considered having me circumcised as an infant but decided not to as the health benefits seemed marginal at that time. I thought it odd when she said it (as I had assumed it was only done for religious reasons) but apparently before the 1950s it was considered a ‘thing to do’. A medical report published in 1949 debunked that idea so the rate of UK male circumcision had fallen from 20% to 10% by my birth. I suspect finances may also have been a factor as that wasn’t made free under the NHS.
That fits with my experience. My brother (1944) was, and I (1948) was not. I can recall murmurings about 'health reasons' as a small child but they had silenced by the time I left secondary school.
These days I tend to regard it as a silly if rather harmless practice.
How. How is it possible that only two years after a landslide win this Labour government is collapsing in chaos?
Starmer is a very poor leader. Like, really poor. (I'm sure a better writer than me could come up with a Hitchhiker's style soliloquy about how mind-bendingly poor Starmer has been.)
He only won a landslide because he was up against the weakest performance by the Tory party in its history, after that party foisted a Prime Minister onto the country so inept they had to replace her in less than 50 days.
In those circumstances any averagely competent leader would have won a landslide of Baldwin (1931) proportions.
The landslide that Starmer did win probably bought him an extra year as PM. That and the split and weak nature of the opposition.
I have my doubts about Burnham. And I think Labour should be working out what to do different rather than concentrate on who to do it differently with. But Starmer is actively making the situation worse and has to go.
If you were Labour leader and looking a year or two away from a GE in which the worst combination of Liz Truss shite/Johnson open borders/Sunak mud sludge do nothing policy other than AI was the opposition --- would you not sit down with the great and the good in policy world and actually construction a manifesto and political economy policy that mattered??
But he couldn't do that because Labour is a socialist party and socialism doesn't work, as has been obvious since at least 1989.
To work economically, any such policy would have to involve some combination of deregulation, lower taxes and lower welfare spending.
But the activists and many MPs are still socialist, so the leadership's only recourse is a kind of weird doublethink, where they pretend they have a growth strategy while sabotaging the economy with endless tax rises and welfare spending, which infuriates the right, white leaving just enough of a free market to keep the economy stagnant rather than collapsing, which outrages the left.
How. How is it possible that only two years after a landslide win this Labour government is collapsing in chaos?
Starmer is a very poor leader. Like, really poor. (I'm sure a better writer than me could come up with a Hitchhiker's style soliloquy about how mind-bendingly poor Starmer has been.)
He only won a landslide because he was up against the weakest performance by the Tory party in its history, after that party foisted a Prime Minister onto the country so inept they had to replace her in less than 50 days.
In those circumstances any averagely competent leader would have won a landslide of Baldwin (1931) proportions.
The landslide that Starmer did win probably bought him an extra year as PM. That and the split and weak nature of the opposition.
I have my doubts about Burnham. And I think Labour should be working out what to do different rather than concentrate on who to do it differently with. But Starmer is actively making the situation worse and has to go.
If you were Labour leader and looking a year or two away from a GE in which the worst combination of Liz Truss shite/Johnson open borders/Sunak mud sludge do nothing policy other than AI was the opposition --- would you not sit down with the great and the good in policy world and actually construction a manifesto and political economy policy that mattered??
But he couldn't do that because Labour is a socialist party and socialism doesn't work, as has been obvious since at least 1989.
To work economically, any such policy would have to involve some combination of deregulation, lower taxes and lower welfare spending.
But the activists and many MPs are still socialist, so the leadership's only recourse is a kind of weird doublethink, where they pretend they have a growth strategy while sabotaging the economy with endless tax rises and welfare spending, which infuriates the right, white leaving just enough of a free market to keep the economy stagnant rather than collapsing, which outrages the left.
And, unsurprisingly, nobody is happy.
Labour came in on Change. They are failing to Change. And somehow you think more of the same failing to Change is going to help.
I mean really, deregulation? Deregulation has given us the water industry. It’s given us the Fossil Fuel Industry with andd its authoritarian hideousness and climate change. Deregulation is not a panacea. It’s an utter fucking disaster for environment and humanity.
Tired old ideas from Labour and the right’s endemic corruption are supporting a genocide. FFS, blaming welfare recipients is so short sighted it cause me to face palm.
Kudos to those who resigned. Splurging money on benefits and reducing planned increases on Defence, particularly now, is madness.
Thank goodness Burnham the Saviour will be along few to fling a few more billion at the least deserving group imaginable for the sake of six minutes of positive media coverage...
Kudos to those who resigned. Splurging money on benefits and reducing planned increases on Defence, particularly now, is madness.
Thank goodness Burnham the Saviour will be along few to fling a few more billion at the least deserving group imaginable for the sake of six minutes of positive media coverage...
Kudos to those who resigned. Splurging money on benefits and reducing planned increases on Defence, particularly now, is madness.
Thank goodness Burnham the Saviour will be along few to fling a few more billion at the least deserving group imaginable for the sake of six minutes of positive media coverage...
Kudos to those who resigned. Splurging money on benefits and reducing planned increases on Defence, particularly now, is madness.
Thank goodness Burnham the Saviour will be along few to fling a few more billion at the least deserving group imaginable for the sake of six minutes of positive media coverage...
Of course the FAULT on splurging money on Benefits and slashing funding on Defence is NOT LABOUR'S
It was born of BORIS JOHNSON and something that KEMI BADENOCH, ROBERT JENRICK, et al stood back and watched happen.
Defence Spending has seen in under 2 years uncer Labour the biggest UPSWING since the Cold War
Not fast enough it seems for defence and too slow for Benefits BUT lets be 100% crystal clwar TORIES and REFORM lite TORIES own this 100%
Labour now need to grasp the nettle with 2 hands and not !
So, we are spending nearly £60bn on defence this year. We struggle to put a single ship to sea. Our carriers seem to spend all their time in dock. We have a pitiful number of planes. Our army is one of the smallest we have ever had and almost certainly incapable of putting 5k soldiers on the front line for anything other than the briefest of times (which is how long their ammunition would last anyway).
John Healey may well be right that we need to invest in defence but what, as Secretary of State, has he done to improve our return on that £60bn. Last time I checked we had something like 31 flag officers for that frigate that we managed, with a fair bit of effort, to make seaworthy. According to CoPilot, the British Army currently has three full generals, nine lieutenant generals, and approximately 44 major generals on active duty. How many of these are in charge of a platoon? The money blown on the Atlas vehicle is almost beyond belief.
This chronic waste of resources is by no means all Healey's fault, of course, but I see precious little evidence that he has done much, if anything, to improve this chronic situation.
I am sorry but the “more admirals than ships” nonsense is unworthy of you. “Large, complex, organisation operating complex machinery requires senior managers” is not news and not the problem.
Compare us with our peers and we do better than most, and much the same as the French (the best comparison). This stuff is just hard, and expensive.
Can improvements be made? Of course. Is there some deep underlying scandal? Nah. Well maybe Ajax.
Edit - and when looking at the NOD budget remember that pre-2010 operations were an extra budget line, and now MOD must find room for them, including support to Ukraine. The cupboard is bare.
Bollocks. It is utterly risible. You don't need a 'large complex organisation' if you have no military capability.
The bottom line tonight is that the military establishment didn’t win the argument with Labour cabinet and MPs that they needed to cut spending, raise borrowing, raise taxes or cut welfare to fund higher defence spending.
Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves do not agree with John Healey even now, and while I’m sure mast Labour MPs would like to raise defence spending more, there’s no consensus what gives to achieve this.
Voldemort's jacking in has precisely nothing to do with a principled/deluded stand on defence spending. He knows the Starmer project is over and wants to be the first in the lifeboats, harming SKS in the process in order to try and win the favour and patronage of Burnham. That's just politics.
The ritual humiliation of the Australian Defence Sec who JH was supposed to meet while they wanked each other off with eye contact over SSN Canva slides is a lolsome side effect. At the Aussies know now where they stand.
Removal of the foreskin reduces the chance of transmission.
That part of the program can be used to make an argument either way for infant circumcision, just as you can for infant vaccination. It's not an argument I care to join, but thought some of you might be interested in the public health angle.
(For the record: I was circumcised shortly after birth, as was routine in my part of rural Washington state. I can't say it mattered to me one way or another, since it didn't distinguish me from any of the other boys I knew.)
Why is the US the only country in the world that does this for non-religious reasons? (on a large scale)
Some suggest it’s because they have private medicine, a context in which unnecessary operations might proliferate compared to state funded systems. Circumcisions in the UK, as noted above, fell when the NHS was introduced.
Removal of the foreskin reduces the chance of transmission.
That part of the program can be used to make an argument either way for infant circumcision, just as you can for infant vaccination. It's not an argument I care to join, but thought some of you might be interested in the public health angle.
(For the record: I was circumcised shortly after birth, as was routine in my part of rural Washington state. I can't say it mattered to me one way or another, since it didn't distinguish me from any of the other boys I knew.)
Why is the US the only country in the world that does this for non-religious reasons? (on a large scale)
Getting deja vu about disgruntled 2nd class politicians manoeuvring against other 2nd class politicians. So all eyes on Thursday's bun fight.
Anything less than clear red water between Burnham and Farage will mean that everyone will be joining the bunfight for the top job. And the possibility the PLP realising they are all 2nd class politicians will keep Starmer on. Then it's rinse and repeat.
And talking about repeats, I see that the BBC is allowing Lowe to rant on about immigration with comments if made by others could be considered as inciting racial hatred. However the new improved BBC has a blind spot for Reform - until Thursday, perhaps.
How. How is it possible that only two years after a landslide win this Labour government is collapsing in chaos?
Starmer is a very poor leader. Like, really poor. (I'm sure a better writer than me could come up with a Hitchhiker's style soliloquy about how mind-bendingly poor Starmer has been.)
He only won a landslide because he was up against the weakest performance by the Tory party in its history, after that party foisted a Prime Minister onto the country so inept they had to replace her in less than 50 days.
In those circumstances any averagely competent leader would have won a landslide of Baldwin (1931) proportions.
The landslide that Starmer did win probably bought him an extra year as PM. That and the split and weak nature of the opposition.
I have my doubts about Burnham. And I think Labour should be working out what to do different rather than concentrate on who to do it differently with. But Starmer is actively making the situation worse and has to go.
If you were Labour leader and looking a year or two away from a GE in which the worst combination of Liz Truss shite/Johnson open borders/Sunak mud sludge do nothing policy other than AI was the opposition --- would you not sit down with the great and the good in policy world and actually construction a manifesto and political economy policy that mattered??
But that would involve making a decision or two and sticking to them.
Indeed. The Ming Vase Strategy has destroyed Starmer.
Worked for Blair because he actually had a shed load of ideas/policy/minsters and, most of all, Gordon Brown, with ideas behind the softly softly.
This time...
... we have a PM without the ability to face down Rachel Reeves.
So, we are spending nearly £60bn on defence this year. We struggle to put a single ship to sea. Our carriers seem to spend all their time in dock. We have a pitiful number of planes. Our army is one of the smallest we have ever had and almost certainly incapable of putting 5k soldiers on the front line for anything other than the briefest of times (which is how long their ammunition would last anyway).
John Healey may well be right that we need to invest in defence but what, as Secretary of State, has he done to improve our return on that £60bn. Last time I checked we had something like 31 flag officers for that frigate that we managed, with a fair bit of effort, to make seaworthy. According to CoPilot, the British Army currently has three full generals, nine lieutenant generals, and approximately 44 major generals on active duty. How many of these are in charge of a platoon? The money blown on the Atlas vehicle is almost beyond belief.
This chronic waste of resources is by no means all Healey's fault, of course, but I see precious little evidence that he has done much, if anything, to improve this chronic situation.
I am sorry but the “more admirals than ships” nonsense is unworthy of you. “Large, complex, organisation operating complex machinery requires senior managers” is not news and not the problem.
Compare us with our peers and we do better than most, and much the same as the French (the best comparison). This stuff is just hard, and expensive.
Can improvements be made? Of course. Is there some deep underlying scandal? Nah. Well maybe Ajax.
I would question whether a navy the size of our current fleet actually requires a single admiral. It’s simply too small and the resources used for their staffing etc needs to be deployed to the front line. The Admiralty is a complex organisation that would cope with a much, much larger navy than we are ever likely to have again. We need to downsize our administration and focus on fighting capability.
You know it’s the administrators who make that decision, right?
The bottom line tonight is that the military establishment didn’t win the argument with Labour cabinet and MPs that they needed to cut spending, raise borrowing, raise taxes or cut welfare to fund higher defence spending.
Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves do not agree with John Healey even now, and while I’m sure mast Labour MPs would like to raise defence spending more, there’s no consensus what gives to achieve this.
This sounds about right. Whether there's enough money allocated or not - whatever the 'correct' amount is - the party (and parliament generally I imagine) cannot agree what it should be spent on or where the money comes from.
That isn't going to change.
Defence spending is insurance, no one with any sense spends more on insurance than they have to... There are more productive ways to spend the money
Depends on the magnitude of the risk being insured. Defence seems rather existential. Perhaps less for us than the Baltics, but still.
What existential threat does the UK face? Russia is bogged down in Ukraine and no other country is going to aid Ukraine by openly going to war with Russia. We've got more sense than to get involved in Trump's overseas adventures, who else is a direct threat? The MOD will just waste any extra money on new toys that are years late and don't work The biggest threat to the UK is a civil war with coked-up racist wankers
This spasm of angst over defence spending is as fucking ludicrous as you'd expect from the one dimensional thinking numbnuts that advance it.
On one hand, the Russian armed forces are a broken joke who are about to be kicked out of Donetsk and on the other hand we have to give many billions to BAE, LockheedMartin, Elbit, etc. to defend against them.
Also, the MoD couldn't buy a scratchcard without fucking it up but apparently giving them many billions to give to BAE et al is somehow, and in direct contravention of all observable evidence, going to deliver value for money, credible defence solutions this time.
Yes, the contradiction is obvious.
I do not favour simply spending for the sake of it, or on letting the Blimps have their toys. That is how we got where we are.
We do need the capability of expeditionary forces for short neo-colonial wars against low tech enemies. That is the sort of fighting that we have been doing since WW2, with the Argentinians being the only vaguely modern army we have fought.
Our only real threat is Russia for anything more than that. China is simply too far away for us to be anything but an observer, and the Middle East is to be avoided like the plague.
We would only be fighting Russia with our European allies, partly because they are in the way, and partly because Trumpistan is no longer our friend. So what we do field in theatre needs to be carefully integrated with their capabilities.
We need some deployable light infantry, we need anti-submarine capability, we need land based aircraft, we need cyber-warfare and intelligence and that is about it. Some sort of light drone offence and defence is key to these too.
I wonder how many games in this WC are going to finish 11 aside. Hopefully the players will take notice and be a lot more careful but frankly 2 of those red cards seemed absurd to me.
If you don’t have red cards no one can bribe FIFA to get them rescinded
Removal of the foreskin reduces the chance of transmission.
That part of the program can be used to make an argument either way for infant circumcision, just as you can for infant vaccination. It's not an argument I care to join, but thought some of you might be interested in the public health angle.
(For the record: I was circumcised shortly after birth, as was routine in my part of rural Washington state. I can't say it mattered to me one way or another, since it didn't distinguish me from any of the other boys I knew.)
Why is the US the only country in the world that does this for non-religious reasons? (on a large scale)
I think it's because they're not complete dicks.
Well they did elect Trump president and put RFK Jnr in charge of health policy, so that's at least debatable.
Comments
Also South Korea to beat Czechia overnight at 2.62.
No idea why he accepted this.
Starmer is finished.
Bet she can't believe her luck.
But his former army colleagues will judge him harshly if he swallows the Starmer plan. Which I suspect was the price for accepting the job.
But we shall see
He only won a landslide because he was up against the weakest performance by the Tory party in its history, after that party foisted a Prime Minister onto the country so inept they had to replace her in less than 50 days.
In those circumstances any averagely competent leader would have won a landslide of Baldwin (1931) proportions.
The landslide that Starmer did win probably bought him an extra year as PM. That and the split and weak nature of the opposition.
I have my doubts about Burnham. And I think Labour should be working out what to do different rather than concentrate on who to do it differently with. But Starmer is actively making the situation worse and has to go.
Even the Duke of Wellington couldn’t make that work.
Unless he's articulating how he thinks we should be achieving these goals, it's all just meaningless waffle.
I mean, even the baby eating Tories don't actually want people feeling economically insecure, disfunctional public services, fragile energy supplies, unstable futures or you people bereft of a future, not least because it's all pretty unpopular with the voters.
The problem at present is that everyone wants all these the things, and they all want someone else to pay for it.
Benefits not bombs.
Sam Coates Sky
@SamCoatesSky
The bottom line tonight is that the military establishment didn’t win the argument with Labour cabinet and MPs that they needed to cut spending, raise borrowing, raise taxes or cut welfare to fund higher defence spending.
Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves do not agree with John Healey even now, and while I’m sure mast Labour MPs would like to raise defence spending more, there’s no consensus what gives to achieve this.
Paul Mason
@paulmasonnews
I want to explain why the Defence world is devastated at John Healey's resignation. In every other Dept of State, the worst thing imaginable is manageable - pandemic, flood, riot, even a bond market selloff. Defence people prep, 24/7 for the unimaginable. Today someone stood up for Defence - not "against" HMG but against the public complacency that's limiting HMG's options. No other SecDef has done this... so let's hope this turns the tide.
https://x.com/paulmasonnews/status/2065187692921373071
Try again Paul.
But can numbers really tell us who's going to win the World Cup?
Dr Josh Bull from @OxfordMathematics explains why it's important to look beyond the headline statistic and ask whether we're actually measuring something meaningful.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0YVN9NhtHkU
Two minutes of dissing spurious statistics.
They are possibly the most improved side in world football. And they are at home.
Which is why Herman Kahn called it Thinking About The Unthinkable.
And decades after his death, morons are still mixing up thinking and planning for something with wanting it to happen.
Worked for Blair because he actually had a shed load of ideas/policy/minsters and, most of all, Gordon Brown, with ideas behind the softly softly.
This time...
Starmer did have to be Kinnock and Blair (or Hague and Cameron) in a single term. That task- going from internal party cleanup to a new government- is an awful lot to ask, and I don't think it was the plan in 2020. It only really became an issue when the Conservative government exploded in 2022.
The other thing is that the extent of the shitty intray left by the last lot was unusual, and in some ways pretty spiteful. HS2, the prisons fiasco, the unaccounted pay round, the unfunded NI cuts... Sunak and Hunt were not classy people in their second year. And no plan survives being punched in the face.
So yeah, Starmer is a duffer and rapidly moving from "failing" to "failed". But the other stories today are a strong hint that, however mediocre he is, the obvious alternatives are showing themselves to be obviously worse.
Badenoch: worse
Burnham: worse
Farage: much much worse
Kemi gave an honest answer... Politicians that don't lie and evade and who actually tell the truth, should be applauded. Kemi's gone up another notch in my estimation.
Now, whether I like the answer is another matter...
That isn't going to change.
Do you make that speech or resign to avoid doing so knowing that if you resign chances are new management will welcome you back in a few weeks time
And half the country no longer even cares about seeking to grow the economy as a goal, or only in a theoretical sense, so strategies from politicians to improve it often seem piecemeal or half hearted.
Dan Carden
@DanCardenMP
Tonight’s resignations from government are about the kind of leadership our country and this Labour Government needs. And if this government with 3 years to run can meet the considerable national and international challenges and threats.
https://x.com/DanCardenMP/status/2065175781022871736
https://youtu.be/V-fZQzj3Pms?si=6mAuS_9wBUJWOcmS&t=2711
I think the public are a bit easier to win over then people imagine, given a leader with a sense of purpose, some self-confidence and a way with words.
Which is interesting as 7 Tory MPs have gone the other way in that time.
There are more productive ways to spend the money
That was the choice. The timing was forced by the timing of the final decisions on the plan.
Russia is bogged down in Ukraine and no other country is going to aid Ukraine by openly going to war with Russia. We've got more sense than to get involved in Trump's overseas adventures, who else is a direct threat?
The MOD will just waste any extra money on new toys that are years late and don't work
The biggest threat to the UK is a civil war with coked-up racist wankers
- "How Britain lost control", The New Statesman, 45mins, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJAoXIslztc
We've spent nearly fifty years thinking that the way to do Government is to contract-out activities to private companies, and the evidence continually is that just it doesn't work. Neverthless we keep doing this. We are governed by idiots.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President's_Emergency_Plan_for_AIDS_Relief#Programs
Removal of the foreskin reduces the chance of transmission.
That part of the program can be used to make an argument either way for infant circumcision, just as you can for infant vaccination. It's not an argument I care to join, but thought some of you might be interested in the public health angle.
(For the record: I was circumcised shortly after birth, as was routine in my part of rural Washington state. I can't say it mattered to me one way or another, since it didn't distinguish me from any of the other boys I knew.)
On one hand, the Russian armed forces are a broken joke who are about to be kicked out of Donetsk and on the other hand we have to give many billions to BAE, LockheedMartin, Elbit, etc. to defend against them.
Also, the MoD couldn't buy a scratchcard without fucking it up but apparently giving them many billions to give to BAE et al is somehow, and in direct contravention of all observable evidence, going to deliver value for money, credible defence solutions this time.
These days I tend to regard it as a silly if rather harmless practice.
To work economically, any such policy would have to involve some combination of deregulation, lower taxes and lower welfare spending.
But the activists and many MPs are still socialist, so the leadership's only recourse is a kind of weird doublethink, where they pretend they have a growth strategy while sabotaging the economy with endless tax rises and welfare spending, which infuriates the right, white leaving just enough of a free market to keep the economy stagnant rather than collapsing, which outrages the left.
And, unsurprisingly, nobody is happy.
I mean really, deregulation? Deregulation has given us the water industry. It’s given us the Fossil Fuel Industry with andd its authoritarian hideousness and climate change. Deregulation is not a panacea. It’s an utter fucking disaster for environment and humanity.
Tired old ideas from Labour and the right’s endemic corruption are supporting a genocide. FFS, blaming welfare recipients is so short sighted it cause me to face palm.
Change is required.
Kudos to those who resigned. Splurging money on benefits and reducing planned increases on Defence, particularly now, is madness.
Thank goodness Burnham the Saviour will be along few to fling a few more billion at the least deserving group imaginable for the sake of six minutes of positive media coverage...
It was born of BORIS JOHNSON and something that KEMI BADENOCH, ROBERT JENRICK, et al stood back and watched happen.
Defence Spending has seen in under 2 years uncer Labour the biggest UPSWING since the Cold War
Not fast enough it seems for defence and too slow for Benefits BUT lets be 100% crystal clwar TORIES and REFORM lite TORIES own this 100%
Labour now need to grasp the nettle with 2 hands and not !
The ritual humiliation of the Australian Defence Sec who JH was supposed to meet while they wanked each other off with eye contact over SSN Canva slides is a lolsome side effect. At the Aussies know now where they stand.
Ajax was one such opportunity - and it looks like they failed.
Getting deja vu about disgruntled 2nd class politicians manoeuvring against other 2nd class politicians. So all eyes on Thursday's bun fight.
Anything less than clear red water between Burnham and Farage will mean that everyone will be joining the bunfight for the top job. And the possibility the PLP realising they are all 2nd class politicians will keep Starmer on. Then it's rinse and repeat.
And talking about repeats, I see that the BBC is allowing Lowe to rant on about immigration with comments if made by others could be considered as inciting racial hatred. However the new improved BBC has a blind spot for Reform - until Thursday, perhaps.
I do not favour simply spending for the sake of it, or on letting the Blimps have their toys. That is how we got where we are.
We do need the capability of expeditionary forces for short neo-colonial wars against low tech enemies. That is the sort of fighting that we have been doing since WW2, with the Argentinians being the only vaguely modern army we have fought.
Our only real threat is Russia for anything more than that. China is simply too far away for us to be anything but an observer, and the Middle East is to be avoided like the plague.
We would only be fighting Russia with our European allies, partly because they are in the way, and partly because Trumpistan is no longer our friend. So what we do field in theatre needs to be carefully integrated with their capabilities.
We need some deployable light infantry, we need anti-submarine capability, we need land based aircraft, we need cyber-warfare and intelligence and that is about it. Some sort of light drone offence and defence is key to these too.