Congratulations to Rosie Duffield, MP for Canterbury who has resigned from Labour over her contempt for Starmer’s self-serving behaviour and—well, you know the rest. I don’t know enough about Duffield to know whether she was left, right or centre but it has always been fairly clear that she has a mind of her own and is willing to sacrifice a political career to express it. Hopefully a few more Labour MPs will take this route. Should this government last four or five years they could do much to correct the imbalance created by a freak Labour landslide.

I like the way the Bing AI chat thing sums things up. I was interested to know how an old once family-owned business like Morrisons is now having to sell freehold property on a leaseback basis to help pay down its £7 billion debt. Here’s what the Chat thing said:
 
‘Morrisons, the UK supermarket chain, accumulated significant debt primarily due to its acquisition by the private equity firm Clayton Dubilier & Rice (CD&R) in October 2021.  This takeover, valued at around £7 billion, was largely financed through borrowing, a common practice known as a leveraged buyout. Following the acquisition, Morrisons’ debt levels soared, reaching approximately £8.5 billion by the end of October 2023.  The high interest payments on this debt significantly impacted the company’s financial performance, contributing to a pre-tax loss of £1.1 billion in 2023. In response to this debt burden, Morrisons has been actively working on reducing its debt.  This includes selling assets such as its petrol forecourts and ground leases on some of its supermarkets.  These measures are part of a broader turnaround plan under the new chief executive, Rami Baitiéh.

If you have any more questions or need further details, feel free to ask!’

​Well yes, my next question would be why aren’t these bastards in jail? I’m not sure I need waste time on that one. Wealth creators are our best friends!

+‘It didn’t cross his desk’ is becoming a bit of a catch phrase at the Crown Prosecution Service, in relation to high profile cases which Starmer ‘didn’t know anything about’ during his time as Director of Public Prosecutions. Mohamed Al-Fayed joins Jimmy Savile et al as yet another well connected individual who remained at large to continue their predatory behaviour. It is said that there wasn’t enough evidence to secure a conviction. The same may be said about Julian Assange, but Starmer (of course) took a different approach to that case. Now I wonder how many times something will not ‘cross his desk’ as PM. Perhaps he will emulate Tony Blair’s sofa approach to government so that it will always be literally but narrowly true that ‘it didn’t cross his desk.’ The words ‘pole,’ ‘barge’ and ‘toss’ come to mind. Yet again.
 
+Robert Jenrick MP, a Tory leadership hopeful and former immigration minister is doing his best to stir up fear (and loathing) about the small boat people crossing the Channel. It seems a lot of them are coming with ill-intent. Echoing Trumpist lines he said:

‘These are people our security services identified as known quantities, threats to our communities, with links to Islamic State and Al-Qaeda. And they waltzed right in.’ In addition to the terror suspects, Mr Jenrick claimed that around 1,000 migrants who arrived in small boats in 2022 and 2023 have been linked to criminality. ‘They all go on to watchlists of varying levels, but how can we expect our police officers and security services, already dealing with threats from home, to take on dozens or hundreds more cases? It’s an impossible task. And while they do a fantastic job, it’s inevitable some will slip through the net.’ (Evening Standard 22/9/24)

What ‘net’ is that I wonder? If these people can slip through the net, isn’t it time the net’s mesh size was reduced? Might this not be a challenge for Labour’s new border control Tsar, Martin Hewitt, CBE QPM? I think so. And what that means in practice will surely appeal to the authoritarian Keir Starmer. It may be an opportunity to re-investigate how to sell ID cards to a sceptical, if not suspicious public. It’s not as if things haven’t changed a lot since the 2000s when Tony Blair was keen to see ID cards introduced as the Global War On Terror was kicking off after 9/11. What’s changed most of course is the technology. Now as the tech revolution speeds up exponentially with artificial intelligence, so Blair’s enthusiasm for it spills over. His Institute for Global Change (TBI) is promoting AI as the saviour of the UK economy. He doesn’t want us to get left behind. This means introducing a new, user friendly form of ID—digital ID. This will envelop us all in a warm embrace, providing seamless access to all kinds of benefits. It could for example ameliorate the impact of another pandemic, as this snatch of TBI original digital ID-speak makes clear (sort of)-
​ 
Of course your credential—which becomes your life—should only be revealed to the proper authority. Otherwise it’s access denied and you’ll be frozen out like when on an internet search you come up to a dead end 404 message. I don’t know to what extent Blair has influence over Starmer, there has after all been a little bit of semantic distancing going on. But when you look at the TBI website you can see that its intent is not merely to be a worthy one-of-the crowd think tank. It has no need to list its clients. It is unimaginable that it will not have considerable influence over the direction of this new government’s thinking, not least since it claims that its prognosis is that AI and its multiple applications will answer all of Rachel Reeves’ fiscal nightmares, almost within one term.

We hear less of the downsides. The Post Office Horizon project started when Blair was in office. Various NHS computerisation projects went nowhere. The roll-out of Universal Benefit left plenty of people starving. Perhaps AI will be called upon to heal itself as it goes on. And with digital ID will come greater state surveillance (Surveillance State by Josh Chin and Liza Linn, St Martin’s Press, New York 2022 is a good introduction to where this is all headed).

Perhaps Robert Jenrick can now sleep easy in his bed. The mesh of the net is certainly going to get tighter. Men with long black beards will be profiled to say the very least.

+Clearly I’m not at Labour Party conference this year. I’ll cope. Instead I can vicariously enjoy the event with my conference issue of the New Statesman, which is twice as thick as normal (no sarcasm intended). This is because, perhaps unintentionally the Staggers has provided an excellent guide to what’s really going on at conference this year through an abundance of advertorials, i.e. paid-for opinion pieces. One or two of these are provided by good causes, but the majority come from corporate outfits. Energy companies feature prominently, with building and finance (Blackrock, The City) getting a look in. We can be pretty sure that many of the outfits promoting their wares in the magazine are going all out in plush hotels in Liverpool to host receptions and dinners with invite-only lists of Labour’s new ministerial elite. The truly influential types probably don’t even bother with the New Statesman but will nevertheless infest the private dining facilities to make loving overtures to newby ministers waiting sweatily to be flattered. An enterprising journalist should be going round all the hotels each evening to look at the hotel reception guides to see which room is hosting which lobbying bash. And perhaps accidentally wandering into one or two. I’m sure they’d be made welcome.  

​There’s been a bit of chatter lately about the possibilities for a new left wing party being formed. This flows from a recurrence of the ‘Labour’s high treason’ sensation, borne from the party’s need to sell out in order to win power. It forgets that in recent history we did have a new left wing party which was called Labour, and it failed to win election. This can’t all be blamed on the sabotage tactics of internal dissidents or the anti-Semitism scam. Much of it can be blamed on the inadequacy of the leadership and the attention grabbing character of Boris Johnson. In that last regard voters in ‘red wall’ seats were duped into a sense of optimism which Corbyn didn’t quite convey. One might have thought left leaning voters would have found more repellent Johnson’s repugnant personality but they clearly didn’t. There’s a lesson there for anyone talking up the need for a new left wing party. There is of course a wide range of left wing parties already in existence, including Communists, Socialists and Workers. All on the fringe and irrelevant. Craig Murray, writing on the prospects for a new party has revealed that it would probably be riven by ideological and personality splits before it even got off the ground. The 57 varieties lives on! Putting together some fringes doesn't necessarily add up to something greater than its parts. I think the only party political alternative to Labour must now be the Greens. With approaching two million votes in 2024, over 800 councillors and now four MPs their base is significant, although as their stewardship of Brighton council illustrated their mastery of power can be controversial. Meanwhile Labour ploughs on with austerity. I wonder if someone behind the assault on pensioners has done an actuarial assessment which tells them that half of those who were eligible for the winter fuel payment will be dead by the time of the next election? 

Even the Guardian is reporting on the gifts Starmer has accepted—which they say have come to over £100,000 worth—a country mile ahead of any other recent leader. I think it can now be officially announced that Starmer is a first class sleazeball who is unfit to hold office. It must be remembered he is also a serial liar who hoodwinked Labour Party members to vote for him, and his support for Israeli war crimes tells us all we need to know about his political judgement. The public seems to agree—his popularity rating is going down the toilet. Will he last the course? Another four years? Perhaps those around Starmer could organise a whip-round to pay for his clothes to keep him going.

​Listening to David Lammy this morning defending Starmer’s decision to accept tens of thousands of pounds worth of clothes and gifts from a multi-millionaire Labour peer and donor was pretty gut wrenching stuff. Apparently, in Lammy’s logic, a couple who between them probably bring in £250,000 a year can’t afford to look smart without a helping hand. Meanwhile pensioners who can barely get by are losing their Winter Fuel Allowance. I’ve never had much (any) time for Lammy, who has now ably demonstrated why it is that fewer people voted Labour than for a long time, and why fewer people voted, period. Despite the explanations of why these gifts were not declared, one can fully understand why Starmer may not want attention drawn to them. Naturally, the blame for not having declared them lies entirely with somebody else, as ever.

+In London for a couple of days for British Humanist Association events, one of which was a reception at the U.S. Embassy in honour of World Humanist Day. It felt a little incongruous celebrating that in such a venue (with an attendant Gaza Peace protest opposite) but the US is a country of many faces - and not a few of them are humanist to the core. So, rather patronisingly perhaps we should never forget that. The second event was the 'Voltaire Lecture' with Daniel Chandler, addressing the subject of what would create a free and equal society. Daniel's philosophical guide is John Rawls. Many ideas presented have floated around for some time. My question to him was, given the existential and pressing climate change crisis, how much time do we have to properly democratise society? Not least when there will be strong anti-democratic forces at work? He didn't have a direct answer on timing, but suggested that if humanity navigates the climate crisis, it will be in need of positive ideas. The question is, will those ideas capture the public's mood, or will negativity reign supreme when quite possibility everyone is going to be a lot worse off? Having said which, a relatively short, catastrophic crisis, the Second World War led to the NHS, nationalisation of essential industries and a greater welfare state. Our current political leadership hasn't the imagination to replicate that transformation, wedded as it is to its centrist nostrums.

+Two paintings by John Singer Sargent are currently available to see in separate London galleries. The Imperial War Museum has 'Gassed' (1919) which shows a line of First World War troops staggering blindfolded to some possible location of relief. It is one of the most iconic paintings of the war. It is painted on a historic scale. Then at the National Portrait Gallery is Sargent's 'Generals of World War 1' (1922). On a similar scale, it portrays the leading culprits behind so many needless deaths in the futile trench fighting of the time. In similar muted colours the generals generally stare blankly from the canvas. These two pictures should be exhibited together. The generals' ribbons, medals and braid would contrast sharply with the blindfolds of the gassed soldiers. I illustrate one Field Marshall's physog below. This is Field Marshall Lord Plumer. He could be a later stage Colonel Blimp, although he has a look of condescension which I doubt Blimp was capable of.

+My entry to the Turner Prize this year was sadly refused. My work consisted of approaching a black curtain and included the following dialogue: [Attendant, seated] 'It's closed. That's why the curtain is there.' [Protagonist, peeking] 'Sometimes you have to walk through a black curtain in an art gallery.' [Attendant, standing up] 'Well it's closed.' [Shuffling noise of curtain on rail] If asked, the title of this work, so redolent of my emerging practice is 'The Sound of one hand clapping.'

+Whilst in London I found a book Attack Warning Red: How Britain Prepared for Nuclear War by Julie McDowell (Vintage, 2024). This details the horrifying inadequacy of government preparedness to deal with the impacts of nuclear war on the UK population in the period from the start of the Cold War in the 1940s to the mid-1980s. It was in the last years of the Cold War, up to the fall of the Berlin Wall which saw the demise of traditional pretences of 'civil defence.' I wonder if the author proposes a follow up - what do governments post 1990 and into the 21st century consider the best way to protect people (the stock answer of course is 'deterrence')? But nowadays, post the Putin aggression, there is more talk of the likelihood of some nuclear engagement. If the West allows its weapons to be used against Russian territory, will the criminal in the Kremlin show restraint? The Doomsday Clock has never been closer to midnight. If the UK government wishes to place all its eggs in the nuclear deterrence basket, and the basket fails, it must surely have a Plan B. I'm willing to bet it will sacrifice the general population in order to protect a hard core. That's one of the inevitable consequences of austerity - shrink the margins, make everything 'just in time' (a new twist on that vaunted principle of trade economics). McDowell exposes what a sham civil defence in the nuclear age really was. Perhaps it's for the best that the foolish pretence has been abandoned - just as we all will be should the 'balloon go up.' Definitely an area for some further research.

+As I was saying a while back, one thing to hope for in Starmer’s new Parliamentary Labour Party packed with Starmeroids is the possibility that some of them may have concealed a rebellious nature. The vote on the two child benefit cap didn’t do much to flush them out, perhaps because the vote happened so soon after the election. But the Winter Fuel Allowance cut could be the moment for a more significant rebellion. Fingers crossed! That cut, sprung on 10 million pensioners without any thought given to the alternatives has focused attention on the unnecessary straightjacket the Starmer/Reeves duo have made for themselves. One idea on which the left and Reform seem to be coalescing is to stop paying interest (or at least so much interest) on bank deposits with the Bank of England—which apparently runs to £40 billion. Some of that would wipe out the so-called ‘black hole.’ The fact that there are alternatives demonstrates that the ‘tough choices’ we hear so much about are no more than political decisions. The courageous duo might reflect on the fate of the LibDems after they fell in with the Tories and u-turned on their pledge to scrap tuition fees. I think this could be an equivalent moment.
 
+Re. Schweizer’s book (see yesterday’s blog) Profiles in Corruption. I dived with bated breath into the chapter on Bernie Sanders. What I came away with was that—surprise, surprise—big money plays as big a role with any politician in the United States regardless of their party background or indeed their rhetoric. In the latter regard, Sanders emerges as something of a hypocrite. Perhaps Bernie might recall Mephistopheles’ remark to Dr Faustus: ‘why, this is hell nor am I out of it.’ (Marlowe)

+The list of MPs who have won a place in the ballot for Private Members Bills has been published, and it's dominated by Labour members. Not a single Tory is on it. I wonder if this was a result of them being whipped to stay out of it, the after effects of their shell shock (sic) defeat or simply a lack of ambition. Perhaps it was a mixture of the latter two—it’s unlikely the whips had anything to do with it. The downside of winning a place on the list is that it means some of your Fridays will have to be spent in Parliament when you would much prefer to be sitting in your surgery dealing with asylum cases and roofing repairs, etc., etc. Another downside is that unless you’re near the top of the list, there’s very little chance you’ll get anywhere, although it might provide an opportunity to push a hobbyhorse and possibly ingratiate yourself with a noble cause. And then there’s the danger that in the new Parliament there will be a couple of obnoxious (nearly always Tory) MPs who can think of nothing better to do than talk your bill out. The only upside is that you may generate a couple of stories in your local newspaper (if you still have one). Of course you may get something onto the statute book, and if you do it will almost certainly be something the government should have done anyway.
 
+I came across a book--Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite by Peter Schweizer (Harper, 2020) -  so since it was only four quid I thought I’d give it a go. Schweizer is a right wing writer with a bent for shaming America’s ’progressive elite’ but he has been published in the New York Times so to that extent is taken seriously. This book is replete with 90 pages of references. What particularly attracted me to it was the very first chapter: Kamala Harris. It doesn’t take us beyond her time as California’s attorney general, but what there is is pretty sleazy, with Harris it seems making decisions which favour those who make campaign contributions. For example, she received money from people associated with the Catholic church. Schweizer writes Harris
 
‘ . . had an abysmal record in prosecuting priest cases.. She somehow served as San Francisco district attorney from 2004 to 2011, and then as California attorney general from 2011 to 2017, and never brought a single documented case forward against an abusive priest. It is an astonishing display of inaction, given the number of cases brought in other parts of the country. To put this lack of action in perspective, at least fifty other cities charged priests in sexual abuse cases during her tenure as San Francisco district attorney. San Francisco is conspicuous by its absence.’ (p.30 Emphasis in original)
 
Schweizer documents the background to this alleged inaction. I assume the Trump team will be trawling through this and other instances of favouritism on Harris’s part. It’s inevitable that this sort of material will take the shine off Harris’s coronation. But how far could Trumpers take it? The Donald is barely in a position to throw the first stone, although it seems his base will forgive him any misdemeanour—which he himself has acknowledged. His crimes are already, by and large, factored in. 

Now I'm looking forward to reading the chapter on Bernie Sanders. No surely not - not THE Bernie Sanders!

+Tributes are pouring in for outgoing Labour General Secretary David Evans (my erstwhile colleague a long time ago). I think that David can take the credit for what for many members became a toxic atmosphere in the party, in which undemocratic procedures were given free rein (particularly in parliamentary selections) where members suffered a one sided disciplinary process which systematically targeted pro-Palestinian voices and, let’s not forget, Labour‘s winning 600,000 fewer votes than in Labour’s ‘worst ever’ defeat in 2019. For all this and more David will I imagine be donning his ermine very soon. Hopefully as he makes his maiden speech in the Other Place he will give due credit to Nigel Fartage for Labour’s wipe out of the Tory scum.
 
+I’m still working through Joseph Stiglitz’s illuminating book The Road to Freedom. In his examination of how humans develop socialising norms—which make living together so much easier—he has this to say:

‘Donald Trump illustrates what happens when parents and teachers fail, and an individual does not become socialised. When norms, peer pressure, and tradition worked normally, we didn’t need strong laws to define what a president could ethically do. Almost every president acted within the constraints. But Trump, with his brazenness, may force us to define the presidential limits more precisely by putting them within laws and regulations.’ (p.153)
 
I’m not sure I could agree that ‘almost every president acted within the constraints.’ I imagine Stiglitz might have in mind Nixon as one who didn’t in personal terms, but others had their unconstrained political behaviours too. As things stand, with the recent Supreme Court decision to place presidents above the law, we can’t even rely on the law to stop presidents acting outside social norms. When the Democratic Vice Presidential nominee described Trump as ’weird’ perhaps he hit on a greater truth, beyond Trump’s weird hair or his weirdly long neckties, or indeed his weird incoherent rambles. In the canine world, Trump would be considered to be unhouse trained. In this respect it must be fair to blame the parents, or at least the father who it seems was himself a nasty piece of work. Perhaps there should be a new test introduced for politicians—a measure of their socialisation competencies, starting with what they understand about respect. For people. For truth.
 
+In a BBC interview last night, Tony Blair commented on the great danger that arises when a religion turns into a political ideology. Of course he was referring to Islam and Islamism. No mention of Zionism, but I’m sure he meant that too . . . Oh yes!
 
+It pays to wait for the result—but hey, who’ll notice? Least of all in the Daily Mail. . .