+The Daily Express can always be relied on for good factual reporting. A story yesterday about Norway headlined ‘Winter energy bills to plunge as ‘world's best country' races to UK's rescue’ included this gem:
This allows it to pump most of the natural gas it produces to the UK via 450-mile subsea interconnector cables. That’s some feat of engineering, surely? +At the time of writing (14:20, 9th November 2022) it would appear that despite some modest gains, the much-hyped Republican ‘red wave’ in the US midterm elections has not materialised. Let me therefore put the question which tomorrow will be on everyone’s lips: is this peak-Trump? One hopes so of course. The lunatic will naturally declare Democrat wins as ‘stolen’ and there could be another wave of election denying Republican candidates who are just bad losers. But let’s remember that in the United States failure is considered to be a stepping stone to success. For how much longer will this go on? Trump is 76, so yes, if he were elected president in 2024 he would be the same age as was Biden when he became president in 2020. But in Trump’s case more so than in Biden’s at that stage, concerns about his mental capacity would be far more to the fore. What kind of threat, I wonder does a thoroughly gaga Trump pose? And who would his VP be? Hopefully, if this year does mark peak-Trump, we won’t have to worry about these things. And he may just pop his clogs. Would his ‘movement’ survive such a calamity, or would they merely say it was fake news? An afterthought: given that the Republican Party’s colour is red, why aren’t they called reds under the bed (since they believe in socialism for the rich)? A worse afterthought—given his endorsement of the Republicans this time round, perhaps Elon Musk will replace Trump?
0 Comments
One of the examples provided in the IHRA’s definition of anti-Semitism which could lead to one being accused of being an anti-Semite is this: ‘Applying double standards by requiring of it [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.’ This is a very broad and difficult to pin down thought, but essentially it means ‘don’t expect Israel to be more perfect than your country.’ In other words, condemn yourself equally. As a notable Jew said. ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.’ In this sense, might it be injudicious to note that in the U.S. midterm elections, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) according to the Intercept is
‘intervening in a race for a House seat that’s growing uncomfortably close for Democrats in deep-blue Pittsburgh. And, with its super PAC’s first attack ads of the 2022 general election, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is going after a familiar target: Pennsylvania state Rep. Summer Lee, a would-be member of the growing progressive Squad in Congress. After spending close to $3 million and failing to defeat Lee during Pittsburgh’s Democratic congressional primary in May, the United Democracy Project, the political action committee for AIPAC, is again trying its hand at defeating Lee’s insurgent campaign. On Saturday, UDP dropped just under $80,000 on new mail ads against Lee’s campaign, and more than $600,000 of new television ads were announced on Monday.’ (report 1/11/22) Now, my question is what other democracy would countenance such behaviour in another democracy’s internal affairs? Indeed, in that other country’s democratic process? A less immediately brazen piece of meddling on Israel’s behalf took place in the UK, as exposed by Al Jazeera. Is this not an egregious form of behaviour that at least demands comment if not outright condemnation? Or is such comment only permissible if one condemns every time in the same breath all the many examples of ‘democratic’ countries’ meddling in other countries affairs (assassinations, coups, invasions, etc., etc.)? And where, from the left or right are those condemnations most likely to come from? Rarely or never from the right. Yet it seems the left is considered chiefly guilty of only criticising Israel. The ‘double standards’ applied here are plain for all to see. The 17th November—the day of the ‘Autumn Statement’ - looms large. It’s going to be make or break time for the Tories. Indeed, for them (and us) it could (actually inevitably will) lead to considerable financial pain if all the briefings coming out of the Treasury prove to be true. But I think the briefers are probably over-egging the pudding to make the actual pain to come seem less worse than predicted. Nevertheless, now is the time for Sunak to inflict a few tax rises here and there, so that come an election in 2024 (and there is no reason he'd want to hold an election sooner) he will have that magic leeway to make some pre-election tax cuts. Will this strategy work? I doubt it. Over the coming year and a bit the electorate will feel the pain, and some giveaway announcement in two year’s time will not suddenly rekindle its love of the Tories, even if Sunak ‘restores the public finances.’ Clearly the Tories have run out of time. 12 or 13 years seems the maximum for a governing party, and the Tories’ 18 years in power from 1979 to 1997 can perhaps be seen as an aberration. One hopes so. But, according to Electoral Calculus, Starmer is set to have a majority bigger than Blair’s in 1997—twice as big in fact with an improbable 350 or so. I’ve seen no indication that such a majority would lead to the radical shift the size of it suggests should take place. On the back of a massive vote, Labour seems likely to just plough on with a bit of managerialism here and a few tweaks there. There’ll be soundbites aplenty, but no cathartic awakening. I hope I’m wrong, but so far there is little cause for hope, since the Labour Party is likely to ride to power on purely anti-Tory sentiment rather than its promotion of a real alternative which breaks the chains of big finance, market forces, globalisation and their consequences of embedded inequality.
|
Archives
March 2024
|