As of today, the website Electoral Calculus suggests the outcome of the next UK general election to be Labour on 459 seats, Tories on 120 and the rest hardly anywhere to be seen (no consolation for the Greens who stay on one - if they're lucky). This prediction is based on a round-up of all the latest opinion polls and hasn't really changed all that much for over a year. It's not necessarily good news for Starmer - if he did win a massive majority it wouldn't be long before he discovered that a new opposition would be energised on his own backbenches as the official opposition sank into a crisis of confidence and irrelevance. Hopefully new Labour MPs, many of whom may have small majorities in 'blue wall' seats will be impatient to see results quickly. From what I've heard, Labour doesn't seem to have anything in mind which would deliver that. Quick wins doesn't seem to be the message emanating from the Starmer/Reeves camp. More a message of 'just bear with us.' Inspirational stuff.

One Labour big wig, talking on Sky News has suggested that it's no parliamentary secret that the election will probably be in May, allowing the Tories to benefit from  a Budget rebound, with tax cuts a plenty. It is my prediction that Sunak will continue until October. Why throw away power six months early?

What else will happen in 2024? Surely, it will be the year of our first AI disaster. I am not sufficiently techy to say what sort of disaster, but I bet there's a 50/50 chance there'll be some bad actors behind it.

Climate change will follow its inexorable course to - and past - irreversible tipping points. There is a lot of new technology which could ameliorate how badly and how fast things deteriorate, but following all the talk and pledges made at COP meetings, CO2 emissions have continued to rise. The immediate future, i.e. before significant sea level rise occurs will see impacts in agriculture and refugees. Both of these factors will lead to more protectionism and another rather large wound in the teetering globalisation model. R.I.P.

Israel seems intent on continuing it's genocidal war on Gaza (and the West Bank for that matter) for many months into the new year, with a very present danger of an escalating conflict. This is excellent news - for arms manufacturers - along with with no end in sight in Ukraine either. Somebody needs to develop a human enmity off switch. But it now seems that the right to self-defence means that if somebody comes at you with a knife you can respond with an UZI machine gun. I wonder how this doctrine would go down in an English court? Come on Keir, tell us!

So the only thing we can be relatively hopeful of in 2024 is seeing the back of the Tories, with a hope, (not too slender I hope) that Labour will improve things. Somehow achieving that of course without challenging the hegemony of the City. On the election front, what happens in the States may be more significant but at the moment it is too close to call. A heart attack could settle the outcome. 

+A few tech issues have crept up on me, like the failure of my hard drive. It's certainly one way of learning more about computers as one trawls through various searches for fixes and explores one's BIOS. Since my laptop was a few years old I guess its time had come. I gather this was to be expected. I'm now using another device which means a slightly limited freedom in what I can post here - until I learn how do things differently.

​+I was going to post a picture of Starmer in camoflage gear posing on manoeuvres in Estonia, with two officers who were both wearing face paint. Starmer looked even more inauthentic with his white face, as if to say to snipers 'Here I am! Shoot me! Starmer follows in the footsteps of Thatcher and Heseltine in revelling in camoflage gear, as if that enhanced their steely qualities. But he needs to do a bit more if he wants a veteran's badge.

+I was in the Hague last week and paid a visit to the wonderful Mauritshuis gallery, where a temporary exhibition called 'Loot' was on, about stolen art. Two designers behind the show      prepared some virtual reality stuff. They are quoted saying 'At one point during our tour of the [museum's] depot, we were taking reference pictures of the space with our phones, and noticed that these masks triggered our phones' facial recognition feature. Each face we looked at would light up our phones' screen with these little digital rectangles as the algorithm searched though our camera roll to see if we knew these people. There was something funny and eerie about it. Like, do you know Frederick the Great? Have you hung out with Beethoven before?' I would add the word 'sinister' to errie and funny. The potential for identity theft, coupled with the oncoming horrors of AI will mean many faces will be electronically 'looted.'

Smooth talking PM Rishi Sunak is in Italy talking to neo-fascists about his wonderful methods for dealing with illegal immigrants. It should be heartening news for right-wingers, since they’re often told that the right, and particularly the hard right are best placed to deal with the problem, not least by packing a few hundred ‘illegals’ off to Rwanda (or in Italy’s case to Albania), all at a huge cost (quarter of a billion so far in the UK’s case without a single deportation). The irony here is that Sunak was telling his fellow nutters that his government this year had already reduced the numbers by one third, through working with foreign law enforcement agencies. It would seem in this regard that, dare I say it, Keir Starmer is right, since he says Labour’s approach is to beef up that approach. Sunak is clearly using Rwanda as a very expensive propaganda tool, a tool plucked from the Tories’ cultural wars armoury. Perhaps he’ll call a general election just as soon as he can get a picture into the Daily Mail of at least one deportee on board a plane to Rwanda. He could go to the airport himself to wave them off, perhaps holding up in the air their deportation paper. That would make a good photo. 

The title of today’s blog is copied from the subject line of an email I received today from the Guardian. It sounds like the Guardian has turned into a charity with responsibility for the entire globe. Not just any charity of course, but a very precious charity with a noble history of uncompromising honesty and fair dealing. Their appeal this time round (the words ‘support us’ are delivered about once a week) proclaims:
 
So far this year, we have published more than 6,000 articles about the environment which have been read more than half a billion times. You recently heard from George Monbiot, Jonathan Watts and Natalie Hanman, writing about many of the pressing issues facing our living planet today and how we report on them. If you have enjoyed our journalism and value it as much as we hope you do, then please take a moment to consider supporting us so that we can keep our reporting open to all.
 
All this writing! All this reading! But when you get the chance to support a politician who might seriously do something about it, you stick a hot poker up their arse (sorry for the vulgarity, my writing is not informed by Guardian writers’ guidelines). The Guardian is not about change, it’s about a form of journalistic voyeurism which translates into a) give me a byline and b) how much per column inch? The opinion writers are the worst, although to his credit Monbiot has stuck his neck out a few times and even Polly Toynbee temped a bit in the low waged economy. But it’s all a form of cushioned ’activism’ and so when their corporate paymasters decide it’s time to call time on a politician who threatens their model, the model wins. No, Guardian, the planet doesn’t need you urgently. One is entitled to ask, on behalf of the planet, what happened as a result of your 6,000 articles?
 
Editorial note and faux apology: The author of this blog is very cynical and we hope no offence has been given. But after all, when they say ’we hope you have enjoyed our journalism’ it rather gives the game away. 

I watched a film ‘Leave the World Behind’ on Netflix last night which has had mixed reviews. It’s an apocalyptic post global cyber-attack tale told in a U.S. domestic setting. I thought it was relatively convincing, if a little preachy in some respects (e.g. addressing whether a black family really could enjoy a luxurious lifestyle in America). The film apparently was made by a company started by Barack Obama, and he it seems gave a shed load of advice about what would be realistic if a major cyber attack took place. Some of what was portrayed when our cyber world fails seemed realistic—no internet, no phones, no TV, planes dropping out of the sky (really?), ships running amok—in other words, and as we’re repeatedly told these days, our lives now depend on cyberspace fully functioning. But here we’re very much in E.M. Forster’s The Machine Stops territory. What happens when the back-up system is itself grounded in cyberspace? When the repair person is not a person but another program also subject to either the threat of the hacker or even the much vaunted super solar flare? Anyway, I quite enjoyed the film, especially the scene where Tesla cars blocked a highway in a massive pile-up as they all raced uncontrollably into each other. It seems Elon Musk has responded by saying that his cars can at least all run on solar power. What a wit. Thankfully for the characters (and this has to be a bit of a criticism) the mains electricity to the house they were in seemed to continue long after everything else had packed up. I have to say that I doubt mains power would survive very long, we have seen already major power blackouts in the States thanks to an infrastructure developed without suitable resilience built in.
 
The basic premise of the film was that a savvy attacker would seek to bring down a government by creating such circumstances of civil collapse that a coup d’etat would become inevitable. In a crisis created by such attackers, one would have to assume that they were capable of e.g communicating with each other and marshalling their forces with or without electronic means. Is this what ex-President Obama thinks is possible? Has the Pentagon war gamed the possibility? Sadly, I think we can be fairly sure that failsafe backup systems these days will mostly rely on the same technologies which are all equally vulnerable. So it was reassuring today to hear on the BBC Today programme an interview with a UK Trident sub commander telling us that one of the key indicators of the destruction of the UK would be the silencing of Radio 4. But would the sub commander learn about this on the Medium Wave or digital? I can see now that I’m beginning to veer off into uninformed, confused speculation. And I haven’t even broached the subject of the mysterious radio signal that excites the interest of the last surviving post-atomic war U.S. sub in On The Beach. Finally on that thought, at least a cyber war won’t unleash a deadly worldwide radiation cloud. Will it?

I watched a clip from the Home Affairs Select Committee on Sky News, which was looking into the recent demonstrations in support of Gaza/Palestine. An organiser (of Palestinian descent) of the most recent march was explaining what he thought was meant by the phrase ‘from the river to the sea, Palestinians will be free’ - which some interpret to mean the destruction of the state of Israel. He spoke calmly, politely and unapologetically—explaining that Palestinians, whether resident in Gaza, Israel itself or the occupied territories wanted to live free from oppression. As he continued his answer (in a select committee he would have been asked a question before speaking) the chair, Diana Johnson (Lab. Hull North) rudely interrupted him saying ‘I’m in the chair!’ and expressed her concern that what he had just explained could cause offence and it was imperative to maintain ‘balance.’
 
If a select committee chair, of all people thinks that witnesses are there to provide ‘balance’ then they are clearly in the wrong job. I’m not going to watch the whole proceedings of the committee, but I wonder if Diana—Dame Diana—will have closed down those who may have been invited along to answer for the opposite and potentially equally ‘offensive’ view. It’s a new twist on the concept of parliamentary privilege protecting free speech. Select committees are supposed to get to the bottom of things—with robust questioning. And if a witness chooses to hang themselves so much the better for getting at the truth. So, once again for Dame Diana to shut a witness up just because she thought something offensive might be said is in itself offensive and I am bloody offended. 

Given the appalling brutality of the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7th, I am quite prepared to believe that some of the attackers may have felt entitled to rape their victims as well as kill them. But curiously, nothing much of this has been given attention until the last couple of days. I listened attentively yesterday to a BBC news report on the subject, which at length failed to substantiate the accusation that multiple rapes took place. It was impossible not to question the timing of the reports—coinciding with Israel’s offensive stepping up in southern Gaza which it appears has already claimed the lives of hundreds of civilians. Both sides, as in all wars will propagandise, and in the heat of battle the ability to fact-check is severely constrained, so claims and counter claims can get legs before as the saying goes, the truth can put its hat on.  At some point both sides will hopefully face a reckoning with the truth, although I guess neither side will volunteer to be scrutinised. This answer provided by good ole’ Bing may offer some hope:

According to the International Criminal Court (ICC), Israel is not a member of the ICC and disputes its jurisdiction on the basis that Palestine is not a sovereign state capable of being a party to the Rome Statute.  However, the ICC’s top prosecutor has stated that the court has jurisdiction over potential war crimes carried out by Hamas militants in Israel and Israelis in the Gaza Strip, even though Israel is not a member state.

Will this happen? Given how much (purely verbal) pressure is being applied particularly on Israel to follow international law, no doubt the ICC’s ‘top prosecutor’ will get the support of the US to pursue the case. Except that the US itself does not recognise the court. Alternatively, Biden could suspend military support to Israel if he is so concerned. Only joking!

Electoral Calculus’ latest prediction gives Labour a majority of 286 at the next general election. This is improbable on two counts—things always narrow in the run-up to the election, and I have to say Starmer’s negative approval ratings won’t help nearer the day. Enough of that. But what could happen if Labour won with a 160-odd majority—as Blair did in 1997? A sign of true determination to shake things up would be to tell MPs that their next two years would be about working overtime to get an ambitious legislative programme through. No more excuses about there not being enough parliamentary time. No more long breaks, endless recesses, early knocking-offs. If you are given such a large majority it might tell you that the people want real change, not a game of political tiddlywinks. The only problem with this approach is if you haven’t got a substantial manifesto— if you were so worried that you weren’t sufficiently perceived as Tory light you forgot to imagine anything could be radically different. Today we hear from our great leader that under Labour there won’t be a magic money tree and the economic conditions will necessitate continued austerity. Not his exact words but near enough. What will happen I wonder  to Labour’s improbable lead if the electorate cottons on to the looming reality that not a lot is likely to change? 

I can’t say quite how depressing it is to be a member of a political party which is led by such a lazy dickhead like Starmer. I can’t find a more literate way of describing this imposter. He’s written for the Sunday Telegraph that he admires Thatcher’s determination to shake Britain up, some garbage about her ’plan’ to take on the vested interests which had trapped us in a cycle of decay and thus her unleashing a tsunami of entrepreneurialism. He may not recall that Thatcher didn’t get elected in 1979 (when he was 17) with any grand plan, unless of course unrestrained monetarism was meant to cover all the angles, along with tax increases (no mention of them in her manifesto) and a huge waste of the North Sea oil bonanza counted as a coherent reform of the UK economy. Thatcher was washed up until General Galtieri provided a suitably weak ‘enemy without’ to prove her Iron Lady metal on. If throwing millions of people on the dole was a ‘plan’ that Starmer approves of, then God help us. He says (of course) that he doesn’t agree with her policies. Well said Keir, for most people it’s the policies that will have the greatest impact on their lives, not the over rated leadership qualities of whoever’s nominally in charge, so why say anything approving of Thatcher?

Who I wonder were these great entrepreneurs that Thatcher found so impressive? She wrote a three page letter to the widow of one such in 1991: ‘No one will ever replace the energy, vision and resolve personified in Mr Maxwell . . He was and will remain unique. Above all, Mr Maxwell showed the whole world that one person can move and influence events by using his own God given talents and abilities.’ (Fall: The Mystery of Robert Maxwell, John Preston, Penguin 2021 p.252) The last thing we need is another boneheaded meritocrat to claim the mantle of ‘strong’ leadership, employing no doubt their own innumerable God-given talents. Such hubristic politicians, so duty bound to promote themselves are anathema to genuine progress. I can only hope that there is enough residual strength left in the Labour Party to constrain this multiply pledge (i.e. policy) ditching charlatan. Oh Dear. I’m in for it now. 

Strong words from Michael Crick, writing in unherd about Labour’s parliamentary selection processes. His most recent attention has been grabbed by the goings-on in Croydon East, where mysterious members come and go – even if they’re dead (allegedly). Crick writes ‘I am convinced that many selection contests have been fiddled and fixed by party officials.’ And ‘It is completely unsatisfactory that the [party] investigation into Croydon East should be carried out by the London Labour Party, when there may have been wrongdoing within the London HQ itself.’ Crick suggests that an independent KC should be called in. There is irony here. When Starmer called in an independent KC to review Labour’s disciplinary processes the resultant Forde Report was promptly ignored by Starmer. He’s hardly more likely now to repeat an appeal to independent review over the more sensitive selection process of Starmer ‘clones.’ The party is now operating a system of selection in which the membership is treated
on an industrial scale of irrelevance (unlike in my time as an organiser when it was purely hit and miss.)

Given the importance of parliamentary selection processes, and in the light of the evidence Crick is amassing, it is perhaps time for the oversight of the processes (for all parties) to be subject to standard oversight by a body like the Electoral Commission, perhaps with voting to be handed over to somebody like the Electoral Reform Society.