POLITICS CORNER

[Stanley]

That'll be right Peter! I hope it happens. The pity is that this change wasn't made earlier. It was obvious to any normal person that Biden was past it.
Mind you it is equally obvious that Trump is unfit to be the Republican candidate on a variety of counts including his age and lack of intelligence but that hasn't stopped him so far. All wed can do is watch and wait and hope that Kamala Harris can beat Trump in November.

Meanwhile, closer to home, we have THIS question looming over our politics.
The new Labour government has been in power for just over three weeks. In that time, it says ministers have found government departments in a much worse state than they thought. On Monday, the Chancellor will argue the public finances are in a bad place – and that will mean tough decisions. To use the Westminster jargon, she's rolling the pitch for announcements that might not be popular. But how much of what the government is facing is actually a surprise? And how much are these ministers trying to shape the political narrative?
Of course they are painting the picture as black as possible in order to justify the significant financial squeeze that has to come to finance the necessary changes that have to be made.
The Tories will squeal in pain but there is nothing they can do to avoid the blame that is going to be heaped on them. Think back to what they did in 2010 when they got power back in coalition and imposed austerity on us. The question is whether Labour are about to make the same mistake. If J M Keynes was here he would be telling them that they have to enter into deficit financing of what has to be done by borrowing where the potential return is greater than the cost of the capital. That's how private industry works!
Much depends on the decisions that are made in the next few months.

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC assessment of Reeves' promise to be honest....
Rachel Reeves will give a statement to Parliament on Monday promising “honesty” about the scale of the financial challenge faced by the new Labour government. This spending audit is an unusual exercise, that has not occurred before. It is not about new policy or a fresh borrowing forecast. Instead, Treasury officials have been digging into departmental plans to unearth some unexpected costs and implied cuts to public services, under spending plans inherited from the previous government. Publishing a warts-and-all audit on public spending pressures is risky. It will be a significant test for the new chancellor.
What worries me is what conclusion she comes to. Is she going to follow the Cameron/Osborne route of orthodoxy and make the same mistakes the Tories always make, clamp down on the expense and spending of the lower classes? Or will she be bold and do what we did when faced with the same problem in 1939 when we borrowed money to finance the war against Germany? Whatever her plans, their success depends on getting the UK economy working and firing on all cylinders, she has to have growth! She can only get this by priming the public spending pump with borrowed money to attract private investment. I hope she takes this route and doesn't make the same mistakes the Tories did after WW1 and in 2010. If she starts talking about 'sound money' and reducing debt we are in deep trouble.
Meanwhile, in another part of the forest I see that Priti Patel is promising to unite the Tory Party........

[Tizer]

`Trump courts crypto industry votes and campaign donations' LINK
...The audience was at its most animated when Trump declared “on day one I will fire Gary Gensler”, the SEC chair nominated by current President Joe Biden. The crowd cheered loudly and started to chant “Trump” at this declaration....
They are fools - don't they realise that Trump lies and is forever switching his views back and forth?
...His support for the industry is a 180 degree turn from his comments in 2021, when he told Fox Business he saw Bitcoin as a “scam” affecting the value of the US dollar....

[Stanley]

I saw that comment Peter and thought the same thing. The man is dog-whistle politics personified. He'll be advocating black rights and Women's choice next!

THIS is what dominates politics this morning.....
At the University of Haifa, less than 50km (30 miles) from Israel’s border with Lebanon, they’re taking no chances. The morning after a rocket fell on a football field in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, killing 12 children and teenagers, the university authorities announced that all staff based above the fifth floor in the 30-storey building should work from home. The fear is growing that they’re in the line of fire from the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. “In the last war with Hezbollah in 2006, their weapons reached Haifa”, Esther Parpara, a member of staff from the university told me. “This is a dangerous moment. Parents are helping police and guards to patrol kindergartens. I’m avoiding crowded places. We don’t seek war – but Hezbollah want to destroy Israel and the Jewish people, so can we just let them do that without defending ourselves?”
This possible escalation is yet one more consequence to Israel's action in Gaza. Don't forget the ongoing Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and the consequences for Western trade. It's not an exaggeration to say we are looking at all out war in the Middle East fuelled largely by Iran. Netanyahu and his far right administration have much to answer for.
How much longer can we support him?
We live in interesting times......

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC summary of the main points in Rachel Reeves' statement yesterday.
The chancellor has accused the Conservatives of hiding a £21.9bn government overspend this year, as she set out a series of spending cuts. Rachel Reeves also warned that she would need to make "difficult decisions" on tax at the next Budget, set for 30 October. At the same time, she has announced pay deals for public servants, and a deal to settle the long-running pay dispute with junior doctors in England. Shadow chancellor Jeremy Hunt has denounced the audit as a “shameless attempt to lay the ground for tax rises" later in the year. Here is a summary of the main announcements.
There follows a list of the main points and none of them are really a surprise. What really matters is what she does in other areas.... If she falls for the old canard of austerity and 'sound money' we are really in trouble. Time will tell.

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC report of a tragedy.....
Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s decision to scrap planned changes to the care system in England has been described as a "tragedy" by Sir Andrew Dilnot, the man who authored the proposals in 2011. Speaking to the BBC's Today programme, Sir Andrew said: "We've failed another generation of families." He said it was another example of social care "being given too little attention, being ignored, being tossed aside". Ms Reeves said: "There are a lot of things this new Labour government would like to do but unless you can say where the money is going to come from you can't do them." On Monday, the chancellor set out a series of spending cuts, which she argued were a result of a £21.9bn government overspend hidden by the previous Conservative government. Shadow chancellor Jeremy Hunt accused her of a "shameless attempt to lay the ground for tax rises" in the October Budget.
There is much more in the report but this is what I have been banging on about. Reeves is making the same mistake the Tories made. These people aren't capable of running a booze-up in a brewery.....

[PanBiker]

They need to borrow for infrastructure and social projects. It's what happened after WWII when we were totally bankrupt. It allowed the mass building of affordable council house stock replacing pre war slums and bomb damage replacement. Oh and a total rework of the Social Security system and formation of the NHS.
We all know that because we take an interest in what went before. It's not deep academic research, all the information can be found online with a quick Google search. No doubt it is all also recorded in the Parliamentary archives, they only need to ask for the Hansard files. If borrowing can kick start the economy as it did after 1945 you can pay the brass back.

[Tripps]

If borrowing can kick start the economy as it did after 1945 you can pay the brass back.

But they rarely do so.

ONS "The total amount the government owes is called the national debt. It is currently about £2.7 trillion"

National Debt.

I've always found Mr Micawber's advice to be sound, and have heeded it. You'll get a reputation for being "Kuripot" - but get a balance, and don't be fanatical about it, and you'll have the last laugh.

[Stanley]

Mrs Thatcher and her chief adviser the Mad Monk, Keith Joseph, were fond of using the analogy of the housewife's budget but any tutor of Economics 101 will prove to you that what works for the domestic budget isn't true for the national one. A good example is the US, it has a National Debt so large that it is accepted that it can never be paid back.
'Getting a balance' is an illusion peddled by those who want to cut off the interest payments to the suppliers of the credit. The trick is to keep as much of those repayments as possible inside the home economy. In the days when we financed WW2 with Deficit Financing we borrowed from what we believed was a benign lender, the US. This was eventually recognised as a delusion. Any lender outside the National Economy is dangerous. That's why we had a law prohibiting the export of capital and the first thing Thatcher and Joseph did when she came to power was abolish that prohibition. There are some who suspect that this was the reason why Thatcher was put into office in the first place......

[Stanley]

THIS was perhaps the most important political announcement yesterday.
The Bank of England's governor said a decision to cut interest rates is "an important moment in time" but warned people not to expect a sharp fall in the coming months. In a closely-run decision, rates were lowered to 5% from 5.25% on Thursday, marking the first cut since the start of the pandemic in March 2020. Interest rates dictate the cost of borrowing set by High Street banks and money lenders for the likes of mortgages and credit cards. Bank governor Andrew Bailey said that lower inflation had paved the way for the fall in interest rates but told the BBC it was "not mission accomplished yet".
Much depends on what happens in the next three months and what Chancellor Reeves does to steer the economy.
At the moment I fear the signs are that she is going to come down on the side of austerity.
Watch out for use of the phrase 'sound money'. As soon as you hear that you'll know she has made the same mistake as the Tories in 2010.

[Stanley]

See THIS for more evidence that the new Labour administration is tending towards cut-backs and austerity as its management strategy for the economy. I will not bore you with my opinion, that doesn't matter. But watch them carefully. Despite all the froth about Tory mismanagement at the moment it looks as though Labour are going to do exactly the same.
The new Labour government has shelved £1.3bn of funding promised by the Conservatives for tech and Artificial Intelligence (AI) projects, the BBC has learned. It includes £800m for the creation of an exascale supercomputer at Edinburgh University and a further £500m for AI Research Resource, which funds computing power for AI. Both funds were unveiled less than 12 months ago. The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) said the money was promised by the previous administration but was never allocated in its budget. Some in the industry have criticised the government's decision. Tech business founder Barney Hussey-Yeo posted on X, external that reducing investment risked "pushing more entrepreneurs to the US." Businessman Chris van der Kuyl described the move, external as "idiotic."
(Is 'exacale' a typo or have we got another new word?)

[Tizer]

DoE: Exascale computers are digital computers, roughly similar to today's computers and supercomputers but with much more powerful hardware. This makes them different from quantum computers, which represent a completely new approach to building a computer suited to specific types of questions. DoE web page

That explains the meaning of `exascale computers', but what I don't understand is where the two extra instances of the word `external' have come from in your quote from the BBC News page...
Tech business founder Barney Hussey-Yeo posted on X, external that reducing investment risked "pushing more entrepreneurs to the US." Businessman Chris van der Kuyl described the move, external as "idiotic."
They're not in the original when I looked just now but I guess they've been edited out since you copied the story. I've recently seen `external' pop up unexpectedly in other BBC News stories but I don't know why. We should be told, as PE would say!

[Stanley]

Inserting 'external' is something to do with them flagging up they are quoting from other sources I think Peter. As you say it is a recent thing and down to administrators always tending to complicate simple matters (like using quotation marks.) as they think it makes them look more clever. (I usually edit them out but missed the other two examples you flagged up.)
The same applies to 'exascale'. Supercomputers covered it and if needed a qualifier like 'modern' or 'latest' did the job but inventing another word increases the jargon quotient and makes what they are saying more complicated.

As for news about politics, there is nothing current as everyone is on holiday. What caught my eye was Jenrick saying that the Tories could win the next election. He must have been hard up for ideas when he was writing the letter announcing his leadership bid. He reminds me of Shapps, another Tory hopeful who sprang from nowhere and who is tarnished by bad behaviour. Remember Jenrick having lunch with the London developer and then illegally backing the development he proposed? The way he came back into the news was in backing Suella Braverman's ideas on immigration as an attack policy against Sunak. Braverman has sunk without trace, Jenrick will do the same.

As for Labour. I am watching them, particularly Reeves and her direction of travel. So far I have seen nothing to persuade me that she is not going to make the same mistakes as all the Tory Chancellors since 2010.
Remember, the key phrase to watch out for is 'sound money'.

[Stanley]

See THIS report.
Downing Street has criticised comments by Elon Musk, who said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that "civil war is inevitable" following unrest in the UK. Mr Musk made the remarks in response to a video showing people aiming fireworks at police. The prime minister's spokesperson said there was "no justification" for Mr Musk's comments, adding there was more that social media companies "can and should be doing". It comes after the Prime Minister told an emergency meeting about the violent disorder in UK cities and towns that people who incite violence online will be prosecuted. "The law applies online, so if you're inciting violence, it doesn't matter whether it's online or offline", Sir Keir Starmer said.
I don't allow myself much anger these days, I have better uses for my energy but I have to admit to being baffled by this and incensed. Does being one of the richest men in the world give Musk the power to openly undermine a nation's social integrity? Can nothing be done to rein in his twisted attempts to steer protest in the UK?

[Stanley]

THIS report heads the BBC political news today.
Sir Keir Starmer has promised communities they "will be safe" in the face of ongoing disorder in UK towns and cities. After chairing a second Cobra emergency meeting since the unrest began a week ago, the prime minister said the government was doing "everything we can" to ensure police could respond wherever they were needed. Nearly 6,000 public order officers are being mobilised to respond to any disorder in the coming days, according to police sources. More than 400 arrests have been made so far after days of disorder following the killing of three girls in Southport, fuelled by misinformation spread online that the suspect was an asylum seeker. It is understood there are at least 30 potential gatherings planned for Wednesday that police are aware of but they believe the situation is "manageable". Police hope to be "through the worst" of the disorder but are ready to respond if the situation escalates, sources said.
Further into the piece there is a report about immigration lawyers being worried because their addresses have been published online fuelling fears of being singled out for attacks. I can understand that and rate it as a serious development.

[Stanley]

See THIS report about protests after Jenrick calls for arrest merely for claiming God is great.....
Conservative MP Robert Jenrick has defended himself after being accused of Islamophobia for saying police should have “immediately arrested” any protesters shouting Allahu Akbar during last year’s Gaza ceasefire protests. Speaking on Sky News, the Tory leadership candidate accused police of treating far-right marches and violence more harshly than the pro-Palestinian demonstrations that began after the Israel-Hamas war began in October last year. Several Muslim MPs have argued Mr Jenrick's claim linked all Muslims to extremism and fuelled violent groups. But Mr Jenrick said the Arabic phrase - meaning God is great - had been “abused” by “extremists” to intimidate people.
I freely admit I do not trust Jenrick and this is an example of the way he skates along the boundaries of racism, can we call it dog whistle politics?

[Tizer]

The US Republicans are trying to claim that Tim Walz loves China with Trump's former ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, saying "Communist China is very happy. No one is more pro-China than Marxist Walz." LINK

[Stanley]

One thing is certain, Walz has Trump worried!

See THIS BBC report on deductions from compensation for 'board and lodging'.
Victims of historic miscarriages of justice have been told by the government they must have "bed and board" costs for the time they spent in prison deducted from their compensation payments. Last year the Conservative Lord Chancellor, Alex Chalk, scrapped the policy of making such deductions from all future payouts. That followed the high-profile case of Andrew Malkinson who was wrongfully imprisoned for 17 years. The issue of past cases was left undecided. But the government has now said people who have already had payouts cannot claim back money retrospectively.
This is a mean hearted decision and whoever took the decision should be ashamed. We're not that hard up!

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC article about the fall in applications for immigrant visas.
The number of overseas workers, students and their families applying for visas to come to the UK has fallen by a third over the last 12 months. The sharp decline follows rule changes, introduced by the Conservative government, which banned most international students and health and social care workers bringing family to the UK. Provisional figures from the Home Office, external suggest the number of migrants and their family members applying for the visas fell from around 141,000 in July 2023 to 91,000 last month. There was a particularly big drop in the numbers applying for health and care worker visas which dropped by 80% to 2,900. The Home Office said it would "ensure we train up our homegrown workforce and address the shortage of skills". A spokesperson for the department said that immigration brought "many benefits to the UK, but it must be controlled and delivered through a fair system".
It's all very well officials spouting pious hopes about training home based workers but a fall of 80% in the numbers of workers available in social care is a disaster. The universities are also seeing falls in numbers of overseas students and these are vital to support their income.

[Stanley]

There doesn't appear to be any serious UK political news at the moment.

[Tizer]

The universities are also seeing falls in numbers of overseas students and these are vital to support their income.

Yes, but those who run the universities are too willing to turn to foreign sources instead of making it easier for UK youngsters to afford to get a university education. University College London for example now has 25% of its students from China alone, and that raises another issue: the universities then kowtow to China when its government demands that courses are altered to suit it's own beliefs. China also puts pressure on the students to tell tales on their fellow students who may drift away from China's own versions of history, politics etc. The students' family members back in China can also be threatened if the students don't comply.

It reminds me of how in the 1970s and 80s Japanese car companies placed students in American universities and found them accommodation in the homes of ordinary Americans. That way the companies gained not only information on US automotive engineering but also how American families lived and and what they liked and wanted in their cars. That's how Japanese cars then became so popular. However the Chinese project described above has a much darker side to it.

[Stanley]

I bow to superior knowledge Peter. I also don't like the salaries and bonuses the universities pay. I'll bet they were getting nowhere near that when I went into their care in 1978....

[Stanley]

THIS BBC report on the effects of the speeded up prosecutions for participation in the recent riots caught my eye.
Rising to the challenge of swiftly punishing rioters will make it harder for the government to rebuild the justice system, the justice secretary has said. Writing in the Observer, Shabana Mahmood said the impact of the days of disorder, fuelled by online disinformation following the Southport attack, would be “felt for months and years to come”. Her comments come as the director of public prosecutions said some rioters could be jailed for up to 10 years, with cases carrying more serious charges to come through the system in the coming days. Stephen Parkinson told the Sunday Times the charges were not about "exacting revenge" but "delivering justice". Ms Mahmood praised prosecutors and the judiciary for ensuring "swift and true" justice, but said “rising to this challenge has been made harder" due to the system "we inherited from the Conservatives”, citing crown court backlogs and prisons "close to overflowing". Shortly after Labour's election victory in July, Ms Mahmood said the government had no choice but to release some prisoners early to avoid a "total collapse" of the prison system. The previous Conservative Justice Secretary, Alex Chalk, announced plans for some prisoners to be released up to two months early in March, however BBC News understands a plan to go further and release prisoners 40% of the way through a sentence was not signed off by then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak before the election. “The impact of these days of disorder will be felt for months and years to come. They make the job of rebuilding the justice system harder,” Ms Mahmood wrote in her piece in the Observer,
I know we have to be careful about blaming everything on Tory mismanagement but the case of the Justice System does seem a legitimate one for blaming them. Ms Mahmood raises a pertinent question and for once, any finger pointing at the previous administration seems justified.

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC article for a timely reminder of the real life consequences of political decisions.
The government is facing calls to reverse changes which make it harder for Ukrainians to bring family to the UK. One charity supporting migrants says the "heartless" policy has "torn apart" families and left people in danger. When Halyna Khovaiko first moved to the UK in December 2021 for work she had only been planning to stay for a few months. After the factory she worked at in eastern Ukraine closed down she managed to get a seasonal job on a farm in the UK and left her son Ihnat, who was then 12 years old, with his grandparents in Vovchansk. But in February 2022 Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Vovchansk - which is just 5km from the Russian border - was occupied and Halyna was suddenly unable to return. "I have a very strong bond with my son," she says, speaking through a translator. "Of course I miss him. It feels like you are more dead than alive. "Just going to work and that's it. You exist but you don't live."
There is more in the article but the bottom line is that it would be a good thing if individual cases like this could be examined and better arrangements put in place. We will be judged in the end by how we treated human beings.....

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC account of Tugendhat's speech yesterday criticising Starmer's slow reaction to the unrest last week.
Tory leadership hopeful Tom Tugendhat has said riots this summer could have been stopped sooner, as he criticised the government's response. In a speech, the shadow security minister said rioters should have been confronted earlier with an "overwhelming police presence".
I wonder where he thought these overwhelming numbers would come from? This from a member of a Party that has been cutting resources for the justice system for years......