Fine Margins, Again

And the English rugby-watching populace is still in mourning, after a weekend where we came so close, and yet so far. The game against South Africa was, to be fair, far closer and more gripping than many of us had feared. For once, some serious planning had gone on, and the team set out to carry out a clear plan, with considerable success.

The South Africans who had looked so commanding against France were clearly rattled and unsettled, while England kept the scoreboard ticking, kicking their penalties. Johnny Wilkinson, commentating, suggested that a drop goal would help boost the score, and - as if by magic - Farrell drops a goal. For most of the game we were ahead and deserved to be, but over the last quarter of an hour brute force imposed itself - strength in the front row, scrum penalties, supremely accurate long-distance kicking. And suddenly, cruelly, we’re out of the World Cup.

We shouldn’t get too upset. We didn’t score a try, and never looked like doing so. No line-breaks, and 41 out of 44 possessions kicked away. Yes, we challenged well for the high ball, often won it back, but we were also lucky that the weather conditions made it hard to hold on to the ball. Give the South Africans another dry day and maybe it wouldn’t have been so close. But we did much better than feared, and there are - as they love to say - positives on which to build.

The Road Not Taken

I’ve been reading “An Uneasy Inheritance”, Polly Toynbee’s memoir/reflections on class, and it’s fascinating. But one moment stands out, where she describes Blair’s Beveridge lecture in 1999, when he set out his plans to abolish child poverty. He’d deliberately invited a wide range of experts, analysts and journalists - many of whom were openly sceptical - Does he mean it? Does he know what’s involved?

Toynbee’s answer to both questions is an emphatic yes, and she insists that by 2010 he had got a third of the way there. Whcih came to me as total news, and I reckon to follow politics fairly closely. But that wasn’t my fault; it was Blair’s. He felt the electorate was conservative and grudging, wouldn’t approve of doing stuff for the poor, so that kind of initiaive must be kept under the radar, surreptitious, on the sly.

Which means that when Cameron and Osborne take over, and immediately reverse a lot of that progress, there isn’t an informed public leaping to protest. Maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference if they had known, but it’s fascinating to think that if he’d played his cards differently Tony Blair might now be known as a scourge of inequality rather than a key architect of the War in Iraq.

Boxing Clever

It’s fascinating to watch the evolution of Keir Starmer, inching towards power but determined to stay calm and in control. Above all, not to give the Tories anything they can use - which seems to involve agreeing with them so they don’t have anything they can put in a leaflet.

He was asked, for instance, if he agreed with Sunak’s comment in his conference speech that “A man is a man and a woman is a woman”. “Yes, of course. You know, a woman is a female adult.” Time was, he’d have said “It’s not as simple as that”, and then Johnson would have mocked him because he didn’t know the difference between a man and a woman. Now, he plays safe, accepts the caricature, and consigns the trans issue to the bin - with all the ridicule and harassment that that involves.

Shockingly, the Tories embark on new drilling in the North Sea, at Rosebank. This is a massive U-turn for them, and a denial of any sensible climate policy, but Labour refuse to say they’ll reverse it. Keep the Tories guessing, even if that means not being honest with the electorate. It’s worse than that. A clear Labour statement that they’d reverse it would inhibit investment and delay a destructive development, but none of that is as important as playing mind games with the opposition. Peter Mandelson must be delighted.

The Masque of Anarchy

Five years ago, if you’d heard that a politician had quoted from Shelley’s Masque of Anarchy, you’d have laid money that would be Jeremy Corbyn. It is very much his kind of poem - a powerful vision of extremes, with the oppression of the poor by the rich eloquently calling out for justice.

So it’s something of a surprise to find that Suella Braverman quoted from the poem, in her tirade at the Conservative Party conference. I don’t know if she’s a regular reader of Romantic poetry, but it’s not hard to imagine some young aide sniggering at the cheek of adopting one of the great radical poems, just to wind up the opposition.

In Braverman’s vision, there are the many and the few, but “the many” are her and the other downtrodden Tory members, suffering from the impact of a hurricane of migration, while “the few” are the woke intelligentsia, in their ivory towers, who preach decency and humanity while not actually having to suffer the consequences. There’s no recognition that she and her party are in power, having totally failed to deal sensibly with immigration for the past decade.

Labour Again

Yes, I know. But there’s nothing sensible to say about the Tories, except that they’re imploding and will do anything to survive. Labour, on the other hand, are embarking on serious campaigning, so they’re ditching the stuff which doesn’t count. So out of the shadow cabinet go people with a responsibility for mental health, and for peace and disarmament. Presumably that sort of stuff doesn’t really count, if you’re listening to Tony Blair.

And then there’s Windrush. Windrush was a huge, complex crime, to which the Williams Report offered a detailed corrective; different approaches from different angles, designed to ensure that it couldn’t happen again. Priti Patel, no liberal, signed up to it all. Suella Braverman is made of different stuff. From the beginning she’s insisted that the Williams report isn’t “set in stone” (the ink’s barely dry!), and recently she’s intervened to control diversity training, and disband the department set up to reform the Home Office.

I’d guess there are shadow cabinet member appalled by this, but none of them have said a word. There must be tight instructions from the top that Labour is not to be identified as anti-racist, because that might lose some of the votes they want. Condemning anti-semitism is fine, because that marks them out as not-Corbyn. Black lives still matter, of course, but not so much.

The cautious hawks of Labour

Yes, I know. the previous post was also about the Labour Party, but right now that’s where the real interest lies. The Tories flounder in incompetence, with Gillian Keegan a typical example, obsessed with her own importance rather than acknowledging the lazy, short-term thinking which exposes the country’s children to serious threat from collapsing rooves.

So Starmer has a reshuffle. The simple view is more Blairite, more experienced. But if you bring in Liz Kendall and kick out Lisa Nandy it’s a lot more serious than that. Nandy’s book “All In” marks her as a serious, original thinker, a Labour leader with the courage to lok beyond the Labour membership. Like Neal Lawson, she sees hope in Labour working with others, in recognising common humanity between members of the same community, and in that process finding answers to problems rather than having them controlled from a tight group in Westminster.

So she’s out. Starmer is tightening his control, choosing who’s in and who’s out with a narrowing vision, while moving rapidly between a range of policies with no consistency. Anything can be ditched, so long as he remains in charge, and there are no limits to the money that can be spent in pursuing his feud with the parts of the Labour Party with which he disagrees. There’s not too much coverage of he lingering legal fight over Corbyn supporters and the anti-Semitism morass, but the legal fees being spent on that could fund a whole lot of campaigning.

Telling it like it is

A breath of fresh air from Jess Phillips, arguing that Tory attacks on lefty lawyers were simply aimed at distracting from the mess they’ve made of immigration. But they’re also potentially dangerous for those targetted, like Jacqueline McKenzie. Second, Phillips attacked the chaos over the Bibby Stockholm, which was jus a headline. “There are no fewer people in hotels in Birmingham than there were before the Bibby Stockholm.”

And finally, she dared to suggest that limited financial resources don’t mean that there’s nothing you can do. “While I won’t have the moon on a stick, will and knowledge go a very long way.”

That is worth saying, and it’s not something I’ve heard from the Labour front bench. Not much about Bibby Stockholm, with Stephen Kinnock saying well, of course they’d have to keep it for the moment, because money is short…You can see Keir Starmer counting up the votes in being mean to migrants, and not wanting to give the Tories ammunition. But for God’s sake, what is stopping him from speaking out about attacks on lawyers? Does he think there are votes in that too, which he can’t afford to sacrifice? Does he actually believe in anything, except being Tony Blair Mk II, and the dream of growth?

The Labour Files

These are three long films made by Al Jazeera, on the strength of a huge data dump of Labour Party material. It’s complicated, but their basic case is that the accusations of anti-semitism against Labour were exploited to undermine Jeremy Corbyn. If this were your only access to information about current politics, you might assume that he was a martyred idealist, and that anti-semitism was never a problem.

It isn’t, of course, that simple, but they do make a powerful case. “Corbyn didn’t care about anti-semitism” - but when he took direct control of the process, the number of referrals, investigations and suspensions went up. And who exactly is being suspended? Many of them are Jewish, and their crime seems to be not so much anti-semitism, as criticism of Israel, and support for the Palestinians. We have been here before and why is it, at this moment when the Israel government is more right-wing and extreme than it has ever been, provoking widespread dissent from its own citizens, that the Labour Party has nothing to say?

There had to be a response to the data dump, and the allegations which followed it, and there was. The Frode Report loked into it, and has virtually been ignored. It said that there was an effective hierarchy of racism within the Labour Party, where anti-semitism mattered and disrcimination aganst Blacks or Muslims was seen as less important. Remind me, what’s happened about the implementation of the Williams report, seeking to put Windrush right?

There’s two scandals here. 1. What’s happened. 2. The failure of the mainstream media to report it. There’s this dynamite from Al Jazeera (including impressive detailed interviews with Labour Party members who’ve been sacked) sitting on YouTube, being ignored. If this is news to you, have a look.

Time to Think

That’s what books are for. A month ago, I wrote some comments about a TV documentary called The clinic, about the GIDS unit at the Tavistock. It was serious and constructive, avoided a lot of the obvious traps, and represented a fair range of views. But in an hour, it couldn’t tell the full story. A Guardian review suggested that this had actually been achieved by the Newsnight reporter Hannah Barnes, in her book “Time to Think.”

They were right. As a person of leisure, I could order the book from the library, read most of it in a day, on two three-hour train journeys to London and back, and I’m now considerably wiser. First, there’s the issue of management. Polly Carmichael didn’t appear in the TV documentary, and refused to co-operate with the writing of the book, but over the course of Barnes’ extensive enquiries her role becomes clear - she’s a pleasant, concerned professional who wants to look after her team, and listens to what they have to say. She just doesn’t do anything about it.

Another issue, not sexy, not conducive to good television, is record-keeping. What happens to these kids after GIDS stops seeing them? How many of them who transition to another gender regret it, or actually seek to have that process reversed? Nobody knows. Sure, it’s difficult work and they’re under pressure and the demand is growing all the time, but keeping track of the effects of your treatment surely has to be part of the job.

There’s a lot more, but no space for it here. But if you’re interested in what happened at GIDS, you have to read his book.

Starmer and Putin

Earlier this week I saw someone comparing Keir Starmer with Putin. Five years ago that would have been ludicrous, but now it doesn’t seem so wild. No, he won’t be starting a war any time soon, but he is insisting on a degree of control that is unhealthy and ultimately unsustainable.

His USP is “I’m not Corbyn”, and it’s not surprising that he’s worked hard to throw out Corbyn, and some of his most vociferous supporters. But he hasn’t stopped there. He’s also blocked a popular local mayor and Neal Lawson, whose main crime seems to be that he recognises intelligent life outside the Labour Party, and thinks it should be possible to build alliances there. No. All the answers will come from Keir and his immediate team, and nobody else will contribute, have a share, get involved.

Some of these expulsions may be hasty or unjustified, but surely that will be picked up when they come to appeal. Or maybe not. The failure rate of appeals is 100%. That looks to me very like a Putin election result. It’s not only immoral, it’s self-defeating. Where is the incentive to go out and canvas for a cause? Where, for most people, is the incentive to vote? “We’re not going to change anything, or spend anything, but hey, give us a chance.”

The Clinic

Earlier this week ITV showed a one-hour documentary called The Clinic. It’s abut the GIDS clinic at the Tavistock, which has been trying to deal with gender dysphoria. I saying “trying”, not because they’re incompetent, but because they’re having to provide answers to complex problems with limited resources, against the clock.

The programme did a really good job of providing detailed information without slipping into crude simplifications or current stereotypes. It also provided a fascinating gallery of different points of view - kids, parents, activists, doctors, lawyers - many of whom were passionately convinced that they were right. Their views, needless to say, did not coincide.

The one who stays with me is Sajid Javid. He was explaining why his decision to close down the GIDS clinic was justified by the evidence available. He strove to present himself as a careful, rational minister, acting in the national interest. What he didn’t do was suggest what happens next. Okay, so you close GIDS. It’s already dealing with thousands of people, many of them vulnerable kids. Where do they go? Who sees them? If what GIDS was doing is wrong, what is the approved government treatment? He hasn’t got a clue, and doesn’t seem to care.

No coup here - nothing to see

It’s been an eventful weekend, but it now seems that there won’t be a change in the Russian government. Maybe that’s as it should be. Maybe having the Wagner boss in charge of Russian policy is not the best news for Ukraine, or the rest of the world. But it’s still been fascinating to watch.

Putin is notorious for his control of the media, and of security forces. Given his determination to hang on the power, and neutralise or get rid of any opposition, it’s not astonishing that the country didn’t rise in protest. But many of them did welcome the Wagner troops to Rostov, and they seemed to make smooth progress on their way to Moscow, while that was part of the plan.

Meanwhile, Russia’s most successful general in Ukraine has publicly suggested that the whole operation has been a con, designed to promote the career of military leaders. All that stuff about Nazis was just camouflage. Putin has been on TV to insist that the rebels will be brutally punished - and has then agreed to let them all off, and allow their leader to retire peacefully to Belarus. None of this helps to support the notion of Putin as the canny genius who has everything under control. He may cling on to power, but right now he’s not in charge.

A Breath of Fresh Air

I’m a creature of habit. We eat our evening meal at 6.00 pm, and if I’m cooking I listen to pm on radio 4. Sometimes it’s interesting, sometimes it drives me mad, but it’s mostly an informative accompaniment, and occasionally an inspiration. This week what struck me was not a big, dramatic story, but a small snippet which some would regard as a filler.

As the Hallett inquiry moved into gear, they interviewed a Swedish politician about the approach they had taken - a shorter, quicker inquiry which meant that they are currently considering how to take action to prepare for the next pandemic that might strike.

I though it was riveting. A calm, intelligent professional, mapping out alternatives which could lead to intelligent action as a result of which people would be safer and less likely to die. And I thought, when’s the last time I heard a cabinet minister sounding like that? We get tons of posturing, grabbing headlines, provoking reactions, but hardly any evidence of serious government in actin - doing the business, making things work. Whether or not Labour will be able to provide more regular instances of this only time will tell, but in their current state of disarray we’re unlikely o see it from the Conservatives.

Bowing Out - Again

You hesitate to say that Boris Johnson resigning as an MP is the end of a career, because it’s happened so often, and it may well happen again. He’s like the kid in a school play, who can’t bear to leave the stage. “I’m off for now,” he smirks “but I could well be back again.”

His loyal fans, of course, are ready with their eulogies. “He got the big calls right”, they say, “on Brexit, the vaccine, and Ukraine.” So tempting, this simple little vignette, where the master flips three coins and calls it right every time. Got Brexit right, in the sense of making it happen - but not in terms of having any kind of plan what it involved. Got the vaccine right, by appointing the right person to co-ordinate it (cf Test and Trace, where he got it disastrously wrong) but everything that Kate Bingham has said since powerfully indicates that he has no grasp at all of what needs to happen to counteract further pandemics. And yes, he had hearty photo ops with Zelensky, but my guess is that they’d have been even warmer if he’d raised a finger to make London less welcoming to Russian oligarchs.

What infuriates is the total lack of logic. Boris fans moan about Sunak’s betrayal of Johnson, stabbing him in the back by resigning. So what do they think their hero’s curren stance amounts to, sabotaging any attempt of Sunak to look like a compeent Prime Minister, after years of serial incompetence? Abstract values, like loyalty or consistency, mean nothing. What matters is what he wants, today. And that’s why we’re glad to be rid of him.

Who needs an Inquiry?

It’s weird, watching Sunak and Johnson perform their obscure dance around how much information they are prepared to release to the Covid inquiry. Johnson’s clearly enjoying this new role in which he’s in favour of total transparency, but it’s Sunak who se the inquiry up. Doesn’ he think its chair is equipped to decide what is and isn’t relevant? and how much longer will it be before she tires of this childish game of bluff and walks away?

As a poliical stunt, it is of course trivial. But we need to remind ourselves what inquiries are for. inquiries are wha happenbs when something goes seriously wrong, and neds to be sorted out. Bloody Sunday, Iraq, Windrush, Grenfell…Ring any bells? That’s what a serious government resorts to when on reflection they realise they might have got it wrong, and need the help of someone rational, supported by considerable resources, to clarify what went wrong and try to put it right.

But Sunak, we already know, is not that kind of government. After the fiasco of Windrush, Wendy Williams produced a searing, thorough report on the mistakes made and the corrrective measures required. Even Priti Patel conceded hat this was an impressive piece of work, and resolved to implement all its recommendations. But then came Sunak, outsourcing the Home Office to the whims of Suella Braverman. She took ne look at the Williams report and decided it wasn’t for her. Nah, she said. “It’s not set in stone.” If you’re waiting for Rishi Sunak to do the right thing, don’t hold your breath.

Action on Sewage

So here it comes at last. With the rising tide of critical coverage, it was inevitable that the water companies would look for some kind of response, to dig themselves out of the deep hole in which they have been wallowing. Here goes, then, a ten billion pound plan to sort sewage spills - stand back, and wait for the applause.

There is, of course, a catch. We’ll be paying for it. I mean, that’s where the money comes from, right? When they pay out massive dividends to shareholders and CEOs, they’re doing it wih he cash we gave hem for letting us have their precious water. so if we wan o see hings get better, we’ll have to pay for it.

The missing piece of this shit-covered jigsaw is regulation. Time was when government recognised that it had some responsibility for he state of our seas and rivers. But now we have Therese Coffey, who has worked really hard to make sure that we are no longer part of an EU drive o cleanse waterways by 2027. No, we’ll take back control, and do our wn thing, and get the water sorted out 2060. What does she make of the ten billion pound plan, and the way that will be funded? Don’t hold your breath.

The definite death of the dream

‘Fraid so. It’s yet another Gooner lament, but at this heartbreaking time Arsenal supporters should be allowed to cut themselves some slack. The saddest sight on my TV screen on Sunday was the aerial shot of hundreds of Arsenal fans walking home early, as Brighton cruised to a 3-0 win. Yes, Brighton, the team that got slaughtered by Everton, who then got slaughtered by Manchester City, making the title race effectively over.

I don’t worry on my own account. I’ve supported Arsenal for over fifty years, and have seen times far more miserable than this. But for young fans early in their careers, to go to the last home game of the season and see this brilliant young team ruthlessly crushed must have been more than they could bear.

Meanwhile Manchester City rumble on, massively backed, with incredible squad depth, and super-intelligent management. Yes, it’s impressive, but it’s also paralysing, a bit like waching The Triumph of the Will.

Policing the Coronation

I’m one of many who hasn’t been following the coronation closely, but I’m not in the least surprised to hear that it was insensitively and incompetently policed, with recent punitive laws encouraging various officers to be heavy handed in restricting the movements and actions of law-abiding citizens.

It’s a while since you’d expect members of government to be interested in such concerns, but a number of public figures and various pundits have pointed out what went wrong, and why we need to be alert in defending freedoms which could very easily be signed away.

Predictably, Labour said nothing. Very anxious to avoid being tarred by the tabloids as anti-royalist, so the smart move is to say nothing and wait for it all to go away. My worry is that this will become a reflex, and that if they do eventually come to power it will be on the understanding that principles are a risky kind of luggage to be carrying around. Strikers and protesters are embarrassing company, and while recent election successes might well show recruits from the red wall, they also show diminishing enthusiasm from young people and Blacks. Is the great victory for which Starmer works at risk from the disillusion experienced by many of his natural supporters?

Anti-semitism again

Reading Diane Abbott’s letter to the Observer is a sad experience. It’s not vicious, but it is clumsy, and in seeming to ignore the holocaust she’s broken a massive taboo, and encouraged Starmer to display his anti-Corbyn credentials. He is the enemy of anti-semitism, and will pursue it to the death.

Racism, not so much. The days of Starmer taking the knee, identifying with Black Lives Matter, seem a long time ago. In election mode, Labour doesn’t want to be identifying with Blacks, strikers, anyone who might upset the voters they really want. The Williams report spelt out very clearly what went wrong over Windrush,and how it needed to be put right. Even Priti Patel accepted all of its recommendations, but Suella Braverman’s calculation is that there’s votes to be won by going the other way, dismissing Williams as “not set in stone.” So the whole nightmare of Windrush, its massive injustice, he failure to take action o set it right - all that can just be waved aside? From the ferocious enemies of anti-semitism, not a peep. Someone up top of the Labour machine has calculated that Braverman is right, and opposing her on this might lose some crucial votes. It’s not hard to see why Diane Abbott might think this is grossly unfair.

The death of a dream

There’s not much of the career of John Cleese that I want to retain, but I guess the last bit to go will be the classic moment in Clockwise when he says “It’s not the despair…it’s the hope.” So true. It’s been a rough twenty years to be an Arsenal fan, but for this season, for once, it all seemed worth it. Lovely Michel Arteta had gathered his young team together, put his arms around them, and encouraged them to play. So there they were, at the top of the table, six points ahead of Man City, with the route to winning he league clearly in sight, within their own control. Four games later, they’ve drawn three (two of those after being 2-0 up) and been slaughtered in the final showdown with the champion club. It wasn’t even close.

Not surprising, really., We’ve had hopes raised and dashed before, and all the conventional wisdom - past experience, money, depth of squad - suggested that we might not manage to stay ahead. And a key injury to Saliba, arguably the team’s strongest defender, made a massive difference; the stats about results with him and without him were indisputable. But it was great while it lasted, and there were moment we’ll treasure for ever - the last minute win against Bournemouth, for instance, when it briefly seemed as though the inevitable could be defied.