Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

On this I agree with Jim Pickard's point that there's no way for Gove (or anyone else in his position) to know if these are harmless or dangerous nutters:
https://twitter.com/PickardJE/status/1450466716266414082

But the thing I find really striking is the people at the end who shout about him "protecting paedos" and then just shouting "paedo" at him. It shouldn't be a surprise to see the anti-lockdown protesters moving into Q-adjacent stuff, or for the UK to be susceptible to that (especially given historic child sexual abuse investigations). But it's still very striking.

And, inevitably, "staged" is trending on Twitter in the UK.

[garbon]

The other side is that I think MPs want to talk about it and do feel increasingly vulnerable and unsafe. You know, Raab mentioned about three cases of threats to him and his family (including of an acid attack) that required an "intervention" - which I assume means police involvement. There have also been the reported convictions and MPs requiring police protection because of "credible" death threats. From everything I've read and heard it seems like the expenses scandal was a turning point. Part of it is also just the ease of abuse through social media - and that's something the media probably understand/share: social media's part of the job and exposes you to constant personal abuse and threats.

I think part of what I struggle with is it feels a little narrow sighted or too overly concerned with the aspects that touch on their own circumstances? Knife crime is a problem and it is a much wider than the murder of 2 MPs in 5 years.

Personally, the amount of 'terror' I felt over this so called terrorist incident is not even a fraction of what I feel when I regularly walk by large memorials (and then dismantled to just posters) to the latest stabbing victims in London.

[Sheilbh]

I think part of what I struggle with is it feels a little narrow sighted or too overly concerned with the aspects that touch on their own circumstances? Knife crime is a problem and it is a much wider than the murder of 2 MPs in 5 years.

That's fair - although Jo Cox was shot. I also think there's a human element. There's only 650 MPs at any time. They knew him and he's just been murdered doing something that they all do. Edit: And I'd add that Amess had been an MP for almost 40 years, apparently was very friendly and made an effort to help new MPs so everyone will have known him/dealt with him in some way.

So I think it would be strange if MPs didn't talkabout the risk to them in doing their jobs when two MPs have been murdered in the last five years - and in the last 20, two have been murdered, but there have been two attempted murders (one that failed and one that resulted in the death of an individual defending the MP). I'd expect similar introspection and focus on social media from journalists if, say, a prominent journalist had been murdered.

Also this isn't really "knife crime", even if it's a crime with a knife. I don't know what aspects would be relevant for tackling knife crime - from what I understand the killer was consuming a lot of quite radical/violent Islamist content and was searching online for an MP to murder. On the one hand that's different from, say, Jo Cox's murderer who was far-right  and political, because this guy was apparently indifferent to who he killed but wanted to kill an MP. But I think that is different from general knife crime - it's not a crime where people normally go out that day planning to murder someone (though sometimes I'm sure that's the case).

Personally, the amount of 'terror' I felt over this so called terrorist incident is not even a fraction of what I feel when I regularly walk by large memorials (and then dismantled to just posters) to the latest stabbing victims in London.

Yeah I get that entirely. I don't think it's really a terrorist attack - but then I suppose what else would you call the pre-meditated murder of an MP that was indifferent to their politics? It wasn't a targeted assasination because he hated David Amess; it wasn't someone in a clear mental health break (like the guy who attacked Nigel Jones with a katana). I can see a random attack on a random MP for the purpose of killing an MP strikes me as arguably a type of terrorism.

But I think it also just has legal meaning. So if there's certain triggers like that they were previously in Prevent, the case gets taken over by the counter-terrorism police and probably involves intelligence agencies etc. Plus they can and are detaining him for longer under counter-terrorism powers - I suspect that and other expanded investigative powers require some form of assessment by the police or a court that x was a "terrorist incident".

[Sheilbh]

From the Guardian:

The government's net zero plan is impressive, but it is high risk
Chaitanya Kumar
Finally we have a plan to reduce emissions, but much of it rests on technology that is yet to be tested at scale
Tue 19 Oct 2021 18.49 BST

Two weeks before the most important climate conference in history, the UK government has finally published its long-awaited net zero strategy, alongside a bevy of other policy documents upwards of 2,000 pages. By its own calculations, this is the first time the government has produced a package of measures that will help achieve its interim five yearly carbon targets leading up to net zero by the middle of the century.

The scale of transformation that the strategy is set to unleash across the entire UK economy is breathtaking. Our electricity is expected to be fully clean by 2035. Our homes will no longer have new gas boilers fitted after then either. No new polluting car will roam our roads from 2030 and we will plant trees in an area the size of Milton Keynes every year from 2025, and all of this at a cost that is less than what we spend on defence each year. Across industry, finance, farming, waste and every other imaginable sector, carbon reduction is set to be the new mantra.

The response to the strategy so far has fallen along expected lines, with campaigners claiming that it falls short, while those with more moderate views are quite pleased. Irrespective of opinions, the strategy allows everybody to hold the government to account against policies that have hitherto been nonexistent and which should be the new objective for civil society. This is particularly important when considering the government's attitude to delivering on net zero – perfectly summed up in the prime minister's foreword to the strategy where he confidently claimed that we will be flying and driving everywhere, guilt-free, with zero-emission technology.

This optimism – based on a techno-centric, market-driven vision of the future low carbon society – is what underlines the entire net zero strategy. Take for instance the reliance on greenhouse gas removal technologies that remain untested at scale. Between now and 2050, the government envisions removing and storing more carbon than we currently emit from all our homes today.

It would of course be a mistake to dismiss out of hand the possibilities that these technologies offer, but to have them play such a central role in our strategy is a gamble. To make it work would require careful planning. A similar reliance is placed on hydrogen, which the strategy foresees us using a tremendous amount of, though we barely have any production facilities in the UK today. None of this is impossible, but climate change offers very little slack for policymakers to try to fail, so getting it right the first time is paramount.

Another underlying tension within the strategy is the rift between the Treasury and No 10, evident in the paltry commitments of public finance across all sectors. There is a vague ambition to mobilise £90bn of private finance by 2030 instead, but this is still quite meagre. To put it into perspective, this is equivalent to the sum we have invested in renewable industry over the last decade.

The headline-grabbing announcement of a £5,000 subsidy for heat pumps distracts us from the lack of investment in insulation and making our homes warmer. At the New Economics Foundation, we estimate that the scale of finance committed by the government in decarbonising our leaky housing stock is less than a quarter of what is actually needed by 2025. That is why we launched a campaign called the Great Homes Upgrade, calling on the government to retrofit 19m homes by 2030. Without an investment of at least 2% of GDP annually, the strategy could well remain a non-starter, but the chancellor has an opportunity to fix that in his upcoming budget and spending review.

The government has now submitted this strategy as part of its nationally determined contribution to the UN. And despite all the well-warranted criticism, this represents a watershed moment for the UK. With public concern on climate change at an all-time high and a strong consensus across all political parties on climate action, realising this strategy and hopefully building on it should be the foremost priority for the government.

There are millions of jobs to be won and billions in economic gains to be had if we get this right.

    Chaitanya Kumar is head of environment and green transition at the New Economics Foundation

So I'm not entirely anti-focus on new tech as long as there's money on research into it and scalining up - I really think the vaccines are a model here. But also just the revolution in renewals or electric over the last 20 years or so. I think it's fair to be looking at hydrogen, carbon removal technology, battteries etc as essential parts of this.

It looks like the Treasury/Sunak are briefing the Sun because they've got a lot more detail on the "£100 billion-a-year blackhole" (loss of fuel duty etc tax revenue plus spending required to decarbonise) which the Treasury is defending very feebly.

BEIS are talking about how universal the heat pump grants will be. The Treasury/Number 11 view: "Universal grants or changes to the tax and welfare system will not be effective solutions in managing adverse distributional impacts. Untargeted policies are likely to lead to taxpayers providing most support to the wealthiest and most polluting households to reduce their emissions, because they emit more in absolute terms."

Edit: Incidentally I've been to my liberal metropolitan elite cinema a few times recently and there's been an FT ad on every time. It's clips of various policy makers (which I think perhaps expresses the FT view) so there's Jacinda Arden, Kamala Harris, VdL, Malala, Georgieva and then only UK figure: Rishi Sunak. Really makes clear that populism is just about style - and that he can apparently fit in with that 2010s Cameron/Obama etc era and a very good example of why the centrist dad/liberal wing of politics is not your friend if you're on the left.

Edit: And I think on insulation etc the reference to a levy on mortgages for energy inefficient homes and potentially banning mortgages for energy inefficient homes is interesting - and going to lead to some innovative finance. Don't fully know how it'll work if you're just in a block of flats though

[garbon]

That's fair - although Jo Cox was shot. I also think there's a human element. There's only 650 MPs at any time. They knew him and he's just been murdered doing something that they all do. Edit: And I'd add that Amess had been an MP for almost 40 years, apparently was very friendly and made an effort to help new MPs so everyone will have known him/dealt with him in some way.

I looked it up and it said she was shot and stabbed...

So I think it would be strange if MPs didn't talkabout the risk to them in doing their jobs when two MPs have been murdered in the last five years - and in the last 20, two have been murdered, but there have been two attempted murders (one that failed and one that resulted in the death of an individual defending the MP). I'd expect similar introspection and focus on social media from journalists if, say, a prominent journalist had been murdered.

So agree natural MPs would be caring/thinking about one of their own but that's different from the media blitz and sudden public concern that political violence has gotten wild.

Also this isn't really "knife crime", even if it's a crime with a knife. I don't know what aspects would be relevant for tackling knife crime - from what I understand the killer was consuming a lot of quite radical/violent Islamist content and was searching online for an MP to murder. On the one hand that's different from, say, Jo Cox's murderer who was far-right  and political, because this guy was apparently indifferent to who he killed but wanted to kill an MP. But I think that is different from general knife crime - it's not a crime where people normally go out that day planning to murder someone (though sometimes I'm sure that's the case).

Maybe although I haven't seen anything yet where they've been clear on what he was aiming for. And true, I don't know enough of the planning (or lackthereof) of people murdered in knife crime.

Yeah I get that entirely. I don't think it's really a terrorist attack - but then I suppose what else would you call the pre-meditated murder of an MP that was indifferent to their politics? It wasn't a targeted assasination because he hated David Amess; it wasn't someone in a clear mental health break (like the guy who attacked Nigel Jones with a katana). I can see a random attack on a random MP for the purpose of killing an MP strikes me as arguably a type of terrorism.

Isn't terrorism supposed to induce terror and fear? Why would what you've described make the public afraid...besides say non-stop coverage telling us we should be fearful?

But I think it also just has legal meaning. So if there's certain triggers like that they were previously in Prevent, the case gets taken over by the counter-terrorism police and probably involves intelligence agencies etc. Plus they can and are detaining him for longer under counter-terrorism powers - I suspect that and other expanded investigative powers require some form of assessment by the police or a court that x was a "terrorist incident".

That's probably true. Of course, it also has societal/cultural meanings and why you had those reports of British muslims fearing reprisals/fallout from the incensed public.

[Sheilbh]

So agree natural MPs would be caring/thinking about one of their own but that's different from the media blitz and sudden public concern that political violence has gotten wild.

Fair - but two MPs murdered in five years and the other two attempted murders in twenty years does seem high. Of course it used to be higher but that was in a context that was fairly coherent - Irish Republican terrorism.

That may reflect political/cultural polarisation, social media etc - or it may be a function of MPs being relatively accessible (all of them happened at surgeries for example).

Maybe although I haven't seen anything yet where they've been clear on what he was aiming for. And true, I don't know enough of the planning (or lackthereof) of people murdered in knife crime.

The only thing I read that made me think this was that he'd been searching online for MPs surgeries and was basically indifferent to who they were or what party they belonged to. So it wasn't targeted to Amess in particular but it seems like he wanted to kill an MP.

Isn't terrorism supposed to induce terror and fear? Why would what you've described make the public afraid...besides say non-stop coverage telling us we should be fearful?

Yeah - I agree. I don't think I would call it terrorism - but there have been other attacks that get called terrorism (normally because the perpetrator shouts a political or religious slogan) that, to me, don't resemble terrorism as much as school or workplace shootings. I lived in Stretham a few years ago when there was an attack there (a man killing random people on the street) and the initial reporting was that it might be terrorism, but it turned out to be a tragic set of killings by a man who was in grips of a severe psychotic break - there was zero political content.

I normally think terrorism should require some form of network, or connections. From everything I've read this guy was acting alone, radicalised online etc - but I think the other side is if someone is looking just to kill a legislator I can see how that's linked to an attack on an abstract symbol of an MP rather than an assasination targeting someone with x views for example.

That's probably true. Of course, it also has societal/cultural meanings and why you had those reports of British muslims fearing reprisals/fallout from the incensed public.

For sure - although to be honest I'm not seeing a particularly incensed public v more - for want of a better word - "classic" terrorism like the Manchester Arena bombing or the London Bridge attack.

[Tamas]

MPs jump straight at making life safer for themselves int he wake of the killing - they'll have details from their expense reports retracted.   

[Sheilbh]

MPs jump straight at making life safer for themselves int he wake of the killing - they'll have details from their expense reports retracted.   

It reminds me a little of the Charleston shooting when the focus for a few days was on gun laws and the far-right and then it shifted to discourse about Confederate statues. Similarly we had a few days of talking about MPs' security and surgeries etc (which MPs have broadly just decided to keep doing), before somehow transitioning into a debate about online anonymity - to the bafflement, from what I can see, of left and right commentators

I'm particularly opposed to Mark Francois' proposal of a law on social media called "David's Law" on my fundamental belief that any law named after an individual, or using a meaningful acronym, is a bad law that should be opposed

[Richard Hakluyt]

It is an instant red flag; an indication that the law will be inspired by sentiment rather than careful analysis.

Francois is a bellend of course and should always be ignored.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah - it's two red flags. Named after someone and mainly being pushed by Mark Francois

[Tamas]

I  wish to register a complaint: what is the point of British citizenship if I am made to queue for a passport check with all the foreign plebs?  It's going to take a lot of time this way to develop in me the necessary condescending smugness to vote Tory.

[garbon]

I  wish to register a complaint: what is the point of British citizenship if I am made to queue for a passport check with all the foreign plebs?  It's going to take a lot of time this way to develop in me the necessary condescending smugness to vote Tory.

Global Britain!

But seriously, only in the past few years that many other nationalities could use e-passport gates. I used to have to pay for the privilege.

[Sheilbh]

MPs jump straight at making life safer for themselves int he wake of the killing - they'll have details from their expense reports retracted.   

Incidentally on expenses - just seeing the story I think it's fair and one of the most annoying things about the whole expenses debate is that staff and office costs are identified as an MP's "expenses" which I think is really misleading.

I feel like there should probably be a separate budget available for MPs to fund a constituency office and, say, three members of staff (case-worker, PA, parliamentary assistant) with more for ministers/shadow ministers. The costs of employing people, renting an office, IT, stationary etc that they need to run an office should not be covered in the report of their expenses. I think the expenses should be literally for that MP - so London flat if they're an out of London MP, travel, food if there's a late sitting etc. And I'd probably say travel should only be included if they're not traveling in standard class on the train (or, for the MPs in the far north/Western Isles, economy class on a plane).

Similarly many MPs include their home address on their expenses report (and on the ballot paper). I think the default should probably be their constituency/parliamentary office in public material - though the regulators have their home address. It may end the grand old Lib Dem attack in elections that x MP doesn't even live in the constituency (they live two streets away)

And obviously it's on the regulator to not fuck up when they get a FOI request - for example it's clear they made a mistake when they revealed the home address and salary of a couple of people working for Dawn Butler.

Edit: I see IPSA has already made some of these changes - I think staffing costs are now not published as an MP's expenses.

[Sheilbh]

Totally agree with this by James Meadway (former McDonnell advisor and now at the Progressive Economy Forum) - again just to note extraordinary confidence from the Treasury briefing about the PM's economic "illiteracy". It really is in its pomp as under Brown and Osborne. As pointed out on Twitter the Treasury has a split personality: spends half its time strangling any and all programs of long-term investment to improve the country and the other half coming up with mad expensive gimmicks for the annual policy jamboree in the budget

Why the left should celebrate Boris Johnson's clash with the Treasury
If the Prime Minister weakens the overmighty department he will be performing a great service for any future progressive administration.
By James Meadway

An extraordinary briefing over the weekend (16 October) from the Treasury about the Prime Minister's "economic illiteracy" concludes a torrid seven days for the once all-powerful department. Outmanoeuvred at the start of the week by the Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng over emergency support for businesses during the gas crisis, the Treasury was revealed on Friday to be resorting to statistical chicanery to convince other secretaries of state to accept tighter spending plans.

Traditionally, the Spending Review period is a time when the Treasury gets to demonstrate its power, threatening cuts across government and throwing the odd crumb to pet departments. Yet the current rows suggest a shift of authority inside Whitehall. Briefing against the Prime Minister – particularly one as politically commanding as Boris Johnson – doesn't make a government department strong; it makes it desperate. Fiddling with figures to persuade departments to accept tight spending cuts is not an indication of a Treasury in control.

There should be no tears over this loss in status. No single department bears as grave a responsibility for the misery of the last decade. It was senior officials at the Treasury that insisted on and fought for austerity from 2009 onwards, crowbarring Labour into supporting spending cuts ahead of the May 2010 election, and then working overtime to frighten (an admittedly credulous) Nick Clegg into believing a Greek-style crisis would erupt without them.

The Treasury has stuck doggedly, and absurdly, to the austerity mantra for the decade since. Even as empirical justification for austerity has been shredded, even as the economics profession has turned, almost as one, against fiscal tightening, even as – perhaps most significantly – public support for spending cuts has evaporated, we can still find the Treasury insisting on the necessity of belt-tightening.

Of course, the rot runs deeper than just the past ten years. As an excellent analysis by economists Diane Coyle and Marianne Sensier details, the department has been systematically biased in its investment decisions against the rest of the country outside London. Figures from the Institute for Public Policy Research in 2019, for example, show that this has meant Yorkshire receives £511 per head in transport funding, while London receives £3,636.

Coyle and Sensier demonstrate that the department's own operating system – its "Green Book" guide to investment decisions – is methodologically flawed, chasing short-term gains to GDP in London at the expense of longer-term, stable investment across the whole country. Rewriting those rules, as the Conservatives have claimed they want to do, is a crucial part of getting a grip on the department.

Short-term thinking is hardwired into the Treasury. Stretching over decades and multiple changes in government, the department's failures are the consequence of more than just bad decisions by politicians. Lacking a comprehensive economic mandate, the "Treasury view" fixates on the government's deficit and debt, and neglects to reflect on the economy that produces them.

But, as any undergraduate macroeconomics course will teach you, since what the government does affects the whole economy, economic policymaking should attend to the whole economy before it turns to considering the government debt and the deficit that emerge from it.

Failure to think this way has meant, for example, that the immense windfall from North Sea oil and gas, coming onstream from the late 1960s, was squandered on day-to-day spending instead of being placed into a sovereign wealth fund, as Norway did later with such success. More recently, accountants Ernst & Young say renewables investors face a "confused" and "inconsistent" environment in the UK as a result of Treasury short-term cost-cutting. By prioritising "control over public spending" above wider economic goals, the Treasury is hobbling the country.

At the centre of the current dispute between No 10 and the Treasury are the Prime Minister's plans to increase public investment in our energy system, focused on decarbonisation. In the middle of an energy crisis, with wholesale gas prices at all-time highs, gas suppliers going bankrupt, and businesses and consumers facing a winter of dramatically higher energy bills, the real "economic illiteracy" would be a failure to invest in energy infrastructure that helps to ensure this doesn't happen again.

The Treasury thinks it knows better. It always does. And using the power it wields inside Whitehall thanks to its control of the purse strings, what the Treasury as an institution thinks tends to become what the whole government has to think. Working for shadow chancellor John McDonnell in the run-up to the June 2017 election, it was this prospect that gave me sleepless nights.

As the polls tightened, I became increasingly concerned that a possible minority Labour government would find itself on the wrong side of the "Treasury view". I had every confidence in McDonnell and the shadow Treasury team around him. We also had a plan to box it in, lining up external advisers and looking to rapidly set an emergency budget. But would it be enough? The vision that haunted me was of ending up with a sorrowful Jeremy Corbyn on the steps of Downing Street announcing – with a heavy heart – that the economic situation was worse than expected and austerity would therefore be continuing. I had been in Syntagma Square, central Athens, when Syriza was elected in 2015, PM Alexis Tsipras heralding a new dawn for his country. I had seen Syriza collapse six months later. I feared a very British repeat. Getting on top of Her Majesty's Treasury had to be a priority.

So of course I am happy to see No 10, and any spending department, lined up against the UK's overmighty bean-counters. Whatever his own intentions, Johnson will be performing a great service to any future progressive administration if his government can cut it down to size. Better for this Tory administration to choose to take on the task of reform than a future Labour government be forced to.

Edit: Also this is fascinating - map of union density in GB:
https://wiserd.ac.uk/unionmaps

Most unionisation in a couple of areas with quite big defence industries (largely supporting Trident - which is why the unions are not particularly keen on nuclear disarmament). And the South really doesn't do unionisation.

[Tamas]

Joyful economic news this morning, as statistics clearly show, the UK isn't borrowing as much money as this time last year smack in the middle of the pandemic, and, gloriously, tax revenues are up compared to total lockdown times a year ago.

What a powerhouse!