Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

Again, it just feels like a lack of political sense - not sure if those people are just sidelined or not in a position to really confront the boss. But again feel like he could do with looking at where this story is likely to head (most likely an apology and acceptance that he won't accept future gifts/hospitality) and get there early rather than being forced into it.

Three days on - the inevitable, inevitably happened and Starmer made it look like he was dragged here:

PM will no longer accept donations for clothes

Sir Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves will not accept any further donations for clothing after donor row

And having taken that time to make a grudging, half-step it'll quite possibly focus attention more on other gifts. As I say Starmer's accepted more than any other recent leader of a political party so this is an area of vulnerability for him...

[Sheilbh]

One for Tamas - just been reading about proposal to re-open a 16km branch line from Bristol to Portishead. From what I can see this isn't NIMBYism - strong local council support and multiple local campaigns in favour of it.

Initial proposal with the local government launching a study of the project as a possibility (at a cost of £1 million) in the late 2000s. This leads to a Network Rail feasibility study in 2009. There was a public consultation in 2015 and, in 2019, central government allocated £31 million funding planning for the line to open in 2021.

The planning application and associated documents came out at almost 80,000 pages. 18,000 on the environmental statement (my instictive environmental take: rail travel = good), including over 1,000 pages of bat technical appendices (the plans now include a bat corridor - just like the various wildlife corridors with HS2), about 200 on newts and 1,800 on vegetation management. It then took three years, to 2024, for the Transport Secretary to approve.

The project is replacing old derelict (Beeching-era) tracks and building two stations. The initial £32 million has been spent on planning and design, so the cost will be £150 million plus - even so analysis of the benefit to cost ratio is at 4.85 (by comparison HS2 was 2.4 and Crossrail was 2.5).

Sadly the project's been paused by the Treasury following Labour's victory as the funding that initially covered it has been scrapped. Hopefully it can still get through - especially following the OBR report on investment.

But still

I get that a lot of the left/Guardian types will really hate things like Labour "weakening" environmental standards - but if that's the output and level of effort, time and money I feel like they have maybe got a little out of hand. Especially as, in my view, default view should be that unless we're literally building them out of endangered the species, the default position should be that the environmental benefit of railways and renewables infrastructure outweighs the impact

And if Labour don't - the Tories will - spotted both Badenoch and Jenrick endorsing very YIMBY/liberalising views recently

[Josquius]

One for Tamas - just been reading about proposal to re-open a 16km branch line from Bristol to Portishead. From what I can see this isn't NIMBYism - strong local council support and multiple local campaigns in favour of it.

Initial proposal with the local government launching a study of the project as a possibility (at a cost of £1 million) in the late 2000s. This leads to a Network Rail feasibility study in 2009. There was a public consultation in 2015 and, in 2019, central government allocated £31 million funding planning for the line to open in 2021.

The planning application and associated documents came out at almost 80,000 pages. 18,000 on the environmental statement (my instictive environmental take: rail travel = good), including over 1,000 pages of bat technical appendices (the plans now include a bat corridor - just like the various wildlife corridors with HS2), about 200 on newts and 1,800 on vegetation management. It then took three years, to 2024, for the Transport Secretary to approve.

The project is replacing old derelict (Beeching-era) tracks and building two stations. The initial £32 million has been spent on planning and design, so the cost will be £150 million plus - even so analysis of the benefit to cost ratio is at 4.85 (by comparison HS2 was 2.4 and Crossrail was 2.5).

Sadly the project's been paused by the Treasury following Labour's victory as the funding that initially covered it has been scrapped. Hopefully it can still get through - especially following the OBR report on investment.

But still

I get that a lot of the left/Guardian types will really hate things like Labour "weakening" environmental standards - but if that's the output and level of effort, time and money I feel like they have maybe got a little out of hand. Especially as, in my view, default view should be that unless we're literally building them out of endangered the species, the default position should be that the environmental benefit of railways and renewables infrastructure outweighs the impact

And if Labour don't - the Tories will - spotted both Badenoch and Jenrick endorsing very YIMBY/liberalising views recently

That does sound pretty terrible.
Though I wouldn't totally dismiss any concerns about weakening environmental protections - the UK is too far to one extreme as far as planning and building goes but there is always the risk with reform that you give an inch and a mile is taken as we rush over to Japanese levels of concrete the country insanity.

Sounds like a good potential path could be less in weakening and more about making things more common sense.
Like if you just assume by default there's going to be bats and make some bat boxes as standard - this might add a million to the cost but that's better than adding many millions doing a full fancy assessment on the bats existence.
Would be curious to see a proper assessment of these assessments (hurray for more bureaucracy) and quite how superfluous much of it is.

For the tories and being yimbys... That would be curious considering the recent successes of the hobbit greens. Would be funny if the tories finally do go through their own sdp event and it's not involving reform but rather the greens.

[Sheilbh]

On an assessment of the assessments, I'd be willing to bet that in a shock result, people who do assessments would find that assessments were highly effective tools to support decision making, should not be reduced and actually a more effective tool may be an initial assessment at the start of a project of what assessments are needed in that project

And I speak as someone who does work on assessments I also think it's sort of the problem in the UK - and Europe more generally - if you follow the rules, then there's an awful lot of regulations to follow, there's a lot of assessments and record-keeping etc and it does cost a lot of money (and keeps me employed ). If you choose to ignore the rules the risk of being caught is relatively low and so is the practical risk of enforcement. I think it's sort of true in everyday life too.

I think part of it is needing a re-set to the British attitude to risk which I think has become a bit too averse.

Agree on the idea of a menu of measures that developers could take to tick the boxes of their biodiversity/habitat impact rather than having to come up with a bespoke plan. I think that's been briefed as an idea that Rayner's looking at (again on this, interestingly originated in the right-wing think tank-sphere). But there will be opposition to that.

I remember Rory Stewart talking about when he was in DEFRA looking at making agriculture subsidies conditional on farmers planting five native trees for every hectare of land, every year for five years. They could be orchards, on streams, along hedges or fences etc - and I think on an average farm over the five years would take a single person three days. But would lead to something like half a billion trees at no cost to the state - I should add that one of the reasons I don't think Rory Stewart is really a serious person is that as candidate for Mayor of London and Tory leader/PM his main policy idea has been planting trees, which strikes me as the politics of minor royal or well-meaning landowner (which he is).

Anyway the civil service said it was logistically impossible and possibly illegal. It would also be a huge problem with the NFU. But apparently the strongest opposition came from environmental NGOs who said they couldn't trust farmers to pick the tree or location. They said any scheme would require national supervision to make sure that only "the right trees in the right places" (probably supported by assessments, with supporting evidence produced by consultancies run by ex-staff of those NGOs - I have no doubt they meant it well, but I feel like it does align with self-interest). Stewart said that he pointed out that would make the project unaffordable so there just wouldn't be half a billion extra trees - apparently the environmental NGOs shrugged and weren't interested in any compromise.

[Josquius]

On an assessment of the assessments, I'd be willing to bet that in a shock result, people who do assessments would find that assessments were highly effective tools to support decision making, should not be reduced and actually a more effective tool may be an initial assessment at the start of a project of what assessments are needed in that project

As I was writing it I actually meant more a summary for lay people from someone who has spent time in the thick of it than something official- though an official thing certainly needs doing....though yes, needs to be someone from outside of the world to avoid the logical outcome of make more work please.
Its the only way I can practically see any change happening since tear everything down and start again seems infeasible.

I remember Rory Stewart talking about when he was in DEFRA looking at making agriculture subsidies conditional on farmers planting five native trees for every hectare of land, every year for five years. They could be orchards, on streams, along hedges or fences etc - and I think on an average farm over the five years would take a single person three days. But would lead to something like half a billion trees at no cost to the state - I should add that one of the reasons I don't think Rory Stewart is really a serious person is that as candidate for Mayor of London and Tory leader/PM his main policy idea has been planting trees, which strikes me as the politics of minor royal or well-meaning landowner (which he is).

Anyway the civil service said it was logistically impossible and possibly illegal. It would also be a huge problem with the NFU. But apparently the strongest opposition came from environmental NGOs who said they couldn't trust farmers to pick the tree or location. They said any scheme would require national supervision to make sure that only "the right trees in the right places" (probably supported by assessments, with supporting evidence produced by consultancies run by ex-staff of those NGOs - I have no doubt they meant it well, but I feel like it does align with self-interest). Stewart said that he pointed out that would make the project unaffordable so there just wouldn't be half a billion extra trees - apparently the environmental NGOs shrugged and weren't interested in any compromise.

I wouldn't totally dismiss this environmental group's argument. Its definitely true you'd expect a lot of farmers to just do it as a tick box exercise, not actually bother doing anything or do it in the most half arsed and ineffectual way where some cheap conifers die quickly.
But I do smell a whiff of the Nirvana paradox there. Not doing anything unless its 100% perfectly enforced.
And on a basic level right trees in the right places is a good idea- not quite at a level of exact trees in exact spots but on a broad level you do get different native trees in the north and the south of Britain. Rowan for instance is more of a northern thing.
Strikes me there needed to be some sort of compromise of light regulation and spot checks which yeah, would mean a lot cheating the system, but you would get a decent number doing this extra little bit of environmental work they weren't doing already.
I do think we need more of this in Britain, stop trying to get everything utterly perfect (which we will never and can never do anyway) and rather shoot for a optimal 90% sort of level.

Rory Stewart non-serious... He's a nice conservative. Of course he's not serious.

[Tamas]

I have to admit that around election time, I didn't expect that September will be ending with talk of (to be fair miniscule compared to Tory ones) corruption and austerity.

[Sheilbh]

They need to do a proper reboot with party conference - alarming that they need to do that within two months. It feels very complacent (weirdly so, given how cautious and careful they were in opposition).

It's also why, however politically helpful they might think "worst inheritance since the war" is (although it's not really true), it is getting in the way of what they're trying to do. Great message in opposition, but it shouldn't be the major theme of a government. New Labour were able to use "18 years of Tory rule" for about a decade, the Tories used "there's no money left" to the same effect - but they weren't the only message. They need to talk about what they want to do - and get on it quickly.

On the gifts story - inevitably after Starmer said him, Rayner and Reeves will stop taking gifts of clothes, it's now moving to other things and ministers. So Bridget Philipson's £14k on two parties, or Rayner using Alli's New York penthouse for a holiday. Part of this is also the risk of campaigning as Mr Propriety or on "standards"/"ethics" in public life. All the press will be looking for hypocrisy. But also what might constitute standards/ethics for a professional politician (declarations for transparency to protect against conflicts of interests) don't look like the public's standards/ethics (pay for your own: clothes/glasses/holidays/parties). It' never sensible to campaign on that as you'll just create a rod for your own back in government.

On that particular point, to the Tories credit they've not run with this, but I have noticed the right-wing press picking up ministers using private planes - which is fair game given that Labour did attack Tory ministers for it. Despite it very obviously being something they'd probably do when they got back into office

Although I sort of feel at the heart of this is very British attitudes to politics/politicians. I could be wrong but I don't know how much heads of government actually do their own shopping (in part, time). And, obviously, on the other side Sunak was very wealthy and did pay for his own stuff but was then attacked as his Prada boots symbolised how out of touch he was. It reminds me of Lord Carrington becoming NATO Secretary-General and being shocked at how low the travel and entertaining budget was, only to be informed that was because the British government objected to basically any sort of budget for that sort of thing

Edit: Although I don't think there's any corruption here.

[Sheilbh]

Straight Times obit of Peter Jay, former Economics Editor of the Times and British Ambassador to DC:
https://www.thetimes.com/article/822352b4-68f4-41f7-976e-61a61e3a950e?shareToken=36130cb4d56361089c8ce224f20849e9

Rather more savage Guardian obit

Peter Jay obituary
Economic journalist and broadcaster labelled 'the cleverest young man in England'
Stephen Bates
Mon 23 Sep 2024 17.09 BST


Peter Jay at work at the Times in London, 1967. Photograph: C Maher/Getty Images

If ever a man was damned by being described as "the cleverest young man in England" it was the economic journalist Peter Jay. When Time magazine decided on the epithet and chose him as one of its 150 world leaders of the future in 1974, Jay was already 37, so rather old to be a young hopeful.

However, he needed next to no encouragement to believe it, having already garnered a reputation at the Times, where he was then economics editor, for arrogance. It was scarcely the magazine's fault that his highest elected office ended up being mayor of the Oxfordshire town of Woodstock, but as his career went into a slow decline following his brief period as British ambassador to Washington in the late 1970s – having been appointed to the post by his father-in-law the Labour prime minister James Callaghan – each mishap was accompanied by the sound of chortling schadenfreude in the British press.

Jay once claimed that his career was so disjointed that it was really no career at all, yet it was nevertheless garlanded with privilege: academic success, awards for his journalism at the Times and on television, executive appointments and the most glamorous ambassadorship at the youngest age of any previous holder. But Jay, who has died aged 87, might have been born to be mocked. He took himself seriously and was, looking at the glittering prizes he collected while young, an extremely able man.

However, his talents were undermined by a lack of judgment and common sense, so that if he fell short of what he considered his due he had no one to blame but himself.

He was born into the Hampstead Labour aristocracy, the son of Douglas Jay (later Lord Jay), a sometime fellow of All Souls, Oxford, and briefly president of the Board of Trade in Harold Wilson's first cabinet – the man who once wrote that "the gentleman in Whitehall really does know better what is good for the people" – and his wife, Peggy Jay (nee Garnett), a long-time Labour member on the Greater London council.

Their son, one of four children, was educated at Winchester, where he became head boy – it was a time when Labour leaders were not embarrassed to educate their children privately. After national service on minesweepers in the Royal Navy, he went to Christ Church, Oxford, where he took a first in philosophy, politics and economics and became president of the Oxford Union debating society.

When a tutor allegedly first coined the phrase about Jay being the cleverest young man in England, his reaction was to ask whether there was someone cleverer in Wales. "I was one of those people who found it great fun to compete," he acknowledged later. "Everything was a form of game."

At Oxford, he met and married, in 1961, Margaret Callaghan (now Lady Jay of Paddington) who was even better connected than he was with Labour's upper reaches, as the daughter of Jim Callaghan. They had three children Patrick, Tamsin and Alice.

Fast-tracked from Oxford into the Treasury as a civil servant, he then moved seamlessly into journalism at the age of 30, in 1967, with his appointment as economics editor of the Times, a post he held for 10 years. It was an ideal platform from which to display erudition and his weekly columns each Thursday became influential in a paper that still saw itself self-consciously as being written only for top people.

Thus, when a subeditor once complained that he could not understand what Jay had written, he was loftily informed that the column was not meant for him, but only intended to be understood by three people – two Treasury civil servants and the governor of the Bank of England.

He was, however, also read by Margaret Thatcher, who absorbed Jay's argument in the rocky economic days of the early 70s that the money supply determined the rate of inflation – monetarism – and that Britain could not spend its way out of recession.

Jay, who regarded himself as a Keynesian, was delighted when his father-in-law repeated this to the Labour conference in 1976, but professed himself less pleased when Thatcher adopted monetarism in the 80s. "When I hear that," he admitted, "I feel like the schoolmaster who first showed Genghis Khan a map of the world."

If his cleverness was regarded with some respect, there was nevertheless astonishment when Callaghan appointed him British ambassador to Washington in 1977, and much ribald comment about the son-in-law also rising. After all, Jay's reputation was hardly that of a diplomat and he had had no experience of foreign affairs.

It seems the move was recommended by David Owen, the foreign secretary who was a friend. Jay promoted US investment in Britain and countered Irish republican fundraising for arms in the American-Irish community. But the appointment ended when Thatcher came into power in 1979; she put a career diplomat in his place.

The ambassadorship also had a disastrous effect on the Jays' marriage. Already rocky before the family moved to Washington, it disintegrated as Margaret embarked on a highly publicised affair with the journalist Carl Bernstein (subsequently dramatised by Bernstein's wife Norah Ephron in the 1983 novel Heartburn, then made into a film).

Jay himself had a fling with the family's nanny Jane Tustian, which resulted in her pregnancy and the birth of a son, Nicholas. For several years, Jay refused to acknowledge the boy's paternity; but ultimately, a blood test proved it and a court case obliged him to pay maintenance. Jay's marriage ended in divorce in 1986 and the same year he married Emma Thornton, a garden furniture designer, with whom he went on to have three sons.

In the 70s, while still at the Times, Jay had been the first presenter of the LWT Sunday morning politics programme Weekend World and became a friend of its ambitious young producer John Birt, pioneer of the "mission to explain" approach, which suited Jay's lofty tendencies. Back in London from Washington, in 1980 he became chairman and chief executive of the new TV-am channel, set up to introduce breakfast television with other celebrity luminaries such as David Frost, Angela Rippon, Anna Ford and Michael Parkinson.


Peter Jay on the set of LWT's Weekend World in 1973. Photograph: ITV/Shutterstock

Ambushed by the BBC, which hurriedly set up its own breakfast programme in advance, Jay and his colleagues soon found that their mission to explain was not what the British public wanted in the mornings, and were rapidly replaced by the puppet Roland Rat.

The hapless career moves continued when Jay was recruited by the corrupt tycoon Robert Maxwell to be his chief of staff. Despite the impressive title, he soon found that his job was little more than that of a bag carrier and general dogsbody, which came with a heavy freight of bullying and humiliation by Maxwell, who enjoyed showing his power by ringing up Jay in the middle of the night merely to ask him the time.

"I thought I could house-train him, but after 18 months it became apparent that I couldn't," Jay said later. "My job was futile." Nevertheless, he remained for three years and escaped not long before Maxwell's villainy with the company pension funds was exposed after his death, falling from his yacht in 1991. Jay's pay-off had been handed over in time, so he avoided the penury of many of the other employees.

By that time he had been rescued by his old friend Birt, now director general of the BBC, who appointed him economics and business editor for the corporation. This became the source of some resentment. A reporting job was scarcely Jay's forte: he did not have a sympathetic on-screen manner, did not find soundbite explanations easy, and became an increasingly distant figure, rarely seen in the newsroom or available for major stories, and even having to receive briefings from other staff on Budget days before going on air.

An alternative job was found for him in 2000 as presenter of a documentary series called Road to Riches, about the history of human economic development, which took him away from news reporting and to locations around the world. The series showed him, among other stunts, swapping bananas with a chimpanzee. Scotland on Sunday's reviewer wrote: "Jay is so manifestly uncomfortable in his role as our cheery tour guide with a nice line in economic theory that the series jars from the outset."

The accompanying book received warmer reviews than the series, whose publicity was scarcely helped by his admission that, not only had he not entered a shop for many years but "basically, money bores me".

Such stumbles were chronicled by the media, which continued to enjoy his reputation for arrogance, though perhaps naivety might be a better description for a surprisingly unworldly lack of self-awareness.

"I am difficult to live with and have quite a strong personality which expresses itself in the form of this is what I want to do and this is how I want you to be. I also bark," he confided. "I don't feel arrogant in my head, but so many people have said it that it must be true."

Latterly, Jay retreated to his large house on the outskirts of Woodstock to pursue his hobbies of sailing and bridge and to be elected to the town council. He served as mayor between 2008 and 2010.

He is survived by Emma and his children.

Peter Jay, journalist, broadcaster and diplomat, born 7 February 1937, died 22 September 2024

[Sheilbh]

One for Tamas on how British politics is downstream of the US, I see that Starmer is apparently going to talk about "bringing back joy" to people's lives

I'll be amazed if, by Christmas, Labour's main attack line on the Tories isn't that they're just a bit "weird".

To be po-faced for a moment I think this is a bad idea and will annoy people/seem phony. I don't believe in authenticity but I think politicians should craft their message and role they play based on how they're perceived and what seems "true" to them. So I think Starmer should be a serious, plodding lawyer, he cannot do otherwise - and trying to pick up messages from Kamala Harris (also a serious lawyer - but that's not her image) will go badly...

[Richard Hakluyt]

Few things more enjoyable than some pints and a smoke in a pub garden Mr Starmer 

[Josquius]

One for Tamas on how British politics is downstream of the US, I see that Starmer is apparently going to talk about "bringing back joy" to people's lives

I'll be amazed if, by Christmas, Labour's main attack line on the Tories isn't that they're just a bit "weird".

I mean...to look at the Tory leadership contest it certainly seems to be the path they're taking....

On the topic though, Labour's approach does seem a good one, heard this take around it last night. Not a guy I've ever ran into before but he's really echoing a lot of my thinking here:

I await the reveal he's actually some really horrid crypto-Tory who burns puppies.

[Sheilbh]

Few things more enjoyable than some pints and a smoke in a pub garden Mr Starmer 

Clement Attlee IS brat.

[garbon]

It feels like tonal whiplash with labour talking up despair and cuts as result of gap in financed to then jump to American joy.

[Josquius]

It feels like tonal whiplash with labour talking up despair and cuts as result of gap in financed to then jump to American joy.

That's what we want no?
The past 14 years have been bloody awful. No hope at all. A perpetual rot and battle over the ruins of a failing state.
Labour outright stating this is what they've inherited is basically honest and good politics.
From this low point to then say once the immediate ship is steadied they want to return to thinking that the country can actually get better....
Its just what we need.

And I do wonder whether this is a way to neatly (over) simplify right and left wing world views in the country today. The right look backwards to an imagined past golden age and how we're in decline and certain groups deserve the limited stock of resources.
The left look forwards to making a better tomorrow and actually creating more.

[Tamas]

Starmer continues to zero in on important hills to die on:

Long-term sick need to get back to work where they can, says Starmer
Labour leader says there should be more support to help people back into jobs, vowing to do 'everything we can to tackle worklessness'

I am starting to get worried. He and his cabinet seems far more occupied with being a capable Tory government than a Labour one. That was a necessary shtick for the election but that's over they have won.