Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[The Minsky Moment]

Part of Labour's problem are some the election slogans I've been hearing about.  I think they can use better ones than:

Keir Starmer - he's Labour, he's got the right first name, and.

A man. A plan. Or - perhaps not.

The Tories were incompetent. Labour raises the bar.

Tough on economic growth. Tough on the causes of economic growth.

[Sheilbh]

Britain's new ambassador to DC was recorded speaking to sixth formers on a trip to he US and giving some rather unguarded remarks - in fairness all points I basically agree with. So he said that Starmer's future was "quite touch and go" but he's "stubborn", if Labour does badly in the locals then it might get enough peopleto remove him. The "vetting thing's a bit of a red herring" and the fundamental problem was Mandelson's associations. On that he was struck that in the UK the Epstein scandal has brought down "a senior member of the royal family, a British ambassador and potentially the Prime Minister" while in the US "it really hasn't touched anybody". Also noting that the "special relationship" is a bit of a nonsense phrase and mainly historical and that the only country the US has a special relationsip with is Israel.

From what I've read this recording was made in February and then held on to until now when the King's doing a state visit and there's all the votes over Mandelson in the UK. I believe Starmer's looking for his sixth communications director - and he could do a lot worse than trying to find that 18 year old who held onto this for two months for the point of maximum damage   (Edit: I mean that sort of media management had me thinking of Death of Stalin "Peter Mandelson would be loving this").

On the other hand bit of a shame this got leaked as these types of events exist and I suspect any civil servant or politician doing them in future is going to be a lot less open/unguarded.

[The Minsky Moment]

On the other hand bit of a shame this got leaked as these types of events exist and I suspect any civil servant or politician doing them in future is going to be a lot less open/unguarded.

I visited Dick Cheney with a group of college students when he was SecDef in the early 90s.
His response to a question of whether the Gulf War was more about oil than about defending Kuwati sovereignty was: "Of course it was about oil.  You didn't see us getting involved in the Libya-Chad war."

[Sheilbh]

I went to one in the run up to Iraq and during Tory leadership challenges and it was really good. I think we had Jack Straw who was the Foreign Secretary, Charles Kennedy in his pomp opposing the war as leader of the Lib Dems and Ken Clarke who was Europhile Tory big beast (who'd lost the last leadership election). They were admirably candid for a bunch of spotty teens (I think because - like the ambassador they genuinely want to encourage nerd children who are into politics).

Separately Starmer has beaten the Tory motion. The vote went 335-223. Given that there are over 400 Labour MPs and there was a three line whip that doesn't seem like a great result.

I'd expect the Socialist Campaign Group (effectively the hard-left caucus) to vote for the investigation. Lots of other Labour MPs said they'd vote against but urged Starmer to refer himself to the Privileges Committee.

Edt: Yeah so 15 Labour MPs voted against the whip - basically the SCG. But about 50 abstained or did not vote. I think that's worse than expected and as I say if the briefing about Number 10 seeing off a rebellion were true, they wouldn't have need to impose a three line whip.

[HisMajestyBOB]

Your king is visiting Washington DC and all of the lampposts have American and British flags. I hadn't realized he was visiting and I thought all of the British flags were part of the 250th anniversary celebrations, which I thought was kind of a weird choice. 

His Majesty's royal motorcade did not hinder my commute at all, so thank you for that. 

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Too bad it wasn't to announce that Britain was re-assuming control over the colonies to ensure proper government.

[garbon]

Too bad it wasn't to announce that Britain was re-assuming control over the colonies to ensure proper government.

Starmer can't even handle his current remit. He could only fail faster with a larger portfolio.

[HVC]

Too bad it wasn't to announce that Britain was re-assuming control over the colonies to ensure proper government.

Starmer can't even handle his current remit. He could only fail faster with a larger portfolio.

I don't know, judging by 2 of the last 3 elections, it seems like the American populace is easier to please (and or trick)

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Too bad it wasn't to announce that Britain was re-assuming control over the colonies to ensure proper government.

Starmer can't even handle his current remit. He could only fail faster with a larger portfolio.

He seems to be doing a good enough job... when compared to the orange quasi king.
It's a relative metric in any case

[Richard Hakluyt]

I would say that the UK is drifting whereas the USA is in active and rapid decline. Since that is happening to the USA we really need to stop drifting and get the country ready for the new and nastier world that is being created. But we have no leaders of high quality in sight at the moment and the electorate are self-indulgent and entitled; one hopes for "cometh the hour cometh the man" but maybe we will not be so lucky this time round.

[garbon]

I would say that the UK is drifting whereas the USA is in active and rapid decline. Since that is happening to the USA we really need to stop drifting and get the country ready for the new and nastier world that is being created. But we have no leaders of high quality in sight at the moment and the electorate are self-indulgent and entitled; one hopes for "cometh the hour cometh the man" but maybe we will not be so lucky this time round.

Imagine where Liz Truss had been a Labour PM and had not done the honorable thing of resigning.

[garbon]

Too bad it wasn't to announce that Britain was re-assuming control over the colonies to ensure proper government.

Starmer can't even handle his current remit. He could only fail faster with a larger portfolio.

He seems to be doing a good enough job... when compared to the orange quasi king.
It's a relative metric in any case

Combining MAGA and Reform crazies would likely be to the UK's detriment.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

I would say that the UK is drifting whereas the USA is in active and rapid decline. Since that is happening to the USA we really need to stop drifting and get the country ready for the new and nastier world that is being created. But we have no leaders of high quality in sight at the moment and the electorate are self-indulgent and entitled; one hopes for "cometh the hour cometh the man" but maybe we will not be so lucky this time round.

Zelensky is not going to lead Ukraine forever. Maybe we can implore him to help?
But serious: yeah, the current crop of politicians seems rather meh. And thats not only in the UK.
"De spoeling is dun" as we say in dutch

[HisMajestyBOB]

Too bad it wasn't to announce that Britain was re-assuming control over the colonies to ensure proper government.

Good idea, but after the king dies, the combined kingdom would split again, with Prince Harry becoming King of America and King William ruling the old country.

On the other hand, Harry doesn't seem too bad. Might turn out to be a net benefit for us. 

[Sheilbh]

I would say that the UK is drifting whereas the USA is in active and rapid decline. Since that is happening to the USA we really need to stop drifting and get the country ready for the new and nastier world that is being created. But we have no leaders of high quality in sight at the moment and the electorate are self-indulgent and entitled; one hopes for "cometh the hour cometh the man" but maybe we will not be so lucky this time round.

I agree with this. I'd add that Starmer now appears to be tilting to/relying on the soft left - after his reliance on the Labour right. So they're briefing about introducing rent controls (I'd just gently note on this that housebuilding has collapsed in London and in order to meet Labour's own target they need to build 300k homes a year over this parliament - when they took office there were about 150-200k housing starts pa and that's fallen to about 100k), lots of talk about bringing Rayner back into the cabinet and bringing in Lucy Powell too (apparently Peter Kyle and Liz Kendall may be demoted). It's just incredibly rudderless.

I think the public point is true but I think there's a chicken and egg thing there of politicians not confronting people with choices (which is I think the purpose of leaders and also of democratic politics).

I am increasingly worried that it is going to take a crisis actually happening for realisation to sink in and I think it'll be over energy. In 2022 we were very, very close to the lights going off and from everything I've read from experts in that industry it was really touch and go. So you would assume that would cause increased focus on ensuring security of supply, storage etc. There's been nothing of the sort. We apparently came very close to crisis again last winter - again government is not seized with urgency to fix any of thsoe issues. I wouldn't be surprised if we do hit the point of having blackouts or imposed energy conservaion measures in the near future.

I don't think this is just the UK I think it seems to be an issue in much of Europe - and I do think part of it is that we have a generation of leaders who came up in relatively benign times when there were fewer trade-offs (the years of "sharing the proceeds of growth") and difficult issues could be technocratised away (like the Father Ted line "that would be an ecumenical matter" of pushing issues to a European level, or to a commission, or to stakeholders). I think we're in a less forgiving world, Europe is particularly exposed and aspects that were technocratic are now contested or just resulted in can-kicking. On some issues I think there are genuine challenges/difficult choices but on many I'm reminded of the Jean-Claude Juncker line: "we all know what to do, we just don't know how to get elected afterwards." (Edit: In the UK context I especially think that with social care for the elderly which is essential, where there's strong policy consensus on what to do and how to pay for it - but the two leaders who tried, Gordon Brown and Theresa May, were hugely damaged by it at the next election for proposing a "dementia tax").

Imagine where Liz Truss had been a Labour PM and had not done the honorable thing of resigning.

I think there was a degree of that with Corbyn who was the candidate to become PM.

As I mentioned before I think a big part of the "problem" for Labour right now - and also in the Corbyn situation or a Labour Truss situation - is that Labour's party rules only have a process for replacing a leader, not removing one. I think that boring party constitution point is a big part of why Labour does not have a history of leaders being removed (last I can think of is George Lansbry - Dame Angela's grandfather - who was removed by the unions in 1935 because he was a pacifist). The flipside is the Tory rules separation of removing a leader from having to choose a new one I think makes them burn through them because for them they are separate processes.