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#31

Off the Record / Re: What does a TRUMP presiden...

Last post by The Minsky Moment - July 05, 2025, 11:49:53 AM

It's the revenge bill.

Understood.  Still, I knew Putin was cruel, and vindictive against the United States, but this is really over the top.

#32

Off the Record / Re: Climate Change/Mass Extinc...

Last post by Sheilbh - July 05, 2025, 11:39:11 AM

This is an odd European affliction though as a/c works perfectly fine in dry, windy, desert climates like that in southern California.

I'd suggest affectation rather than affliction given that the rest of the world generally seems capable of using it. The climate is changing Europe is suffering more and more severe heatwaves more regularly in which, across the continent, hundreds of people die every year - but we won't adopt AC for fundamentally aesthetic reasons. It's very:


And again I always think that literally no-one would respect any of these arguments if they were applied against central heating. I don't really get why heating = important, cooling = morally suspect/climate change denialist/American.

#33

Off the Record / Re: Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-2...

Last post by Tamas - July 05, 2025, 11:24:52 AM

On China, the thought just occurred to me: do we know if China is loaning money to Russia? I am thinking (dreading) a scenario similar to what the USA faced in WW1 - having the Entente lose the war would had meant a lot of money lost due to all the loans given out to Allied countries.

#34

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by Tamas - July 05, 2025, 11:23:01 AM

It is best when we leave such things in the hands of people who are at least 70 if not preferably in their 80s.

Surely between 19 and 80, a middle ground must exist where competence might be found.

[However, multiple sources said some people around Starmer were growing to view the choice of Wormald as "disastrous" for the prospects of radical reform of the civil service and had begun to explore options for how to work around him.]

#35

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by Sheilbh - July 05, 2025, 08:45:10 AM

I think you're right - and, ironically, so did the Winter Fuel Allowance because Brown wanted to announce something and to give some money to pensioners but (Brown and the Treasury) did not want to increase pensions. So the Winter Fuel Allowance was born

I think a lot of the complexity in benefits and taxes really start with Brown - and to an extent Osborne - who were very political Chancellors and, as you say, wanted to avoid political downsides.

Totally agree on the benefits point. I used to be a big believer in focusing spending on the people who need it most and really targeting it, which was broadly New Labour's approach. The last 14 years of Tory rule has shown how vulnerable that spending is - because not many people actually get it - and I'm now very much of the view that if you have benefits for the poor they will become poor benefits. Universal ones are really difficult to mess with - plus I think everyone pays in, everyone should benefit.

I flagged it at the time but it looks like Downing Street have buyer's remorse over their choice of Cabinet Secretary. Who among us could possibly have guessed that a "plodding time-server" (as described by Janan Ganesh at the time) might not be the best pick to "completely rewire the British state". It's almost like Starmer chose the most-Starmerlike option

No 10 regrets choice of 'insipid' new cabinet secretary, sources say
Keir Starmer's aides said to be trying to work around Chris Wormald, who was only appointed six months ago
Rowena Mason Whitehall editor
Sat 5 Jul 2025 08.00 BST

Keir Starmer's No 10 increasingly has "buyer's remorse" about the new cabinet secretary, Chris Wormald, who has only been running the civil service for six months, Downing Street and Whitehall sources have told the Guardian.

Wormald, who was the permanent secretary at the Department of Health and Social Care during the Covid pandemic, was chosen by the prime minister from a shortlist of four names.

Starmer made his pick in consultation with the head of the civil service and the first civil service commissioner, saying at the time that Wormald "brings a wealth of experience to this role at a critical moment in the work of change this new government has begun".

However, multiple sources said some people around Starmer were growing to view the choice of Wormald as "disastrous" for the prospects of radical reform of the civil service and had begun to explore options for how to work around him.

One said Wormald was viewed as "insipid" and prone to wringing his hands about problems rather than coming up with solutions, and too entrenched in the status quo.

The Spectator reported on Thursday that Starmer had picked Wormald despite others being looked on more favourably by the expert panel that had shortlisted the candidates. It quoted a cabinet minister as saying: "If you want to do drastic reform of the state, you don't appoint someone whose grandfather and father were both civil servants."

It is understood the panel did not rank the candidates, so there was no preferred choice, but gave four "appointable" names who would do the job well and assessments of each one.

The shortlist of four also included Antonia Romeo, now permanent secretary at the Home Office, Olly Robbins, the Foreign Office permanent secretary, and Tamara Finkelstein, the permanent secretary at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

A government spokesperson said: "The appointment decision was made in line with the usual procedures for appointing permanent secretaries. Under this process, a panel proposes a shortlist of appointable candidates for a final decision by the prime minister.

"The cabinet secretary is leading the work to rewire the way government operates, driving efficiency and reducing bureaucracy as part of prime minister's plan for change to renew our country."

The doubts about the choice of Wormald as cabinet secretary are not new but it has been a difficult few weeks for Starmer on domestic policy, with questions over why he became distracted by foreign affairs and missed the implications of a looming rebellion on welfare cuts.

The cabinet secretary is the prime minister's most senior policy adviser and also responsible for running the civil service.

In the past, prime ministers have attempted to solve problems with how No 10 and the government is run by splitting the role into a cabinet secretary, a Cabinet Office permanent secretary and a separate head of the civil service, as happened under David Cameron.

These were merged back into a single cabinet secretary in 2014 after a three-year experiment in dividing power.

The Times reported in April that No 10 was considering greater changes to the machinery of government to create more executive power at the centre, with fewer procedural demands on officials' time, a higher bar for public inquiries, and a civil service that better reflects Britain's class diversity.

On his appointment, Wormald told civil servants they would have to "do things differently" and promised a "rewiring of the way the government works".

His position is likely to come under further scrutiny when the next stage of Covid inquiry reports are published in the autumn on core political and administrative decision-making. The first report found there had been "a lack of adequate leadership" in Britain's pandemic preparation, saying the civil service and governments "failed their citizens".

I think the Covid Inquiry report might make his position untenable given that he was Permanent Secretary at DHSC (and the long-serving Permanent Secretary in government). But also I think so far a lot of the focus has been on the politicians which is fair - but I think always reflected the "official" view.

So on 12 March 2020, so a few days before the first lockdown measures started, Lord Sedwill (then cabinet Secretary) Whatsapped Wormald: "I don't think the PM & Co have internalised yet the distinction between minimising mortality and not trying to stop most people getting it. Indeed presumably like chickenpox we want people to get it and develop herd immunity before the next wave. We just want them not to get it all at once and preferably when it's warm and dry etc."

Wormald replied "Exactly right. We make the point every meeting, they don't quite get it." As John Crace's sketch from Wormald's evidence to the Covid Inquiry in 2023 put it:

It turned out that Stevens was just the warmup act. The hors d'oeuvre. The real masterclass in time-wasting came from Christopher Wormald. The permanent secretary of the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). The king of the time wasters. Pen pusher extraordinaire. The man who had never come across a form that he didn't want to fill out in triplicate. The Sir Humphrey for whom silence was the Pavlovian response to any question. Quickly followed by a stream of unconsciousness. Time and again, the lead counsel Hugo Keith KC had to beg him to listen to what he was saying.
[...]
On and on this went, until Keith eventually gave up in despair. It was 50-50 whether he'd end up killing himself or Wormald. Imagine what it would be like working with Chris. A lifetime in the hell of a bureaucratic cul-de-sac. Where process trumps outcome every time. But he will get his reward. People pay good money for that kind of futility. Which is why he's tipped to be the next cabinet secretary when Simon Case steps down. Make that Lord Wormald.

#36

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by garbon - July 05, 2025, 08:36:44 AM

It is best when we leave such things in the hands of people who are at least 70 if not preferably in their 80s.

#37

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by Tamas - July 05, 2025, 08:28:08 AM

  between stuff like this and the MMA fight in the white house, we are truly on fast track for making Idiocracy real.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jul/05/nigel-farage-reform-uk-teenage-councillors-vital-public-services

#38

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by Richard Hakluyt - July 05, 2025, 01:47:01 AM

IIRC this annoying tinkering started with Gordon Brown, who wanted to increase taxes but also wanted to avoid the poltitical downside of increasing the main rates. It was relatively ok at first but the complications and consequences have mounted up over the years.

I am against means-testing, partly from listening to the elders when I was a child and the horrific means-testing imposed in the 1920s and 1930s. But also because when you take a benefit away from the well-off there is a tendency for that benefit to wither on the vine.

So, yes, I want my WFA back 

I suggest that we raise the main rates of income tax but get rid of all the silly rules leading to the "lumpiness"
 shown above. We also need to start taxing residential property properly by a return to the rates. As it stands a Russian oligarch in a £50m mansion in Mayfair pays barely more in property taxes then me in my northern terraced house. Bring the rates back, after all, it is very hard to hide a house or take it abroad.

#39

Off the Record / Re: Climate Change/Mass Extinc...

Last post by HVC - July 05, 2025, 12:48:54 AM

Problem with A/C in non-wet and windy Europe  is that it kills humidity and gives lots of sore throats. Not good for hospitals and the rest.
(Better) insulation and blinds persianas in Castilian and Portuguese, opened in the morning and at night and closed during the day would be a good start, Southern Europe has been doing that for a long time.

This is an odd European affliction though as a/c works perfectly fine in dry, windy, desert climates like that in southern California.

And super humid climates like southern Ontario. I too have heard this complaint from some Europeans before and I don't get it. We go from super humid outdoors to AC indoor all the time.

#40

Off the Record / Re: Climate Change/Mass Extinc...

Last post by garbon - July 05, 2025, 12:43:12 AM

Problem with A/C in non-wet and windy Europe  is that it kills humidity and gives lots of sore throats. Not good for hospitals and the rest.
(Better) insulation and blinds persianas in Castilian and Portuguese, opened in the morning and at night and closed during the day would be a good start, Southern Europe has been doing that for a long time.

This is an odd European affliction though as a/c works perfectly fine in dry, windy, desert climates like that in southern California.