As the Guardian has reported today:
The US and the UK have refused to sign the Paris AI summit's declaration on “inclusive and sustainable” artificial intelligence, in a blow to hopes for a concerted approach to developing and regulating the technology.
They added:
The two countries did not immediately explain their reasons for not adding their names to a document backed by 60 signatories on Tuesday, including China, India, Japan, Australia and Canada.
The UK prime minister's official spokesperson said France was one of the UK's closest partners in AI, but the government would “only ever sign up to initiatives that are in UK national interests”.
It is hard to avoid three thoughts.
The first is that Starmer was pandering to Trump.
The second is that sustainability is not now seen as being in the UK's national interests.
The third is that Starjmer, like Trump, thinks that national growth is going to be based on non-cooperation.
Is there an unholy and potentially deeply harmful alliance developing between the UK and the USA? I hope not, but suspect it is.
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Thank you and well said, Richard.
I detect as much Mandelson, McSweeney and even Blair, in receipt of Silicon Valley money, behind that.
EU leaders, especially Macron, are losing patience with Starmer. On the one hand he says he wants a reset, but never firms up on what that means and rules out a rapprochement on whatever terms. Starmer should stop wasting their time and his limited political capital.
Starmer has clearly thrown his lot with the US. This feels like 2003 and a time when US hegemony is being challenged and even Secretary of State Marco Rubio acknowledged a multi-polar world is the historical norm and the US should react accordingly.
This is also the result of Blair’s sofa / personalised government, the politicisation and Americanisation of the civil service, and the incentives that drive government.
Finally, please let me laugh at the people who thought Starmer was a remainer and opposed Corbyn for that reason, or so they claimed. They really have not a clue. They are also dishonest as this was about their tax bill, which I consider as the price for living in a civilised society.
“Finally, please let me laugh at the people who thought Starmer was a remainer and opposed Corbyn for that reason, or so they claimed.”
Yes, spot on. I find it interesting that nowadays you are much more likely to get pro-European voices from the Labour left (who would have been criticised in 2017-2020 for being ‘not strong enough on remain’), than the Starmer right faction that runs the party and government now (witness them extolling the virtues – Jonathan Reynolds style – of a crap trade deal and such like). Depressing.
It gets worse, with regard the Home Office stating yesterday a total ban on ‘illegal immigrants’ from ever gaining citizenship if they came via “dangerous crossings”. Horrible, dangerous stuff.
J D Vance showing up to advocate for his corporate masters. I’m sure everyone there saw right through it. How he could stand there with a straight face and criticise China as an authoritarian regime is beyond belief.
I found this very useful https://williamcullernebown.substack.com/p/into-the-kill-zone
US Forward Base 1. What odds a sellout of the NHS?
Thank you, John.
It’s happening as former Cameron adviser and McKinsey alumnus Camilla Cavendish has been appointed adviser to Streeting.
Well, if the NHS goes, I for one won’t be able to get any healthcare or emergency treatment. I couldn’t afford the insurance even if the insurers would accept me. And it would surely be the case for millions of us.
Deeply disappointing but also how typical that a crooked corrupt traditionally oligarchical country like Britain would should seek out a similar one in outlook.
My apologies for haunting this blog over the last 36 hours. I’m an inveterate reader of political news, and that combined with one of my previous lives leads me to see patterns in seemingly unconnected bits of information. I then visualise potential trajectories. Added to that is my complete inability to deal with weak liars (particularly in public life) and some innate sense of social justice which I can’t seem to shed.
I try to guard against becoming a conspiracy theorist by taking care to read a number of alternative positions, and to find, if possible, the source documents. I’ve done all that over a number of years in relation to Trump, Labour, Starmer, Corbyn, Palantir/Thiel, Reeves, neoliberalism, Musk, Netanyahu…….the usual suspects.
And I feel strongly that some sort of unspoken plan is coming together. The people in that plan may not have originally set out to get us here, but they’ve all, now, discovered a common purpose. OK, it’s a conspiracy theory. But unlike most conspiracy theories, which usually have a minute particle of distorted truth within them, this wild theory of mine has solid facts to back up each strand. I admit it is me who is connecting those strands to plot a trajectory, and I may be imagining the whole thing. I sincerely hope I am.
I just know that I have never had such a strong sense of foreboding and trepidation. Ever. Even in 1983 when NATO and the USSR were within minutes of obliterating the planet, I thought it would all turn out ok.
I don’t now.
(All enquiries to Cassandra, care of Gypsy Rose Lee)
And….?
Oops! Forgot the punchline.
I think the U.S. Administration – or the Trump/Musk/Thiel/Vance part of it – is on a path to some sort of enforced dominance of the Western world. It may also have designs on Central America. I don’t really understand why, other than the power of having power. “Because I can”.
I think Starmer is also fascinated by power, now that he has tasted it. He has a reputation in Europe as a grey suit – one who never actually does anything concrete, apart from spout unrealistic aspirations. However hard he tries to convince himself or others that he is A Statesman, he can’t carry it off. So it is easier to pander to his donors (including US Healthcare companies, Israel and Quadrature) for the chance to cosy up to the U.S. Aligning us with the Trumpians suits his vision of himself. Sadly for Starmer, Trump won’t even notice he’s in the room; apart from extracting from him whatever Trump wants. Including the NHS, which is already half in his hands via Palantir. And Blair is in there somewhere.
The polls show that the UK would prefer to be aligned with the EU, not the U.S. That would, of course, mean Starmer opposing tariffs, which he’s too weak to do. So, off to Trumpland we will go.
The end game is all about power.
Pathetic and stupid behaviour from a labour government that is now effectively undistinguishable from it’s appalling Tory predecessor.
Siding with Trump’s oligarchical regime against the rest of the world in seeking proper regulation of AI because they are desperate to attract ‘investment’ from the likes of Musk and Zuckerberg because apparently the UK can’t create wealth itself from it’s own public and private sectors.
And as you noted a couple of days ago Richard, Starmer needs to decide whose side he is on. Pretty clear where this hopeless politician stands when it comes to standing up for liberal, progressive values against Trump and his coup.
Pertinent to mention McKinsey. McKinsey wrote a plan for Blair/Brown in 2009 – “Achieving World Class Productivity in the NHS, 2009/10 – 2013/14- Detailing the size of the Opportunity”. The content has prefigured what has been happening to the NHS under both parties to date – fewer doctors, fewer hospital beds. McKinsey is embedded in the system, since Patricia Hewitt took DoH officials off to the States, as Blair started his rule. Here in NW London (what we have done to deserve it, I am unsure), we have Penny Dash as Chair of our Integrated Care Board, holder of our health purse strings, and alumna of McKinsey. (According to the NHS Confederation, she was “a partner with McKinsey & Company from 2009-2021. As a Senior Partner, she led McKinsey’s healthcare practice across Europe and supported improvements [their word] in health and care in multiple parts of the UK, wider Europe, Africa, Australia, Asia and North America”. She has just done the CQC review, and is about to review ” patient safety”. This seems to include looking at Healthwatch (the attempt at patient champion in the 2013 Health & Care Act), and the National Guardian’s Office, the Health Services Safety Investigation Body, the Patient Safety Commissioner and NHS Resolution). Widely rumoured to be going to head NHSE. Then we have Tom Kibasi, who, coincidentally, “spent many years at McKinsey & Company where he was a partner in the healthcare practice in London and New York and focused on improving the integration of care” according to the website of Central North West Mental Health Trust , when he was apponuited joint chair of the two NWL MH Trusts. He, of course, is writing the latest 10 Year NHS Plan.. sigh heavily. And last – but by no means least – Matt (“Starmer Instantly Adopts All 50 Recommendations of His AI Opportunities Action Report”) Clifford. Consulting at McKinsey 2009-11. Founder of Entrepreneur First, along with Alice Bentinck (who, apart from her consulting years with McKinsey where she met Clifford, was an intern in Tony Blair’s office).
I was in touch today with a peer I know well who is seriously knowledgeable about AI, chaired multiple committees in UK and elsewhere and written an excellent book on the subject. Clear about the positives and negatives of AI, and the need for strong regulation and transparency.
His words for what Starmer has just done were ‘utterly stupid’. He won’t be leaving it there and has some influence.
An indicator that Starmer’s Labour will just roll over to Trump, which in turn will thoroughly alienate Europe and stuff chances of closer relations.
Thanks
Yet again, we see labour behaving exactly like Tory/reform would behave in these circumstances. Siding with an America now run by a corrupt oligarch rather than with the EU (and others).
The same with steel tariffs; rather than stand together with the EU, Canada and Mexico and threaten retaliation against Trump’s bullying, the UK is apparently ‘talking’ to Trump’s government. In other words, seeking to appease a corrupt fascist bully.
And now it’s been reported the government is issuing guidance that will make it virtually impossible to ever become a British citizen if you arrive here as a refugee via an ‘illegal’ route. In other words, this lot are doing exactly what Tory/reform would do.
Much to agree with
That is what Reform is there for. They, or their predecessor, scared the Tories into dismantling themselves. Now they will pull Labour further and further to the Right so they can’t be ‘outflanked’. Is there any chance of them being outflanked on the Left? Probably not. Our politicians and elite establishment have zero involvement or interest in the will of the people. We are commodity to be bought and sold, and our health and wellbeing is the next item up for sale.
My ludicrous theory is the only one which satisfactorily pulls the threads together. No one would be happier than me if somebody can come up with something less apocalyptic.
We face a dystrumpian future.
It’s not a ludicrous theory. Those patterns – historically far from unique – and their trajectories became horribly clear to those of us who set out from 1995 to navigate the ‘savage wars of peace’ far sooner than they did to those on the home front proclaiming the virtues of democracy, freedom, and the Liberal World Order la la la. By 2010, the evolving set of spanners, knobs and levers by which elite networks usurp the powers of government were coming together (see two excellent books ‘Thieves of State’ and ‘On Corruption in America’, amongst others). And behold! when we did come home, here they were, hiding in plain sight. Exceptionalism – ha!
Security – food security, health security, and all – is the orphan child of economics and defence. Unfortunately – tragically – defence people routinely ignore economics, and economists have a regrettable tendency to conflate defence with the arms trade. As you so rightly say, I suspect we are about to receive a summary lesson in the meaning of security at the hands of the Silicon Valley factions.
Utterly predictable.
UK is now like the worlds largest Antarctic iceberg A23a which is drifting North into the Weddell Sea after being stuck grounded for 40 years .
We are drifting away from Europe into the Atlantic, melting and getting smaller and smaller as we seek the approval of our coercive abuser.
A depressingly accurate analogy Andrew. ‘Interesting’ how the Tories went further and further to the right and wrecked themselves, and now labour are doing the same.
I wonder how labour’s cheerleaders in the media e.g Alistair Campbell, Paul Mason are going to take all the crawling to Trump and anti EU nonsense?
In their criticisms of the right they’re bang on, but how can they continue to support a labour party turning into Tory/Reform MK2?