It is a morning when there could be much to say.
Keir Starmer's government is in a mess.
His reshuffle was forced upon him, and the absence of new faces makes it clear just how dire the state of the Labour Party and its thinking is.
Why Starmer should believe that moving people from posts just 14 months after they were appointed — meaning that they have only just begun to come to terms with the requirements of the job — helps his fortunes is hard to tell.
Meanwhile, Farage and his party are talking utter drivel, spouting forth nonsense in the style that they have learned from Donald Trump, and hoping things will go as well for them as they have for him, just as most Americans are waking up to the reality of his authoritarian regime.
And Tory leader Kemi Badenoch is claiming to have been a child prodigy, which she clearly was not when she had two Bs and a D at A-level, but everyone has ceased to care about anything she does.
Deserving a mention, though, is the fact that Jeremy Corbyn has been doing something useful with his inquiry into the UK's participation in genocide in Israel.
And Zack Polanski provided the one message of hope for the week.
Noting all that, yesterday turned into a long and quite tiring day out. Much as I enjoy a day talking about accounting, how to communicate, and how it might be that, if only we could lift human engagement with that issue from the realms of the technical to the realms of interpretation, there is a continuing role for my profession of 40-odd years, what I most feel like having today is some time off: the opportunity to sit and read, have a coffee, continue the conversation that I've had with Jacqueline for decades now, and watch the world go by.
I need to go to Cambridge to pick up my now-repaired computer. What I must then do is remember to keep it apart from coffee thereafter, because that was apparently to blame. That, though, makes me wonder how it is that Apple can make expensive items of equipment that are not designed to coexist with those things that are likely to be on every desk ever known.
So, if you don't mind, I am going to ‘chill' for a while, because one of the themes of yesterday's discussion was that, like it or not, older teachers do need to understand the language, means of communication, and nuances of those younger people who are otherwise their students, and chilling might help me do that.
Have a good day.
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“Zack Polanski provided the one message of hope for the week.”
Disgaree.
As Mr Warren noted on a blog covering Rayner: Fart-rage is “a spinner of tales” & the English electorate listen
& there are no other “spinners of tales” on the political scene at the moment that can catch the ear of the English public – many of whom were flying the butchers apron on Thursday and yesterday on my drive through Englands green but not so pleasant land.
(had a nice swim in the Wye though – not polluted @ the moment).
I saw a video of Zach Polanski speaking perfect sense on a morning news show or something. Checked the comments. Full of people spouting Reform and Farage, doubting his words on inequality. It’s the liberal elites fault, and immigrants. That’s it. Hate sells, and Farage will sell us all down the river. Now of course, far less than half agree with him, but in our political system, he doesn’t need a majority. Labour sure didn’t.
I wonder if it’s just me who senses this. I do definitely sense the BBC is now acting as a cheerleader for Reform – in it’s breathless news reporting anyway. Ok, Nick Robinson, quite rightly, gave Tice a good working over in a R4 interview yesterday morning showing up the party’s inability to withstand even modest levels of policy scrutiny. But apart from that, and a brief outburst of exasperation by Look North’s political correspondent, it looks to me that our national broadcaster delights in giving Reform all the positive headlines it could possibly want.
Dealing with a far right party (the BBC seems to go along with that view in a vague, general sense at least) the lack of even mildly negative framing is quite startling. I clearly recall the relentless, wall-to-wall monstering they gave to Corbyn from 2015 to 2019 with ABSOLUTELY NO LET-UP – despite their famous “impartiality rule”. As an example, in the BBC news bulletins today, they cheerfully repeated the groundless, wild, sweeping claim from Farage that the next election would in 2027. This was headlined over and over all day. It sounded to me that they couldn’t wait for that to happen! Farage victorious! Wonderful! WT actual F?!
I concede that it was only to be expected that they would not want what they considered to be a far-left Corbyn government and it was predictable that they acted in the way they did. But now, faced with a far-right, Trumpian tribute act, they don’t even bother to grapple with a shower of rapacious millionaires who casually favour such things as charging people for GP appointments and who claim they will, DOGE-like, balance the govt books by – and I quote Tice today – “cutting welfare”. Were they asked what part of welfare? Pensioners’ winter fuel allowance? Family allowance? The triple lock? What? No, they were not. Give us the gory details BBC. Do your bloody jobs!
It strikes me that the most effective way of dealing with this situation would be for all the other parties’ people, whenever they are asked to appear on BBC news and current affairs programmes, to go out their way to bluntly accuse the BBC of being cheerleaders for Farage and carry on doing that until the BBC stops doing it.
The BBC coverage Farage has always hit has been extraordinary, like Johnson before him.
I wrote a letter of complaint to the BBC regarding their relentless promotion of Farage and Reform and received an unbelievable reply, it was quite long and I’m happy to share it in its entirety if you would like to view it. This is an example “Many political analysts across the media, with different political perspectives, report that Reform UK are “making the political weather” – in other words, the reactions and policies of the other political parties can only be properly understood in the context of knowing what is happening with Reform UK and its increased level of support.”
and
“We give careful consideration to ensuring any story concerning Mr Farage and Reform UK are given proportionate and appropriate coverage on our networks and online.”
Appalling, the BBC may as well call themselves GB News.
It shows the failure of following the right wing press pack, presuming they are the newsmakers.
Rest! Wise move.
Coincidentally I spoke yesterday to a friend of mine who has met Starmer a couple of times.
He said that, in his opinion, Starmer has an emotional intelligence quotient of 0.
This begs the question, is emotional intelligence a necessity in a leader?
Yes
Surely high emotional intelligence is absolutely vital for good leadership. Whilst a good leader needs to make good decisions and stand by them even if they aren’t popular, if you can’t even read the room and know what people think and have some empathy you are reliant on others to tell you, and as with Labour at the moment these advisors are as bad if not worse than Starmer.
Whilst a high emotional IQ is not limited to women, Jacinda Arden demonstrated a very high level of empathy in the way she led. And she knew it was time to step down when she was no longer carrying people with her and was emotionally burnt out.
Here’s why emotional intelligence is needed in human beings and in consequence why our use of money has to be socially engineered as carefully as possible:-
http://ndl.ethernet.edu.et/bitstream/123456789/42836/1/380.pdf#page=546
See Chapter 19, page 541 “On the Evolution of Human Motivation: The Role of
Social Prosthetic Systems” Stephen M. Kosslyn
Thanks
Bill Clinton had extreme levels of sympathy for other people. He was also very shy in private. He was very much a listener rather than a talker when in 1 on 1 conversations. He was someone who could make anyone feel like his equal, including Tony Blair, even when the political reality was they are not. No one was. If the occupy movement happened in 1998 and not 2008, the democratic party would have behaved radically different. The same way he supported wto protesters. He didn’t feel like he was their target, rather he was their president.
He was / is an introvert in the Jungian sense.
Enjoy your chill – high up here on the edge of the Peak District it is certainly chilly this morning.
Ok here….
The same Zack Polanski who said he could talk to women boobs and make them bigger? Pinning your hopes on this clown really is scraping the barrel.
If you are so Cartesian to think there is no link between mind and body, more fool you.
As I understand it, Polanski actually made no such claim. His work was about altering women’s self-image, such that they no longer felt that artificial breast enhancement was needed. Anyone who helps to counter the pressures from the vampiric cosmetic surgery industry is surely worth our respect, not the mindless replay of gutter journalism.
I suggest you read the article – from 2013 – and decide for yourself. https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/798031/can-you-really-think-your-boobs-bigger/
As I understand it, Polanski was working as a hypnotherapist and presumably had enough satisfied clients to be working in Harley Street. He was approached by a journalist and they had one free hypnotherapy session. (I think he has also said that the article is not an accurate representation of the session. If you can believe that there might just might possibly be any inaccuracy in The Sun.)
Can a talking therapy like this have a direct physical effect on someone’s body? Probably not.
But can it have an indirect effect by changing someone’s mood and mental attitude? Of course. The brain is an incredibly powerful thing and we know that placebos have measurable effect even when someone is told they are getting a placebo.
He was of course talking to the woman and her brain, not her beasts.
Ah! The Sun! That bastion of reliable and truthful information…
It’s interesting to see how this story has grown as, of course, it was always going to. But even so to go from “woman reporter looking for a silly story for the S*n” to “women” to “Polanski has a history of claiming…” to “Polanski’s only claim to fame is…..” (all of which have been BTL in the Guardian recently) does seem to suggest that knives are well and truly out for the Green’s new leader.
That was always going to be the case.
The lesson Zara Sultana learnt from seeing what happened to Corbyn, was, “go on the attack, fast and hard”. It has paid off for her, telling an MSM journalist to withdraw or lawyer up quick. They withdrew – I think it was an antisemitism smear.
Hopefully Polanski can do the same, use his air time to attack not “apologise”.
I’d go over all the weird lies, outlandish comments and bizarre behaviour of Reform party members, but there’s a 400 word limit.
Focus on the leaders, not the members. Denigrating voters doesn’t win elections. Ask Hillary (“Deplorables”) Clinton.
People don’t vote for politicians who dismiss them as stupid racist bigots.
In the demented world of Labour Government (and Reform and the Conservatives – if they still exit), and according to the unctuous Peter Mandelson, “Britain has the opportunity to use its regulatory freedom and independence from European law to deepen American investment opportunities”.
Ah, “Freedom!”. The answer to all our ills. Brexit has given us complete freedom from no less than £100Bn of national income from EU exports. Free to be poor! That’ll do it! Brexit has given us the freedom to be overwhelmed by an ‘invasion’ of small boats. Now that is what I call freedom.
Don’t worry. The smooth Mandelson promises deepened American investment opportunities. This manages to be both cynical and delusional. Britain has lost a continuing 4% of GDP following Brexit, and cut itself off from a market that was almost 45% of its world trade exports; and “freedom” depends on US exports, that offer no prospect of replacing what we have lost in the EU, no matter how hard we try; because the difference in scale between UK exports to the US, compared to the EU is just unbridgeable in any measurable economic future. In fact the US has shifted its prime attention from Europe to China, and that is obvious to everyone ….. except people like Mandelson, selling us his shabby out-of-date stock, at a premium. And if you wish to understand what a Special Relationship with the US really looks like in the 21st century; everyone in the world knows Britain doesn’t possess it, and doesn’t count (we are living in the nostalgic haze of an elderly gopher), but that Israel defines “Special Relationship”.
So many of these idiot politicians, or deceivers like Mandelson and Farage, seem obsessed with how America does things and want us to be like America. When I look over there, all I can see is how not to do things and what we should aim to avoid. We’d be far better off looking toward Scandinavia for good examples to follow.
Thanks, Richard, for mentioning Corbyn’s inquiry into the UK’s participation in genocide in Gaza. Starmer might be wishing he had allowed the motion in the commons to go ahead. There wouldn’t have been nearly as much expert witness information in that inquiry.
One thing that has stuck in my mind that I can’t forget is the statement by Eyal Weizman, a director of forensic architecture.
There are over 10,000 bodies missing still that will never be found. Whenever the IDF blow up a building there will be a 20-30 metre crater to be filled with all the rubble from the building and other buildings around. The blown up building will just collapse into the crater, along with all the bits of bodies that are still in it.
When Trump starts building his dream city in Gaza, it will be built with bones of dead Palestinians. I don’t suppose he will tell all the investors about that.
I don’t believe the investors would care. Their only priority will be making money.
Earlier this week I was driving through N. Wales, through “sunlit uplands”. These are infertile, underpopulated, poor, and scraping a living from tourism, much about past industries (slate, heritage railways). Is this the prospect meant by promoters of Brexit when they referred to “sunlit uplands”?
Zack Polanski has indicated he is willing to work with Your Party (channel 4 youtube interview) to offer a viable alternative to Fascism and the increasingly failed neo-liberalism. We can only hope they gain ground here with middle aged labour and young non voters.
Apple is notorious for outright lying about repair on their products and what the cause is. Many times Apple “genius'” have indicated water damage or coffee spilt even when the user hasn’t spilt anything, sometimes falsifying the claim.
I don’t ask anyone to believe a random person on the internet, instead look up Louis Rossman who has spent decades fixing Apple products until Apple finally made it so no-one can repair their products through excessive control and anti-consumer practises. He is also spearheading the right to repair movement in the US. https://www.youtube.com/@rossmanngroup/videos
I hope you have a relaxing time Richard, it’s always nice to watch the world pass by sometimes.
But for insurance the repair would have cost £2,519. I paid £229.
Interesting that Starmer has surrounded himself with three women in the other Great Offices of State. I’m sure they are as well or better qualified than any others, and Thatcher surrounded herself with men, but it is the first time.
Reeves is the first woman to serve as Chancellor, and Cooper the third woman as foreign secretary (after Beckett and Truss).
Since Jacqui Smith in 2007, Shabana Mahmood is the seventh woman to serve as Home Secretary (eight periods with a woman out of twelve in 18 years, with Braverman twice). Teresa May had six years and Priti Patel three but otherwise there has been an enormous amount of change and instability at the top of the department, which must in part explain why immigration is in a mess.
The position of Home Secretary is always a difficult one. I wonder if there is a reason that we have had so many women here and not in the other offices.
(There has been similar instability at the justice department, with a constant merry-go-round of ministers in the ancient office of Lord Chancellor, which is one of the reasons – as well as austerity – that the courts and prisons are in such a poor state. Along with problems with the police, the criminal justice system is creaking.)
You can rearrange the deckchairs but the ship is still sinking.
Much to agree with
Funny enough I was thinking about the Dark Lord of New Labour the other day, and wondering if he had been involved with this Rayner business?
You are absolutely right about Mandelson; he is full-on Giddens and can only be capable of turning meagre gruel into something exciting and progressive because that was what The Third Way was all about – celebrating making other people rich out of deals that were biased toward them and the ‘market’.
I actually think Starmer’s re-shuffle (and removal of Raynor) is about nothing more than presentation and the party conference.
Much of the membership, who have been completely side-lined by Starmer, are very unhappy about Gaza and David Lammy, so shuffle him to somewhere else on the front bench and it’s problem solved (and the media won’t have anything to write about there either). And immigration’s been dominating the ‘news agenda’s, so just move Yvette Cooper into the F.O. and that’s another problem solved: besides, having someone of migrant heritage as Home Sec could wrong foot Farage a bit. And, when it comes to it, side-lining Rachel Reeves a bit would provide a useful distraction too.
And the Angela Raynor affair? A gift from the gods. No longer the potential embarrassment of conference expressing their dissatisfaction by giving her the loudest cheer.
Achieving all that. And doing a good bit of seizing the limelight from Farage’s conference. And further cementing right-wing control of the party. It’s amazing just what re-arranging a few chairs at the top table can do.
Starmer’s done nothing to convince the electorate he’s not leading a “False Badge Party,” one that’s little different to to the failed Tories who are dwindling into insignifcance. We are now waiting to see if Your Party and a new leadership Green Party can come up with anything innovative that will get to grips with the country’s serious economic decline.
Agreed
The president of Israel, Isaac Herzog, is supposedly visiting the UK on 11th.
Who do you think he will be meeting with, as no. 10 hasn’t said that he will meet Starmer?
Will Yvette Cooper know enough?
This is in the run-up to the UK recognising Palestinian statehood. At least 147 countries have recognised it so far.
I have read that Yvette Cooper is good friends with the Israeli ambassador (who should have been sent back to Tel Aviv a long time ago, but that’s another story..)
[…] important was the objective of having the opportunity […]
Could this urgent matter be given some prominence?
Contract to train British troops
I understand that the British government is on the point of awarding contracts for training British forces – tens of thousands of them. This sounds like privatisation by a Labour government – and concerns a fundamental government responsibility – and all without significant public consultation or approval.
The current favoured recipient of a multi-billion pound contract is a branch of the major Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit. Elbit must be a major supporter of the genocide in Gaza and benefit financially from it.
Could the visit of the Israeli president have significance in this matter? Is a reason for David Lammy’s removal from the Foreign Office that he resisted the proposal? Has Yvette Cooper been appointed Foreign Secretary because she approves of it?
Do the British people want a major section of their army to be trained by a (genocidal) foreign power so that the British parliament might be sidelined?
Do we want our forces trained by members of a nation that is repeatedly at war with almost all its neighbours, and that trains its troops to carry out their ‘Hannibal Directive’ in which they kill their own if it is suspected that they might be captured?
Deeply worrying.
Why can’t the military train itself?