Sunak and Hunt may have repeated Clinton's error

 In his autumn financial statement, Chancellor Hunt proposed easing the tax burden on banks, reviewing regulations that originated from out membership of the EU and announced that:

Rules surrounding the amount of money insurers must hold to cover potential losses - known as Solvency II - are to be eased, freeing up billions of pounds, ministers hope, for investing in badly needed infrastructure projects, including nuclear energy. [...] The reforms have resulted in disagreements between the Bank of England and the Treasury about the extent of financial safety cushions.

The Government appears to have dismissed the regulator's concerns, as the Chancellor said the changes would "unlock tens of billions of pounds of investment". [Report by David Connett in The Independent and i]

This is all very reminiscent of President Clinton's removal of banking and mortgage regulations in the 1990s. This led to a short-term economic boom, but also to the credit crash of 2008, as this Demos blog explains. Admittedly, various checks had already been eroded over the years, as the blogger points out, but it was the Clinton dash for growth that ensured that a financial crash would ensue. This occurred after Clinton left office, distancing him from the transatlantic carnage which followed. No doubt Sunak and Hunt have made a similar calculation: if a major insurer fails, it will be on the watch of their successors.

Windfall taxes are slanted towards Big Gas & Oil

 The last chancellor but three, a certain Rishi Sunak, reacted to public outrage at oil and gas companies making huge profits by introducing a Windfall Tax, which came into operation last May. Opposition parties immediately criticised the scheme because it also lets firms claim tax savings worth 91p of every £1 invested in fossil fuel extraction in the UK. 

Under prime minister Rishi Sunak, chancellor Hunt has announced an Electricity Generator Levy which hits all electric power suppliers whatever their source of power. Because of the way that electricity is priced, the huge rise in the cost of gas on the international market has meant big rises in profit for green suppliers in particular. The cost of renewables has been steadily decreasing such that they are now the cheapest form of generation in the UK. However, the government is not proposing to grant offsets to green providers who intend to increase their investments in research or further wind- or solar-generation facilities. So green providers are not playing on a level field, and already Perth-based SSE (which incorporates Scottish Hydro) has announced that it is to look again at its renewables investment as a result.

Together with its reluctance to encourage the spread of charging points for road vehicles and the reintroduction of Vehicle Excise Duty for electric cars, the government's strategy is clearly to impede competition for the fossil-fuel suppliers.

Gallium to the rescue?

 Although it has received less publicity than it should, anti-microbial resistance remains a threat to treatment for bacterial infections. There may be no silver bullet in sight, but another element may ride to the rescue. A recent European Parliamentary Research Service posting reports:

Antimicrobial-resistant infections are predicted to become the second biggest cause of death worldwide by 2050. Despite increasing investment in the development of new antimicrobials, awareness campaigns on antimicrobial misuse and abuse, and monitoring of antimicrobial use and resistance in animals, humans and the environment, antimicrobial resistance continues to grow and the last three decades have not seen even one novel antimicrobial class reach the market. Could the answer lie in a ‘Trojan horse’ strategy to disrupt a natural physiological process common to all bacteria?

In Homer’s telling of the fall of Troy, following an unsuccessful 10‑year siege, the Greeks offered the Trojans a large wooden horse. Once the gift was inside the city walls, out came an army, led by Odysseus, who destroyed the city and ended the war. While it may seem far-fetched to use an old Greek myth as an analogy for the fight against antimicrobial resistance (AMR), the market dearth of new antimicrobials, despite millions of euros invested, means bold new strategies are needed.

The Trojan horse that could be ‘offered’ to antimicrobial-resistant bacteria is gallium. This metal-based nanoparticle strategy exploits an essential living requirement for all living beings: iron acquisition. As an essential micronutrient, during an infection iron is used as a pawn in a tug of war between humans and bacteria: our organism sequesters iron in red blood cells, as well as in heme, ferritin and lactoferrin molecules; in parallel, bacteria secrete iron chellators (siderophores and heme carriers) that bind host ferric iron (Fe(III)) and transport it to the bacterial cell. Using gallium (Ga(III)) as an antimicrobial would mean tricking the bacteria into believing they have acquired iron. Gallium is an iron-mimetic metal, of similar electric charge, ion diameter and biochemistry to iron. It can enter bacterial cells through iron membrane receptors, like a Trojan horse, and then replace iron in physiological processes. However, unlike iron, it cannot be reduced to divalent gallium. Therefore, it inhibits essential cell biochemical processes that depend on iron as a co-factor, quickly becoming toxic for the bacteria and leading to its death.

Gallium is not a novel promise. This FDA-approved drug for cancer treatment was shown more than 10 years ago to successfully inhibit the virulence of Acinetobacter baummannii, a nosocomial bacterial pathogen that has become resistant to virtually all known antimicrobials, including ‘last resort‘ ones. Since then, gallium’s antimicrobial activity has been demonstrated for other multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacteria considered by the World Health Organization (WHO) to be critical priority pathogens for the development of new antimicrobials. These include Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Enterobacterales species and Mycobacterium tuberculosis, responsible for tuberculosis, the second most deadly communicable disease (after COVID-19), causing 1.5 million deaths per year. More specifically, gallium was effective in a pilot phase Ib trial involving 20 patients with cystic fibrosis and chronic P. aeruginosa lung infections.

London Fire Brigade

The publication today of a negative report on London Fire Brigade  strengthens my theory about the New Cross Fire of 1981. If the LFB is institutionally racist now, what would it have been like 40 years ago?

The Begum case

 All the discussion on BBC News has been about whether she is or is not a danger to UK security, in the country or outside it. To my mind, this misses the point. She was rendered stateless in breach of international law and has never been tried in court or in absentia. She should have her citizenship restored. She then has the choice of returning to England (under her own steam; her travel should not be subsidised by the state) and face trial, or play the martyr in whichever jurisdiction is willing to shelter her.

Is this wanted woman in London?

 The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists reports:

It’s been nearly three years since ICIJ’s Luanda Leaks investigation exposed how decades of corrupt deals turned Isabel dos Santos into Africa’s wealthiest woman – and drained hundreds of millions in public money out of one of the world’s poorest countries.

Since then, the Angolan billionaire’s business empire has largely been dismantled, battered by investigations in multiple countries, frozen assets, lawsuits, audits and more sparked by ICIJ’s reporting.

Now, Isabel dos Santos herself is wanted for arrest by the international police organization Interpol.

The agency issued a “Red Notice” request, which is a call to law enforcement worldwide “to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender, or similar legal action.”

Dos Santos, the daughter of Angola’s ex-president who autocratically ruled the country for decades, has homes in Dubai and London and is believed to visit Portugal often.

Starmer in tune with Labour's immanent xenophobia

 Many people will have seen Sir Keir's speech to British business yesterday as a betrayal of liberal values within the Labour party. The truth is that these have only ever formed a thin veneer on the main body of the party which has always been suspicious of foreigners. One can go back to the Attlee government, so progressive in many ways, which refused to have anything to do with the incipient European common market, in spite of advocacy from Winston Churchill. Wartime restrictions on movement of aliens, including Irish, were not lifted until after the 1951 general election which saw Conservatives returned to power. Later, as a Guardian article lays out:

Home Secretary Callaghan introduced the 1968 Commonwealth Immigrants Act, which placed British immigration policy on an overtly racial footing.

This act also created the phenomenon of human "shuttlecocks". Families, having left east Africa, spent weeks in airport transit lounges as they were shuttled from airport to airport because they could not get into the UK in spite of being British citizens.

The practice of denying citizens entry into the European country whose passport they held was eventually ruled unlawful by the European Court of Justice.

In 1969 Callaghan's amendment to the Immigration Appeals Act removed the possibility of making an effective appeal from those the act was ostensibly meant to benefit. He also introduced a measure preventing British women living with their foreign or Commonwealth-born husbands in the UK.

The 1971 Immigration Act enacted by the Tories was largely drafted by Labour when in power and consolidated the racial basis of immigration policy. It also had the effect of making people who had entered the country legally, illegal immigrants, retrospectively. This meant that they could be removed without any recourse to a court of law.

One wonders whether his war against the import of unqualified labour extends to the speculators from the US, Russia and elsewhere who have done so much damage to the City of London's reputation. Or, is he, like Peter Mandelson happy about the filthy rich as long as they pay some tax?

Why should we not be like Switzerland?

 I recall that during the campaign leading up to the second EU referendum, one of the selling points made by some leading Brexiteers was that we could be like Switzerland, being totally independent but gaining all the benefits of strong links with Europe with a series of treaties covering different areas of cooperation. Our new  Welsh Secretary was typical of the attitude in 2016, in a debate on the Wales Bill, he intervened: 

Does the hon. Gentleman {Stephen Doughty] agree that the citizens of Switzerland and Norway are Europeans and may be proud to be European? They are just as European as anyone else in Europe, and he would be just as European as a Norwegian or a Swiss person is after Brexit takes place.

 I would guess that "Top Cat" is one of those Conservatives cited in yesterday's press "warning the prime minister that there can be no attempts to strike a Swiss-style trading relationship with the EU". Whoever is in the group mounting that threat, it is a sizeable one. It demonstrates that there is a hard core of Brexiteers who never saw Brexit as a means to increasing the wealth of the nation or of its people. 

MPs are claiming public funds to pay their energy bills

 The i newspaper had an exclusive last Saturday.

Twenty-six Conservative MPs, including some ministers, have claimed a combined total of £16,040.69 for energy bills this year. Fourteen Labour MPs, including  some shadow ministers, have claimed a combined total of £6,121.85.

The basic annual salary for an MP from 1 April 2022 is £84,144. MPs also receive expenses to cover the costs of running an office, employing staff, having somewhere to live in London or their constituency, and travelling between Parliament and their constituency.

[Source: https://www.parliament.uk/about/mps-and-lords/members/pay-mps]

One trusts that this information will be brought home to voters in their respective constituencies come general election time.

PENNY MORDAUNT; an apology

 Recent blogposts and postings on social media including Facebook and CIx may have given the impression that Penny Mordaunt MP was a breath of fresh air in the office of Leader of the House of Commons. Titles such as "Best since Sir George Young" and "At last a Leader on the side of MPs" implied that this author was an uncritical admirer of someone who rose above the crude Punch-and-Judy antics of party politics, resisting the attempts to turn Business Questions into an extension of the Prime Minister's Question Time zoo.

We now realise in the light of last Thursday's foretaste of the panto season that in fact she is just another principal Tory boy, all too ready to fall back on such well-worn clichés as: "Labour has no idea", "Look out, Corbyn is behind you" and "You jocks don't know when you are well off".  We apologise for any confusion caused to readers by our previous postings.

acknowledgments to Lord Gnome

Nuclear power: Hunt ignores critics' sinking feeling

 In his financial statement yesterday, shortly after boasting that his energy plans increased the UK's independence from foreign powers, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced that he was on the point of signing final contracts for Sizewell C. This is a project of the French EDF (80%) and the Chinese (20%).

In a previous post I criticised the experimental nature of the EPR (Evolutionary Power Reactor) and implied that there was no practical experience of running one. In fact Taishan 1 in China became the first EPR to start power generation on 29 June 2018, and the second one (Taishan 2) came online in 2019. By the time of that posting, the first European EPR had already reached its operating capacity. Olkiluoto Unit 3 in Finland should go live next month, albeit thirteen years late and still with some worrying flaws. Wikipedia says:

[It} has been under construction since 2005. The start of commercial operation was originally planned for May 2009 but was postponed repeatedly. The reactor eventually started up on 21 December 2021, and electricity production started on 12 March 2022. In May 2022, foreign material was found in the turbine steam reheater, and the plant was shut down for about three months of repair work. On 30 September 2022, the reactor reached its maximum output power for the first time. Regular production is expected to begin in December 2022.

Taishan has had its troubles. This Reuter article hints at a design flaw. EDF's own reactors in France, even before their own EPR becomes operational, seem plagued. But the EPR design may never be put to the test at Sizewell. Given the long timescale for construction (nine years if everything goes according to plan) the low-lying site in Suffolk may well be under water before then, thanks to global warming. For more detailed criticism, see this Wikipedia article.

Finally, there is the moral hazard of the Regulated Asset Base (RAB) financing model. The legal services firm Slaughter & May explains:

The key element elements of a basic RAB model include:

• A Government support package to protect investors and consumers against specific, potentially high value but low-probability events (essentially, where they are not commercially insurable).
• An economic regulatory regime (ERR) which will detail the sharing of costs and risks in an ex-ante manner between investors and consumers via an allowed revenue (set by the ERR).
• A regulator who operates the ERR.
• A revenue stream from suppliers to the project company to fund the project.

- and they also set out its drawbacks:

A major criticism is that, under the RAB model, risk is passed onto the end consumer during the construction phase and in a manner that may not best incentivise developers to minimise the risk of cost overruns. Costs will be passed through to end consumer bills long before the nuclear power plant begins generating electricity,

I suggest that, because of the greater number and decree of uncertainties involved in advanced nuclear plant construction, these factors loom larger than in more conventional construction projects where the RAB model has been used.

Qatar 2022

 I admit it, I am a hypocrite. While not willing to visit an undemocratic country, devoid of civil rights, even if you paid me to go, I will still be following, via TV and radio, Wales and England in the World Cup. It is inevitable that, if money dominates the thinking of football administrators, then you will have situations where nations with deep pockets will be able to buy the rights to stage international tournaments with no questions asked about their morality. Thus Qatar 2022 and also Russia 2018, four years after the annexation of Crimea. 

However, there should be a level playing-field (sorry) when it comes to charges of institutionalised homophobia. Qatar and Iran may criminalise same-sex relationships, but so also do Western allies Egypt and the UAE.* Indeed, one sees little criticism in the English-speaking media of Egypt's dictatorial regime generally, especially her persecution of journalists for even the mildest criticism of the state. 

Maybe there is hope for Qatar. It will be bad PR to prosecute any same-sex relations in the glare of publicity surrounding the World Cup. Out of the hundreds of fit young men descending on the hereditary monarchy, over twenty will be exclusively same-sex orientated. Statistics consistently point to that ratio. It is unlikely that all will remain celibate during the weeks of the tournament. When the sky does not fall in nor Allah devastate Doha with thunderbolts in retribution, it may dawn on the ruler and his advisers that homosexuality is and always has been historically, part of human life. Doha already houses the liberal international broadcaster Al-Jazeera. It is surely only a short step to quietly repeal the law against homosexuality.

That leaves the exploitation of migrant labour, which I fear will be a practice more difficult to eradicate. Believe it or not, conditions for workers on the football stadiums were an improvement over those other construction to date.

* It is interesting that Saudi Arabia, so repressive in many other respects, does not criminalise homosexuality, The kingdom does ban sodomy, but that is a particular sexual act which can be performed on women as well as men.

Raab intent on breaking another international agreement

 From today's Prime Minister's question time:

Sir Edward Leigh 

(Gainsborough) (Con)

Q10. Even if an illegal migrant is stopped on a French beach, he will simply come back the next day as no one is ever arrested. Will the Deputy Prime Minister ensure that we remove all pull factors for illegal migration by using his new Bill of Rights so that we have the legal power to arrest, detain and deport illegal migrants, and, for instance, have a review about a national identity card so that people do not just vanish and never get deported? (902238)

The Deputy Prime Minister [Dominic Raab] 

I totally agree that we need to strain every sinew to stop this appalling trade in misery. There is no silver bullet, although I think the agreement the Home Secretary made with her French opposite number will help, and we are embedding UK officials with their French counterparts for the first time. My right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) is right to say that the Bill of Rights can also help, not least in preventing interim orders from the Strasbourg Court from being recognised in UK courts. On ID cards, we already have e-visas for people coming to visit and live in the UK, and they act as digital evidence of a person’s immigration status. What is clear, however, is that we will have to do all these things in the teeth of opposition from Labour Front Benchers.

Yesterday, on Radio 4's Law in Action, Robert Spano, the president of the ECHR until last month, was firm in his opinion that the European Convention on Human Rights laid a duty on UK courts to have regard to rulings from Strasbourg, including interim orders. Dominic Raab's proposed legislation runs counter to this and would thus seek to break an international treaty which we ourselves took a leading part in framing. Added to the situation in Northern Ireland, this is one more move which must damage our hard-won reputation for integrity and trust.

A further thought is that Sir Edward must have signed up to the 2010 Conservative manifesto which promised to put an end to Labour's ID card scheme. Was he crossing his fingers behind his back when he did so?

Brexit now starting to hit the money men

We will not hear much in the winter financial statement about France avoiding recession nor the news that the Paris stock exchange is now more valuable than the LSE for the first time. 

One of the selling points of Brexit was that it would stimulate financial services in London to the extent that they would more than make up for the collapse of businesses dependent on the EU's common market. Now it seems that corporations find Paris a better place to raise capital than London. The UK will be even more dependent on laundering money of dubious provenance. One wonders how long the international financial establishment will tolerate this.

Brexit has hit small business and the little people hard. Now that it is touching on the prosperity of the City, how long will its leaders continue to support the Johnson project, kept on life-support by succeeding Tory prime ministers?

Free rail travel for old buffers (forgive the pun)

 The Autumn issue of Rail Wales, the newsletter of Railfuture in Wales reminds us of a Transport for Wales concession. Holders of a Welsh bus pass may travel free of charge between now and the 31st March on the following routes:

•  Heart of Wales line;
• Cambrian Coast line;
• Blaenau Ffestiniog branch;
• Wrexham - Hawarden Bridge

New trains

The class 197 train sets completed in CAF's Newport factory are virtually ready to enter service on the Wrexham-Bidston line and throughout North Wales. 

Cardiff Bay branch

Two new stations, including one named Butetown, will be opened on the branch. Cardiff Bay station itself will be upgraded. The historic Taff Vale Railway HQ building is, from the published artist's impression, to be retained. It astonishes me that it has not yet been snapped up by an ecologically-aware organisation, given its position a few steps away from a well-served rail station. 

Mis-posting: an apology

 Breaking one of my own self-denying ordinances, a post responding to criticism of three non-conservative leaders was inadvertently back-dated. What happened was that I originally drafted the post last Monday but revised it for publication today. Unfortunately, I forgot to change the original "hard-wired" publication date.

At least I did not pretend to predict an event which occurred in the last seven days alla Dominic Cummings. 

UK economic downturn strikes local businesses

 They survived the 2007/8 credit crunch and seemingly the Covid-19 epidemic, but the current stagflation has driven under two major South Wales businesses. Garth Bakery is a familiar name to users of  convenience stores throughout the region. The thirty-nine year old company has been forced into administration and, though the name and assets may be picked up  by another entrepreneur, nearly 100 people will have lost their jobs. A similar number will be thrown out of work by the collapse of an even older business, Jehu of Bridgend. Their board used to be everywhere, with several major construction projects having been entrusted to them. If the Bank of England is to be believed, then these two will not be the last businesses to collapse under the combined pressure of rising costs and decline in economic activity 

Shunting off decarbonisation

 On Wednesday, prime minister Sunak, in his COP27 report and in answers to questions on it, repeatedly claimed that his government was the world leader in meeting its net zero target. Later this week, Railfuture's newsletter informed us that Network Rail

can no longer afford the rolling programme of electrification needed to deliver its Traction Decarbonisation Network Strategy by 2050. The increase in electricity prices has removed the operating cost advantage of electric over diesel, and carbon emissions from rail transport are insignificant compared to road transport

The message does not seem to have got through to this publicly-owned organisaton.

The mid-terms are more than practice laps for the presidency

   - but that is how too many commentators have reported the congressional elections over here. The BBC in particular have viewed the results only in relation to Donald Trump's prospects for the 2024 presidential election. They are fascinated by rogues and villains to the detriment of political enlightenment.

The justification for extensive UK coverage of the mid-term elections is to report the implication for the UK economy, which is linked to that of the US, and for Europe generally. For instance, what happens to US resistance to Russian empire-building if the Republicans achieve a blocking majority in Congress?

The triple-lock tide looks irresistible

 Regular readers will know of my personal interest in the state pension guarantee, which was suspended last year. There is also a political interest in that the triple-lock was a Liberal Democrat measure which was brought to the coalition in 2010 against initial resistance by the Conservatives, who had proposed a much meaner mechanism for uprating pensions.

It was interesting to see in yesterday's debate in the House of Commons how the triple-lock has been accepted by all sides. Labour see themselves as the great defenders of the policy, Conservative back-benchers endorsed it and the government speakers claimed credit for a better record on pensions that the previous Labour government, largely as a result of the triple-lock, though without naming it. Wendy Chamberlain for the Liberal Democrats diplomatically refrained from making political capital from the true origins of the policy.

As many speakers pointed out, the value of the state pension may have increased somewhat in cash terms, but has fallen back in real terms, that is, after taking inflation into account. However, it was left to the SNP's Alan Brown to draw the bigger picture:

When we look at the UK in the round, we see that it is one of the most unequal countries in the world. Unfortunately, that inequality continues during retirement. The Gini coefficient shows that the UK is 14th out of 14 north-west European countries. It is the same for the S80:S20 quintile share ratio; when we compare the ratio of the poorest to the richest, the UK has by far the worst ratio and is again 14th out of 14. Scandinavian countries—all small, independent countries—lead the way on these measures.

Poorer pay and lower incomes for those struggling also means that later on in life they are less likely to have private pensions and so are reliant on the UK state pension. Again, the UK state pension fails in comparison with those of other countries. When we look at the proportion of earnings derived from state pensions, the UK sits 30th out of 37 OECD countries. I understand that there is an argument that it can be good to move away from dependence on state pensions, but the UK is clearly among outlier countries near the bottom of the pile, and way below the OECD average. Many people are using occupational pensions and capital as sources of income, but that increases inequality in pension age for those without access to such means.

There was a farcical end to the debate as the government resorted to a ploy which has become all too frequent since 2012: Conservatives forced a division on the Opposition's motion, but then declined to vote. We await the chancellor's financial statement next week, but he can surely not resist the tide of support for restitution of the guarantee.

Farewell, Neil Taylor

 At the tender age for a defender of 33, former Swans favourite Neil Taylor has decided to call it a day. (Gareth Bale, media star and captain of the Welsh 2022 World Cup team is the same age, but clearly has not worked himself as hard.)  The FAW website recalls:

Taylor played every minute of all six games for Cymru at EURO 2016 as Chris Coleman's side reached the semi-finals, and scored his one and only international goal in the memorable 3-0 win over Russia in Toulouse that ensured that his side would finish top of Group B and qualify for the R16. One of Coleman's most-trusted defenders, Taylor will forever hold a place in the hearts of the Cymru fans who witnessed that incredible tournament as the side defied the odds.

He was part of the squad which saw Aston Villa's promotion to the Premier League. He has also been a role model for young players of Indian heritage like himself.

They may not be saviours, but they are better than the alternative

 Kate Maltby had a pop at Jacinda Ardern, Justin Trudeau and Luis da Silva in the Independent the other week. About the Brazilian president-elect, she wrote:

You may, like me, have seen your social media pages flood this week with declarations of joy at Lula’s ascent. Lefty friends of mine changed their profile pictures to warm-filtered images of the former trade-unionist, hands raised in victory. How many of them, I wondered, could provide a basic summary of the Bolsa Família programme, cornerstone of Lula’s economic platform when he last led the nation between 2003 and 2011.The Bolsa Família was one of the largest cash transfers from rich to poor in the world – but crucially, it was also conditional. Under Lula, poor families received unprecedented financial support, but only if their children were kept in school and the parents proved themselves functional members of society. Lula’s supporters still claim that the Bolsa Família programme had a transformative effect on truancy rates and workplace productivity.

But what did Bolsonaro or his conservative predecessors do for those children? And would Lula have been able to push his Familia programme through parliament without those checks?

Maltby is justified in criticising Lula for swallowing the Kremlin line about the Ukraine invasion. However, he is not the only man of the left not to realise that Putin gave up all pretence to be a socialist long ago and that his United Russia party has all the trappings of fascism. Corbyn is not the only Putin apologist in the UK. 

She describes Ardern and Trudeau as failures. I had my doubts about the Liberal leader, his willingness to go along with the US world view and especially being linked to a political scandal. However, he must have done more right than wrong in the eyes of the Canadian electorate, because the Liberals have been returned to power three times since defeating the Conservatives in 2011. Jacinda Ardern's Labour party had an even more convincing endorsement in 2020, turning a minority into a majority government. New Zealand was grateful for the lead she took in resisting the advance of Covid-19 in the country. If only more governments in the world had acted as quickly and decisively!

No government project should be exempt from review

 It is surely right that in a time of financial stress, the Treasury should insist on major capital spending coming under review. So it is right that Chancellor Hunt should launch such a review. An early official briefing included the Sizewell C nuclear power plant in this, but this was denied by the government on the same day. Why? Are the Tories in thrall to China? Or is there a secret deal with France: cooperation over cross-channel migration d  epends on continued subsidy for the massive experiment on the East Anglian coast. In addition to the uncertainties about the viability of the design, there are doubts about the suitability of the location, exposed as it is to coastal erosion. There is also the problem of supplying cooling water,

It is not as if EDF is the only provider of a nuclear solution to the problem of providing a continuous, non-carbon-based, supply of electricity for the future. Rolls-Royce's SMRs show a way forward with fewer uncertainties and one wonders why the regulatory process (currently estimated at two years) takes so long.

HS2 is also coming under review, but only the northern part, where surely investment will provide more substantial and faster pay-backs than the London-Birmingham section. Links to the capital from the Midlands may be in need of supplementing, but they exist. Trans-Pennine business and industry is crying out for new routes and connectivity. Slowing work on the southern section, whose appeal is largely to the commuter, and prioritising the northern is a surer way to the growth that the government is aiming for.

Better government with fair votes

C of E and PR

"If proportional representation is good enough for the General Synod, why not for the country’s voting system?"

This article in "Church Times" of 21 October in support of PR is well worth reading and quoting. You can also write a letter to the Editor to support the article or to respond to letters that others have written.  PR_ChurchTimes_21.10.22

Labour and PR

Although the Labour Party Conference voted for PR on 26 September, Sir Keir Starmer has said that PR is not a priority for him and it will not be in Labour’s manifesto for the next general election.

Would you please sign the petition [LabourPRpetition]LabourPRpetition22 for Labour to put PR in its next manifesto?  You can also write direct to Sir Keir at leader@labour.org.uk   Those of you who have Labour MPs may like to write to them.

What did British People vote for?

This is an extract from Suella Braverman’s resignation letter of 19 October:

“They [the British people] deserve policing they can respect, an immigration policy they want and voted for in such unambiguous numbers at the last election”.

This isn’t the place to discuss the rights and wrongs of the Government’s immigration policy (or the Government’s difficulties generally), but the British people voted for it in such unambiguous numbers?  Only 43.6% of voters (29.3% of British electors as there was a 67.3% turnout) voted Conservative but I don’t think any journalists or commentators picked up on that.

The Instability of FPTP

MP Gillian Keegan, has become the fifth Education Secretary in only four months.  We have also had five Chancellors in four months.

We are now on our third Prime Minister in two months and the fifth in six years.  There have been four Home Secretaries (including Suella Braverman twice) in only two months!

Do opponents of proportional representation still claim that First Past The Post voting provides stability?

[Acknowledgements to Anthony Tuffin of the Campaign for Real Democracy]

One step forward, one stand-still and leap back to the darkness

 In Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro has tacitly accepted that he lost the presidential run-off election. Without mentioning his conqueror, Lula da Silva by name, he has assured that there will be a peaceful handover. This in spite of factors more favourable to a seizure of power than were available to Trump when his supporters stormed the Capitol. He probably calculates that, as a relatively young man in presidential terms, time is on his side but let us be thankful for a rare peaceful transition.

On Tuesday, there was a general election in Denmark. Social democratic and moderate parties in narrowly resisted the threat from more extremist parties to look to remain in power. 

On the same day, the reverse occurred in Israel. The hope that a wide-ranging coalition government would continue and eventually reduce the tension there was snuffed out. Likud, led by a man who faces serious criminal charges, looks like being returned to power with the support of "far-right politicians Itamar Ben-Gvir, who openly calls for armed violence against Palestinians, and Bezalel Smotrich, who are both part of Israel’s Religious Zionism alliance. Ben Gvir has advocated for Palestinians in Israel to undergo 'loyalty tests', with those deemed 'disloyal' expelled from their ancestral homeland."  (from al Jazeera)'s report) Ben-Gvir's party will be the third most numerous in the Knesset. There has been violent repression of minority groups in Israel under what was apparently a moderate government. Worse will probably come if such violence is officially sanctioned.

Go Chineke!

 I have almost the same feeling about Black History Month as Tom Lehrer does about the USA's  National Brotherhood Week. It is rather tokenistic, like "taking the knee" before Premier League football matches. The Black Lives Matter movement has not increased the number of non-white football managers or administrators since the gesture started.

Still, the Month did have a good affect on BBC 4 last Sunday. First, the Chineke! orchestra played unjustly neglected works by Coleridge Taylor (also Radio 3's composer of the week this week) and Sowande. Then there was a repeat of the Lenny Henry/Suzy Klein survey of historical black classical composers and performers. There should be a follow-up to this, though. There was no mention of William Grant Still, who surely contributed to a distinctive American sound in the concert-hall and on movie sound tracks. He was a symphonist on his own account as well as an arranger for the Paul Whiteman orchestra. Contemporary composers like Laura Mvula, who ranges widely across the musical field should feature. There are others.

 In the meantime, Chineke thrives.

Former chancellor speaks out

 Now that he is freed from the constraints of the Commons, Phillip Hammond, now Lord Hammond, is free to criticise the leadership of his party. On the plunge in the UK's financial reputation after the Kwarteng special statement, he said: "this is the result of allowing ideology to triumph over common sense". (One could say the same about many government decisions over the last decade, including Brexit.)

Last Sunday, he also stated the truth that his former colleagues have found it difficult to face, that taxes have to rise in order to preserve the social services of a first-world country. Borrowing is no longer an option.