2023 on course to break records

 So this year could be the warmest on record? That is hard to believe, considering how few long spells of hot weather we have had here. But I bet this has been the wettest, even for Wales, for many a year.

Ceasefire or pause

 The Commons has had a good day. After a thorough examination of the future of the steel industry in England and Wales, during which the Minister rowed back on an earlier commitment to producing primary steel as a national strategy, honourable and right honourable members tackled the humanitarian implications of the war in Gaza and Israel. Mercifully, most MPs heeded the request of the deputy Speaker to keep contributions brief, though some succumbed to the temptation to lay on the suffering with a trowel.

There was much argument about the need for a ceasefire, incidentally laying bare differences on the opposition benches and to some extent the government's. The  trouble is, it seems to me, that the word means different things to different people. To many right-thinking people in the West it means an end to Israel's area bombing of residential areas and targeting ambulances and aid facilities because there might be fighters hidden there. To the Israelis, it means giving up on eradicating Hamas. Surely there is a middle ground. Israel is justified in armed police action against known terrorist leaders. (I nearly wrote "entitled" but that would imply approval under international law.) Hamas would of course have to give up weaponry in return. There are two difficulties. The ultimate leadership of Hamas is safe in Qatar and insulated from the daily suffering in Gaza and Israel; and there are splinter groups in Palestine and Lebanon firing rockets who will not follow a lead from Hamas. It needs a strong intermediary - Qatar looks favourite - to obtain a necessary pause at least.

Andrew Mitchell, for the government, did at least commit to a call for "pauses". Nor, dramatically, did he associate himself with Ms Braverman's depiction of pro-Palestinian sentiment as "nasty". Are the Home Secretary's days numbered?

Pushed from the headlines (4 of 4): Sudan

 The conflict in Sudan continues to inflict death and displacement on citizens. The war, basically between two military men vying for power, has killed almost as many as Israel and Hamas between them.

After six months and several attempts at peace talks, it shows no sign of abating. Yesterday brought news of an atrocity in Omdurman. 

Pushed out of the headlines: Nagorno-Karabakh

 The repossession of the Armenian enclave by the Azeri government in the autumn has not resolved all tensions. There had been bloody battles, exacerbated by the differences in religion between the Christian Armenians and Muslim Azeris, while Russia, supposedly a friend of both nations, stood on the side-lines.

Germany appears to have stepped into the breach with a visit to Armenia by the foreign minister at the weekend.  Clearly Germany would like to see both nations drawn under the EU ambit, though Ms Baerbock seems not to have visited Baku on her trip. Moreover, by laying a wreath at the monument to the Armenian genocide, she may have lost Turkish support in any negotiations.

Pushed out of the headlines: earthquakes

 I had already planned to highlight the devastating earthquakes in Afghanistan of last month when news of another in Nepal came through. I trust that anyone who can spare it donates to  the Gurkha Welfare Trust or another accredited agency.

Pushed out of the headlines: Ukraine

 Both the war in Ukraine and the suffering of her people at the hands of the Russians still receive the occasional mention on UK's broadcast media, but there has been nothing like the coverage before the Hamas atrocities and the Israeli reaction. In a way, that is a good thing because the slowing-down of the Ukrainian counter-offensive has been dispiriting. On the other hand, Western leaders may be tempted into withdrawing military and other aid believing the conflict has reached stalemate. This is dangerous thinking. Ukraine needs to keep up her aggression using current resources merely in able to hold the current positions. Withdrawing supplies will enable Russia to come back again. Giving just a little more help, and a mild winter, may enable Ukraine to regain momentum.

If you need detail on progress, go to the Guardian's day-by-day account , or Aljazeera's equivalent, currently day 617. 

Six weeks in 2020

 It was with gratification mixed with renewed anger that I read Ian Dunt's account in today's i of the evidence to the Covid-19 Inquiry given by former deputy cabinet secretary, Helen MacNamara. I had posted a couple of times (this was typical) about the six weeks wasted before neglect turned to panic in Downing Street in March 2020. Ms MacNamara's evidence gave independent confirmation. 

It was a thorough, judicious, objective description of a failure of governance on a near-biblical level. And it did not come from someone with an axe to grind It was damning in a way that Cummings never could be because she had minimised any sense of personal animosity and strategic calculation.

MacNamara was measured, calm, even remorseful. It goes without saying that Cummings despised her and spoke of her in heavily misogynistic tones when he was in government. He was always "dodging stilettos rom that c**t," he told Johnson on WhatsApp. 

He wanted to "handcuff her". But now it was her time in the witness box. And she laid it out step by step, every failure, every superficial thought. every irresponsibility, every unforced error, every personal and organisational inadequacy.

On 13 March 2020, MacNamara had walked into the prime minister's study. "I have come through here to the prime minister's office to tell you that I think we are absolutely f**ked," she said. "I think this country is heading for a disaster. I think we are going to kill thousands of people." Her testimony was the story of how that situation was allowed to develop.

She outlined how Johnson's response to the early months of the Covid outbreak was typified by machismo, ignorance and baseless confidence. During those key weeks between January and March 2020 the evidence from overseas became overwhelming.

It was increasingly clear we were facing a profound threat to British people's lives. But Johnson's private behaviour seems to have been identical to his public persona - the "cake and eat it" prime minister, the man who engaged in jolly old England self-satisfaction over evidence and sustained thought.

"Mr Johnson was very confident the UK would sail through," MacNamara said. He spent much of the time "laughing at the Italians", despite that country providing an early test-case for what was about to hit Britain. 

Dunt then details the sexism, the limiting of debate and discussion, the talking over of junior people. Everything was contaminated by ego. My guess is, though, even if the deputy cabinet secretary had been a man and that there had been more open discussion, the closed minds of those in charge would have led to the same outcome. And hundreds of thousands of UK residents died before their time.

Callous Johnson beyond satire

 Around three years ago, I posted - rather tongue-in-cheek - in another place the following imagined scenario in 10 Downing Street as Covid-19 hit these shores:

Picture the scene. The chair of the then scientific advisory committee
offers the advice that the disease was most lethal to the elderly and
those with existing health conditions, and that there was evidence that
the BAME community was disproportionately affected. Boris: "So it kills
off crusties, cripples and nig-nogs? Bring it on!"

Yesterday, the Covid-19 Inquiry heard that, according to Sir Patrick Vallance's diaries, the prime minister was at one with too many Conservative MPs who believed that Covid-19 was nature's way of dealing with the old. 

In August 2020, Sir Patrick wrote that Mr Johnson was "obsessed with older people accepting their fate and letting the young get on with life and the economy going".

So my imagined conversation was not as exaggerated as my readers thought.