I have been exceptionally busy this past fortnight, with the final burst of meetings as we wind up CCC and a lot going on in my work and personal life. Consequently there have been fewer posts than usual, and some have arrived late, and I have been very slow in going through and releasing perfectly legitimate comments.
Please accept my apologies for this. I hope to catch up with the backlog this weekend or early next week.
Overheard during a discussion yesterday just after the last meeting of Cumbria County Council (I'm not going to tell you the name or party affiliation of the councillor who said it and this quote should not be assumed to be an endorsement of anything other than the PM and the Windsor Framework, which I absolutely endorse.)
"I feel rather sorry for what Boris Johnson and Liz Truss have done to themselves - they've made Steve Baker look like the voice of sanity."
"The Windsor Framework is a turning point for Northern Ireland.
It is a dramatic step forward for the people of Northern Ireland and we should take it with a good heart."
(Steve Baker MP on twitter, in a tweet which also included this graphic)
For anyone who does not recognise her, this quote comes from J.K. Rowling. There are plenty of things about which I disagree with her, but she is absolutely right to stress the need to handle disagreements in a constructive way and respect those we disagree with.
"THIS HAS TO STOP. THIS *HAS* TO STOP. YOU CAN TAKE ISSUE WITH THE GOVERNMENT’S IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM POLICIES WITHOUT COMPARING THEM TO AUSCHWITZ BIRKENAU!!!"
(Daniel Sugarman, who is Public Affairs Director of the Board of Deputies of British Jews although his tweet was in a personal capacity and not on behalf of the Board of Deputies, responds to tweets with a photoshopped image of Suella Braverman.
The original image shows her with two Rwandans, and the all three of them are laughing and obviously sharing a joke. In the photoshopped versions the two Rwandans have been cropped out and the Home Secretary has been photoshopped onto various misleading or highly inappropriate backgrounds, including the Auschswitz-Birkenau extermination camp.)
At the height of the pandemic I posted a piece called Sunday reflection: life finds a way about a fir tree which had miraculously recovered from injuries I had expected to be terminal and suspected had been inflicted by my daughter's "Killer Bunnies."
Something - I suspected my daughter's pet rabbits as the only other animal in Cumbria capable of inflicting that kind of damage on a tree would be a deer, and it's unlikely any deer could have got into the garden - had a really good go at the lower trunk of the tree in about 2019, stripping off a lot of bark and doing enough damage to weaken the base of the fir tree and make it keel over. I had propped it back up by tying the upper part of the tree to the adjacent fence and IIRC took appropriate measures to contain the loss of sap but had not expected the tree to survive.
It did survive, and managed to repair it's base sufficiently to still be upright in March 2020 although the cords I used to tie it in that position had long since gone. And even though the lower trunk and root system must be under a considerable turning moment trying to topple it, because the lowest part of the trunk is almost horizontal before bending back close to the vertical by the time it reaches a foot above the ground.
I wrote that the determined struggle of that tree to repair it's injuries and survive is a metaphor for life itself, which in so many creatures often manages to cling on against the most terrible challenges when the odds are stacked against it.
The living creatures which we call human beings have that ability in spades. I predicted that although we would lose some of our friends, neighbours and loved ones to COVID-19, and that we would regret every one of those deaths, human society would come through the Coronavirus pandemic just as the tree in my garden recovered from the attack of the killer bunnies.
And as the saying goes, we will find that whatever does not kill us makes us stronger.
The tree is still there, and significantly more substantial than it was two years ago, and last week I took a picture of the two bunnies happily nibbling the grass at the foot of the tree. I had intended to post it on the family WattsApp group for the enjoyment of my wife and children.
Unfortunately by mistake I posted it on a WattsApp group for senior Conservative party officials instead. Causing a certain amount of amusement to colleagues. So if I traduced the bunnies they certainly have their revenge. Just goes to show you cannot be too careful what you put on WattsApp.
Oh well. At least I didn't send it to Isobel Oakeshott!
This week the Prime Minister announced that the first generation of AUKUS nuclear submarines will be built in the UK and Australia and based on British designs, putting the commitments to global security in the Integrated Review Refresh into practice and creating thousands of jobs that will grow the economy.
The AUKUS partnership to build the world’s most advanced nuclear-powered submarines demonstrates the enduring commitment to freedom and democracy that we have set out in our Integrated Review Refresh, which is backed by a £5 billion increase in defence spending as we continue to grow the defence budget to 2.5 per cent.
That is why, as the UK government announced the Integrated Review Refresh, the Prime Minister met with American President Joe Biden and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to announce plans for the most advanced nuclear-powered submarines the world has ever known – which will be based on world-leading British designs and built initially in Barrow-in-Furness.
These plans will put into practice the approach set out in the Integrated Review Refresh and see pioneering British design expertise protect our people and our allies for generations to come – as well as growing the economy by creating thousands of jobs in Barrow and further along the supply chain in places like Derby.
"Children can't be treated as the spoils of war, they can't be deported".
"This type of crime doesn't need one to be a lawyer, one needs to be human being to know how egregious it is."
International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Karim Khan explaining the decision yesterday of the court to issue arrest warrants against Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian Children's Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova, on charges of the forced deportaion of Ukrainian children to Russia.
Even if Vladimir Putin is never forced to stand trial - which is sadly likely although you never know what changes the future may bring - this arrest warrant is justice, because Putin himself has flagrantly abused international legal channels such as Interpol to try to arrest his opponents and critics such as Bill Browder on flagrantly trumped-up charges for which it was patently obvious that there was no evidence.
There is far more evidence to support the charges which the ICC has brought against Putin and Belova than there has been in all the cases put together that Putin's regime has brought against opponents such as Browder.
Figures released today show near record numbers of people in work – giving more people the security of a job as we grow the economy, halve inflation and get debt falling.
The Conservative priority to grow the economy, halve inflation and get debt falling relies on a strong workforce across the UK – meaning more people have the security of their own income.
The latest figures show that the number of payroll employees rose by 98,000 in February 2023 to 30 million. The number of employees on payroll now stands at 1,040,000 above pre-pandemic levels – with the employment rate increasing between November and January 2023.
Over the past 25 years, governments and opposition parties in every part of the British political spectrum have tried to come up with a successful, fair and compassionate policy on immigration.
Tried and failed.
Nobody has come up with a perfect policy on this subject - least of all the more radical anti-establishment parties who loudly accuse all the establishment parties of having failed on the issue but whose own ideas, if they have any at all, range from the disastrous to the utterly impractical.
Much of this post will be about what the Conservatives are currently doing to address this extremely difficult issues, but as an illustration of the chasm between rhetoric and reality it is worth considering the record of the main opposition party and the difference between what they are saying now and were saying shortly before they last won an election and what actually happened when they were last in power.
When Labour were last in power their handling of immigration was marked by controversy, ministerial resignations, and 180 degree turns between policies which welcomed and facilitated significant immigration and policies so restrictive that they literally outflanked the Daily Mail.
An example of an extreme U-turn would be when ten countries joined the EU in 2004. Initially the New Labour government in Britain, which had been one of only three governments in the EU which said they would immediately offer freedom of movement to citizens of new members states in Eastern Europe from the first possible date. But having made the commitments two years before to give full rights of entry to all citizens of new member stares, they tried unsuccessfully to change their minds and slam on the brakes 48 hours before this promise was due to come into effect.
Needless to say the resulting chaos achieved neither the benefits which would have come from sticking to the original policy of being the only country in the EU to adopt freedom of movement on Day one nor those which would have come from adopting from the beginning the policy of every other EU government and phasing it in gradually.
Another example of a disruptive U-turn was when New Labour attempted to send overseas medical students home half way through their courses training to be doctors.
Examples of when Labour outflanked the Daily Mail in adopting restrictive policies on immigration included when they refused to let an elderly Gurkha veteran who had served in Britain's armed forces for years and been highly decorated come here for operation, and when Labour tried to deport to Zimbabwe someone who even the Daily Mail thought had a well founded case for political asylum as they would be persecuted by the Mugabe regime.
Here is a link to an interesting 2015 article in The Guardian about
How immigration came to haunt Labour: the inside story | Immigration and asylum | The Guardian
I quote this history not mainly to attack Labour (though there are plenty of opportunities to do that) but to indicate how difficult and complex the issue is.
But there are three reasons why the issue of small boat crossings much be tackled
First, it is killing people. Crossing the Channel in small boats is not safe.
Second, uncontrolled immigration into the UK would not be sustainable. The present level of net legal immigration is already over half a million. Adding tens of thousands on top of that is risking a threat to the ability of our infrastructure to cope and poses a risk to social cohesion.
Third, and this is an attack on the people smugglers who put their victims in dangerous boats, not an attack on the migrants, Britain and many other countries in the world, is the target of criminal gangs who are trafficking people because they want to get slave labour out of them. We need to break these criminal gangs.
This cannot be done without closer co-operation with our neighbours in France.
So yesterday Prime Minister Rishi Sunak met the French President and secured a deal with President Macron to establish a new detention centre in France, the deployment of more French personnel, and enhanced technology to patrol beaches in a shared effort to drive down illegal migration.
This enhanced cooperation aims to increase the interception rate for attempted crossings and drastically reduce the number of crossings each year.
We will do this by:
New figures show Britain has frozen more than £48 billion in Russian assets alongside our allies, as part of the effort to de-fund Putin’s war machine and bring a fair peace in Ukraine.
Yesterday the government set out record investment plans for Britain's transport network, investing £40 billion in transformational transport schemes to unlock economic growth and boost job opportunities across the UK.
I have an urgent need to travel today, so I will be paying great attention to this advice from Cumbria police:
The government has announced today that 27 areas across England will receive a share of £30 million in extra funding to support communities to tackle loneliness, providing opportunities for people to volunteer, learn new skills and connect with their neighbours.
The government continues to help households with the cost of living. Now, I want to be grown-up here, this is not sustainable as a long-term policy. For most of us, they are taking our own money in taxes and then giving it back to us, which does not make long-term sense.
But these are not normal times and we are going through a very severe short-term crisis, severely exacerbated by international factors beyond Britain's control such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
In this emergency situation, it makes sense for the government to use its' greater financial leverage to help us all out in the short term. In the long term, such aid will have to be restricted to those who most need it. While the policy is in place it is also important for all of us to make sure we are getting what we are entitled to under the policy.
You can find out more about what you may be entitled to by clicking on the link below:
"Humza, you've had a number of jobs in government.
When you were transport minister, the trains were never on time,
When you were justice minister the police were strained to breaking point,
and now as Health minister we've got record high waiting times.
What makes you think you can do a better job as First Minister?"
(SNP Finance Minister and leadership candidate Kate Forbes puts a pertinent question to her leadership rival the Scottish Health minister Humza Yousaf. You can watch Kate Forbes asking this question here.)
Today the Prime Minister is launching a plan to cement the UK’s place as a science and technology superpower by 2030 – backed by £370 million of new funding to foster world leading scientific research that will create well-paid jobs and grow our economy.
I note that there is some concern from the scientific community about the fact that the government has not given a definite commitment to rejoin the EU Horizon scheme for pooling science and research. Nobody should read into this the assumption that Britain will not be rejoining the scheme. Doing so remains "Plan A."
It is simply that you never go into a negotiation committing yourself to accept the terms on offer whatever they are, because that completely destroys your negotiating position. But there has been a sea-change in relations between the UK and EU over the past few months: I believe Britain can get a reasonable deal to rejoin Horizon and will accept it.
The Painter George Jones supposedly bore some resemblance to the First Duke of Wellington, and was occasionally mistaken for him. Jones, who idolised the Duke, was said to be very proud of the resemblance.
When this was mentioned to the Iron Duke, he supposedly remarked,
"Mistaken for me, is he? That's strange, for no one ever mistakes me for Mr. Jones".
However, the quote at the top of the post suggests that in fact Wellington was once mistaken for Jones. The story goes that the Iron Duke was greeted by a stranger with the words
"Mr Jones, I believe?"
Wellington replied, "Sir, if you will believe that you will believe anything."
Not looking good in Bahkmut.
Though I think that if the Russians do take what is left of Bahkmut, anyone who in the types into Google the expression "Pyrrhic victory" should find a link to an assessment of this Russian campaign.
It would be fair to say that Isobel Oakshott's decision, in breach of a non-disclosure agreement, to hand to the Telegraph for publication a large file of WattsApp messages sent to and from former Health Secretary Matt Hancock which he had provided her while they were working together on a book has provoked some strong reactions on all sides.
Needless to say the Telegraph themselves say that this is a massive scoop and revealing it is in the public interest and a lot of people have been delighted at the opportunity to have a fresh pop at Matt Hancock over things in the WattsApp messages, almost invariably arguing that this provides fresh evidence confirming allegations they have been making for two years or so.
Matt Hancock, of course, considers it a "massive betrayal" although he can console himself that he is unlikely to suffer as much from his decision to trust Ms Oakshott as the last person who shared information with her and regretted it: Vicki Pryce went to jail.
I think there is a very real issue here. To be honest nothing the Telegraph has yet printed was in my humble opinion such an earth-shattering revelation as to provide a strong enough public interest defence as justify breaking the normal standards of journalistic confidence and a legally binding NDA. I reserve, however, the right to change that opinion if the Telegraph has anything more surprising than the news that the Education Secretary (and department) whose job was to see that children get a good education was less keen on closing schools than the Health Secretary (and Department) whose understandable priority was to check the spread of the disease.
I would admit that there could be circumstances in which there could be a genuine public interest for releasing confidential information. However, I would have thought that giving it to the inquiry would probably be more likely to serve the public interest than giving it to a newspaper.
I note that many of the people who are complaining about how long the inquiry is likely to take results were conspicuously silent when Sir John Chilcott's inquiry took seven years to confirm what a mess Tony Blair had made of the Iraq invasion and did not report until long after Blair had left office.
Hancock is very far from being the only person with concerns about whether Oakshott did the right thing by giving the messages to the Telegraph.
Ian Dunt, the self proclaimed "liberal extremist" and columnist at the "i" newspaper had this to say on Twitter:
"Oakeshott's behaviour is so lacking in basic ethical standards that she makes it harder for any journalist to do their job and get sources to trust them.
The Telegraph is pursuing an anti-lockdown agenda. The stories we get will follow that agenda and we'll not know what they omitted to make them fit.
Right place for this was a playing-it-straight outlet or the inquiry. Hancock is a prize bellend, a national embarrassment, without the seriousness or basic ability necessary for the role he had. But this isn't how to get him. And by signing up to it, we play into their hands."
By the way, I do not normally tolerate or quote the sort of language on this blog which Ian Dunt used in the tweets quoted immediately above about Matt Hancock, and I only made a rare exception in this instance because it was not gratuitous - he was making the point that he, as someone who really doesn't like Hancock, still doesn't agree with what Oakshott did. Anyone who posts that sort of insult in the comments box on this blog should not expect to see their words in print unless there are exceptional circumstances.
"Keir Starmer keeps telling us what he believes, often at length. There was the 14,000-word Fabian pamphlet 18 months ago. In the past week he has given a speech about “mission-driven government”, and written another 3,000-word article, on which The New Statesman has put the headline: “This is what I believe.” He has even written a book, although there is no date for its publication, and my sources have fallen silent on who is working on it and what state it is in.
Yet we still don’t know what he thinks. We may be clearer about what he doesn’t think. He no longer thinks that Jeremy Corbyn is his friend, as he will not permit the former Labour leader to stand as a candidate at the next election. But why the change has come about, and what Starmer now believes, are riddles wrapped in a mystery inside some verbiage."
John Rentoul, Political correspondent of the Independent, in an article called "The vacuum at the heart of the next Labour government," which you can read by following this link:
The vacuum at the heart of the next Labour government | The Independent
Yesterday the government announced an extra £14 million in funding to help households move to low carbon heating, helping families to cut costs on their bills and creating green jobs to grow the economy.
There have been a number of interesting political revelations this week and I hope to comment on more of them at the weekend, but here is the taken by John Rentoul, Chief political correspondent of the Independent, on Sir Keir Starmer's appointment of the senior civil servant Sue Gray as his Chief of Staff, subject to an approval process.
I think he has a point. There would be a concern, whichever political party had been involved, about the move of a senior civil servant from a role in which he or she was running inquiries which required absolute impartiality and independence, directly to a senior role working for the leader of a political party.
I often get comments on this blog asking questions about how independent people who are conducting inquiries or reviewing things really are. And it's entirely right that people should be able to ask that question.
If Rishi Sunak had offered Sue Gray an equivalent senior position working directly for him, especially if this appeared to be in his capacity as Conservative leader rather than Prime Minister, does anyone doubt that social media would be awash with allegations that this proved her report was a whitewash and this was the payback?
I rather suspect that Sir Keir and other Labour figures would have been leading that charge.
POSTSCRIPT
Owen Jones, the left-wing journalist, has made a very similar comment - not quite the first time I've found myself in agreement with him, it does occasionally happen not very happen often. He wrote on twitter here:
FUTHER POSTSCRIPT
The former Cabinet Secretary, Lord Butler, has written a letter to the Times on the subject, a masterclass in presenting both sides of the case: If you read the first half of his letter you would think he appeared sympathetic to one side of the case, if you read the second half, to the other.
It would appear that Russia is advertising supposedly advanced defence products at international arms fairs yet not deploying them in Ukraine.
So either they don't work as well as Russia says, or as the MoD suggests, they don't have the production capacity to deploy these systems in sufficient numbers to protect a material proportion of their own troops.
"God deliver me from my friends! I'll take care of my enemies myself."
Field Marshall Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, known as the "Iron Duke."
To put today's update in perspective: what this means is that there are certain times of the year in large parts of Russia and Ukraine when many roads and paths become like rivers and fields turn into quagmires. The Ukrainian name for this is 'bezdorizhzhia.' And we are going into that time of the year.
This badly hampered whichever side was trying to attack in the battles between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia in World War II, and it is having a similar impact on the Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine now.
Hence the fact that Russia is trying to capture objectives in Ukraine like Bakhmut in these conditions, throwing human lives on both sides away for minimal gains on the ground, could have two explanations: either their generals are incompetent or they are under political pressure from the Putin regime in which the political need to claim a victory is taking priority over either lives or military good sense.
Another four million pounds of funding has been allocated to our National Parks including the Lake District National Park and other important parks such as the Yorkshire Dales national park.
Today the government announced £25 million of new funding for British-made zero emission buses, supporting British manufacturing jobs and delivering cleaner, more reliable journeys across the country, helping to grow our economy.
Win - win: less pollution in our environment and more new buses to improve our public transport.
The Energy Security Secretary has urged energy suppliers to pass savings to their energy customers, as soon as possible, building on our mission for the UK to have amongst the cheapest wholesale electricity prices in Europe.
Today the government unveiled a new centralised, ‘Help to Grow’ website helping 5.5 million businesses to get the support they need to reach their ambitions, helping to halve inflation, grow the economy and reduce debt across the country.
