Wednesday, September 18, 2024 →
Vain, imprudent, lacking both judgement and a moral compass. Starmer, like many a modern politician, is determined to “prove” modern public choice theory.
Starmer’s £100,000 in tickets and gifts more than any other recent party leader
“Eee bah gum, pet. Labour have condemned us to freeze to death this winter, but at least that Sir Keir Starmer is working with the neofascists to keep the foreigners out,” said no one in the Red Wall.
Giorgia Meloni: Starmer showed great interest in our Albania migration deal
Presumably, “black hole, we’re doomed!” has been focus-grouped. Who are this bloc of centrist masochists? Why don’t they have a cutesy media monicker?
Over the summer there’s been a change in East London mores: people no longer press the button on the pelican crossings, and leave their baskets for staff to collect on the self-checkouts.
Thursday, September 12, 2024 →
The government planned to gut the NHS and flog the entrails of to private equity. The “black hole” is a smokescreen.
Thursday, September 12, 2024 →
Rachel Reeves is positioning herself as the centrist dad’s Liz Truss.
Wednesday, September 11, 2024 →
The Chancellor, of all people, “secures” an £8b AWS datacentre that will “support around 14,000 jobs per year” - the most sustainable of which being the delivery riders bringing the lattes to the journalists at the photo-ops and the spads holding the politico’s umbrella.
A ‘tough’ government would be taking power and money from the rich, not mugging pensioners for their winter fuel money or taxing poor families for having kids.
If Britain is broken, why does government fiddle with the dials? If the machine is kaput you fix the machine. You don’t play with the settings.
In the polities of neoliberal meritocracy, elected politicians consider ordinary folk non-player characters. If you try to engage with politicians you soon realise the reverse is true. The politicians speak in robotic slogans scripted by shadowy players working for the oligarchy to rig the game.
My question for the Labour Treasury team is, if the bond markets are running the country, why are we paying you to do it, particularly when you claim money is tight?
The government either takes us for fools or are so completely clueless about economics that they should be nowhere near the levers of power.
Saturday, August 31, 2024
I live in east London and I often walk down Bow Creek from Bow Locks to the A13 via Cody Dock. In all these years, I’ve only seen the parliament of crows once. It was a warm afternoon, and the tide was low, exposing a beach at Bow riverside as the river doubles back towards the A13. There’s a colony of crows here: they dance in the updrafts from the airconditioning of the Amazon and DPD depots.
How do you know you’re going deaf in one ear? Your AirPods consistently run down in one ear faster than the other.
As AI fever grips public services, there’s a lot of talk about AI replacing professionals. Professionals accept liability. Something there is absolutely no chance of an AI company doing.
When politicians say they will be “tough on immigration” it’s a tell. They are letting you know they have no intention of creating a fairer economy that works for the rest of us. They won’t do anything about the housing crisis, waiting lists or collapsing public services. They’ll continue to act in the interests of the rich and will set “native” against “immigrant” as a distraction from their incompetence and cowardice.
Riding the rainbow train this morning.
It is an irony of our times that the professional and managerial caste who manage “teh economeh” on behalf of the oligarchy know nothing of economics. Indeed many undertake elite education precisely to entrench their ignorance.
Not sure if the pigeons are fans of minimalism or just like numbers. Anyhow, I play them “Einstein on the Beach” most evenings.
A successful Labour government needs a commitment to social justice. A technocratic government of slight ambition needs a good understanding of macroeconomics. If you have neither, here is what is left.
Rachel Reeves planning to raise taxes and cut spending in October budget