π§΅The Tories face perhaps the most important #LeadershipContest in almost half a century. The candidates are either second rate avatars for the triple liberal consensus (in social, economic and foreign policies) that has led us down a catastrophic cul-de-sac, or are...[1/n]
...verging on certifiably insane in one important area of policy and are therefore unfit to lead the country. I think the exception is @KemiBadenoch. I'm not sure she can change anything, given the paucity of talent in the party and a Civil Service that is both unfit for...[2/n]
...purpose and implacably opposed to any policy that veers outside that aforementioned disastrous consensus. Nevertheless, #KemiForPM would be the only *chance* of changing course. Here's why. 1/ Britain doesn't have problems to solve: it has an existential omnicrisis. [3/n]
Dealing with this needs somebody who can look at the overall *systems* of governance and policy, pick a direction, and craft a series of policies that build upon each other toward that end point. It seems to me that only one candidate has grasped this. The rest are just...[4/n]
...regurgitating the same empty lines about "dynamism" and "prosperity" and "lowering taxes to put money in people's pockets." 2/ Further, many of those problems would benefit from a STEM background, as opposed to PPE or similar. The above solution needs an engineer's...[5/n]
...clarity of thought and systems mindset. They also need an understanding of data and what new technology can offer. We have enough PPE degrees. 3/ And, I'm afraid, at this stage, given the state of the country, Badenoch's lack of involvement in creating this mess is...[6/n]
...an *advantage*. We cannot have more ministers who fail upward to try different versions of the same failures. No more Blairism in Blue. No more Osbornomics. No more careerists unencumbered by political principle or strategy. We can't. 4/ And the Tory Party surely can't...[7/n]
It's not yet realised how powerful the "Time for a change" impulse will be in 2024. The Tories have been in power for TWENTY TWO YEARS. In that time, we've had declining productivity, stagnating wages, increasing income and regional inequality, sociocultural degeneration...[8/n]
...none of the obvious problems solved (crime, immigration, housing, education, the trade balance, debt, and foreign policy grand strategy), and a general sense of inertia and cluelessness. If I were the Tory Party, I would try to get my change in *now*. [9/n]
At the very least, she has the intellectual muscle and the rock ribs to batter Labour on its awful, divisive cultural policies and win. That would make everybody in the country with commonsense feel better and give them space to speak out and fight back. As a Briton, I...[10/n]
...couldn't bear Hunt, Sunak, Truss, et al, pretending, like Brezhnev at the end, to be confident of improvement while trying a rewarmed and repacked version of the same failed recipe. Maybe #KemiBadenoch will be no different. But she has something about her that makes...[11/n]
...me at least *question* my cynicism. I think she gets it. I think she'll at least try. And I think she'd at least save us from a Labour-Lib-SNP coalition to break up the Union and cement Blairism for a century. It's a risk. But a risk is better than guaranteed decline. [ENDS]
Correction: twelve, not twenty two, years in power. It's late and I'm knackered.
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With the Ukraine war all but lost, and the US set to withdraw its forces, Europe finds itself in its weakest strategic position since 1948--and maybe the 16thC. This thread suggests a bold (and leftfield) solution. But can we find an Adenauer, de Gaulle, Walesa or Churchill?
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This proposal points to a way out of Europe's strategic, and long-term economic, problems. Emotions don't come into it. I'll start with two quotes from the great historian A.J.P. Taylor, from his The Course of German History (1945), to show how quickly feelings can change.
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On Germany Taylor wrote: "Their method has always been the same--extermination. Many of the peoples of Europe have, at one time or another, been exterminators. The French... The Spaniards... The English... But no other people had pursued extermination as a permanent...
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A quick note about this story. What could Britain actually provide?
It's my understanding that Britain could not put even a single division in the field. At a push, we could probably manage two brigades, or ~10,000 fighting men. For context, this is probably less than Ukraine assigned for the defence of a small to medium sized town like Bakhmut.
But that's in theory. In practice, we might not even be able to equip them. In a 2021 war game exercise, the British Army ran out of key munitions in 10 days. And that was before we emptied the arsenal for Ukraine.
For years, British land forces have sought to leverage world class, elite light infantry units and best in class special forces as a useful appendage to US beef in the global war on terror. But commando raids, human terrain expertise and counter insurgency optimisation is very different skillset to that needed to defend fixed positions, counter drone warfare and artillery duels on the Pontic Steppe. (Note the complaints from Ukrainian soldiers about the quality and relevance of training they receive in the west.)
It therefore seems unlikely that the UK can offer anything that could seriously slow down the Russians. The only use of British troops might be that when they are destroyed, it puts the US in a "join the fight or lose NATO" position.
In other words, Starmer's statement is either delusional, virtue signalling, or dangerous. Take your pick.
Meanwhile, in Germany it's much the same. When Europeans complain about the US excluding then from negotiations, we know why: Europe has nothing to offer, and will just demand US taxpayers continue doing what Ursula, Keir, Olaf and Emanuel want.
For those who didn't quite believe me when I said that it is ludicrous to think we could deploy very much of anything to Ukraine, here's a man with far greater knowledge than I am making the same point. Except he claims the numbers I used are optimistic.
What have our catastrophic Ukraine policy, @RoryStewartUK's handwringing about the 'values' involved in the US election, and Labour's dangerous support for the losing side in that election got in common?
The Adolescent Mindset: A Thread about the ruination of Britain.
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The negative side of adolescent behaviour is often characterised by lack of emotional control; swings between hubristic triumphalism and hysterical hopelessness; callowness and certitude at the same time; lack of responsibility; thoughtless risk taking; and a tendency to...
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...be passionate advocates for big, distant causes while ignoring more mundane, small issues. We've all known (and remember being) teenagers. They can be engaging and energising, but can also be prone to wild mood changes (the world is my oyster because I'm going on a...
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Some plants, when attacked by insects that eat their leaves, secret a scent that attracts the predators of the attacking insects. I can't help but think that something similar has happened in politics over the last 25 years. In the 20th Century, politics in the Anglo...
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...world was ultimately a dance between capital and labour. The outcome was various messy compromises, continuously shifting in favour of one side and then the other. The parties and organisations that backed the workers would take bites out of the interests of the...
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...capital owning class (such as redistributive taxes, unionised pay and conditions negotiations, and the provision of social programmes like healthcare and education). Those who owned capital and businesses, and the libertarian/Thatcher/Reagan/paleoliberal political...
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A bombshell report, by renowned investigative reporter @mtaibbi and former US Senate investigator @thackerpd, could have serious political and diplomatic ramifications for the UK. This thread explains why, and lists the questions that must be asked of the government.
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Messrs Taibbi and Thacker allege that a whistleblower has provided them with documents which show that a charity closely linked to Sir Keir Starmer's election svengali and current Chief of Staff, Morgan McSweeney, has written plans to "kill Elon Musk's Twitter," "trigger... 2/n
...EU and UK regulatory action," and build closer links with the Biden-Harris Administration. The charity, called Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), was co-founded by Mr McSweeney, who also founded 'Labour Together', which became known as a 'party within a party'...
The saddest thing, I think, about the return of the question of whether Britain should pay reparations for the practice of slavery, now centred on the foreign secretary David Lammy, is the way that such a heinous and sickening...
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...practice has been politicised. It is, when one thinks for even a moment about what went on in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and the scale of suffering involved, hugely affecting and a stain on our national story. Yet the tone of the debate somehow inures us to the...
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...details of this horror. Nevertheless, it is understandable that Britons are angered by the tone and form of the demands. It is implied that Britain should pay reparations absent of any broadly accepted legal framework, or even international norms, to deal with such...
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