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Princess Kate has shown why she is so vital to the royal family
The news that the Princess of Wales has been able to return to public-facing duties is both hugely welcome and, after a lengthy period out of the limelight due to her cancer diagnosis, a reminder that she remains the most dutiful and committed of all the members of the royal family.
Yet her first official engagement after her cancer diagnosis was no soft or easy commitment. Instead, she took on a challenging and emotionally demanding responsibility, namely heading to Southport to meet the families of those who were injured or killed in July’s atrocity in the town.
The Princess has often been regarded as the Firm’s most obviously empathetic and socially engaged member
The Princess has often been regarded as the Firm’s most obviously empathetic and socially engaged member, not least because her background is far humbler than the grand circles that she now moves in. The message that the Prince and Princess put out on social media at the time of the attack could not have failed to move. It stated simply, ‘As parents, we cannot begin to imagine what the families, friends and loved ones of those killed and injured in Southport today are going through. We send our love, thoughts and prayers to all those involved in this horrid and heinous attack.’ Now was the chance to make good on the sentiment.
During today’s engagement the Princess spent 90 minutes with the families of those killed in the atrocity. This was followed by a lengthy meeting with the dance teacher who had been holding the class so hideously interrupted, and the emergency responders who were at the scene. This was both practically and symbolically vital. It was an invaluable reminder that those who suffered so grievously in Southport earlier this year have not been abandoned or forgotten. And, although it was not made explicit, her and her husband’s calm, understated decency stands in stark contrast to the hideousness of the riots that erupted after the attack took place.
The royal family has suffered a difficult year. Yet as this particular annus horribilis draws to a close, there is grounds for hope that 2025 will be better. Not only has Catherine’s health recovered, but her return to public life and the straightforward kindness and compassion that she brings – in comparison to that of her self-centred sister-in-law – is a rare and welcome quality in the world today. Southport, and Britain, are lucky to have someone of such integrity standing beside them.
Guardian deletes controversial 7 October review
Uh oh. To the Grauniad, where trouble is afoot. It transpires that the paper’s review of One Day in October, a harrowing Channel 4 documentary about the tragedy of the 7 October terror attack on Israel by Hamas, has caused quite a stir. So much so that it has, in fact, been deleted and wiped entirely from the Guardian’s website.
The review had ruffled feathers after suggesting that the documentary had portrayed Gazans as ‘testosterone-crazed Hamas killers’:
If you want to understand why Hamas murdered civilians, though, One Day in October won’t help. Indeed, it does a good job of demonising Gazans, first as testosterone-crazed Hamas killers, later as shameless civilian looters, asset-stripping the kibbutz while bodies lay in the street and the terrified living hid.
It went on:
Despite such evident evil, I am reminded of Cy Endfield’s film Zulu, with its nameless hordes of African warriors pitted against British protagonists with whom we were encouraged to identify. TV and cinematic narratives often work as othering machines in this way. At its worst One Day in October, if unwittingly, follows the same pattern.
All our sympathies are with relatable Israelis. A mother texting farewell messages as she dies from gunshot wounds. A girl sending cute pictures of her playing with friends to her mum, who is cowering in a toilet cubicle, hoping the terrorists she can hear breathing outside can’t hear her. By contrast, Hamas terrorists are a generalised menace on CCTV, their motivates beyond One Day in October’s remit.
It’s certainly quite the take…
But after an online backlash, it appears that the Guardian has opted to remove the piece altogether, ‘pending review’. The paper could have defended the publication of the piece – or acknowledged its flaws – and yet it seems this beacon of transparency has opted for, um, neither option. So much for journalistic integrity, eh?
Rachel Reeves’ Budget is falling apart
It could be 30 per cent. Or 35 per cent? Or perhaps 39 per cent? Heck, who knows, if Rachel Reeves wants to keep the accountants on their toes, perhaps 39.657 per cent. The Treasury is, according to the latest leaks to the Guardian, looking at an increase in Capital Gains Tax as it scrabbles around for tax rises to fund the Chancellor’s spending plans, while not putting up the amount ordinary people are paying. The trouble is, whatever number she picks it is not going to work – and Rachel Reeves is fast gaining a reputation as a shambolic Chancellor.
The list of failed tax rises from the new government is growing every day
Given how much time Reeves spent boasting about how she ‘knew how to run the economy’, and the plaudits from the likes of Mark Carney, we might at least have assumed that she had a plan for raising more money from the ‘rich’ to fund generous wage rises for the public sector and the billions to be spent on GB Energy and the National Wealth Fund. With only a little over two weeks to go until her first Budget, however, there is very little sign of it.
According to the Guardian, she is now toying with hiking Capital Gains Tax to 39 per cent, presumably on the grounds that an odd number will confuse everyone so much they won’t really notice. On some other planet that might work, but not unfortunately on this one. The Treasury is already warning that while that may raise money in year one, it will quickly lead to lower revenues, as anyone with any gains postpones selling, or flees abroad.
The list of failed tax rises from the new government is growing every day. It has already become clear the raid on non-doms will generate nothing because so many of them are leaving. Putting VAT on school fees doesn’t look like it will raise much either. And pension funds can’t be raided without hitting the public sector. One by one, her plans are falling apart.
In reality, Reeves is paying the price for her dishonesty during the election campaign. It is not possible to increase public spending significantly without raising taxes for ordinary people. As that becomes clear, she will either have to raise taxes for everyone, or else cut spending. Either way, she has had a chaotic start as Chancellor – as is becoming painfully clear as her first Budget draws near.
Treasury: no plans for Reeves’ robes
It’s tough times at the Treasury for poor Rachel Reeves. With three weeks to go until Labour’s first Budget, every mandarin on Horse Guards Road has been rummaging down the back of the proverbial sofa, looking for any extra cash to spend. The fiscal rules look set for a rejig; taxes are likely to be raised and there’s talk even of spending cuts – though whether the Chancellor can get that past her backbenchers remains another matter.
And with Reeves demanding ‘efficiency savings’ across Whitehall, it seems that retrenchment has even extended to her own office. For centuries, successive ministers at the Treasury were given a robe of office in their capacity as Master of the Mint. Some wore it to coronations while others donned it when attending the Trial of the Pyx – the annual ceremony to ensure that newly minted coins from the Royal Mint to their required dimensional and fineness specifications.
So, with the Lord Chancellor, Shabana Mahmood, proudly showing off her own robes of office last week, Mr S wondered whether Reeves might do the same? Alas, however, the Chancellor’s magnificent garbs – once worn by Churchill and Lloyd George among others – went missing during the Gordon Brown era and are yet to be replaced, two decades on. Given that Reeves is the first female Chancellor in 800 years, might now be the chance to commission some new ones?
Sadly not, it seems, with Treasury sources confirming to Steerpike that there are no plans for replacement robes, with no discussions being held to date on this matter. A shame for traditionalists – but proof, perhaps, that economies really do begin at home.
Pro-life buffer zone residents could face £10,000 fines
Welcome to the land of the unfree – otherwise known as Scotland. John Swinney’s SNP government have laid out its rules for anti-abortionists north of the border, and the measures are even worse than many campaigners first imagined. Buffer zones – in which pro-life activists cannot protest – were introduced at the end of September after MSPs passed the Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) (Scotland) bill earlier in the year. And it now turns out that if residents living within these exclusion areas, within 200 metres of abortion clinics, hang protestations in their windows, they could be fined up to £10,000. Golly.
In a letter sent to residents by the SNP government, those living in the buffer zones have been told they must follow the new rules – even when inside their own homes. The notice tells locals that:
In general, the offences apply in public places within the safe-access zones. However, activities in a private place (such as a house) within the area between the protected premises and the boundary of a zone could be an offence if they can be seen or heard within the zone and are done intentionally or recklessly.
Crikey. The warning continues, adding that it is an offence to do something that would ‘influence someone’s decision to access, provide or facilitate’ abortions – or ’cause harassment, alarm or distress’ to people attending or staffing the clinics. Anyone found to have broken the rules could be fined ‘up to £10,000 under summary procedure’ – or an unlimited amount if the case is deemed to be more serious. Talk about the long arm of the, er, government, eh?
Scottish Green Gillian Mackay – who proposed the bill in the first place – insisted that the law would ensure people ‘continue to have the right to free speech and protest in a democracy’. Yet anti-abortion SNP MSP John Mason told the Times the letter was ‘not entirely a surprise’, adding: ‘I guess everyone knew when they voted for the act that this would be one of the consequences.’ Mr S has asked the Scottish government for a comment on the matter, but has had no response thus far. So much for the SNP’s openness and transparency, eh?
Ron DeSantis’s climate bill has nothing to do with Hurricane Milton
Hurricane Milton has left more than two million homes and businesses in Florida without power and threatens to be a mortal threat for those in its path. But for some, the hurricane also appears to a very large stick with which to beat Florida governor Ron DeSantis for scrapping the state’s climate change goals.
DeSantis’ detractors have to explain how a plan to achieve 100 per cent green energy by 2050 will keep Florida’s residents safe from hurricanes
A bill, which DeSantis signed in May, removed climate change as a priority in state energy policy and cut the word ‘climate’ from several pieces of state legislation. It banned offshore wind turbines and watered down obligations on state agencies to use products deemed to be green. It also set in motion the repealing of the target to ensure that 100 per cent of the state’s energy comes from renewable sources by 2050.
DeSantis’ shake-up was, needless to say, a red rag to a bull for climate campaigners, who have been busily reminding everyone about the act over the past few days. One, Robert Reich, wrote on his Facebook page:
‘As Florida braces for Hurricane Milton, remember that Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill that erases most references to climate change from state law. Tapping into the culture wars isn’t going to protect Floridians from the harsh realities of climate change. These people deserve better. We all deserve better.’
But is DeSantis the only one dipping into the culture wars? Climate change has long been used as a vehicle on which to transport various political ideologies, on the left as well as the right.
True, there are some measures in DeSantis’ bill which seem calculated to irritate his political opponents. Yet the thrust of the legislation – which opponents don’t always like to admit – is to boost civil resilience. That is why it seeks to advance the exploitation of gas: to boost the reliability of the electricity grid. It also proposes that the use of nuclear technologies – including small modular reactors, which could be a more reliable source of energy than intermittent wind and solar – be explored. DeSantis has also poured money into bolstering sea defences.
Is there any need to ban offshore wind turbines? Perhaps not. There is nothing wrong with wind energy as part of the mix. Then again, if you have been going around warning of a future of mad hurricanes – as some of DeSantis’ opponents have been – would you really want a sizeable proportion of Florida’s energy provided by tall, spindly turbines stuck out in the sea?
DeSantis’ detractors have to explain this: how is a plan to achieve 100 per cent green energy in the state by 2050 going to keep Florida’s residents safe from hurricanes?
To portray DeSantis’ climate act as some kind of irresponsible wheeze, to try to advance a front in the culture wars rather ignores what it is trying to achieve – which is to refocus policy away from gestures and towards substantive action to cope with rising sea levels and bad weather.
Hurricane Milton, it might just be added, is not an event which could be stopped even by the total and immediate end of carbon emissions, but something which has been part of the Florida climate for as long as anyone can remember. Not that you would guess that from all of this week’s coverage.
Labour under fire over Taylor Swift policing fiasco
Dear oh dear. It transpires that the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper received a free concert ticket to Taylor Swift’s shows in the summer – like many of her Labour colleagues. The revelation comes a day after the now-ousted Tory leadership candidate James Cleverly attacked Cooper over claims that the police had been pressed to provide extra protection for Taylor Swift. How very curious…
On Wednesday, it was revealed that Cooper had personally intervened to ensure the US pop star received a police convoy to her Wembley shows in London. After a terror attack on Swift’s Vienna tours was foiled, it was claimed that the singer’s mother – and manager – was threatening to cut Swift’s London shows unless top level police support was provided. Despite Met chiefs being reluctant to grant Swift ‘VVIP’ service – usually reserved for senior royals and top politicians – Cooper and London Mayor Sadiq Khan personally persuaded the force to provide additional protection for the singer and her entourage, at the taxpayer’s expense.
It has now emerged that both the Home Secretary and the London Mayor attended the singer’s shows, with Cooper even receiving a free Swift ticket not so long before getting involved in Swift’s security measures. Hardly a Cruel Summer for her, eh? Attending as a guest of Taylor’s music label, Universal Music, Cooper went with her husband Ed Balls – who received four tickets, with his wife’s pass thought to be worth £170. The Home Secretary did not declare the gift as it was below the £300 threshold, however the Times understands Cooper offered to make public the donation – eventually doing so yesterday.
While Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy was adamant that there was no ‘wrongdoing or undue influence in this case’, shadow home secretary Cleverly fumed on Wednesday that the use of the Special Escort Group is ‘not for use by private individuals or as traffic assistants for pop stars’ in a quizzical letter to Cooper. And the whole matter certainly does nothing for Labour’s optics in light of the freebie fiasco and the multiple cronyism rows. Rules for thee, but not for me!
Can HS2 be fixed?
Choose your expression: ‘stuck between a rock and a hard place’; ‘I wouldn’t start from here if I were you’; or simply ‘this is the biggest omnishambles in history’.
All these apply to HS2 as Louise Haigh, the Secretary of State for Transport, attempts to come up with a coherent strategy for a project that has now run for 15 years and has worked its way through around £35 billion – but is still only less than half-completed. Worse, on its way it has shed most of its sections, such as running to Manchester and Leeds or connecting with HS1, that would at least have made the end product a worthwhile addition to the country’s railway infrastructure.
Certainly, completing these two sections will at least invest some ultimate purpose in this deranged project
Instead, we now have a 135-mile-long line that has been dubbed the Acton to Aston shuttle, starting some five miles from the centre of London and ending up a mile from Birmingham’s New Street station, necessitating a tram ride to connect with it. In this form, few people will use the service, given it will cost more and not save any time city when travelling between two city centres. The cost is now accepted to be in the order of £100 billion and according to my sources will not open until at least 2033 rather than the originally planned mid-2020s – and that’s if no new problems arise. There are already rumours that major previously undiscovered gas and water mains on the site marked for the initial terminus at Old Oak Common will severely disrupt progress there.
Haigh is now reportedly considering a fix: a new ‘HS2 light’ railway line between Manchester and Birmingham, which would be slower than the original HS2, but faster than the existing West Coast Main Line.
But before we consider this suggested escape route, let’s examine how we got here – because any proposed solution has to recognise the errors of the past in order to be viable. There is not space to outline all of them but they mostly emanate from several wrong decisions made at the outset of the project, not least: creating HS2 Ltd as a separate organisation with very little ministerial oversight; designing the railway for 400 kilometres per hour, the fastest in the world in a relatively small country; building the railway to European gauge for tunnels and other infrastructure, meaning it would be incompatible with the rest of the UK network; specifying very vague contracts that allowed contractors far too much leeway; not using proven cheaper building techniques as other countries have done; and never having a clear overall budget.
The list goes on and on and any new approach must address these issues. So now, in desperation – and one must have sympathy with the local and national politicians faced with sorting this out – there seems to be a consensus that Euston must be reached and that the tunnel boring machines should start digging. The second big question is what to do about the section between Birmingham (or rather a junction of the existing line called Handsacre) and Manchester. Certainly, completing those two sections will at least invest some ultimate purpose in this deranged project.
Scrapping the section north of Handsacre was a piece of political theatre by Rishi Sunak to please the audience at last year’s Conservative party conference but it never made sense from a transport point of view. Not only would it have been, per mile, far cheaper to build than the London-Birmingham section, but it would also be the most beneficial part of HS2. As Henri Murison, chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, said: ‘There is no alternative. You either build a parallel road to the overcrowded M6 or you revive this section.’ He points out that the route approved by Parliament for the line north of Handsacre would be the ideal one for a new motorway and that this is the likely outcome if the line is not built.
Which is where the ‘HS2 light’ proposal comes in. A consortium of contractors, supported by northern and Midlands mayors, as well as Andy Street who was the Tory mayor of the West Midlands until May, has put forward a scheme to revive this section by involving private sector investment. The plan is to use the line previously envisaged – as this has parliamentary approval and work could start quite quickly. Finding a new route would require a delay of several years as a further Bill would have to be passed.
There are some savings that could be made to the design, by, for example, running the trains at a lower speed and using conventional ballast for part of the route rather than the more expensive slab track which has been specified for the whole line. But it will still cost billions – for which there is no budget. However, supporters of this new plan argue that it is the involvement of the private sector that would be crucial, as the investors would be required to take the risk of ensuring that a set budget was adhered to. Moreover, if as expected Treasury rules are changed to allow extra borrowing for investment schemes, the line could remain as a public asset with the government simply buying it off the consortium that builds it. Alternatively, it could remain privately owned with the operators of HS2 paying for track access. Either way, for a Transport Secretary who is delighting in ‘renationalising’ the railways, this type of remedy for HS2 may be hard to stomach.
Murison emphasises that at this stage the plans have to be set out in more detail and for that cooperation is needed from HS2 Ltd which must share the technical and environmental knowledge it has obtained for this section of the route.
But it’s the government that will have to decide between further considerable spending on HS2 or leaving it as a fairly useless and poorly connected route between west London and the West Midlands. It again bears repeating: this is not where any government would want to start.
It’s time to stop the war on Malbec
The German historian Johann Wilhelm von Archenholz wrote about British tastes in alcohol in the eighteenth century: ‘In London they liked everything that is powerful and heady.’ Not much has changed since then. Blame it on the weather, blame it on the food or blame it on the good times, the British have always liked their drink strong.
But for how much longer will we be able to cheerfully knock back the Malbec when a new duty system is implemented in February? Wines between 11.5 per cent and 14.5 per cent ABV will have their own bands per 0.1 increment of alcohol. Which means the tax on your favourite 14.5 per cent Argie Malbec will go up from £2.67 to £3.10. Before last year’s budget it would have been £2.23. Plus there’s VAT on top of that. Yes, you have to pay tax on your tax.
The strange thing about all this extra regulation is that it doesn’t seem to have any point
John Colley, CEO of Majestic, has warned this week: ‘There is a risk that producers will stop exporting wine to the UK entirely, due to the immense administrative burden’. He continued: ‘smaller family-run vineyards, which we value so much, may not want to change processes that have been in place for generations, when they could easily export their wines elsewhere in the world without any additional costs and red tape. Basically your favourite wines could increase in price, or at worst disappear from shelves altogether next year’. You have been warned.
Before we throw up our hands and blame the puritan nanny staters in the Labour government, I should point out that this new duty regime was put in place by the puritan nanny staters in the previous administration. Port duty has already gone up by £2 a bottle but thanks to industry lobbying wines the new system was delayed on wines below 15 per cent.
When it was announced last year this revised system was billed as a simplification of our Byzantine alcohol duty laws, bringing wine into line with spirits. These are taxed at £31.64 per litre of pure alcohol. So the taxman will take £8.86 from a 70cl 40 per cent bottle of gin and £10.19 from one at 46 per cent. Plus VAT of course!
The problem is that there are many, many more different types of wine out there with varying alcoholic content. Think of the difference between the spirits aisle in Tesco and the wine aisle. But that’s not all, as Tom Ashworth from West Country wine merchant Yapp Bros. explained: ‘don’t forget that due to vintage variation, the alcohol of most wines will move around this tariff matrix annually.’ In a hot year your favourite Malbec might be 14.5 per cent ABV but in a cooler one 13.5 per cent meaning a duty rate of £3.10 as opposed to £2.88. All this needs to be checked with each new shipment of wine. Fine for Tesco which probably has a department devoted to such things but for a small business importing interesting wines from the South of France, it’s a headache.
Ashworth continued: ‘At a time when we should be reducing red tape (as various governments have promised), the end of the duty easement in February will, with one fell swoop, add 30 new tariffs in place of one. You’d have to laugh if it wasn’t so serious for the wine industry. It will add considerable administrative cost to all wine merchants (disproportionately to smaller ones) and will increase prices and reduce choice for the consumer.’
When the new regime was announced last year, Sunak described it as an incentive for ‘small craft spirit and wine producers to innovate lower-strength products.’ Already in response we’ve seen progressively weedier wines arriving on supermarket shelves which the Daily Telegraph is dubbing ‘Rishi wines’ – a phrase that I promise nobody is using in the real world. Nine per cent might be fine for a German riesling, but an Australian Shiraz at that level is not going to cut the mustard. Worse still are the so-called ‘session wines’ at 3.5 per cent.
The strange thing about all this extra regulation is that it doesn’t seem to have any point. The presenter of ITV’s The Wine Show Joe Fattorini has commented: ‘The Treasury’s own figures for the last year reveal that putting alcohol duty up means the tax take from alcohol duty goes down. By £1.3 billion.’ He added ‘so many governments are getting slapped on the arse by the Laffer Curve, it’s starting to look like the policy of the fiscally deviant.’ Saucy.
An alliance of the Wine and Spirits Trade Association and various wine retailers is trying to get the new rules amended, but I can’t see much hope. Already The Wine Society is warning that prices are going to go up significantly. My advice would be to stock up with a suitably strong Malbec while you can.
Wimbledon won’t be the same without line judges
It will soon be the end of an era at Wimbledon. From 2025, the All England Club has announced that the services of line judges, who ringed the court and were responsible for crying ‘out’ and ‘fault’ on serves, will be dispensed with. From then on, all line calls will be decided entirely by the Hawkeye electronic line calling system (ELC). The move comes in the wake of the Association of Tennis Professionals’ (ATP’s) decision to adopt ELC across the men’s tour from 2025, and is thus perfectly logical. But it is not without controversy, and it will not please everybody.
There is something slightly sinister about this takeover by Hawkeye
Wimbledon’s chief executive, Sally Bolton, said that the plan was made after a ‘significant period of consideration and consultation’ and stressed that the technology was ‘robust’. She insisted that it is the right time for a move that will align Wimbledon with ‘a number of other events on the tour’. The technology is already in use at the US and Australian Opens, and with Wimbledon signing on, that just leaves the French Open to complete the Grand Slam.
It is a bit sad, though. The line judges, who always to me suggested, for the men, Billy Bunter-ish characters and for the women, Mary Poppins without the carpet bag, added to the pageantry of Wimbledon, giving proceedings a quaint 1950s feel. Wimbledon was different, with its royal patronage, strawberries and cream, celeb-spotting on Number One Court, and slightly anachronistic rituals and etiquette – it had the extra-sporting appeal of a national event. A celebrity garden party – with a bit of racquet sport on the side.
The judges added a distinctly human touch to proceedings. It was especially amusing to contrast those that were clearly out of shape with the gaunt, rake-thin, robotic tennis automatons whose fates they had some say in deciding. It was a reminder, much needed in the over-serious elite strata of sport, that what we were watching was just a game, just two (or four) young people knocking a ball over a net, that mistakes happen – and so what? Sport only really matters if you think it matters.
One wonders what will happen next. There is something slightly sinister about this takeover by Hawkeye, reminiscent vaguely of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, where the computer Hal starts to eliminate members of the crew. Will Hawkeye turn its laser gaze on umpires next? And will the ball boys and girls be replaced by some technological ball-retrieval wizardry too? How about AI-automated commentators? These aren’t cheerful thoughts.
Cynics might also suggest that by aligning itself with the international tennis authorities on the issue of ELC, Wimbledon will go some way towards undoing the damage caused by its unwise (some – me, for example – would say disgraceful) decision to exclude Russian and Belarusian players from the tournament in 2022. The move was not endorsed by the wider tennis community and led to the tournament losing its ranking points. It is also worth noting that the elimination of the roughly 300 line judges Wimbledon recruits each year will save a considerable amount of money, needed by the club as it prepares for its ambitious expansion plans. Thirty-nine new tennis courts are planned and an 8,000-seat venue with a covered roof.
Players are broadly thought to be supportive of the move to ELC. Hawkeye is, after all, ‘serious’ – it is believed to operate with an average error of 3.6mm, which is equivalent to the fluff on the ball. This is far better than even a well-trained official squinting in the sun through sweat-sodden eyes could possibly manage.
Concerns about the technology (Sally Bolton’s ‘robust’ comment did bring the Post Office’s defence of the Horizon system to mind) are also surely misplaced. There has been the very occasional malfunction since it was introduced nearly two decades ago in the wake of human errors in the Serena Williams-Jennifer Capriati US Open quarter-final in 2004 (just as Frank Lampard’s ‘goal’ against Germany in the 2010 World Cup proved the accelerant for VAR). But, unlike VAR, some would say, ELC has proved generally reliable. It makes for more accurate and swifter decisions, and fewer on-court tantrums or post-match controversy.
Wimbledon’s future looks secure, then, and the farewell to line judges is a shame but probably inevitable. Like the practice of curtseying to the Royal Box, or the use of ‘Miss or Mrs’ for female players, those hardworking and unsung adjudicators have found themselves redundant in the modern age.
Let’s hope, though, that in its rush to embrace modernity and maximise its income, Wimbledon doesn’t jettison everything that made it just a little bit more than another elite tennis tournament.
The ‘Green Budget’ could leave Rachel Reeves red-faced
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has published its yearly Green Budget, weeks ahead of Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s first fiscal event. It’s grim reading, for both the government and the public. For Labour to make good on its promise to avoid ‘austerity’, taxes are going to need to go up significantly: by £25 billion, the IFS reports, and that’s just to ‘keep spending rising with national income.’ That’s before the government tackles its pledges to invest. And that doesn’t rule out that ‘further tax rises or spending cuts could be required before the end of the parliament’.
Despite speculation that Reeves is changing the fiscal rules to enable her Treasury to borrow billions more, that will only release cash for capital investment. Her pledge to fund day-to-day spending through revenue remains the same – which will require Reeves either to scale back her spending plans or hike taxes to find the revenue. Having ruled out the former, the IFS reports that the UK is looking at a more transformative, even bigger tax-hiking Budget than Gordon Brown delivered in 1997 – which was to the tune of £14 billion – or George Osborne gave in 2010 – of £13 billion.
Many of the fiscal problems Reeves faces were well established before the election. Whoever found themselves in Downing Street for the course of this Parliament was going to have to tackle the public service black hole identified long before polling day. It will now cost ‘a further £17 billion (or £47 billion in total) in 2028–29’, according to the IFS, to fund non-ring fenced areas in line with national income. Higher debt-servicing payments, which last year cost the UK double its defence budget, are also a worry for the Chancellor.
Then there are the costs that Labour increased weeks after the party entered Downing Street, including £10 billion of inflation-busting public sector pay raises. Far from a one-off cost, the IFS estimates that ‘just to fund this year’s pay settlements and avoid future cuts Rachel Reeves would need to top up day-to-day spending by some £30 billion above her predecessor’s plans by 2028–29.’
During the campaign, the relatively small tax announcements Labour announced were set to take the tax burden – already at a post-war high – from 36.5 per cent in 2024/25 to 37.4 per cent by the end of this parliament. That’s 0.3 percentage points higher than the last forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility, which shows the tax burden rising to 37.1 per cent by 2028-29. But according to the Green Paper this morning, the £25 billion Reeves needs to keep the current show on the road will take the tax burden even higher, to 37.9 per cent.
There was no doubt that Labour had bigger plans for tax increases than the party was sharing in the run-up to polling day. But where will the cash come from? IFS director Paul Johnson notes that the Chancellor is ‘tightly constrained by her pledges not to raise the main rates of income tax or corporation tax, or to increase National Insurance or VAT at all.’ As I wrote on Coffee House this week, the Treasury is reportedly struggling to fully implement the few, relatively small tax pledges the Labour party made ahead of the election; it fears that the changes may lead to shifts in behaviour that could lose the Treasury cash overall.
Raising taxes is, of course, another form of austerity: avoiding spending cuts doesn’t mean avoiding the label altogether. But the Green Budget is very clear that it’s going to be very difficult for the Chancellor not to make at least some decisions around the spending review, even if taxes are hiked significantly. CiTi investment bank, which partners with the IFS for the Green Budget, forecasts that the Budget surplus for 2028–29 could be around £17 billion, which would ‘still leave spending on some public services falling’. With demand only growing in protected areas like healthcare, the Chancellor is going to face the age-old problem of where to use the extra headroom, with pressure (always) to top up the NHS or protect pensions.
‘It is easy to think that we face a short-term challenge somewhat artificially created by a particular set of arbitrary fiscal rules,’ says Johnson this morning. ‘That would be a mistake. Pressures on health and pension spending will continue to increase, and revenues from fuel and tobacco duties will fall.’ Yet Labour have a lot of legacy spending problems to make good on, and some they have already pledged themselves. Where the cash comes from remains uncertain, but there is no doubt that this is going to be a significant Budget – and a testing one, for both the government and the taxpayer.
Hear Kate's analysis on Coffee House Shots:
What’s the problem with zero-hour contracts?
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner is set to unveil her workers’ rights bill this week – and ‘exploitative’ zero-hour contracts are in the firing line. But has Labour actually stopped to ask workers what they think? They might be surprised by what they hear: a survey of over 1,000 young people has found that an overwhelming majority (75 per cent) of those in precarious work were satisfied with their working conditions while only 24 per cent were not.
It sounds counter-intuitive; happy with no job security, low status work, shifts cancelled at short notice? Satisfied with lower wages and significantly higher turnover rates? And yet young people do seem keen on these roles: more than 558,000 young people in the country are on zero-hour contracts.
It sounds counter-intuitive; happy with no job security?
The reality is that ‘micro jobs’ – whether that means working as a waitress, warehouse operative, or a driver – attract young people because they can be useful stepping stone to later careers. Charities that work with the unemployed report that for young people who feel under-skilled or overwhelmed, these casual contracts make the difference between holding down a job and staying out of the labour market altogether.
For a young person under pressure to balance work, studies, contributing to their parents’ household budget (42 per cent of 15-to-34 year olds live at home) a job ‘with no strings attached’ feels less intimidating than a position that requires a lengthy and painstaking application process. This is especially true of those raised in families where no one works. Parents out of the habit of searching for a job won’t be able to steer their children through an alien recruitment process that can involve interviews, CV writing, past references.
For some young people, casual contracts offer a chance to train on the job; for others, they can fit into an existing and demanding schedule. Tellingly, even when fixed hour positions come up within the firm they are employed by, zero hour contract workers don’t always apply for equivalent fixed-hour positions within the same firm when vacancies come up. Has Labour stopped to ask why?
The truth is that those who have been unemployed, or come from disadvantaged backgrounds, often see flexible jobs as a more manageable commitment to entry and re-entry than starting instantly at five full days a week.
Zero-hour contracts can also work well for businesses. Staff can be hired quickly to fill temporary staff absences and cover sudden increased demand for products or services. When the workforce is increasingly aged, unwell and taking on caring responsibilities, someone willing to work under ‘flexible’ conditions is hugely welcome. Youthful energy is just what employers – and the wider economy – need to kickstart a more prosperous future.
Cracking down on zero-hour contracts sounds compassionate and useful in polishing Labour’s ‘workers’ party’ credentials. But a ban risks being performative, a move calculated to play well to an audience of card-carrying union members, rather than a practical policy that will boost our economy. Young workers are voting with their feet: many are happy to apply for zero hour contract jobs. Employers are saying they cherish the flexibility that a casual contract ensures them. Both these groups are key to checking our economic inactivity: maybe it’s time to listen to them?
Labour’s House of Lords peerage reform is just hot air
Labour’s crackdown on the House of Lords continues apace. In an effort to reform the upper house, parties could soon be made to provide written justification for peerage nominations they put forward. Under the proposal they would have to submit a citation explaining why the candidate is being proposed and what contribution to public life he or she has made.
On its own, this idea is inoffensive. It is, admittedly, transparent in capitalising on the ongoing rumblings over Boris Johnson’s nominations in his 2023 resignation honours: 32-year-old Lord Ross Kempsell, former political director of the Conservative party, and Baroness Charlotte Owen of Alderley Edge (31), a Downing Street special adviser. Other honours, such as those conferred by the monarch are already accompanied by a citation, though often they are self-evident.
Anyone applying for a job knows that CVs can be preened for professional consumption
It is, however, meaningless unless it is somehow policed. Will these citations be scrutinised after a potential peer is nominated? If so, by whom? The obvious body would be the House of Lords Appointments Commission (HOLAC), which already vets candidates for propriety, but there is no indication yet that this responsibility will fall to them. More importantly, will the body which scrutinises these citations be able to reject them and thereby veto nominations for peerages? HOLAC currently cannot prevent a peerage being awarded, even if it recommends against it, as was the case with Lord Cruddas – the banker and Conservative donor nominated by Johnson in 2020, in defiance of HOLAC’s objection.
Let us be generous. Perhaps Sir Keir Starmer really is willing to tie his own hands by creating an authority which could block his nominations to the House of Lords (though it would be an extraordinary act of self-abnegation). But it is typical of the party that a vague, superficially reasonable notion, which can conveniently be used to twit the opposition, has been briefed to the media without any explanation of how the idea would be anything more than a formality.
Anyone who has applied for a job knows that a CV can be primped and preened for professional consumption. Labour has been happy to pile in on Kempsell and Owen, though it was rather less vocal at Plaid Cymru’s nomination earlier this year of the then 27-year-old Carmen Smith. At the time of her nomination, Baroness Smith of Llanfaes – as she now is, had reached the heights of acting chief of staff to her party’s 13-strong group in the Senedd.
Would all of Labour’s nominations pass muster? I cast shade on no member of the upper House, but, for example, Baroness Ayesha Hazarika was a special adviser to Ed Miliband as leader of the opposition – not the most successful period of his professional life – before turning to stand-up comedy and political commentary. Lord Gerald Shamash, a veteran of Labour politics, is distinguished primarily by being the party’s solicitor, having advised it during the ‘cash for honours’ scandal and the controversy over parliamentary expenses. Baroness Pauline Bryan of Partick, meanwhile, was a founding member of the Keir Hardie Society.
In its current composition, the House of Lords consists of (at least) two sorts of peers. There are those who are rewarded for substantial public or political service and whose experience can be a useful resource when the House is legislating and scrutinising policy. And then there are the ermine-clad Poor Bloody Infantry, the foot soldiers all parties need to dedicate their time to the House and make it function. In that latter category, party leaders should all have a degree of flexibility in whom they choose. You may disagree with the composition of the House of Lords, but that is a separate argument. What the government is proposing to do is make changes to it in its current form.
The Prime Minister is also keen to reduce the size of the House of Lords. ‘We’ve got 800-plus members of the Lords,’ Starmer said in July. ‘It’s simply too big; we need to reduce it.’ This is a common complaint, and it is a frank nonsense. It is true that there are currently 803 peers, with another 25 on leave of absence, disqualified or suspended from sitting. But the nature of the Lords is that there is no requirement, necessity or value in all of them attending at once, and they do not.
Average attendance by session – that is, the Lords’ regular active membership – it is in the high 300s or 400s, and has never, in history, exceeded 500. In reality, then it is much smaller than the House of Commons (with 650 members), or the Bundestag (733) or the Assemblée nationale (577). It is a function and an advantage of the House of Lords that peers attend when they are able to make a contribution (and therefore are paid a daily allowance for attending, rather than a salary).
Supporters of House of Lords reform come in many guises. Some are constitutional obsessives who have detailed plans for changing or replacing it. Others have a vague sense that it is in various ways wrong or unsatisfactory and want ‘something to be done’. But for some it is a progressive safe haven, a virtuous place to go back to when reality is too much to bear. The latest idea, without solid mechanisms to make it work, is just a political knee-jerk for a few good headlines.
Why North Korea is cutting off all roads to the South
If you visit South Korea, you may be startled at the presence of road signs pointing towards Kaesong and Pyongyang: two destinations that many of Seoul’s visitors will rarely have frequented. The latter – informally known as ‘Pyonghattan’ for its high-rise buildings – needs no explanation. The former was once the capital of dynastic Korea from the 10th to 14th centuries. One millennium later, it would become a special industrial region of North Korea, and home to the infamous Kaesong Industrial Complex, a now-closed joint economic development with South Korea. Yet soon, the roads and railways linking the democratic South to the authoritarian North will be no more.
On Tuesday, the General Staff of the Korean People’s Army, North Korea’s state army, announced that it would ‘permanently shut off and block the southern border’ with South Korea, as a ‘defensive measure’ to defend North Korea’s security.
North Korea is now not even pretending to exhibit any desire to engage in talks
We should not be surprised at this announcement. After all, over the past year, North Korea has made sure that it remains true to its moniker of the ‘hermit kingdom’, steadily destroying its rarely used transport links with its southern counterpart.
Tuesday’s announcement, then, may be stating the inevitable, but it also reveals a concerning reality of the politics of the Korean Peninsula. It is not just railway lines and roads that have been severed. The military and liaison communications hotline between the two Koreas has been cold for over a year, with the North simply not answering calls from the South. In July, the South Korean military revealed how North Korean soldiers were being sent to work in appalling conditions to install more landmines and erect barriers along the inter-Korean border, thereby ensuring that it retained its status as the world’s most militarised border.
What cannot go unnoticed is how Pyongyang has markedly upped the ante in its belligerence towards Seoul in recent months. In addition to its tried-and-tested provocations of missile launches, the North has also launched other types of objects. Over the past few months, South Korea has witnessed grey zone warfare, North Korea-style, as the North launched thousands of balloons filled with rubbish and excrement into South Korea – and continues to do so to this day. One such deployment, in June, even found its way near the South Korean presidential compound.
All these actions cannot be understood without recognising the fundamental shift in North Korean foreign policy towards South Korea, announced by Kim Jong Un at the end of 2023. In contrast to his grandfather and father, the third Kim made clear how North Korea would no longer seek to pursue the reunification of the Korean Peninsula as a policy goal.
Instead of viewing South Korea as part of a same, albeit divided, peninsula, it would now be seen as a separate state, and the North’s ‘principal enemy’. Since this policy shift, Kim has refused to rule out using nuclear weapons in any conflict on the Korean Peninsula, not least a war involving South Korea or the North’s other main adversary, the United States. Whilst this week’s meeting of North Korea’s rubber-stamp parliament – the Supreme People’s Assembly – did not see its leader announce any amendments to their constitution that reflected this change in policy, it would be highly naïve to assume that Kim has changed his mind.
If there is one message that can be taken from North Korea’s severing of road and railway links with the South, it is that relations between the two Koreas have now reached a nadir. Gone are the days of 2018, when in February of that year, North Korea sent a delegation to the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics held in South Korea – a moment many observers thought would catalyse some form of inter-Korean reconciliation. Who can forget how two months later, Kim Jong Un would meet with the then-South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, for the first inter-Korean summit in eleven years.
The meeting of mutual adversaries did little to halt Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions. But fast forward to the present day, and North Korea is now not even pretending to exhibit any desire to engage in talks, either with South Korea or the United States.
As North Korea continues to take steps to turn what the regime’s propaganda machineries have all too often described as an ‘impregnable fortress that no one dare attack’, the future hardly looks promising. A victory by Donald Trump on 5 November may lead to some form of inter-leader communication, whether a resurrection of oleaginous ‘love letters’, or even a meeting ‘to say hello’, as Trump once described his infamous meeting with Kim Jong Un at the demilitarised zone in June 2019.
But whether it will ease tensions between the two Koreas, however, is highly questionable. North Korea has arguably already pre-empted a Trump victory, by making clear how irrespective of who wins the US presidential election, Pyongyang’s worldview will not change. If Kamala Harris thinks the North Koreans can be charmed through shrill laughter and attempts at not-so-humorous humour, she should think again.
Do all roads lead to Pyongyang? Despite going through the menu of options to encourage North Korea to behave better, not least through halting its nuclear development, the international community’s efforts have led to the same outcome: an emboldened and increasingly belligerent state. We should not expect the North to calm down.
Who works as a bouncer or security guard?
Farewell, Chagos
The government announced that it would hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. There are 13 other British Overseas Territories, only ten of which have a permanent population. The most populated are:
Cayman Islands 78,554
Bermuda 62,506
Turks and Caicos 38,191
Gibraltar 33,701
British Virgin Islands 31,758
– Pitcairn Island is the only British Overseas Territory in the Pacific Ocean, which has been integral to the claims that, even now, the sun never sets on the British Empire – even if there is an overlap of just 20 minutes between sunrise in Diego Garcia and Pitcairn Island in June.
– With the Chagos Islands gone, the sun will begin to set on the British Overseas Territories.
Migratory patterns
How has the number of irregular migrants arriving in Britain changed?
2018 | 2023
Arrived by small boat 299 | 29,437
Arrived at airport 4,769 | 3,854
Arrived at port 1,052 | 327
Found in the community 7,257 | 3,081
Home Office
Let’s bounce
Who works as a bouncer or security guard?
There are 439,115 people who hold Security Industry Authority (SIA) licences.
– 390,973 are male and 48,142 female. 241,736 are British citizens.
– The most common other nationalities are: Pakistani 58,449, Nigerian 23,196 and Indian 23,060.
– 119,993 are resident in London and 30,275 in Manchester.
– The most common age for a holder of an SIA licence is 27.
– 236 are in their eighties and 6 in their nineties. The oldest is 99.
Uphill slog
How are government efforts to encourage cycling coming along?
– The amount of cycle traffic in England in the year to June 2024 was 8.2% higher than it was in 2013.
– However, it was 7% down on the year to June 2023.
– The peak year for cycling was in the year to the end of June 2021, during the pandemic, when it was 63% higher than in 2013.
– After the pandemic ended it fell steeply. Cycle traffic is now 2.9% lower than it was in 2019.
Why C of E bishops are so bland
Nolo episcopari. These were the words a person was expected to say on being offered an episcopal see. It basically translates as ‘Don’t bishop me!’ and goes back to at least St Ambrose, who so wanted to avoid being made a bishop that he skipped town.
The Church of England has worked itself into a new position, Nemo episcopari: nobody will be bishoped. In the past year, the process for appointing new bishops to Ely and Carlisle fell apart as the Crown Nominations Commission (CNC) decided not to appoint any of the shortlisted candidates.
This has created a sense of crisis in the Church, and an emergency meeting of the House of Bishops was held after a report was hastily drafted by the Bishop of London. It’s not a bad report as far as it goes (although the proposal to give the archbishops two votes to break a deadlock isn’t the most subtle attempt at centralising power that I’ve seen). The problem is that it doesn’t ask the basic question at the heart of all this: are the right people being considered in the right way? I imagine the reason for not asking the question is that the answer might be unkind – and unfair to the smattering of good and prayerful candidates who have slipped through.
Helmut Schmidt said politicians who have visions should see a doctor; maybe that should apply to bishops
But it needs to be asked. Nolo episcopari goes beyond a mere phrase. It recognises that the worst person to become a bishop is someone who wants to be one. This was very much what the C of E thought until about 15 years ago, when the then head of HR for a subsidiary of British Gas – one Caroline Boddington – took over appointments and everything changed. Those most likely to be considered for the post are now encouraged to pursue a clear career path which will train them in everything except how to be a long-serving parish priest.
First, candidates will almost certainly need to have been put on the imaginatively named ‘ready now’ lists for diocesan and suffragan sees. These are priests who have been noticed by their bishops and generally sent off to do the Strategic Leadership Development Programme, a scheme introduced by Mrs Boddington and co-developed by Paula Vennells (yes, that one) to teach ambitious clergy how to speak fluent management-ese.
Then they are invited to apply by filling out a small mountain of forms. It’s a little hard to say Nolo episcopari after that. In the old days, nobody knew they were being considered – a situation not without its complexities. But having people thrust themselves forward means getting the people who want to thrust themselves forward, the glint of episcopal ambition shining in the eye.
There is also another danger, which ironically flies against the stated intention of this new process: women and people from ethnic minorities are much less likely to put themselves forward for positions that they’re not entirely sure they could do, whereas us white men have far less compunction about this.
Pity the candidates the amount of paperwork they have to fill in: a personal statement, a reflection on their call to that diocese, a reflection on the ‘key criteria’ for that diocese (a jargon-heavy document if ever you’ve seen one) and a diversity and inclusion statement. They have an interview with the national head of safeguarding and a nomination statement from their own bishop. You can tell this came from the secular world.
Frankly, I hardly want to know about any of that. I want to know what potential bishops think about God. How will they preach the Trinity? What does the love of Christ mean today? How will they shepherd their people and clergy? Helmut Schmidt said that politicians who have visions should go and see a doctor; maybe that should apply to bishops too (with an exemption for actual religious visions, for obvious reasons).
There is another reason for the new Nemo episcopari: that the Church is very split, especially about sexuality. It is heavily implied that when none of the candidates for Carlisle and Ely could get to the necessary two-thirds majority in the CNC it was because of their views on gay blessings (too pro in one case, too anti in the other).
This too is a consequence of the Boddington era, although Gordon Brown takes more of the blame. By changing the system so the prime minister is initially only sent one name (rather than two names as before), appointing a bishop became a zero-sum game. If you could send two names in, and someone else chooses between them, the CNC deadlock could be broken.
Alas, I fear Keir Starmer won’t take back his historic responsibilities, but maybe we could learn something from the Copts, whose pope is selected from a shortlist of three by a blindfolded child. That adds a nice little element of chance to the proceedings, reminds us that St Matthias was chosen by lot, and is probably just as random as trusting the prime minister. It would also allow more interesting candidates to be considered – academics, for example, who have almost completely vanished from the episcopacy. If the CNC only has one name to put forward, it will always go for the safe option. Is it any wonder the bench of bishops has become desperately monochrome in thought and theology?
Does Keir Starmer have a soul?
One of the main arguments against hereditary peerages is that talent and ability are not always passed down across generations. There is much to this. Students of history will know that all the great dynasties see some kind of falloff in capability. Whether the Habsburgs, the Plantagenets or the Kinnocks, the families produce a man – or occasionally a couple of men – of quality, only to see their heirs and successors squander everything.
The same rule exists in a meritocratic age. Someone in a family makes a fortune. The next generation spends it. A generation after that, the family is back to square one. Give or take a generation, and you can follow this rule in all of nature, as well as in the obituaries section of the Daily Telegraph.
When asked what his favourite novel was, he said he doesn’t have one. A favourite poem? Doesn’t have one
It occurs to me that nations behave in a similar way. A country might have a period of acquisition, led by men of ambition – sometimes overarching ambition. Then, over some less determinate period than with families, there comes a generation which decides to spend down those acquisitions. Perhaps we are presently in that generation.
Like many readers, I have spent the past week desperately trying to mug up on the history of the Chagos Islands. Like Adrian Mole at the start of the Falklands conflict, you might have missed them on the map if you were eating fruitcake during the search and dropped some crumbs on your atlas. Still, I followed what debate there was in the House of Commons with interest.
The Conservative leadership candidate Robert Jenrick was among those to question the Foreign Secretary on his announcement about handing over the archipelago to Mauritius, which has close links with China. Jenrick was right to do so, because the question ‘Why would Britain need to keep a set of islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean?’ is just the sort the feckless younger son of a minor duke might once have asked. Today it is the Foreign Secretary who mulls on such a matter, before deciding to gamble the fortune away in any case.
When David Lammy replied to Jenrick’s question, he did so with an uncharacteristic level of self-satisfaction. ‘This deal is in our national interests,’ he said, before clinching his argument by declaring, ‘That is why it is a good deal.’ But it was the appeal to authority which followed that interested me.
Lammy continued at Jenrick: ‘That is why the President of the United States, the Defense Secretary of the United States, applaud and welcome this deal. What do they know about global national security that he doesn’t?’ One does not have to be a Jenrick-ite to be able to say ‘Probably not that much actually.’ The President has been on beach leave for much of the past year. The last time there was a rare cabinet meeting in Washington, it seemed to be principally chaired by Dr Jill Biden, who may have many qualities, but Acting President was not meant to be among them.
Even if Biden were on absolutely peak form, there is one thing that could be said of him and any other person who ever held his office – which is that if these islands were a US possession, they would not be given up, however much it was a ‘good deal’.
America is still at a level of aristocratic wealth and power where it knows that it cannot afford to sell off a single piece of the family silver. Its leadership – even its Democratic leadership, for the time being – is aware that it is very much in America’s national interests to have the occasional island.
The British government might think that an archipelago in the Indian Ocean can be given up and sold to the Chinese Communist party. But in Washington there are enough people who know that the great game of this century is going to be between America and China. Therefore, it is not a good idea to gift things to the CCP, even if you are really quite bored with the bauble in question.
It seems that Labour in power are going to govern in the same manner as the directors and boards of most museums in Britain. As I have regretfully reported here before, this country once had an era of great curiosity about the world which included the collecting, buying and sometimes seizing of interesting and important artefacts. Fast–forward to this generation, and the same institutions are largely governed by people who have little interest in the world beyond their navel and who see their role as being to disperse that which their predecessors gathered together.
I do not see either Rachel Reeves or Keir Starmer changing this trend in government. They are the sort of politicians who have so little hinterland that when asked what his favourite novel was before the last election, Starmer said he doesn’t have one. A favourite poem? Doesn’t have one. To cap the anti-inspirational tenor of the times, he was asked about dreaming and he said he doesn’t dream. Even the most soulless politician ought to know that it is de rigueur to answer such an impertinent question by replying that you dream of a better Britain or something.
After 100 days in office, commentators are desperately reading everything they can into every action of the government. Sue Gray has sadly once again become a household name. And you don’t have to be a nominative determinist to fear that being continuously obsessed by the actions of a person like this does not bode well for a country and its ambitions.
‘How long can Starmer last?’ the more excitable commentators are asking. The answer will fill many a column. But for my own part I cannot help seeing this government in the light of the aristocrats they presume to despise. These guys are the last press, the end of the line: bored, self-satisfied, unadventurous and incurious. It’s lamentable that they decided to fritter away the family fortune. Even sadder that the casino they decided to do it in is Chinese.
Plutarch’s lessons for Labour
The lives of those daily in the public eye are bound to attract attention, especially when they are politicians telling us what to do. The Greek essayist Plutarch (d. c. ad 120) wrote at length on this topic. How does Labour match up to his ancient ideals?
A politician’s aim, Plutarch said, was to win the trust of the people so that they would accept his authority ‘without being frightened off like a suspicious and unpredictable animal.’ To do this, the politician had to put his private affairs in order since the moral standard of the rulers determined the moral value of their regime.
So he had to ensure his life was scandal free, because the public was interested in every aspect of it: ‘dinner parties, love affairs, marriage, amusements and interests’. Plutarch cites the lengths to which the public would go to find fault (Scipio was reproved for sleeping too much). When a builder asked the Roman politician Drusus if he would like his house less open to public sight, he replied: ‘Open up the whole place: everyone must see how I live.’ Politicians had to be purer than pure. Yes, Sir Keir?
Likewise, it was the task of the statesman not just to exercise power but to serve the community. That meant the politician stood up especially for weaker people: ‘The multitude can have no greater honour shown them by their superiors than not to be despised.’ Did all your MPs live up to that after the riots, Sir Keir?
But the Labour party has scored one great success. Plutarch saw advantage in being seen to disagree. It carried conviction among the voters, he argued, when in large policy matters party members should at first disagree and then change their minds. It looked as if they were acting from principle. In small matters, however, they should be genuinely allowed to disagree, because then their agreement in important matters did not look pre-concerted. So there was something to be said for controlled party splits. Well done, then, Sir Keir, and especially his erstwhile chief of staff, Sue Gray. How expertly they have exploited this cunning Plutarchan tactic!
Britain’s foreign policy is increasingly feeble
For those of us who grew up during the Cold War, it’s heartbreaking to watch the western countries fail to defend the interests of liberal democracy. The free world is being challenged on three fronts, by Russia, Iran and China, all of whom threaten the international order established so painstakingly after the second world war. The West should be standing up for its values, yet even Britain, the great bastion of democracy, the country that heroically held out alone in 1940-41, seems to have lost the will to fight.
The fact that the government has transferred sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius is symptomatic of a country that no longer has geopolitical perspective. Britain is obsessed with its own shame over its imperial history – and has been for quite some time. During Gordon Brown’s premiership I held the position of UN special adviser on Cyprus. In that role I called on a senior aide to Brown to discuss the progress we were making in negotiations between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots to reunite the island. One of the issues was the 99 square miles of British sovereign bases there. Much to my astonishment, the official at No. 10 told me that the PM would be happy to give up those bases as part of a settlement.
Britain is obsessed with its own shame over its imperial history
The official conceded that there would be huge resistance from the intelligence and defence establishments to such a surrender. It would clearly limit any UK capacity to contribute to peace in the Middle East: not only because those bases act as an unsinkable aircraft carrier for the RAF (as demonstrated by their role in shooting down the Iranian missiles heading for Israel recently), but also because to give them up would deny the western alliance access to intelligence.
British security policy seems to be lost in a post-colonial torpor. The government claims in its defence that it has retained a 99-year lease on the vital Chagos island of Diego Garcia with its military base, but a lease is not the same as sovereignty. What happens if Diego Garcia is to be used for an operation of which Mauritius does not approve? And Mauritius, as you may know, is a member of the Non-Aligned Movement, which is far from being an unequivocal supporter of the West.
The Policy Exchange thinktank made the legal and strategic case against ceding the Chagos Islands to Mauritius almost a year ago, pointing out that international law simply does not require the British government to hand over Diego Garcia.
The Navy Support Facility Diego Garcia is critical in enabling US power projection into the Indian Ocean, Africa and the Middle East. Its infrastructure supports military activities, including heavy-bomber aircraft resupply, nuclear attack submarine tending, military supply pre-positioning and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. While nominally a US base, Diego Garcia is used by allied militaries, including Australia, which deployed it as a staging post for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
If the western alliance is to unite to deter adversaries, ceding sovereignty in the Indian Ocean is just folly. The ocean is contested territory. China has established what is known as its ‘string of pearls’ there: among them port facilities in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Djibouti. If the West is to maintain a balance of power with China, it needs the ability to deploy forces quickly and effectively in the Indian Ocean – and Diego Garcia is critical to that.
Put another way, the presence of US and allied forces in the middle of the Indian Ocean underwrites the peace of the region. The Chinese understand the huge capacities that can be channelled through Diego Garcia to stabilise the area, and so its very existence as a major military base helps to deter Chinese adventurism. Without it, expect China to try to reduce many of the Indian Ocean littoral states to tribute status – and, as it does so, to end up (at best) in an intense diplomatic competition with India.
Mauritius, for its part, doesn’t want to upset China or be seen to be collaborating with the West to tame Beijing’s ambitions. On the contrary: in recent years Mauritius has been investing substantial diplomatic capital in China. In 2019 it signed a free-trade agreement with China and is part of China’s Belt and Road initiative. Many in China see Mauritius as a gateway to investment and economic activity in Africa. Mauritius is an investment entrepôt and the free trade agreement foreshadows the establishment of a Yuan clearing and settlement facility for the continent. And if you’re flying to Mauritius, note that the new airport terminal was built by the Chinese government.
In the event of conflict erupting between China and the United States and its allies, what will the Mauritian government’s reaction be to its territory being used to launch attacks on Chinese assets? What sort of pressure would Beijing put on Mauritius to guarantee that its territory is not used for hostile intent towards China? Although we don’t know the answers to these questions, we can easily imagine them: in these dire circumstances, lawyers would be briefed and the UN activated by the Mauritian government – at the urging of Beijing – to limit the use of Diego Garcia.
It’s hard to think of a worse time for the British government to have created this uncertainty. Under Xi Jinping, Beijing has become robust and aggressive in the South China Sea, the East China Sea and in its threats to Taiwan. Meanwhile, its ally Russia is at war with Ukraine and its friend Iran is at war with Israel – putting the West under more pressure than at any time since 1945. Britain’s actions have now raised questions about whether it will be prepared to maintain its sovereign bases in Cyprus and Gibraltar. There are also negotiations going on with Spain over the airport in Gibraltar. It seems the government feels that the territory is just a legacy of Empire and that it would be best to at least cede the airport, although it is first and foremost an RAF base and therefore critical to Gibraltar’s strategic role. Meanwhile, the Cypriots would like the British to give up their sovereign bases there, because they, too, are an Empire legacy.
The sentiment expressed to me by Gordon Brown’s adviser all those years ago seems still to reign supreme in the Foreign Office. Why is the political establishment so traumatised by the British Empire? My country, Australia, was created by the British Empire and is one of the most successful in the world. The UK government should understand there were both good things and bad things about this period of history.
In recent years, Britain wisely embarked on a policy known as the ‘Tilt to the Indo-Pacific’. This made perfect sense if we were to continue participating substantially to the defence of the West. The UK is a permanent member of the UN security council and still has more force projection capability than any other European country. It also has substantial soft power in the Indo-Pacific.
Defending western interests, maintaining the balance of power in the Indo–Pacific region and deterring rogue behaviour by Iran, Russia and China will require involvement by more countries than just the US. But Britain is sending a message to the world: that it no longer has the desire or the energy to be a major contributor to world peace. For those of us who love Britain this is deeply troubling. It is also very sad.
Confessions of a political gambler
What could be more exquisite than the life of the professional gambler? I began my career in 2016 with a modest punt of £1,000 on the London mayoral election. Bingo. Sadiq Khan won and I banked a profit of £100. Then Brexit. My guess was that the pollsters had overestimated support for Remain and that the country was keen to evict the conjoined twerps, David Cameron and George Osborne, from Downing Street. The referendum was our chance to vaporise both their careers simultaneously. One cross, two graves. That’s what happened. And I cleared another tidy sum.
I cursed the day that I’d ever started gambling. I was a fool. A dunce. A clueless moron
But I was haunted by a wager I’d laid in the winter of the same year while watching Fox News over a relaxing pint of Tesco claret. I bet £800 on a Donald Trump victory. Over the ensuing months I watched in disbelief as the candidate set about destroying his reputation with improvised asides and unforced blunders, including a claim that he could ‘shoot somebody’ on Fifth Avenue without harming his popularity. Trump was a lost cause. So was my money. Hillary Clinton confirmed the news in her pre–victory statement on 26 October. She tweeted a picture of herself as a schoolgirl alongside the caption: ‘Happy birthday to this future president.’ She’d already won. It was over. I cursed the day that I’d ever started gambling. I was a fool. A dunce. A clueless moron.
And then the results came in and everything changed. Hillary was out. Trump was president. And I was a genius. A maestro. A visionary. I could gaze into the future and anticipate events before they happened. And there was money to be made as well.
The Trump result was a one-off, obviously, and I devised an ultra-cautious strategy. Choose dead certs and stake large sums at very short odds. That would shield my money from danger. By betting on council elections and city mayoral contests, I could turn my gift of clairvoyancy into a steady income.
Theresa May called an election in the spring of 2017 and Nostradamus got to work. The projected Tory landslide seemed unlikely to me and I expected the Conservatives towin a decent but not a massive majority. Maybe 20 or 30 seats. Fifty was possible. A hundred was a fantasy. Using my steady-Eddie strategy, I placed a large stake on the least risky outcome.
Polling night arrived and I showed up at a drinks party in Westminster full of political hacks and spads who were seated around a screen tuned to the BBC. I nudged the wonk beside me. ‘You know, I’ve had a little flutter on the outcome,’ I said. ‘How much?’ he asked. My answer surprised him and he passed the news around the room and it spread rapidly into the surrounding corridors. As the main room filled up with people, I noticed a few of them whispering and pointing in my direction: ‘It’s him. Over there. The guy who bet 6,000 quid on the Tories.’ Someone asked me how large a majority I expected but before I could answer the bongs began.
It was ten o’clock. David Dimbleby appeared. ‘The Conservatives are the largest party. Note – they don’t have an overall majority at this stage.’ A weird singing noise began in my ears and I felt myself gulping uncomfortably as I gazed at the TV. ‘No overall majority.’ I stared and stared at the caption at the base of the screen, hoping to make it disappear by sheer eyeball power. At the same time I tried to compose my features into a smile of triumph and yet I could hear myself coughing and clearing my throat involuntarily. And I kept folding and unfolding my arms in a vain search for a relaxed position in my chair. All eyes were on me. I looked back at the circle of party-goers and I saw my ruin written in their expressions. Pity, shock, wonder, ridicule, disgust, contempt. They knew. They could tell from my panicking eyes and my fidgety demeanour that I’d blown it. Six grand. Six sodding grand had vanished.
They could tell from my panicking eyes that I’d blown it. Six grand. Six sodding grand had vanished
But why? My plan had been so reasonable, so wise, so shrewdly insulated from risk. Stake a large sum on a dead-safe outcome – a simple Conservative majority – and collect a nice little profit. But the Tories had let me down. Those bungling idiots. All they needed was a handful of extra seats. And they’d failed. The bunch of morons.
The next day, following my public humiliation, I closed my online account and resigned as a soothsayer. I made one intriguing discovery from my gambling career. Every wager, whether it succeeds or fails, delivers a stab of anguish to the heart. If you win, you feel that you should have bet more. If you lose, you feel that you should have bet nothing. Even in triumph you experience no joy, no respite, no escape from the guilt and the curses of self-laceration. Every winner in the casino knows that his haul would have been twice as big if only he’d been twice as brave. Truly it’s a dreadful business. And I’m glad it’s all behind me now. Well, nearly. I’ve put a hundred on Kamala.