Off Topic Starmer/ Reeves: last man standing

I am sick of hearing this word austerity, why not just say it real meaning A politician that is a coward and had no clue what to do. The CS need massive prod improvements, yes job losses, not just the bottom of the food chain jobs which are the ones needed, a cull of mid layer jobs required.
I have seen a few articles this year on the military,
UK and Israels military about same size, Israel procurement dept 400 people, UK 10000.
The chief of staff had a zoom call to discuss getting to 5% gov spend, complained about the amount of people on call not required asking questions that they would know the answer to if part of their job meaning loads of time wasted answering them.
The chief of the navy complaining about amount of time to get problems fixed, saying the nuclear det subs now doing 6 months tours instead of three because of the paperwork to fix simple repairs on subs in dry dock.
Will be plenty of similar issues throughout the CS. Remember the joke how many Civil servants does it take to change a light bulb
10
1 to change it and 9 to make sure he does it right

 

So, IF I understand your point, you are looking for a Politician to take on, and beat, The Sir Humphrey Apppleby Brigade?

The examples you quote, The Military Procurement, is so apt that it is a Comedy Series on ot its own.
It would be interesting to find when the last large Contract to come out within the original budget.
Has such a thing EVER occured.
Given the number of times the so called system has been reformed, it is not unreasonable to expect that 'THEY' might have got the hang of how to do it by now.

The whole fiasco echo's just why Government and The Civil Service should not be left in charge of such things.
Put bluntly, they are incapable of doing the job.
Sadly, saying that is the easy bit.
Sugesting an alternative system is the hard part, and like so many 'armchair critics', I'm ok at spotting the problem, but not so good on the second problem - coming up with a realistic solution.

 

Problem is the chief of staff came up with solutions but that would mean making people redundant, something the unions would not accept, why do even basic needs ie light bulb need about 10 people sign-off.
Also when you see the cost over runs, it is normally some one changing something when everything has already been agreed and started. When a project is agreed ,a ship, planes etc, the build should be locked down so no changing of spec is allowed unless it is a massive improvement on original spec.

 

David Lammy, Justice Secretary, was a tad embarrassing in PMQ's. He's too highly strung and bites to easy.

James Cartlidge, shadow Secretary of Defence, on the other hand cannot count to six... as he pushed Lammy on the question "Since Kebatu was released, no other asylum seaking offendeder has been accidentaly let out of prison?"

Earlier this week Kemi Badenoch said that, when she is preparing for PMQs, she finds it helpful to think of it as a pantomime. As an assessment of how PMQs functions, that is reasonably accurate, although whether it should function like that is, of course, another matter.

Pantomimes have heroes and villains, and today David Lammy ended up as the villain. It was not entirely his fault, but he has had better days at the despatch box. But he did not mess up as badly as the fool James Cartlidge apparently did.

Lammy started off well, brushing off the question from Cartlidge, about the father of the victim of Hadush Kebatu not having had a direct apology from ministers, but then Cartlidge started asking if he could reassure MP that “since Kebatu was released, no other asylum seeking offender has been accidentally let out of prison?” That was question two. (See 12.07pm.) As Lammy refused to give a direct answer, Cartlidge then asked a version of the same question four more times.

Presumably Cartlidge knew from the start that another asylum seeker had been inadvertently released. And presumably Lammy did too, and was faced with a choice between a) either confirming something hugely embarrassing in the most-high profile parliamentary slot of the week, or b) repeatedly avoiding the question, which would make him evasive and shifty.

Lammy settled on option b). To be fair, he tried quite hard to disguise his question-dodging. He started by implying that he could not answer because of the inquiry that is under way into the Kebatu release.

Let me just remind him that he was a justice minister that allowed our prisons to get to this state in the first place and it’s now for us to fix the mess that we’ve got into.

It’s important that Dame Lynne Owens can now continue her work and understand what is happening. He knows that early releases begun under their watch in 2021.

He unleashed an outburst of indigation.

Get a grip, man, I know I’m the justice secretary, that’s why I’m at the despatch box. We know that there have been spikes since 2021 under his watch. When did he come to this house and apologise?

And he repeatedly attacked the Tory record.

I spent 14 years in opposition and I did a hell of a lot better than he’s just done. I have answered the question. Under their watch, prisons were in a mess. Suicides went up. Prison officers cut – 20,000 neighbourhood police lost. We’ve deported more in the last year than they deported in the last five years. I’m not going to take any lecture from [Cartlidge].

But none of this could successfully cover up the fact that Lammy was avoiding the question.

So Cartlidge was doing quite well. But right at the end, he seemed to blow it. He miscounted his questions, and thought he had one more question than he actually did. Reporters in the gallery concluded that he was planning to use his final question to reveal that there had been another inadvertent prisoner release, but did not get the chance. As PMQs went on, the Tory frontbench seemed to be looking for another Tory MP willing to make this point. They even tried to recruit Rishi Sunak, it seemed, but the former PM did not want to oblige and stuck with his question about prostate cancer. In the end, Cartlidge had to use a point of order to pose what would have been his final question.

Kemi Badenoch probably won’t be asking him to deputise for her again any time soon.

 

The media are out for blood and have Lammy in their sights

 

I feel sorry for him, but he's embarrassing and unprofessional. Reminds me of Cleverly the way he wags his finger going "nur nur de nur nur"

 

He does come across like a bit of a clown

 

I thought you were liking me liking a reform policy for a moment

 

They are unpopular because they are attempting to govern by slogan, and completely fail to understand that if you throw billions of pounds worth of costs at employers, two things happen. And they always happen

One the costs get passed on, and two, employers start laying off and not hiring people. This is happening now, and it is the first time in a long time. Whatever else might be said about it, the UK economy has provided a lot of jobs. Now over half of employers are saying that they will reduce their workforce or stop hiring.

In the private sector world, where all the money is made, that is a very big deal. In the public sector, it doesn't register.

Even with the state obsessed and fairly useless Tories, with huge public spending and taxes too high, they had inflation at around 2% last July. The economy had grown for five months on the trot, and for ten of the previous twelve. It also grew after the election each month before Reeves budget. It won't be growing much for some time now, I can absolutely promise you that.

But the Treasury, who by the way are making the majority of the decisions here, are all anti-growth, and make no bones about it. They even have a name for it, given to them by the man who put most of them there. Gordon Brown and Ed Balls called it Post Endogenous Growth Theory. The basis of which is that, well you can't just keep on growing an economy, so lets all carve up what's there.

That is why the economy has been declining since the turn of the century.

 

They are unpopular because they are incompetent and have proven themselves untrustworthy.

More than a year in and the pair of them are yet to show an ounce of know how or a plan worthy of the name.

They walked into a huge majority in parliament, hailed as saviours. They were popular. It is their own stupidity that has made them unpopular. They are so far out of their depth. We need the Labour Party and its supporters to be much more demanding.

 

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I think the Tories have a few more cycles of redemption to go through before gaining any kind of power. If the electorate decide on a right of centre government it will be Reform.

I can see the tories ditching Badenoch within the next 12 months, lurching probably to Jenrick who will lead them to defeat at the next election, maybe then one more tory right winger before settling on a one nation type of leader who will be more appealing to the centre.

 

Mamdami is focused on himself. He is very typical of his type. A very privileged education, (£50k a year back then- he rejected the chance to go to a more humble £5k a year one), never had a real job of any kind and appears not to have got beyond fifth form slogans with exclamation marks in them. He is also, like his father, deeply resentful and hostile to the country which welcomed him in.

If enacted, his policies would be a serious accelerant to New York's decline. He has committed to over $10bn of spending, probably a lot more, money which the city does not have. This for a budget of around $110bn. He proposes to, you guessed it, "tax the rich!". Well the top 1% in New York already pay about 50% of all income tax there. Businesses too will be targeted, and of course, they will all just stay there and pay more and more tax, rather than locate to Texas or Florida, where they have been moving already. New York also requires a massive bailout every year from federal funds. About £8bn -$10bn last year, depending on how the numbers are looked at. A lot of that money is allocated by executive decree, so a good way of getting more is to abuse and insult the incumbent POTUS.

Mamdami is insulated from all the problems that City impoverishment will bring. He won't have to walk the un-policed streets, or navigate them when the incentivised drug addicts set up camp. None of it will touch him.

But a lot of it is grandstanding, just playing to a client vote. He does not have the power to do any of the things over which he bloviates , being unable to do them without the approval of the State Legislature and the Governor, who though both left wing, are not as disconnected from the world as is Mamdami.

That is without his appalling record on crime. And much else. It is a sad day for a great city. This bloke is a bad piece of work in a cuddly mask.

 

Sounds a step up from Trump then. Not a dumb aspiring fascist.

 

Nope. I think capitalism needs controlling.