Questions Of The Day (Politics)

[Mick Harper]

What a bunch of amateurs. Only Trubo has learned the correct leg angle and hands-pointing-to-crotch position. And, hello, it's the G9.

[Boreades]

G9 (downgraded to G8)
Pavel Chekov (Russia) - Nil Point - Lost on penalties.

Star Trek references are still topical as Newquay (ex RAF St.Mawgan) is now listed as a UK Space Port, for launching Virgins into space.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-31711083

[Mick Harper]

On arrival as an undergraduate at Nottingham I was told that the lions in Slab Square roared every time a virgin walked past. I'd better steer clear, I thought to myself.

[Boreades]

BoJo The Builder

[Mick Harper]

Even so, it's a weird one. Designed to be Democracy's reply to the Chinese Belt-and-Braces initiative of building people's transport infrastructure for them, what exactly is it? Whatever it is, it's petty damned late -- eight years after China started their programme.

But here's the thing: the customers have all been complaining it's turned out to have benefited China rather more than them (not that that has stopped any of them sucking on the teat). So how do you benefit all the G7 countries simultaneously? You can't. So who will stump up the trillions? Nobody will. My guess is that it's basically a credit exercise, taking over the functions of the World Bank now that the Americans can no longer control that to their heart's content.

That's the basic flaw in the G7: more divides them than unites them. And whatever does benefit them all is an exercise in The Bleedin' Obvious -- like taxing Amazon et al. And I predict that will run into stormy waters when America discovers everybody taxing their hi-tec multinationals doesn't benefit them half as much as it benefits the G6. Ditto the much more pressing matter of closing down the offshore banking industry. Britain, for one, won't wear that. So shaming.

But the main objection to Building Back Together is even more bleedin obvious. If something's worth doing, it'll get done. If it ain't worth doing, it requires some Do-Gooding Intervention to get it done. That's the big difference between us and the Chinese. They are not Do-Gooders and generally speaking they do much more good in the world. AE even has a phrase for it: Mayor Daley Syndrome.

[Boreades]

[Mick Harper]

Very interesting, closely argued -- and well laid-out! Not that I accept your adding two plus two and coming up with two fat ladies. Maersk is Danish, the NHS is Twattish so doubtful ingredients for a conspiratorial figgy pudding. But there were some incidental sixpences in your Tales of the Expected Unexpected. (That's enough strained mixed metaphors to last us till Christmas, Mick.)

[Mick Harper]

People always think 'establishing good relations' is a good thing. Biden has just declared the summit a success because he has achieved exactly that. Sorry, Joe, it just ain't so. It breaks the AE commandment 'Thou shalt have no a priori strategies (apart from this one)'. What you mean is that Putin has agreed not to have bad relations by doing things you don't like but Putin now knows something he didn't know before. That Joe Biden is a big one for 'good relations'. The sap will certainly pay a smallish price for maintaining them, maybe a bit more if Putin plays his cards right..

Now, Joe, what you might not know is that Putin does not suffer from this curious affliction. Very few people outside of liberals do. So you've just handed him a new weapon. He knows you won't do anything to jeopardise good relations, he can pick and choose whether he does. He doesn't have a priori strategies.

Don't forget, Joe, America won the Cold War by having bad relations with Russia (1945-89) and no relations at all with China (1949-72). I'm not saying these were great ideas either (more a priori strategising) but put 'em behind your ear for later, they can be damn useful. Alongside 'good relations', they're a good idea too. They are all the result of foreign policy, not foreign policy itself.

[Boreades]

[Mick Harper]

I wonder if these really were the decisive factors. [On a technical note, I believe aviation kerosene is cheaper than diesel oil, it's a question of fractionisation in the refinery or summat.] The other way of looking at things is that hovercraft offer the bulk carrying volumes of ships with the speed of airplanes but apart (I believe) from some ferries in the Caspian Sea, nobody seems able to make the numbers work.

I suppose an AE aspect is that Britain tried hardest on account of inventing them and the Russians tried the next hardest on account of maybe wanting to invade Iran across the Caspian Sea some time in the future. The US Marine Corps are, I think, just about still in the game. The other AE point is that it took a helluva long time for the world to give up on them, which brings us back to long distance goods trains, a technology invented by the British in the 1820's. These also have the high volume/high speed but not-enough-of-either equation facing them.

Imagine a dedicated specially-built TGV track from Beijing to London supplied for free by the Chinese. Would anyone actually travel on it, would anyone send goods on it? It would be ironic if it was discovered that they would, but only if hovercraft-style magnetic levitation was used.

PS Another British invention!

[Mick Harper]

You can always count on Northern Ireland to brighten up your day. The current bust up is all about the Irish Language which, in case you were wondering, is not spoken by a single person in Northern Ireland. If someone asked me whether I would be in favour of having Notting Hill road signs in English and Swahili I would probably say not. But if they said all government institutions would be suspended and the fate of English-speakers in Notting Hill would be jeopardised if Swahili wasn't added, I'd probably say all right, WTF.

If I was a member of a political party I would probably favour the removal of our leader if she had caused the loss of billions of pounds in circumstances that brought her own motives into question, and had led to the suspension of many governmental functions, rather than allow her to continue in office for five years. On the other hand if that leader had just signed an agreement that our party had agreed to last year, I would probably favour him remaining in office for longer than twenty days.

[Mick Harper]

[Grant]

The Lib dems have got to be the most unscrupulous liars in politics. They won this seat by pretending to hate HS2 when they voted for it.

It reminds me of when they tried to win our council seat by opposing the conversion of an empty pub into a KFC. As soon as they got in power they discovered they didn’t have the power to stop the KFC anyway as it wasn’t a change of use - which any fool could have told them.

I was quite pleased because I’m partial to the odd bargain bucket.

[Mick Harper]

I understand in Middlesbrough they buy the chicken for the bucket. Which they use to go begging in wealthier parts of the north-east. Relatively speaking. But tell your people everything changes when HS2 is extended beyond Leeds. Don't tell them it's not being extended beyond Birmingham. Or, given the latest by-election results, they may spend the money instead on upgrading the Metropolitan Line. Which reminds me whatever happened to Crossrail? Surely they've solved the signalling problems by now. Honestly London's infrastructure is a joke. It's like living in the days before the Stockton & Darlington.

[Wile E. Coyote]

Of course the Tories lost. Governments always lose by-elections. That was always so, until Sir Keir introduced Labour's new policy of allowing the Tories to win by-elections in safe Red wall seats by not contesting them. Wiley can't agree with those that say Sir Keir is afraid of taking unpopular decisions as this is terrifying his MPs. It seems, however, that the Lib-Dems are less sure that Sir Keir has it right, and are jumping on whatever bandwagon they can. Liberal Democrat politicians will say anything to get elected. Simon Hughes, who was gay, famously engaged in a homophobic campaign to get elected and became a MP remembered for nothing much at all, whilst the loser, Peter Tatchell, became a national treasure.