News round up

News round up

Knives out for Rayner

So the right wing media’s latest obsession is that Angela Rayner once owned a council flat! And that she might have profited from its sale and possibly maybe didn’t pay about £1-2k of capital gains taxes (but who needs evidence when we’ve got wild speculation). Okay, so the media could focus their investigative resources on the billions the Tories have squandered on various boondoggles (this week alone one minster was found to have wasted £34,000 of tax payers money on legal fees because she said something dumb on twitter and was too pigheaded to apologise). Never mind the vast sums plundered by Tory donors during covid.

In fact this is kind of the problem. Because most of the media (save outlets such as the Guardian, byline times or Private eye) are not investigating these things, we don’t know the true extend of the corruption. To pull up on just two stories from Led by Donkeys, Ester McVey the (don’t laugh) minster for common sense, owns a flat in London (bought with taxpayers money), which she’s renting out (for thousands a month), then claiming expenses on another flat in the city. In another, they were able to get several Tory MP’s (including former minsters and the chair of the 1922 committee) to agree to lobby for a foreign government for a fee.

But no, let’s ignore all that and instead talk about Angela Rayner’s council house. More relevant is the timing of all of this. Angela is one of the few genuinely left leaning people left in a senior position in labour. Starmer can’t really remove her, as the deputy leader is appointed by the members. So this could be the Tory client media doing Starmer a favour by neutering any threat of rebellion from the left wing of the labour party, ensuring its business as usual (i.e. Tory rule continues under a a labour flag).

But if there has been wrong doing, surely she should resign right? Actually no. This is beergate all over again. If you have a system where the honest politicians resign any time they get caught doing the slightest thing wrong, while the dishonest get to rob, cheat, steal and otherwise get away with murder, pretty soon you’ll have no honest politicians left, only the dishonest ones in the pocket of billionaires. The media will have their spies hound their political opponents, set up honey traps and basically harass them until they mess up and then the media will spend weeks running 20 page specials about it until they resign. Hell, even if they are completely squeaky clean, the gutter press will just bribe someone to make something up and report that as fact.

What this whole situation highlights is two things are needed. Firstly some sort of independent body tasked with investigating politicians. The Australians have recently introduced such a body and while its early days, the fact that the conservatives fought tooth and nail to stop it kind of suggests it might prove to be effective. My suspicion is that such a body would conclude in the Rayner case that its either a matter of much ado about nothing, or maybe a small fine. Meanwhile dozens of Tory MP’s (including at least 5 of the last 6 PM’s), party donors and journalists would all end up in jail with much of their assets ceased.

The other lesson is the housing lottery. The Tories brought in the right to buy for fairly cynical political reasons. They knew home owners were more likely to vote Tory. They also knew that many of these council properties were going to need expensive maintenance (a portion of those costs could thus be pushed onto these unsuspecting new home owners). And then also knew that eventually a lot of these properties would end up in the hands of private landlords, who also supported the Tories. At the same time it gave them the excuse to stop building council houses (meaning more private housing, which would please yet another group of Troy cretins). In the process they ended up creating the massive housing crisis we are now stuck with.

This has created a lot of property haves and have nots. Some have done well out of it. Others less so. And often, its kind of random into which category you’ve wound up in. E.g. I know someone who bought their council flat in central London and is now able to live rent & mortgage free in a city where most people pay +50% of their salary on housing. On the other hand I know someone else in Scotland who inherited a flat in a council block. But then got hit with massive bills for renovations, which he couldn’t afford (a student at the time), so was forced to sell it for less than it was worth, just to get out from under his debts.

Naturally this has created resentment and envy against those who have done well, by those who’ve gotten the raw end of the deal. Clearly the solution is to build more council houses. In fact it would make sense for the government to take advantage of the drop in housing prices to start buying up as many newly built homes on the market as it can. Then begin a formal programme aimed at undoing the thatcher legacy, by building more social housing. Keep in mind a significant proportion of the expenses of local councils these days is providing emergency accommodation or renting off private landlords. So over the long term, this should be revenue neutral.

But whether the incoming Tory….sorry… Starmer government will do so I’m not so sure.

Grumpy old men

A couple of weeks back Daily show host Jon Steward got himself into hot water by asking questions about whether Joe Biden might be too old to be president (Biden will be 82 on election day and 86 when he leaves office). And Jon was pummelled by the left for daring to ask such a question. However, it is a legitimate thing to ask, although only in the context that we acknowledge the far more serious cognitive decline of Trump, among the many reasons he shouldn’t be running (like the fact he’s practically bankrupt and having to take out compromising loans from shady overseas billionaires…or that he might be in jail come election day, what’s he going to do, make his cell mate the secretary of Defence?).

How has it come down to a choice between one of two Grumpy old men? In fact, its not too far removed from the plot of a 1996 Jack Lemmon movie (that was nicknamed by the media as “grumpy old presidents”). Why the republicans picked Trump is fairly obvious. The lunatics have taken over the asylum, they are a cargo cult of the one true Trump. He’s practically their religion now. In fact many of them actually reject the teaching’s of Jesus over Trumpism.

But what about the democrats? Well the common response you’ll get is look at the opinion polls, Biden is the only one who has a chance of defeating Trump. Yes, but only because those polls typically include democrats who are members of congress, aka “the swamp”. Members of congress are the least trusted people in the US, below used car salesmen and telemarketers (and btw however shady you think car salesmen or telemarketers are in the UK, they are ten times worse over in the US….and congress are rated even below this!). The GOP candidate could be the zodiac killer and he’d probably still rate higher in the polls. In fact I cannot help but notice that “generic democrat” does beat Trump pretty consistently, suggesting that if the democrats literally just pulled a random democrat off the street, stuck a blue rosette on him, they’d have a wining candidate.

I’ve discussed before the many reasons why the left keeps losing elections. Factionalism, basic political illiteracy (e.g. that you have to vote tactically in a two party system else you are helping the other guy win), but another factor is that the elites at the top of the party aren’t that bothered if they lose. In fact they’d rather lose and spend time in opposition than risk someone from outside their group getting in and taking all their power away from them.

Think about it, if you, like many members of congress, live in a gated community, the gun violence and crime, that’s largely the fault of failed conservative policies, doesn’t effect you. Nor is police brutality a worry, thanks to America’s pay-to-win justice system. The economic hardships caused by republican economic policies are only a problem for poor people. Even this abortion ban isn’t an issue, as the elites (from both parties) can just take a trip to a discreet private clinic overseas.

Now granted, Trump’s leaning’s towards fascism do represent an existential threat. But beyond that, the elites in the democratic party aren’t directly affected by republican policies. So why would they give power to someone outside of their circle? (particularly given the issues with corruption I mentioned in a prior post). Its classic in group v’s out group. The democrats are also way to close to corporate special interests (although of course, the republicans are even more in bed with corporations). They don’t seem to appreciate that what’s good for say, Boeing, is probably not what’s good for ordinary Americans….because Boeing executives fly around in Gulfstream business jets!

So why is Biden running? Its the same reason why Hilary ran in 2016. Not because she was the best candidate, but because it was seen by the party establishment as being her turn. Same with Biden in 2020. Strictly speaking its now the turn of his VP Kamala Harris to take over, but she’s too unpopular (because she’s been in Congress so long). So effectively Biden is running as her proxy. In fact I won’t be surprised if he bows out sometime towards the end of his term to give her enough time at the helm to be presented as electable, allowing her to make a run in 2028.

And what is the democratic pitch? Well economically speaking, its the same neo-liberal tripe as the republicans are selling…without the fascism, casual racism, anti-trans and/or christian nationalism. I do accept you need to propose policies that you can actually implement (that’s the problem with the Bernie bro’s). However, contrary to what the corporate news media will tell you (this just in, everything’s fine, according to our rich friends and we should keep our jobs), there’s lots of left leaning policies a majority of Americans would support.

The democrats aren’t even trying to sell the public on any meaningful left wing policies. They aren’t talking about rolling back republican policies or bringing about the sort of political reform that would save American democracy from the current threat’s it faces. Vote for us and it won’t get any worse seems to be the pitch.

Which just means nothing’s going to change. And for the many Americans struggling to make ends meet, its just going to drive more of them to the extremes of politics, most notably the far right. Although I’d argue its only a matter of time before a hard left emerges in US politics. And no, I don’t mean Bernie or AOC (they won’t be allowed join most socialist parties in Europe!). I mean people who are well to the left of that. Who don’t just want to tax the rich, but take away all of their money. And not because there’s a good economic argument for the rich paying more taxes, but purely as an act of class revenge.

And if this sounds far fetched, its something that’s happened throughout history, such as Europe in the 1930’s, post-colonial Africa, post war South America, etc. When the regular politicians proved unable or unwilling to fix the problem, the public desperate for solutions, turn to the extremes. And its basically a coin toss who you end up getting, a hard left or hard right demagogue. That’s the real danger with the 2024 election.

Even if Trump is defeated, it doesn’t mean 2028 will be business as usual. Actually it will probably get worse. And if those on the extremes can’t get power via the ballot box then sooner or later they’ll resort to “alternative means” to achieve that. As Kennedy once said “those government’s who make democratic change impossible, simply make violent revolution inevitable”.

And speaking of which, revolutions can come in many different forms. For example, there’s a global trend of millennial’s quietly quitting the rat race and going for entry level jobs or part time work. Some have moved back in with the parents or taken to van life. I’ve encountered a bit of this with some students and the view is what’s the point in me working my butt off just so some corporation can get rich? If I’m never going to be able to afford a house or retire, I might as well take it easy.

The trouble is that neo-liberal capitalism only really works if everyone who can work is working at their maximum potential. Then blowing their paycheck on nights out, paying a mortgage/oppressive rent, visiting IKEA, investing in the stock market, etc. Recall that pensions (both public and private) are funded by young workers paying into the scheme (whatever you contributed was likely spent a long time ago). Also worth mentioning that what brought down the soviet bloc was the economic mismanagement of the economy by the leadership and the fact that many soviet citizens basically gave up on communism and did the bare minimum to get by.

It is therefore imperative that the democrat’s don’t fu*k this one up again. They need to give people a reason to vote for them, other than the fact that Biden isn’t Trump. And defeating Trump is the easy part. Giving people a reason not to vote for demagogues like him should be the real goal. But that will only happen if the elites in the democratic party are willing to concede some of their power and stop pandering to corporate special interests. Else they only have themselves to blame when the inevitable happens.

Labour’s Jamaican switch

Labour’s Jamaican switch

Something is rotten in the state of Illinois

Something is rotten in the state of Illinois

Farmer protests and the dangers of conservatism

Recently there’s been a number of farmers protests ongoing in France, and other parts of Europe, that I think warrant’s commenting on. Notably because the brexiters are sticking their noses in…oh the irony!

In fact Fishy Ri$hi showed up to a farmers protests in Wales that was protesting against…well what is essentially Tory policy in England, as both the Tory & labour policy on agriculture are basically the same (he also criticised protesters this week, as being “mob rule”, from the guy who was never elected, yet another example of rightwing hypocrisy syndrome). Which just underscores how farmers will protest against Tory policy, but not against the Tories. As soon as they can blame brexit on labour, they’ll be driving their tractors through London, but for now, they’ll blame the Welsh/Scottish governments, the EU, the left, green groups and endorse conspiracy theories. But not the Tories.

As with many things, these protest are being blamed on “the green agenda” but that’s not entirely accurate. Some of the farmers themselves point out, its over a range of issues, low food prices, increases in their costs due to inflation, proposed free trade agreements, etc. Or in other words, the inevitable consequences of a Laissez-faire policy towards agriculture…which is basically what led to the Irish potato famine btw, when you fail to learn the lessons of history….

Firstly thought, I want to correct the record regarding Port Talbot. I had assumed the plan to build electric arc furnaces at the site had been scrapped (given the job losses), but apparently its still on (for now!). The government gave money to Tata for these to go ahead, without specifying anything about preserving any jobs (cos why would a bunch of posh etonians care about a bunch of Welsh plebs?). So government welfare for Tory friendly corporations, rat race capitalism for everyone else.

Either way, electric arc furnaces are only used to process scrap steel, unlike a Blast Furnace & Basic Oxygen Furnace combination (which Port Talbot has traditionally used), which can use raw iron ore (most of which comes from Kiruna in Sweden). This has the unfortunate effect that, with an electric arc furnace, the quality of the steel is largely dependant on the scrap you feed into it (feed in high quality scrap you get high quality steel, feed in crap you get crap steel out), putting limits on the types of steel you can produce. And the volume produced will be limited by available scrap (e.g. most ships these days are scraped outside of Europe, alot of cars are exported too before being scraped overseas, with car production also falling since brexit, etc.). They are also only zero carbon (and thus count as green steel) so long as the electricity is sourced from low carbon sources (not natural gas or coal, as favoured by the Tories).

There are ways this can be changed to produce the required grades of steel in a sustainable way. This can range from using hydrogen as the reducing agent, rather than coke (typically derived from coal). Or, for example, Iron ore electrolysis with the aid of catalysts (allowing the processing of iron ore). Other European steelmakers are investing heavily in these technologies, to the tune of tens of billions, with the aim of transforming their industries. The UK is, needless to say, way behind on this. And largely because the Tories have, if anything, taken a stance that benefits steelmakers in India or China.

In short, the lesson is you need a combination of carrot and stick. Just giving money to foreign corporations will mean they just pocket it and do the bare minimum (or sack workers and move overseas). You have to give them a bit more of a nudge (such as the recent EU rules on green steel) and some sort of financial incentive if you want to see some change. You also have to give industries time to get ready. But only so long as there is actual progress, not an excuse to kick the can down the road (as is arguably happening with coal phase out in some parts of Europe).

Which brings us back to the French farmers. First of all, the status quo is not an option. Climate change will dramatically effect farming across Europe. Some crops will be rendered nonviable, as climate zones move (recall that several French wine growing regions could disappear). Changes to weather patterns could reduce rainfall. And cities will always get priority over what’s left. So any farmers protesting against climate change mitigation are demanding that their industry be rendered extinct.

However, as with steel makers, you need a combination of carrot and stick. And they need to be given sufficient time to adapt. However, while government are happy to get the cheque book out for corporations, they don’t tend to do that for those who lack a well funded lobby group. Farmers across the world have also been squeezed from all sides recently, be it global food conglomerates, supermarkets, populists bans on migrant labour, rising fuel prices, etc. So hitting them with all sorts of new requirements and not a lot of time to adapt is going to provoke a backlash.

Also there’s been a lot of political cowardliness on this issue. I’m well aware of the issues regarding the links between farming and climate change, the methods we can use to adapt, but I’m guessing not many farmers are as familiar. Likely because politicians have been reluctant to discuss the matter with them. As they often only care about farmers when there’s an election on and they need the votes. After that, its mind over matter (they don’t mind because farmers don’t matter).

This is of course made worse by the fact that many farmers tend to vote conservative.While yes, you could argue the other factors are more the problem. But farmers, being stanch conservatives, are going to inevitably fixate on the policies they see coming from the left. And conservative politicians have a nasty habit of throwing their supporters under the nearest passing bus (recall they are committed free marketers, helping out anyone other than themselves is practically against their religion). They then rely on their client media to cover for them, which they usually do by coming up with some convoluted conspiracy theory. Which the farmers, their fragile ego unable to cope with the idea that they are mugs who are being conned, quickly cling too.

And one also has to acknowledge that the far right in France have been exploiting the situation pouring poison into people’s ears (which I’m sure their buddies in the Russian secret service are actively helping them with). Of course, once the farmers have served their purpose, they’ll be abandoned and betrayed, just like so many were after brexit.

This is the danger with the right wing policy of deferring action on climate change. It means the time period you have to adapt gets a lot shorter, which makes the pain of adapting all the more acute. Meanwhile, gradual adaption can often been made by the private sector with minimum need for government intervention or funding. But in a scenario where we have to move quickly it can mean the governments being forced to take a lot more of an active role at a more direct cost to taxpayers. And simply giving money to companies is not always a great idea (as you’ve no control over what they then decide to do with your money). Or alternatively farmers and other industries just find the climate changes, their farmland turns to dust and they are left with nothing.

And if farmers in Europe think the right has their back, just because you vote for them, think again. We need only look to the US, where some farmers, many of them stanch republican voters, have been reduced to little more than modern day serfdom. Just because you vote for politicians, doesn’t make them your friends. After all, the political right serves one master, the rich. Farmers need to recognise that until they stop voting for these demagogues things will just keep getting worse. And environmentalists are the least of your worries.

Labour go full Judean people’s front…again!

Labour go full Judean people’s front…again!

Don’t worry, we are getting a laser

Don’t worry, we are getting a laser

The downfall of Boeing

The fallout from the blow out of a door on a Boeing 737-Max plane is a bit more serious than I think many realise. Firstly, it appears that the fault was down to poor build quality by Boeing and its subcontractors (who are pointing fingers at each other now). Which is hardly want you want to hear, particularly given the previous two accidents involving the 737-Max and its lengthy grounding.

But it gets worse, apparently the plane had displayed warnings indicating failure of the cabin pressurisation system on three separate occasions before this flight. While Alaska airlines did restrict the plane from flying over water as a result, they didn’t immediately ground the plane, as you’d expect. Also during the accident the cockpit door blew open. This made it difficult for the pilots to communicate and complete the emergency procedure (as there was literally a hurricane blowing through the cockpit). Worse still, it turns out the cockpit door opening was by design (why? Nobody’s entirely sure, handy way for terrorists to get into the cockpit mind!). But nobody on the flight crew had been told about this feature, nor any other pilots flying the Max (which mirrors the issue with MCAS, which had been implemented on the Max without telling any of the pilots about it).

The NTSB have also been unable to listen to the cockpit voice recorder, as it was overwritten, as it only records two hours of conversations (EU law requires 25 hrs of recordings, but due to bribery lobbying by Boeing the US has kept it at 2 hrs). Similar defects to the one on the Alaska airlines flight have also been found during inspections of other Max aircraft (lose bolts, missing washers, etc.). In fact, were still not sure how many are defective, or if this is the only defect.

Hell the other day a 757 was waiting to take off in Atlanta and one of its nose wheel’s just rolled off. Who is building these things? Is it the same guys who build the clown cars? All in all, its no wonder some people are thinking twice before boarding a 737-Max. Incidentally, Ryanair heavily rely on them. Aer Lingus, Easyjet & Jet2 are largely or entirely Airbus. KLM & Air France are phasing all Boeing’s out of their fleet. BA don’t fly any Max’s yet, but have committed to buying them.

A lot of this can be blamed on Boeing’s merger with McDonald Douglas. While Boeing was an engineering firm run by engineers, MD was a corporation run by bean counters, middle managers, corporate lobbyists and office psycho’s. In fact, while MD’s primary business was defence, it used to make passenger airliners. You know why it had to get out of the airliner industry? Because its planes were involved in a string of serious accidents, a number of which were the result of blatant negligence by MD. And, as with the Max, a trend developed of passengers refusing to get on board some of their airliners after these accidents. Indeed a lot of MD planes ended their career’s as cargo planes.

Like some sort of parasite, MD’s corporate culture has taken over Boeing. And its going to have exactly the same outcome. The only question is, how many crashes does it take beforehand. And before Americans go all flag wavy, keep in mind Boeing’s in a mess of its own making here. It ruthlessly destroyed all domestic competition. In fact the only other major airline manufacturer in the US is its rival Airbus, who have an assembly plant state side (as quite a lot of its aircraft are sold to US airlines….and probably even more the way things are going!). So its not like America can’t build planes without Boeing.

We also have to blame the constant pandering by the US government to company’s like Boeing. For example, Boeing asked the government for an exemption for a safety requirement on the Max, just prior to the accident. There’s an issue with the anti-icing system, which could set the engines on fire if its left on for too long….which is also not exactly inspiring confidence! There have been cases in the past where Boeing have been let off with a slap on the wrist fine (i.e. no jail time for executives) for very serious safety lapses.

And recall, the US government not only failed to ground all planes after the first Max crash, but were reluctant to do so after the 2nd one (it was only when they came under international pressure that they acted). And these are the same people lecturing people about pulling themselves up by the boot straps (an impossible task) . Its socialism for corporations, rat race capitalism for everyone else.

The closure of Port Talbot is due to brexit, not net zero

Tata, the owners of the steel works at Port Talbot in Wales, recently announced they were shutting down this historic plant, with the immediate loss of 3000 jobs. This will be devastating to the local community, as this is the town’s major employer. Previous rounds of redundancy have hit the town hard, this could well finish it off.

The right wing media have been quick to claim its the fault of net zero and definitely NOT brexit. However this is complete rubbish, as a former first minster for Wales has confirmed. And I’d be inclined to agree. You see I used to work in the labs at Port Talbot works, back in the 2000’s. And you know what we were working on? Climate change mitigation!

The company, then under the ownership of Corus Group, understood that climate change was something they were going to have to deal with eventually. So they put a lot of junior research staff on the task of determining the environmental impact of the plant. One my jobs was assessing the corrosion rates of our products in different climates, which allowed us to determine the useful service life of those products. Other colleagues were involved with directly measuring emissions from the plant, energy consumption, etc.

And overall, while yes Port Talbot works was a major source of carbon emissions, it wasn’t actually that bad in terms of emissions per ton of product. Towards the lower end of the scale globally in fact. And as I was leaving there were proposals floating around for how to improve things even further. For example, installing a CHP plant, which would generate both heat and electricity (both for the plant and local homes). This would produce a significant energy saving, lowering costs, fuel consumption and hence lower overall emissions.

However, installing a CHP plant (along with other changes) would have been expensive. It would pay for itself eventually, but there would be an up front cost. And that was a problem. Firstly Corus group, weren’t very good at making long term decisions. The company motto seemed to be “we used to be indecisive, but now we’re not so sure”. Secondly, the dumping of low cost steel into the UK and European markets by overseas competitors was eating into the companies margins. In fact this would eventually lead to the closure of Llanwern (a sister plant to Port Talbot).

While the EU was taking some action against this, the UK government didn’t do a lot. And that was under labour. Once they Tories took over it went from inaction to an outright snooze-fest . There was also the issue of the UK’s lack of a coherent energy policy, which under the Tories has swung from a spaff of whatever green policies sound like a good idea (and are only being announced because of a climate conference), to endorsing conspiracy theories against ULEZ and 15 minute cities.

This probably explains why the aforementioned CHP plant wasn’t installed until the early 2020’s (and a cut down version if it at that). There were a number of other initiatives under way to cut emissions however, which kind of suggests that the cost of net zero wasn’t the problem for Tata. It was something else. Now what could that be?

Well the primary output from Port Talbot was strip steel products. The sort of stuff used in the construction industry and car manufacturers. Both have taken a bit of a knock recently, most notably UK car makers, a number of which have announced (or threatened) closures, as they shift production over to Europe. And this is explicitly down to brexit. So it is not exactly rocket since to see how our aforementioned first minster is reaching this conclusion.

Furthermore, energy costs in the UK have risen sharply, which would have pushed up operating costs for the plant. Again, largely down to the UK’s lack of a coherent energy policy. Most notably a ban on onshore wind, which just happens to be the cheapest form of energy production (we’d also suggested back in the 2000’s installing a couple of wind turbines on waste ground on site).

The EU has also recently brought in new rules regarding “dirty” steel products, which means carbon credits have to be purchased to import them into the bloc. Which is a bit of a problem if you are outside the bloc (you know, because of brexit). Doubly so, as it means the UK is likely to become a dumping ground for steel the EU has now rejected. So its pretty clear why Tata reached this decision.

So while I wasn’t entirely surprised by this announcement, it was the speed of the brexiter apologists rush to judgement that caught my attention. Before I’d even heard of the closure, they were rushing out the excuse that it wasn’t due to brexit. Definitely not brexit, For sure, absolutely, scout’s honour! And this isn’t the first time they’ve done this. Any time any sort of bad news comes out, the brexiters are rushing in front of microphone to pin the blame on anything else other than them, the left, Greta Thunberg, woke, green energy, remoaners, the EU, etc.

Me thinks the lady doth protest too much! I put it to you this isn’t a coincidence. They know full well that brexit has been a total disaster. In fact they’ve always known. Farage etal went before the fishermen, farmers and workers at plants like Port Talbot, people they knew would lose everything due to brexit. And they lied to their faces. It is a criminal conspiracy. And if there was a single journalists with any integrity in this country, they would confront the brexiters about this, rather than pandering to them.