Yes – it’s again about  ‘them’ …

 

 

According to our MSM, nothing worth reporting has happened yesterday except one thing: the England women’s football team beat Germany at Wembley 2:1, winning the Euro 2022 Cup. The headline writers went into overdrive, the gist of these efforts being ‘Roarsome Lionesses’. If you feel so inclined, you can check out the print editions’ front pages in the usual place (link).

Also-ran ‘news’ are that more and more Tory heavyweights are endorsing Truss – Zahawi and Iain Duncan Smith being the latest. Oh, and Sunak ‘promises’ to cut income tax by 4% … has no-one told him that he’s not going to be elected by the whole of the British voting public?

For the broadsheets, the ‘Toree Race’ is over. It’s Truss who should take on the role of PM. The important point for the Westminster political correspondents is that this spectacle means they don’t have to look at, never mind write about, Labour or Starmer who has a ten-point lead over any of the putative Tory MPs. There’s one article worth mentioning which was published in ConHome. The headline is stunning: 

“This leadership election. At best, a damp squib. At worst, self-destructive. Either way, not up to the challenge. Why ConservativeHome isn’t endorsing a candidate yet. If we do at all.” (link) 

After bemoaning the vitriolic tweets by both Truss and Sunak’s ‘activists’ we read that two of the eliminated candidates weren’t gentle loyalists either. Well, that’s ‘business as usual’. It’s not really about MPs ‘blurting out confidential discussions’ but about tweets and ‘leaks’ by selected ‘sources’ which have been driving politics for too long. This observation should concentrate the minds especially of ‘supporting MPs’:

“Robust debate is one thing; self-destructiveness is another – inflamed by TV’s pursuit of ratings, social media’s feeding frenzy, the craze for celebrity and the way we live now.  For make no mistake: the most likely winner of this frenzied contest so far is…Keir Starmer. Labour sails on as I write, seven points ahead in Politico’s poll of polls – gleefully filing away these gibes, assaults and demolitions of each other’s programmes: all to be projected during the run-up to September, while the splits and sackings in Keir Starmer’s own team grab less attention.” (link)

The article throws a light on the vapidity of this whole spectacle. It’s driven by the MSM whose agenda is to crown Starmer as next PM, not by Tory members or indeed us voters.

And so to the essay written by Kemi Badenoch for The Times’ weekend edition. At first glance it looks like yet another article about the Tavistock Clinic, utilised to describe the ‘life as a minister’. It is in fact a description of how mandarins make politics. Ms Badenoch uses the Tavistock Clinic issue to show how, in her experience, mandarins manipulated government’s policy. Put down your drinks and sit tight before you read this:

“The government machine wants to be comfortable and consensual and campaigners and activists know how to take advantage of this. A minister asking tricky questions can be stopped in their tracks by accusations of stoking “culture wars”. Minutes of private meetings with whistleblowers and concerned citizens can be selectively leaked or become the subject of numerous innocent-looking freedom of information requests, designed to identify targets for harassment on social media, as I discovered in one unfortunate case.” (link, paywalled)

That unfortunate case is the operation of the Tavistock Clinic and the whole trans issue. I suggest in the margins that it applies equally to the Immigration issue and how Ms Patel has been ‘played’ by her mandarins. There’s more:

“Whitehall has solutions for ministers wishing to dodge difficult decisions: issue another call for evidence for information you already have; publish a consultation that is captured by campaigners or form a new working group of “stakeholders”. However, the work of government is all about making difficult decisions, even if it makes us unpopular. I write not to take credit for this result — my part in it was very minor — but to give an insight into the numerous obstacles that slow down even the most determined minister from finding out the truth and making the right decisions.” (link, paywalled)

There’s a lot of self-serving stuff in this essay, a little homage to Ms Truss included. There are no attacks on any of her colleagues, be they former ministers or MPs. Well, Ms B is a politician, after all and doesn’t want to be left out in the cold. There is one more pearl though:

“The Whitehall machine often becomes the voice of interest groups in government rather than government’s voice to interest groups. This stems from a sincere, yet naive, belief that you can appease special interests with platitudes and “lines to take”. The truth is some battles have to be fought and won. This requires strengthening a civil service that is terrified of controversy and recalibrating it towards policy and away from posturing on issues it believes as too “contentious”.” (link, paywalled)

And there, in a nutshell, is the history of British politics ever since politicians, ministers and ‘political writers’ and spin masters used social media as forum to push their various agendas. This has become a cancer on the body politic since BJ became PM. I look forward with trepidation as to how Labour will ‘recalibrate’ Whitehall.

I leave you with ‘news’ of another ‘catastrophe’, promoted shamelessly by that former PM Gordon Brown. The Times reports: “Worldwide education catastrophe looms unless we act, warns former prime minister Gordon Brown” (link, paywalled). It’s about an UN “educational Summit” and an accompanying poll according to which

“Forty-seven per cent of British respondents aged 16 to 30 said they did not feel equipped for the future, more than in Nicaragua, Nigeria and Indonesia and the same as in Honduras. The results reflect what experts are calling “a crisis of equity, quality and relevance” in global education.” (link, paywalled)

It’s news to me that “we” are now ‘educating children’ to the age of 30. It’s news to me that in the age of youtube our digitally clever youth is unable to access all those videos showing skills in ‘how-to’ videos or documenting history in new ways. Here are more moans:

“Thirty-seven per cent of British respondents said they did not feel valued — second only to France’s 44 per cent — and they were less optimistic about their future than young people in every other country apart from France. Twenty-two per cent of those in Britain said they were disappointed with their education.” (link, paywalled)

Oh dear. Brown and the UN Gen Sec declare this is a worldwide crisis and demand that every child in the world must go to school. The next paragraph is sickening:

“Seventy-three per cent of young people surveyed in the UK were worried about the prospect of poor education leaving millions of children without basic reading or writing skills. Sixty-seven per cent said world leaders were not doing enough to ensure all children received a good education; 77 per cent felt world leaders needed to take urgent action to fund education.” (link, paywalled)

I agree though: UK education is indeed poor when so many ‘young people’ demand ‘world leadership’ and ‘moar money’, without noticing that neither will help because this ‘world education leadership’ means that even more kids will leave school brainwashed, unable to think for themselves, functionally illiterate and innumerate, with a life-goal of becoming an ‘influencer’ on social media. They’re clearly unaware of the destruction of our educational system by Brown’s comrade and predecessor.

Is it too much to ask Mr Brown if perhaps demanding drag queens ‘teaching’ our children might rob them of time to learn letters and numbers, the basis of any further learning? It certainly is beyond the strength of any ‘education Minister’ to stand against their mandarins who’ve done for years as reported by Ms Badenoch.

Apologies for yet another grim start to a new week and month …



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