Dunking

All rather messy.  The Guardian reports:

It was a mouthful of miniature sponge-cake dipped in tea that became one of French literature’s most powerful metaphors.

But the madeleine cakes that Marcel Proust made famous as the trigger for nostalgia in his book might have actually started out as toasted bread, according to draft manuscripts to be published in France this week.

A first draft of Proust’s monumental novel dating from 1907 had the author reminiscing not about madeleines as the sensory trigger for a childhood memory about his aunt, but instead about toasted bread mixed with honey. 

A second draft, the manuscripts showed, had the evocative mouthful as a biscotto, a hard biscuit.

It was only in the third draft that Proust wrote that he had bitten into a soft little madeleine.

Any dunker will tell you that plain digestives are the most appropriate, with hobnobs possibly in second place.


 

Music of the week

Getting sentimental in my old age:

Walking on water

From The Guardian (here):

While half the Conservative party doesn’t really care one way or the other if David Cameron stays or goes, half the Labour party actively want to remove Jeremy Corbyn and half the Lib Dems don’t even know what Tim Farron looks like, Sturgeon is received with an adoration bordering on a holy rapture.

She only has to smile and her audience is already entranced.

   

Going nowhere?

The state of the negotiations prior to the UK's in/out referendum?  What does Cameron want?  Not clear.  When does he want it?  Also not clear.  When will it become clear?  Later, perhaps.

The Guardian reports:

David Cameron bowed to pressure from other EU governments on Thursday and pledged to put his shopping list of demands for his in/out EU referendum on paper within weeks after previously declining to do so.

The prime minister is to write a letter to Donald Tusk, the president of the European council who chairs EU summits, detailing the changes he hopes to obtain in the EU, before putting the outcome to a referendum by the end of 2017 on whether the UK should remain in the EU.

Cameron has previously refused to be pinned down on his demands, triggering a chorus of complaints over the past fortnight from EU capitals that the negotiations were going nowhere and that there would be no meaningful talks until Downing Street put something on paper.

Do you get the impression that Cameron has a cunning plan for the negotiations?  

No, neither do I.    

   

Jezza puts the boot in

The Guardian wittily summarises Prime Minister's Questions:

When Corbyn opened with a question on tax credits from Kelly, Cameron’s eyes glazed over in chillaxed bliss. “National living wage, everyone better off, yadda yadda, yadda,” said Dave, before a little voice in his head reminded him to mention Kelly by name. “Kelly, Kelly, Kelly will be better, better, better off.” Yay, job done. Bring on the next moaner from Radio Somewhere Up North. Only this time Corbyn had a follow-up question. “Actually Kelly will be £1,800 worse off.” Would the prime minister like to have another go at answering the question?

Not in the slightest, it seemed, as Dave scrabbled for a folder that might give him a more detailed answer than was generally required for Radio Somewhere Up North. “All these people benefit,” Dave said. Kelly had by now been long forgotten, to be lumped in the catch-all “these people”. These people being people not like him.

Corbyn now adopted the air of a long-serving academic, reluctantly forced into explaining something very simple to an irritatingly dim student. “The prime minister is doing his best and I admire that,” he said, failing to disguise his ennui. But could he try just a little harder to explain why Kelly would be broke? A puce Cameron snapped. “I don’t really give a toss about Kelly,” he said. Or words to that effect. “If she can somehow struggle by for another four years she will be just fine.”

 

Cameron cynical?

Well, I suppose that this is one way of describing something of a debacle.  The Guardian reports:

Not so much a U-turn as a 360-degree spin. From hug-a-hoodie to hug-a-flogger and back again. Changing policy doesn’t seem to present nearly so many problems for the prime minister as it does for Jeremy Corbyn – probably because no one really believes David Cameron has any principles he wouldn’t be willing to sacrifice for short-term personal gain.

Up till Monday night, David Cameron was standing full square alongside foreign secretary Philip Hammond in support of the rights of the Saudi government to do whatever it likes to its own citizens in exchange for sharing security titbits and any number of lucrative contracts.

Come Tuesday morning, when the details of both a Ministry of Justice contract to train the Saudi police – “you don’t want to bother with a sword, mate, just turn this Taser up to max” – and a threatened flogging for an elderly, ill UK citizen prompted an urgent question in the Commons, Dave suddenly remembered he had a conscience. The only public execution now on offer was the hanging of Hammond. Out to dry.

 
   

Geordie haka

h/t Dan

Music of the week

Stream of consciousness

Mrs Cameron's diary:

Dave has these super progressive thoughts when we are chillaxing in front of Bake Off, like, what if prisoners did the Bake Off washing up as a punishment #winwin, Govey’s like, awesome, noted :) Nancy’s like but Dad, doesn’t BonkersWhittingdale hate Bake Off? Dave’s like not that I heard darling, she’s like plus Dad, do they watch it in China you know what Hunty said, he’s like, I have literally no idea, she’s like, & what about tax credits?

I’m like Nancy did you not HEAR where Daddy said in Greater Britain nothing is written? As in literally? So nothing that Oik & Bonkers & Theresa & Hunty say stops Daddy being totes progressive? Nancy’s like, u wot m8, aren’t we Conservative? I’m like, well Oik & Theresa are very sweetly & kindly doing that so Daddy doesn’t have to, I just wish someone would tell Mrs Merkel :( Because we told her it was Dave’s birthday as in *hint* banging on about Syria is NOT his idea of a treat #downer? She was like, Und? Dave’s like, Angela, my dream is a Greater Britain where nobody will EVER have to do boring stuff on his actual birthday, she’s like, she’s like, Ja, right, in your dreams :(((

   

Looking like a prat

No, not Beyoncé; the other one 

   

Idiot

The Times reports:

Alex Salmond was barred from boarding a British Airways plane because he booked his seat under the name of James T Kirk, the captain of Star Trek’s starship Enterprise.

An extraordinary stand-off took place this summer, when check-in staff at Heathrow refused to let the former first minister on to a flight to Scotland because his passport did not match the name on his ticket.

Mr Salmond, 60, revealed that he often travelled under a false name for security reasons and he liked to use Captain Kirk’s name because he is an avid fan of the television series.

  

Music of the week

The Hair

Vanity, vanity, vanity.  The Times reports:

Enter Donald Trump. The tycoon’s marmalade-coloured, candyfloss-textured, gravity-defying, super-luxury comb-over has entranced much of America — including Ms Stephens, who re-creates hairstyles from antiquity. “I tried to figure out how long that top hair has to be. It’s probably pushing a foot long,” she told me.

“He combs it diagonally forward to the right, pulls half of it back, and drags it to the left — kind of a big overlapping U shape that’s sprayed down with aerosol cement.”

Political hair, of course, is an irresistible springboard for pop psychology. A flamboyant do such as Mr Trump’s can connote self-esteem, Ms Stephens suggests. 

No, it connotes the fact that he is going bald.

 

Extract from the Corbyn diary

From The Times (here):

Thursday

Today I’m heading up north to meet what remains of the Labour party in Scotland. Kezia Dugdale, who is in charge up there, meets me at the station and says they’re in the car.

“Who is?” I say.

“The remains of the Labour party in Scotland,” she says.

I tell Kezia I thought our membership up here had doubled since I took over, and she says it has, and that’s why they’re not on the moped.

“I’m here to listen,” I tell her.

Kezia says that’s great, because normally Westminster politicians who come up on flying visits never really get beyond the crass Scottish stereotypes.

“Although not to bagpipes,” I add.

   

The best they could do?

According to The Times, a geriatric has-been will lead the Brexit mob:

The former Conservative chancellor Lord Lawson has put himself at the head of a Tory campaign to leave the EU and warned that David Cameron’s reforms would be “wafer-thin”.

Lord Lawson of Blaby has said that it was time for the prime minister to spell out red lines in his Brussels renegotiation, including limits on migration, or risk allowing “xenophobic voices” to lead calls for a British exit.

Writing in The Times before the Tory party conference next week, the peer announces that he is to become president of Conservatives for Britain as it gears up to join a cross-party campaign for a “Brexit” in the EU referendum expected to be held next year.

He's older than I am ...

  

Quote of the day

He coulda been a contender.  The Guardian contemplates the survival of Andy:

Having gone from clear favourite for the Labour leadership to distant runner-up, Burnham has had to rethink his political ambitions even more radically than he had to rethink his political positions during his campaign. Right a bit, left a bit, right again, bit more right, no left, left, left. Fire. Missed. Bugger it.

But Burnham is a natural survivor; not to mention amnesiac. Having been one of the few former shadow cabinet ministers not to throw a strop and refuse a position in Corbyn’s team, the new shadow home secretary then promised a fresh style of doing politics where “principle would always come before presentation”. Coming from him, this took some nerve.

   

So Jezza won't push the button ...

Music of the week

Quote of the day

From a letter to The Guardian (here):

Imagine the headlines in the Tory press if it was Jeremy Corbyn, rather than George Osborne, visiting China to foster closer economic and cultural links.

   

Rugby - the squeaker

I thought that my sister put it very well when she asked why Scott Hastings always sounds as if his underpants are strangling him.  But what can you expect from a Watsonian?

 

Quote of the day

So it goes.  Add VW to the roll-call of shame.  CityAM reports:

FOR MUCH of the past few years the debate around trust in business has focussed on financial services. The case for the prosecution is well known and the roll-call of shame (Libor rigging, forex scandals, PPI mis-selling) should never fail to serve as a reminder of the damage caused when individuals and institutions consider themselves to be above the rules or beyond the law. For a while, the horse meat scandal reminded the public that a business doesn’t have to be dealing in currency to behave like a crook, but generally speaking it’s financial services that still takes the heat when the public wants to vent. Now a new bad guy has strolled into town in the shape of Volkswagen. How did it think it would get away with it? Consider the discussions that must have gone into such an audacious deceit. Up to 11m VW diesel cars may have been fitted with a device whose sole purpose appears to have been to cheat the consumer and lie to regulators over emission levels. The consequences for the 78-year-old German company could be immense. In two days, £17bn has been wiped off the value of the carmaker, governments around the world are launching investigations and it faces multi-billion dollar fines and the threat of criminal charges.

   

Photo of the day

That SABMiller-InBev merger

Nowadays, even The Times  is being sarcastic about the bankers:

Officially, fees to bankers for cobbling together two companies that are already bigger than sense will be about $200 million. Assume that is an underestimate.

It’s all about shareholder value, of course. To suggest that this deal is going to be shoved through to enrich banks and executives no matter what anyone else thinks would make you a fool who just Doesn’t Get It.

Mergers are good, say bankers, who are impartial to a fault. Evidence to the contrary is yesterday’s news.

Meanwhile, the chancellor and the new city regulator want to ease off on bank regulation. It’s time they stopped saying sorry and got on with getting rich again, the politicians and the watchdogs agree.

So be cheerful. Life is better. For bankers.

I have shares in neither; nor do I drink their sorry apology for beer.

     

The mighty big if

The warmongers are at it again.  The Guardian reports:

Jeremy Corbyn faced pressure over Labour’s policy on airstrikes in Syria after senior shadow cabinet ministers signalled they could support military action under the right conditions.

Lord Falconer, the shadow justice secretary, said he would be prepared to back a bombing campaign in Syria with the proper military and legal justification, despite the Labour leader’s stated opposition.

His intervention came after Hilary Benn, the shadow foreign minister, refused to rule out supporting military intervention, saying he would look at the objectives.

There you have it: "under the right conditions" and "with the proper military and legal justification".  It might be rather difficult to tease out a rational justification and a clear objective for further military intervention in Syria.  What would it achieve?  What would it contribute to our national security?

Incidentally, the miltary boys playing with their toys would not provide a decent excuse.

Up all night

The Guardian  reports:

Every night at 8pm, Eastern Standard Time, Rhod Sharp, an expatriate Scot, climbs to the loft of his house in Marblehead, Massachusetts, puts on his headphones and prepares to pretend that it is actually one in the morning GMT. For the next four hours he sets out to, in his own words, “keep some listeners awake and send others to sleep” with the mix of rolling news and free-range conversation which is Up All Night (Monday to Friday, 1am, 5 Live). If you’re one of the significant minority of people who find it difficult to go to sleep without the reassuring sound of a bedside radio or the confiding comfort of an earpiece, the image of Sharp talking to you from his own home thousands of miles away is somehow more appealing than thinking of the same job being done by the sole bleary-eyed occupant of a media mausoleum.

Sharp’s chat provides a valuable supplement to the station’s daytime output. In a media environment where too much time is given to big-name guests with nothing to say or stories with little to add to your knowledge of a situation beyond the fact that they are apparently “breaking”, Sharp’s gently unfolding conversations with experts, well-placed observers and stars whose names wouldn’t be quite big enough to get on the main bulletins are even more welcome.

Aye, Rhod is alright.  But he is only on for three mornings a week - Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.  And on Thursday morning he gives up an hour of the programme to an execrable Australian who claims to be a scientific expert.  The rest of the week is given to Dotun Adebayo who is un-listenable to - the radio equivalent of tabloid newspapers.

So, for much of the week, we nightowls have to rely on the World Service.  But that is deeply marred by a daily disgraceful programme of an hour from 2am called Outlook, devoted to "true life stories", especially those - refugees and other victims - who have endured some kind of trauma.  The presenter, a Matthew Bannister, loves to dwell on the gory bits, along the lines of "How did you feel when they tortured you?".

I tell you this - it's not easy being an insomniac ...

 

Music of the week

Fair unbiased coverage?

Perhaps the English rugby fans watching their TVs were happy.  The Guardian comments:

While ITV has employed former players of various nationalities to peddle opinion on their World Cup coverage, any pretence it was going to be anything other than totally chariot-centric was quickly put to bed when John Inverdale, a presenter who could scarcely bawl “Home Counties” more loudly if he was shouting through a megaphone fashioned from a rolled-up copy of the Daily Telegraph, introduced an all-English panel of studio experts comprised of Jonny Wilkinson, Sir Clive Woodward and Lawrence Dallaglio.

Meanwhile down on the touchline, Martin Bayfield towered over Jason Robinson, while Francois Pienaar made some early contributions until, one supposes, a minion checked his passport and realised there had been some terrible mistake. Weirdly, despite an early cameo, we neither saw nor heard from the former South African captain again.

Apart from the usual inability to understand the tactics or the strategies, I thought that the commentators might have made a little more effort to identify the Fijian players.  But a Bill McLaren does not come along every day.

Nice to see Jonny Wilkinson wearing a tie, while the others on parade in the studio went fashionably open-necked.  Inverdale is exempted from this criticism as he has no neck - his head just sits on his shoulders without any apparent attachment.

 

Tinkling the ivories

Her Majesty snubs The Red Flag

PMQs

Usually, I find that watching Prime Minister's Questions verges on the tedious.  But, as it was Jezza's first outing, I metaphorically girded up my loins to watch the gladiators in their contest.

Mr Corbyn was calm and courteous.  He looked somewhat dishevelled but that only served as a welcome contrast with the sleekit smoothness of the Prime Minister.

The Leader of the Opposition asked a series of questions based on e-mails he had received from real people, covering housing, tax credits and mental health facilities. IMHO, he put Cameron on the spot more than once; even on the telly, you could see the colour rising in Cameron's cheeks, as he strove to move his answers on to what he thought was safer ground.

So, rather unexpectedly, a win for Corbyn.  At least, I thought so ...

You can watch it on BBC2 on the i-player.

 

Cutting your nose off to spite your face

I don't understand.  The Guardian reports:

The prospects of Labour opposing British membership of the European Union, or adopting a position of neutrality, has grown markedly after the Trades Union Congress (TUC) voted to recommend Britain leave the EU if David Cameron negotiated a new European settlement that watered down workers’ rights.

To lose the protection of the EU Social Chapter would indeed have a deleterious effect on workers' rights; but I do not see that leaving the EU would do anything to restore the position to status quo ante.  If anything, it would give a Conservative government greater freedom to worsen the position of workers.

     

Hyperbole

Oh yes. the politics of fear - once again, the Tories are at it.  The Guardian retorts:

They may in time find a new way to argue, but currently, a prime minister warning you via Twitter that a man in a beard and a cardigan is going to threaten your family’s security sounds plain silly.

 

On y est!

Quote of the day

Pretentious, moi?  The Observer gets carried away in setting the scene for its analysis (or philosophical deconstruction) of the Manchester Utd - Liverpool match:

The collective narrative before this match had always suggested what we were about to see was a kind of angst-summit, a meeting of two decaying empires gripped with Weltschmerz, angst, ennui and – let’s face it – unhappiness at not getting to win everything all the time any more.

Hey guys, it's a football game ...

 

Music of the week

Quote of the day

Matthew Parris in The Times (here):

Perhaps modern leaders make war beyond their borders because they can: elected presidents and prime ministers have so little freedom of manoeuvre at home. A buzz-phrase of our era is “make a difference”. Oh boy, have we made a difference in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya. Heaven send us a breed of politicians who vow not to make a difference.

But the joy of efficacy, mere efficacy, is very strong in human beings. You or I might re-site the garden shed, where Tony Blair or David Cameron might authorise a bombing raid. It would be futile to discuss these decisions in terms of cost-benefit analysis because the balance has been secretly tipped by the weighty satisfaction of simply doing something — anything. The Middle East has become the western leader’s DIY. Never mind if the result is ghastly: I redecorate therefore I am.

A Commons vote on the extension into Syria of British military action is on its way and (with Labour’s disarray) will almost certainly be nodded through by parliament this time. So, Lord, give me grace. Here we go again.

   

Corbyn is a brave man

I can only hope that his political acumen is better than his dress sense.

Why the housing crisis will remain with us ...

... and why Osborne's schemes to stimulate the market are doomed to failure.  The Times explains:

If anyone is going to ease the acute housing shortage in the next few years, it is the biggest half dozen housebuilding companies. They alone realistically have the financial firepower, the appetite and the skills. Councils have no money. Housing associations lack oomph. Smaller local housebuilders, the kind who would knock up two or three homes on a small plot and were a key component of the industry a decade ago, have disappeared in their droves.

That leaves the likes of Barratt Developments, which yesterday reported a thumping 45 per cent leap in profits, while boasting it had completed 16,447 new homes in the year to June. That was an increase of 12 per cent, significantly above the growth rates of 5-10 per cent achieved in the previous few years.

Strong demand, more plentiful mortgage availability and easier planning rules have helped. So have alternative technologies like timber-framing and off-site roofing assembly, which have speeded up building times. But Barratt is still a long way off from returning to the pre-crisis years, when it sold more than 18,000 homes a year, let alone churning out the 25,000 or more required from it if Britain is seriously to achieve the new homes target of 200,000-250,000 a year that most people think are needed.

It expects its completions growth to slow to just 2 per cent in the current year. Skills shortages are a serious constraint. Bricklayers are earning 20 per cent more than two years ago and are still in short supply, as are carpenters and dryliners. An estimated 300,000 people left the building trade in the 2008-2010 downturn. Training and apprenticeships take time.

Not very promising ...

 

Music of the week

Quote of the day

Matthew Parris in The Times (here):

What kind of primitives have we become that we need to see a drowned person before we acknowledge to ourselves that people are drowning? Did we not know, had we not read, that migrant children drowned? What happened to the written word? Are newspapers and broadcasters to dispense altogether with report and analysis and offer us only a slide show? “Tragic,” “shaming”, “shocking” — this is politics by adjective. We need some nouns.

We have no idea what to do about the refugee crisis. We didn’t before we saw the picture and we still don’t. It is possible there is no answer. Should there be a workable answer, it is unlikely the nations of Europe will be able to agree upon it.

But at least we are no longer in the position of firefighters who refuse to rescue those in the burning building because it would not put the fire out.

Quote of the day

David Cameron  - what he says:

 “We have already accepted around 5,000 Syrians and we have introduced a specific resettlement scheme ... to help those Syrian refugees particularly at risk. As I said earlier this week, we will accept thousands more under these existing schemes and we keep them under review. And given the scale of the crisis ... today I can announce that we will do more, providing resettlement for thousands more Syrian refugees. We will continue with our approach of taking them from the refugee camps. This provides them with a more direct and safe route to the UK, rather than risking the hazardous journey which has tragically cost so many of their lives. We will set our more details next week.

“We will continue to work with partners to tackle the conflict in Syria, to provide support to the region, to go after the smuggling gangs exploiting these people, and we will continue to save lives at sea.”

What he means:

I don't want to look like a heartless bastard so we will do the minimum necessary in an attempt to satisfy public opinion on this matter.  We certainly will not get involved in dealing with those refugees already in Europe.  And, as far as I'm concerned, those in Calais can stay in Calais.

Do you think that Cameron gives a toss for refugees?  No, neither do I.

   

I'll drink to that

The Guardian reports:

Nicola Sturgeon’s plan to fix a minimum price for alcohol has suffered a huge blow after the European court’s top lawyer ruled it would risk infringing EU law on free trade.

In a formal opinion on Sturgeon’s flagship policy, the advocate general to the European court of justice, Yves Bot, has said fixing a legal price for all alcoholic drinks could only be justified to protect public health if no other mechanism, such as tax increases, could be found.

Bot’s opinion is expected to mean a final defeat for the Scottish government’s efforts to be the first in Europe to introduce minimum pricing – supported by leading figures in the medical profession and the police, after several years of legal battles.

It is highly likely the ECJ in Luxembourg will now uphold complaints from the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) and nine other member states, including France, Spain and Bulgaria, because its judgments rarely contradict an opinion from the advocate general.

And there is more good news for those of us who partake of the demon liquor:

Teetotallers should raise a glass of sparkling water to Britain’s drinkers, who are subsidising the Treasury to the tune of £6.5bn a year according to a think tank.

 Revenues from alcohol taxes amount to over £10bn, according to official figures crunched by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA). The contribution of drinkers to the state compares with costs of just under £4bn which are borne by the NHS and criminal justice and welfare systems. The figure is over seven per cent of the government’s budget deficit for the 12 months ending March 2015.

Daft economics

CityAM reports:

English football giants spent £483m on players from euro area clubs during the latest transfer window, a figure that would have been far higher if the pound had not climbed up to 17 per cent against the euro since 2014. 

With transactions typically taking place in the currency of the selling club, buying the same batch of players in last year’s summer transfer window would have cost £568m. It marks a saving to top English clubs of £85m, according to analysis from forex broker Foenix Partners.

But if you look at it through the other end of the telescope, if sterling had not been so undervalued in 2014, the English clubs would not have had to overpay by so much in that year ...

 

New logo - same as the old

Old:

New:

   

Apocalypse now

The Times predicts disaster:

If Labour chooses Jeremy Corbyn — a man who will never be elected prime minister — as leader next week, its end could be as brutal and sudden as those other once great tribes. Peter Mandelson is right to say that his party is in “mortal danger” and may be writing the final chapter of its history. This is bad for democracy as well as for the Labour party, since it is healthy for there to be a credible centre-left alternative to a Conservative government.

...

In a series of phone calls and emails over the past two weeks, between holiday villas, constituency homes and country retreats, senior figures from the centre of the party have been urgently drawing up a fightback strategy. 

It is the concept of Labour grandees in their holiday villas and country retreats that gives the game away.  What hope do such bourgeois pragmatists have of connecting with the ordinary Labour voter on minimum wage or suffering massive cuts in benefit payments?  It is arguable that Mandelson and co, with their failure to believe in anything other than winning power, are the ones who are destroying the Labour Party.

 

What's in a word?

Have you noticed how the media have begun to use the word "migrant" in their reports of those assembling at Calais and making their way across the Mediterranean?  This displaces the previous "immigrant" which used to be used for incomers from abroad.  Emigrants, on the other hand, were those who left for abroad.

It remains unclear if  "migration" will replace immigration or emigration.  Migration is of course more commonly used to describe the temporary seasonal movement of animals, birds and whales.  So I suppose it would be less than accurate to use it to describe the more or less permanent movements of human beings.

Much the same applies to the verb "migrate".  (Although, curiously, while "to emigrate" was common enough, "to immigrate" was seldom used.)

Strange ...

   

Music of the week

The joy of watching football on TV

The Guardian reports:

Competition makes everything cheaper and better. Except, it turns out, if you want to watch football in England. The real source of all this summer activity is the presence of two big beasts in the main marketplace for the first time. With the new TV rights deal kicking in BT Sport is now out there too, hounding Sky, ramping up revenues and, finally, offering a sense of choice. Except, for the captive consumer this isn’t really a proper choice at all, but an opportunity to spend the same and get less, or alternatively spend more and get the same.

This week BT Sport’s first raft of Champions League fixtures were inked into the schedule. Trying to work out how to get them on your TV while also keeping hold of Sky’s majority stake in the Premier League is, it turns out, a migrainously complicated business. There are brief moments of understanding. But before long the whole fragile edifice calluses [collapses?] in a rubble of signing-on fees, 10ft connection cables, set-top boxes, preferred customer packages until eventually you’re left weeping into the sofa cover, phone off the hook, very slowly and deliberately gouging out your own eardrums with a ratchet screwdriver. Competition, you see, makes everything better.

That's capitalism for you.

 

Excuses, excuses

The government is desperately casting about in order to shift the blame.  CityAM reports:

BUSINESS figures hit back yesterday after the government appeared to blame British employers for a jump in net migration to the UK.

The number of people coming to the UK, minus those leaving, rose to 330,000 in the year to March – an all-time record high. British growth gets a boost from higher migration, according to the government’s fiscal watchdog – but Tory immigration minister James Brokenshire described the figure as “deeply disappointing”.

Brokenshire said that the “reliance that business continues to place on migrant labour” was responsible for the increase, as well as blaming rules over foreign students and the EU’s principle of freedom of movement.

Despite - or perhaps because of - their own stupidity in setting a target of reducing annual immigration to "tens of thousands", the government continues to see immigration as something to be ashamed of.  It never occurs to them to celebrate the fact that people want to live and work in the UK.

Incidentally, the net annual total of over 300,000 rather makes the 5000 odd desperadoes in Calais look like rather a minor problem ...

 

Always look on the bright side

Candide has been reborn in the shape of Xinhua, China's official news agency:

BEIJING, Aug. 25 (Xinhua) -- Despite the tumbling of stock markets, investors should forgo their unnecessary anxiety over China because the long-term prediction for China's economy still remains rosy and Beijing has the will and means to avert a financial crisis.

The Chinese stock markets had their two worst days in eight years with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index tumbling 8.49 percent on Monday and continuing to lose another 7.6 percent on Tuesday, crashing to its lowest level since December 2014. It is the first time in 10 months that the index has been below 3,000 points.

The plunge of stocks, the depreciation of China's currency and its slowing growth pace after years of high-speed development have all put a question mark on the health of the world's second largest economy.

However, such a worry is completely unnecessary. China's economy will remain robust and the positive prediction on its future should not be affected by the current fluctuation of stock markets.

Economists believe that the capital market has been over-reacting to the slowdown of the Chinese economy, which is caused in part by the Chinese government's decision to transform the current economy into a more efficient and sustainable one.

So there you go, all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds ...

   

Quote of the day

The Guardian waxes lyrically over the Arsenal-Liverpool match last night:

More often in the past it has been Wenger’s over-engineered attack that has infuriated. Here comes Arsène again, wheeling his harpsichord out on to the touchline, strings furred with grass, sheet music sodden, legs clogged with mud, when most of the time all he really needs is a pair of bongos.

No, I have no idea what he means, either.

     

That's me they're talking about

The Times reports:

One in five older drinkers are [sic] consuming dangerous amounts of alcohol each week, with wealthy pensioners the biggest culprits, according to a new study.

Over-65s are putting their health at risk by drinking above government guideline amounts, experts warned. They urged GPs to ask members of the baby boomer generation about their drinking as a matter of routine.

The figures suggest that drinking among pensioners could be more of a problem than previously thought. In general lifestyle surveys for England, one in five men drinks over safe limits while among women, it is one in ten.

Having reached 65, I am increasingly less inclined to heed the warnings of the health fascists.  I want to enjoy my remaining years.  So I will smoke and I will drink as the moment takes me.

As for GPs, it is so difficult to get to see them, that it is all kind of pointless ...


 

Music of the week

Are the tectonic plates shifting?

Matthew Parris thinks so, even if he descends into patronising:

Historically, the Labour party has been a victim of its own great success. It was formed for two linked purposes: to raise the condition of the poor and to restructure the British economy along socialist lines.

In that second purpose Labour did not succeed. Nationalisation failed consumers and failed to invigorate industry or the economy. Even before Margaret Thatcher, Labour was losing its 1945 socialist nerve. Quite simply, the party had embraced a dud ideology and, along with most of the rest of the world, has largely come to understand that. Though the Marxist analysis is valuable, the prescription has been a catastrophe.

But in the first purpose — raising the condition of the poor — 20th-century Labour must be counted one of the most successful modern parties in western history. Nothing like the NHS or the welfare state as we know it would exist today without Labour governments and Labour support for Liberal ones.

The emancipation of women, the state pension, employment protection, conditions at work, the minimum wage, universal access to university — the story of economic and social progress among what Labour used to call the working class and we now call “ordinary people” is hugely to the credit of that party. Enlightened Tories have helped too, but it would be fanciful to suppose Labour (or Tory fear of Labour) was not overwhelmingly the driving force.

His conclusion - that the political system is breaking down - is even less convincing.

 

A semantic ice-pick

Are you reassured?  The Guardian reports:

Tom Watson, the frontrunner to be the next Labour deputy leader, says he is “very relaxed” about the idea of serving under Jeremy Corbyn, who is “not a Trotskyist”.

In an interview with the Guardian, the West Bromwich MP argued the contest had been overdramatised, and said all four leadership candidates had more in common than their portrayal in the heat of debate.

“Liz Kendall is not a Tory and Jeremy Corbyn is not a Trotskyist,” he said. “This language of morons and viruses is totally unhelpful. What they have in common is that they want a more socially just country and they don’t want enshrined privilege. They all four of them don’t want a Tory government.”

Ah yes, "Trotskyist"; or does he mean "Trotskyite"?  I had rather assumed that the somewhat arcane distinctions between Trotskyism, Leninism and other left-wing isms had long been abandoned.  To be described as a Trot was simply an all-purpose insult to the effect that the subject of the insult was more left wing than the speaker.  Thus, the Daily Mail would probably describe all of the contenders for the Labour leadership (and probably some parts of the Conservative Party) as a bunch of Trots.

 

Crisis over?

Not a chance.  The Guardian explains:

The financial conditions Greece has to meet have been eased as a result of the virtual shutdown of its economy in July, but they have not been eased enough.Greece is expected to run a surplus on its budget, once debt interest payments are excluded, of 0.5% of GDP in 2016, 1.75% in 2017 and 3.5% every year thereafter.

These are fantasy projections based on unrealistic assumptions. They will already be out of date by the time the first review is conducted. Greece has been set up to fail its review, at which point some of the hardline European countries will cut up rough. They will say that the next tranche of bailout cash should be withheld and that all talk of debt relief should be stopped until Greece gets back on track.

The IMF, however, will not give its imprimatur to the deal unless Greece’s debt burden is reduced sufficiently to make it sustainable. Christine Lagarde, the fund’s managing director, has already told Greece’s European creditors they will need to be far more generous. If anything, that position is likely to harden as it become clear that Greece’s economic and financial woes are far more serious than currently thought.

Heads, the Greeks lose; tails, the Greeks cannot win.

 

It's tough being a goose

The Times reports:

President Putin’s campaign to destroy western foodstuffs has plunged to new levels of absurdity with the public flattening of three frozen geese by bulldozer in a village in central Russia.

The bizarre incident, akin to a Monty Python sketch, according to Angus Roxburgh, a former Kremlin adviser, involved at least ten representatives of the state, including police, agriculture inspectors and official witnesses.

The vacuum-packed Hungarian geese were seized by four grim-faced officials from a shop in Apastovo, about 500 miles east of Moscow. The birds lacked proper documentation, an official declared as she read the confiscation order aloud to witnesses.

The geese were taken to a landfill site, where the witnesses stated their names and addresses for a video cameraman. Under Mr Putin’s decree, the destruction of contraband western food must be filmed, to prevent officials confiscating the products for their own later consumption.

The geese, weighing 3.6kg each, and garnished with vegetables and seasoning, were placed on the ground in a neat row by an official. Moments later, a bulldozer rumbled forward and began rolling over the geese repeatedly as the officials and witnesses looked on.

   

The wisdom of the crowd

From The Guardian (here):

The real comedy came just before half-time, when Gary Cahill picked up a real injury in a collision with Asmir Begovic in attempting to deny Eliaquim Mangala a header on goal. The Chelsea defender stayed down, the medical staff came running on, unrecognisable from the pair that started the season at Stamford Bridge last week, and the City crowd had a field day. First “You’re getting sacked in the morning” rang around the ground, inevitably followed by “You don’t know what you’re doing”, before an impromptu chorus of “We love you Eva” was added for good measure.

   

Life can be a trial sometimes

Music of the week

Tony Blair explains

From The Times (here):

So I’ve written an article for The Guardian. And in it, I’ve explained to people that, even if they hate me, I’m still right. After it comes out, Alastair calls.

“It won’t help,” he says. “You’re the whole problem. Everything you can possibly do will only make it worse.”

“But Alastair,” I say. “I’m a pretty straight sort of guy.”

Don’t say that, he says.

“I only did what I thought was right,” I say.

Don’t say that either, he says.

“But I feel the hand of history on my shoulder,” I say, miserably.

Just stop talking, he says.

   

Business morality

Cheating, fiddling, on the take.  Is bad practice endemic in UK businesses?  The Guardian reports on the latest row:

Boots and Dixons are to issue new guidance to airport staff about checking customers’ boarding passes following a consumer revolt over “rip-off” VAT charges.

Customers of Boots and Dixons and other prominent stores including WH Smith pledged not to show their boarding passes at airports after it emerged that retailers were benefiting from VAT savings without lowering prices.

Attacking the practice as a “fraud” and a “con”, customers said they felt they were obliged to hand over their boarding cards at checkouts for security reasons or because they were getting a discount.

However, it has emerged that the information is used by stores to avoid paying 20% VAT on everything they sell to customers who are travelling outside the EU. Many stores, including Boots and WH Smith, do not pass this saving to consumers.

Bearing in mind the controversies over the banks' mis-selling of payment protection insurance (not to mention all their other sins) and over the apparent willingness of the supermarkets to sell meat adulterated with horse, added to the carelessness of the big oil companies when it comes to despoiling the environment, this seems to amount to evidence that British business is thoroughly rotten.

Music of the week

What happened to passport control?

Flew back to Edinburgh last night, to be greeted by the black-shirted storm-troopers of the Border Force.  (Yes, that's what they call themselves.)  Do we really need to give the impression to UK visitors that the country is policed by the SS?

So-called entryism?

The Times has a reds-under-the-bed scare story:

Dozens of senior members of hard-left political parties have been given the right to vote in the Labour leadership ballot, in the first evidence of widespread infiltration of the contest.

Eleven people who stood as candidates for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (Tusc) in the general ­election have signed up without being caught by the Labour party’s vetting procedure.

Tusc was created by Bob Crow, the late RMT leader, and is now run by Dave Nellist, who was expelled by Labour over his support for Militant Tendency. It is an umbrella organisation that represents the Socialist party and the Socialist Workers party.

The names of a further 18 former and current members of the national council of Left Unity, a hard-left party founded by Ken Loach, have also been passed to The Times. Left Unity includes the Communist Party of Great Britain and the International Socialist Network among its unofficial backers.

They are all believed to have registered to vote for Jeremy Corbyn, the radical anti-austerity candidate who has risen from outsider to frontrunner in the contest.

According to my calculation, that adds up to a possible 29 extra votes for Corbyn.  It's not exactly going to set the heather on fire, is it?

Just a stroll

I don't know, you decide to take an afternoon constitutional; then there's this convenient tunnel to keep off the rain; you walk for miles and miles and then you get arrested.  The Guardian reports:

A suspected illegal immigrant is understood to have walked almost the entire length of the 31-mile (50km) Channel tunnel from France before being apprehended by Kent police close to the tunnel exit at Folkestone.

The man, who is a Sudanese national, was detected inside the tunnel less than 1km from the Folkestone terminal at 6.13pm on Tuesday. Kent police said in a statement: “Kent police officers investigating an incident where a man was located in the Channel tunnel near to its exit at the Folkestone terminal at 6.13pm on 4 August have charged a man.“

Abdul Rahman Haroun, 40, of no fixed abode, has been charged with causing an obstruction to an engine or carriage using the railway under the Malicious Damage Act 1861.”

"Honest, guv, I never obstructed no engine or carriage - I kept well out of their way. Well you would, wouldn't you?"

 

Music of the week

No quick fixes

All very difficult.  The Guardian reports:

Extra sniffer dogs and fencing are to be sent to France as David Cameron warned that the Calais migrant crisis is likely to lengthen into a summer of discontent on both sides of the Channel.

The prime minister also promised that Ministry of Defence land will be drafted into use to ease transport gridlock on the M20 around Dover, with the announcement that a car park with space for 1,000 lorries at Ebbsfleet International station is to be pressed into service.

Cameron, who is due to go on holiday next week, pledged to leave behind a “team of senior ministers” to work to deal with a situation that has seen more than 4,000 attempted incursions this week, albeit mostly unsuccessful.

“This is going to be a difficult issue right across the summer,” he said after an emergency Whitehall Cobra meeting held to discuss the Calais crisis. “We rule nothing out in taking action to deal with this very serious problem.”

Translation:  I know that this is a sticking plaster on a broken leg, but what else can I do?  In my absence on holiday, maybe this crisis will go away ...