Absolutely Not The Daily Troll-o-Graph

 If nothing else, Keir Starmer's speech passed the 'Ru Paul test'   There was no unifying theme here, but it wasn't for want of options   There was a good speech buried in this meandering, mediocre one Source - CAPX _29/09/21 The problem wasn’t that Keir Starmer’s conference speech was long and boring, exactly. We’ve all watched much shorter speeches that were far duller. Nor was it that Starmer is a stilted, rather unnatural orator who often felt like he was trying too hard to say weighty impactful things – that’s par for the course with politicians. No, the biggest problem with Starmer’s speech was that even after almost 90 minutes, it wasn’t really clear what he had been trying to say. That wasn’t for want of ideas for a unifying theme. Indeed, he tried quite a few – the ‘this is who I am’ life story theme; the ‘pandemic changed everything’ new political economy theme; the ‘Labour is about government not internal squabbling’ theme (this one was dramatised by Starmer ...

 Labour often gives the impression it hates Britain as well as the Government   For over a decade, the opposition has fed us a diet of despondency, sackcloth and ashes   Starmer must stop wallowing in self-flagellating misery and put an end to Labour's pity party Source- CAPX - 28/09/21 Link Political life as Her Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition is tough. A Shadow Minister must compete on equal terms with an opposite number able to call upon the services of approximately six hundred times as many people. Just about everyone – the media, your members, concerned mothers – overestimates your ability to affect political proceedings. Meanwhile, because, unlike the Government, you are not in fact actually doing anything, you must run a gauntlet of endless horse-race style political commentary on your current polling situation. When commentators assess how a Government is doing, they can at least talk about substantive events and policy. For the opposition, it can only ever be th...

Emily Thornberry has backed the Labour leader's stance in a row over whether only women have cervixes. Source- BBC 27/09/21 Link The shadow trade secretary said it was "factually inaccurate" to make the claim when some trans men and non-binary people also have a cervix. It comes after a Labour MP supported online criticism of a tweet referring to "individuals with a cervix". Rosie Duffield was called transphobic by trans rights supporters - but she has rejected the claim. Asked about the incident on Sunday, Sir Keir said it was "not right" to say only women have a cervix, and called for a "mature, respectful debate" around the issue. He added: "We need to... bear in mind that the trans community are amongst the most marginalised and abused communities." Appearing on BBC Two's Politics Live on Monday, Ms Thornberry said she agreed with her leader's stance on the issue. "It is factually inaccurate [as] there are men who h...

 The Labour leader's policy commitments could have been written by an intern at Clinton Cards   Starmer spends a good two thirds of his essay 'The Road Ahead' talking about the past   None of this EU enthusiast's economic plan would be possible without Brexit Source - CAPX - 24/09/21 Link The wait is over. True, as publishing sensations go, the arrival of Keir Starmer’s Fabian Society pamphlet wasn’t accompanied by the excitement that greets a new JK Rowling book. But in its own terms it was an important event. Context is all, and the content of The Road Ahead is less important than the reasons the Labour leader had for writing it in the first place. Because after nearly a year and a half in the top job, and just a few days before he makes his very first ‘real life’ speech to delegates, Starmer’s leadership is in trouble. There’s no getting away from it. Ask any Starmer-supporting Labour MP and they will confirm what everyone else already understands: Labour is as far a...

Richard has kindly put together another installment of another Europe. Which he has been doing some great work to facilitate with some seriously smart and influential people involved. I really hope this is a great success. Over to you Richard............................. The initial May 18 to 20 conference has spawned a sequel on Monday November 1 st  thru to 12:00 on Wednesday November 3 rd . The whole caboodle is electronic. We are running it out of ETH in Zuerich this time as there are already over 400 attendees awaiting Bern vetting. There is no upcoming Swiss – EU negotiation this time, as there was in May. Back in May ‘Another Europe’, level of interest, input, argument and well-evidenced projections led to a Swiss walkout in the May confrontation. Relations have not improved since, other than EU takes Switzerland more seriously. We have enhanced our list of thought provoking presenters and seen some pre-conference interaction between them. Vernon Bogdanor, Nick Bouzou and Ca...

Timing of leak about oil giant's pleading fuels suspicions it is more about a lobbying campaign for looser EU immigration policies Source - Daily Telegraph - 24/09/21 Link Cars queue at a BP petrol station in west London on Friday Scenes of cars queuing on petrol forecourts this week have triggered uncomfortable memories of Britain’s fuel crisis more than 20 years ago. Rather than blockaded refineries, the disruption has its immediate genesis in a fateful Cabinet Office meeting nine days ago with some of Britain’s biggest companies and industry associations. When explosive warnings from oil giant BP that a shortage of HGV drivers would force it to ration petrol station deliveries hit the front pages, anxious drivers inevitably scurried to fill up despite ministerial pleas not to do so. Motorists’ groups are baffled by the issue being thrust into the public consciousness after a summer of low-level disruption barely registered. The timing has fuelled suspicion that the leak is more ...

For all the liberal condemnation of Trump, he never abandoned America’s leadership role, and firmly rejected the siren call of isolationism Source - Daily Telegraph - 22/09/21 Link Joe Biden’s speech to the United Nations this week was a sad moment for the United States on the world stage. The president’s address fell flat, generating little applause, and was met largely with muted silence. The leader of the free world looked tired and uninspired, mouthing platitudes that came across as empty, hypocritical and at times delusional. In the wake of the monumental Afghanistan disaster and its huge global fallout, Biden has a huge credibility problem that will be impossible to fix during his presidency. After just eight months in office, Biden already looks like a lame duck, his administration beset by a massive southern border crisis of its own making, out-of-control government spending with a national debt approaching a staggering $30 trillion, a worsening Covid pandemic, and a foreign po...

 Source - Spiked - 22/09/21 Link With their party conference looming, Labour members are up in arms. Are they angry about the Rosie Duffield scandal? About the fact that one of their own MPs cannot attend her party’s conference because her belief in biological sex and women’s spaces has put her security at risk? Of course not. Are they annoyed by leader Keir Starmer’s inability to make even the slightest dent in public opinion? Or his failure to stand up to the government on anything substantial? Some are, but that’s not what’s riling most of them up this week. No, what Labour’s members and some of its leftish MPs are furious about is the party leader’s attack on party democracy. I won’t bore you with the details, but essentially Sir Keir wants to revert to an older ‘electoral college’ system that would give more weight to MPs than ordinary party members. Starmer, quite overtly, wants to stop the election of another Jeremy Corbyn figure – someone adored by left-wing members but dis...

France's position on Security Council could be put at the disposal of Brussels if it backs his military plan Source - Daily Telegraph - 21/09/21 Link France's seat on the United Nations Security Council could be put "at the disposal of the European Union" if its governments back Emmanuel Macron's plans for an EU army, a close ally of the French president has said. Paris is spearheading a diplomatic push for closer EU military integration after Australia pulled out of a £45 billion contract for diesel-powered French submarines and signed the Aukus security pact with the US and UK instead. A traditional standing EU army remains a distant prospect, but Mr Macron – on the cusp of becoming the EU's most influential leader as Angela Merkel prepares to bow out of politics after Sunday's German elections – is determined to lay its foundations. Top European officials this month proposed the creation of a 5,000-strong rapid reaction force after America's decisio...

France seems to think that the UK will meekly fall into line with Europe, however appallingly it is treated Source - Daily Telegraph 20/09/21 Link One of the French phrases I learnt quickly as foreign secretary was “On ne peut avoir le beurre et l’argent du beurre”, which literally means “you can’t have the butter and the money from selling it”. A more familiar translation would be “you can’t have your cake and eat it” – and this was the message that France hammered home with boring repetitiveness during the Brexit negotiations. With the diplomatic row over the cancellation of their Australian submarine contract, it is time that the French reflected on this saying themselves. Many have wondered why their ambassador to Britain was not recalled, unlike those to America and Australia. The French Foreign Minister, Jean Yves Le Drian, has described this as the UK accepting “vassal status” to the US, but says their ambassador to London was not recalled because we were only a minor player, th...

France and Germany are increasingly struggling to adapt to the modern world - not that you'd know it from following the UK media Source- Daily Telegraph - 19/09/21 Link Imagine, for a moment, that a major new defensive alliance centred on the crucial Asia-Pacific region had just been formed without British involvement, but featuring France instead. Now imagine the reaction of our broadcast media if a joint press conference were held between Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron and Australian premier Scott Morrison, launching 'Afrus' (Australia-France-United States). Such a turn of events would surely be greeted as just the latest in a series of catastrophes attributed to Brexit. Media correspondents would flock to explain that every piece of diplomatic architecture protecting UK interests had been smashed. Twitter would swarm with blue-tick accounts pouring opprobrium on Boris Johnson and congratulating themselves on their foresight. And to be honest, it would be hard to argue a conv...

Macron only has himself to blame for what his foreign minister described as a 'stab in the back' Source - Daily Telegraph Link DANIEL HANNAN 18 September 2021 • 1:02pm Right on cue, Emmanuel Macron has demonstrated why the Anglosphere democracies do not see him as a reliable partner. In an act of almost comical sulkiness, he has withdrawn his ambassadors from Canberra and Washington, peeved at being frozen out of the AUKUS defence deal. By way of perspective, consider that he is happy to leave his ambassadors in place in Moscow and Beijing. This is not the first time that Macron has ordered French envoys home in a fit of pique. He withdrew his ambassador from Rome after an Italian politician supported the gilets jaunes, and withdrew his ambassador from Ankara when President Erdogan suggested he might be a bit bonkers. Macron is incandescent about the formalisation of a naval pact among the three foremost English-speaking powers. The AUKUS alliance is as deep as any that exists ...