The Joy of Six 1536

"Wes Streeting was always meant to be their Labour prime minister. The plan, hatched by a tiny clique of right-wing faction fighters, was this: find a candidate on whom they could fake a continuation Corbynism project to win the leadership. Then kick the ladder away from the people who backed them and the promises they made. At the next general election, given the scale of the Tory majority after 2019, get Labour back in the ring with more MPs and then hand over to Streeting. The real grown ups would then be in charge and the subsequent election would be secured." This seems a good day to air again this Neal Lawson theory.

Prem Sikka on the curse of the finance industry: "Private equity takes over existing businesses with finance from banks, insurance companies, pension funds and wealthy individuals seeking higher returns. It acquires control but injects little share capital. Takeover targets are loaded with the secured debt, often routed through opaque offshore entities, and are expected to pay it off."

Matt Gallagher says the Online Safety Act is forcing us to hand over personal data to unregulated overseas corporations with questionable privacy records.

"Behind every great director ... is a great editor – and as the tributes paid earlier this month to the late Marcia Lucas, Oscar-winning editor of Star Wars: Episodes IV to VI, and former wife of creator George Lucas, reminded us, that editor is often a woman." Bethany Elliott investigates a familiar dynamic in male-dominated Hollywood.

Carrie Marshall goes to see the B52s.

"She grows smaller. Was she approximately human-sized in her wearing-a-pinny-and-doing-the-laundry phase, but then hedgehog-sized at the end? In the final image, she is a completely naturalistic hedgehog4. She looks like a little brown aubergine. So it's possible that at the end of his story – shudder – Samuel Whiskers has grown bigger." Sam Leith is worried: how big are Beatrix Potter's animals?

Al Carns portrays Labour politics as a form of ancestor worship

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Writing about Blue Labour in Liberator at the start of year, I suggested that:

Maurice Glasman’s target voter is a white working-class man in a manual job in the North of England in 1957.

That makes him a modernist when set against Al Carns, judging by the defence minister's resignation statement in the Commons today.

Here's how Carns began:

As honourable members know, I came into politics for one reason. That was to enact change.

But to be able to work out where you’re going, we must realise where we have come from. The Labour party I joined is one that was chiselled out of the mines of the north-east. It was hammered out of the shipyards of Govan, Liverpool and Belfast. And it was forged in the factories of the industrial revolution.

Calloused hands, sore backs, people who did a hard day’s graft and asked for one thing in return – a government that has their back.

That’s the tradition I serve in this house, and it’s a tradition that shaped that decision I took last week.

Commercial shipbuilding had largely disappeared from Britain before Carns was born in 1980 – what remains is almost all in the defence sector. Brian Potter has mapped its demise:

Despite taking virtually any order that it could get, even at loss-making prices, the UK’s shipbuilding industry continued its inexorable decline. Between 1975 and 1985, the UK’s shipbuilding output declined by nearly 90 per cent, and its share of the world market fell from 3.6 per cent to less than 1 per cent. 

British Shipbuilders began re-privatization in 1983 with the passage of the British Shipbuilders Act, and over the next several years most of those newly privatised yards would close. In 2024, the UK produced just 0.01 per cent of the commercial ship tonnage built worldwide that year. In 2022 and 2023, the percentage was 0.

Potter's whole article is worth reading. It provides evidence for the view that many of Britain's economic problems stem from the fact that our managers aren't very good.

Returning to Carns's speech, coal mining in the North East of England reached its peak in 1923, with the last deep mine in the region closing in 2005. And the Industrial Revolution is generally reckoned to have begun in the middle of the 18th century.

If these are really Carns's politics, then they have nothing to do with Labour's voters and members or with the British working class today. That class, forced to exist on temporary work and zero-hours contracts, are the very people who would be hurt by his enthusiasm for yet more welfare cuts.

So when Carns went on to talk about modernising defence, you feared he was going to demand that eight Dreadnoughts be built or call for an improved flintlock for the infantry. 

In fact he had sensible things about the need to grasp how warfare is changing, which means we can give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he didn't believe the first part of his statement either. 

But he's not the only Labour politician who, when asked to explain it, makes their attachment to the party sound like a form of ancestor worship.

The Joy of Six 1531

A network of Russian far-right extremists steeped in neo-Nazi antisemitism – created under the umbrella of a sanctioned oligarch close to Vladimir Putin, and now openly promoted by Tommy Robinson – has been driving White Lives Matter propaganda over the murder of 18-year-old student Henry Nowak, reports Nafeez Ahmed.

"In a decisive summer for government, you can view the 'doubling' agenda as microcosm of the wider story. Some big decisions have been made and some vital groundwork put in place. Ministers now need to build on this with bolder, faster action if the impact is to be visible by the next election." James Wright on the government's commitment to doubling the size of the co-operative and mutual sector.

Alex Marshall is keeping an eye on the new Green administration in Waltham Forest.

Eli Davies questions a culinary shibboleth: "The idea that we should sit down for three meals at roughly the same time every day has become such an essential part of how we organise our lives – even when we’re failing to do it – that we forget it isn’t the natural order of things. Instead, it is a regime that was created not to serve the needs of our bodies or to give us pleasure, however much we may have managed to adapt it for these purposes – but to fit in with a day of labour."

"The police are on the trail throughout. Led by a grimly invigilating inspector they seem an odd bunch, varying from the para-military – pistols and rifles firmly clasped – to the quaintly Victorian, with constables wrapped in immense belted gaberdines and sporting cloche style helmets. A reminder, if any were needed, that Northern Ireland was a decidedly different part of the UK." Simon Matthews celebrates Carol Reed's 1947 film Odd Man Out.

Chris Dyson explores the streets and alleyways of Hull's historic Old Town.

"Oligarchs" all live in countries we don't like

A footnote from Sami Timimi's Searching for Normal:

There is a habit of referring to oligarchs as the super-rich in countries we don't like, but not to extend a similar label to such a stratum in our own countries; on the contrary, individuals like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Bill Gates are often seen in more heroic terms as great innovators.

I'm not sure about the gramar, but the point is a good one.

The Joy of Six 1514

Simon Nixon reviews Hettie O'Brien's The Asset Class: How Private Equity Turned Capitalism Against Itself: "This is an industry that takes the private part of its name with deadly seriousness. It usually exercises total control over its operations, deploying financial muscle rather than charm to enforce submission and cloaking almost every aspect of its business – the provenance of its money, the performance of its companies – in secrecy. Yet over recent decades, private equity has quietly captured vast swathes of the economy and accumulated political power for which it is rarely held publicly accountable."

"For a long time, peatlands were treated as marginal, soggy places at the edge of more useful land. Peatlands are now becoming central to climate regulation, water security, biodiversity and the livelihoods of many people who live on and around them." Alice Milner on her research into peatlands and tackling climate change.

Norman Baker explains why buses in central London are slower than their horse-drawn counterparts were more than a century ago. He also has suggestions for speeding them up.

Danny Chambers is campaigning against the cruelty often involved in breeding what are, to my eye, ugly animals. "Across the UK, more and more dogs and cats are being bred to look fashionable or cute. But this can come at a serious cost to their health and welfare."

"The film encompasses many influences – neorealist working-class documentary in its early Belfast set street scenes; poetic realism in its studio-bound aspects and fatalism; noir thriller; and expressionist reimagining of Greek myth, as a fatally wounded Johnny is left behind in the botched escape and a rogue’s gallery of the city’s denizens alternately help and hinder his path through the Underworld entries, bars and rain-slicked slums of a darkened, almost Dickensian city." Tim Pelan sings the praises of Carol Reed's Odd Man Out (1947).

"As time went on, I felt more in control of the thing, and stopped fearing that I was going to show myself – and all womenkind – up, by passing out from the heat, more relaxed and more appreciative of the experience. The engine is indeed a star. There were waving people on every bridge, and we passed a campsite with lots more waving people. I got so keen on waving back to them that I almost forgot my job." Stephanie Gaunt learns to drive a steam locomotive.

The Joy of Six 1513

"The taboo around the word 'membership' has been maintained not by principle but timidity. Farage built his project on lies. The least we can do is have the courage to tell the truth about what those lies have cost us in our classrooms, laboratories, training colleges, concert halls, and our standing in a world that badly needs Britain to be more than a bystander." Caroline Lucas goes where Certain Other Politicians fear to tread.

Barry Gardiner points to an important lesson of the Mandelson affair: "Most leaders surround themselves with people who tell them what they think they want to hear. Good leaders surround themselves with people who are not afraid to tell them the truth."

"Just as Hitler’s failures led him to resent the German people ever more strongly and destructively, we can expect Trump’s growing frustration to result in ever more nihilistic and destructive actions as his term moves toward its end." David R. Lurie warns about what may come next from Trump: 

Samantha Booth and Ruth Lucas report on worries that the effects of poverty and deprivation are being treating as Special Educational Needs, relocating what is a social problem in the psyches of individual children.

"The first exhibition space includes several of Eardley's social-realist figure depictions of 1950s inner-city Glaswegian children. The works have a joyful, raw, playful spirit to them, in spite of the squalid slum environment the children were living in. No artist has painted Glasgow's 'weans'  in the way that Eardley has." Blane Savage on the Joan Eardley exhibition at National Galleries Scotland: Modern Two.

John Connors pays tribute to Richard Carpenter's long career in children's television from Catweazle to I Was a Rat.

The Joy of Six 1481

"Other guests at the party included Mandelson’s good friend Nathaniel (Nat) Rothschild, a financier and heir to the Rothschild fortune (Mandelson often stayed at his villa in Corfu), and Rothschild’s old schoolmate, the then shadow chancellor George Osborne." Tamsin Shaw looks back to the Yachtgate scandal of 2008 and argues that we misread it at the time.

"Across the country, thousands of children are quietly lingering in ORR [Office of Refugee Resettlement] facilities, unable to reunite with parents or relatives because of new Trump administration policies limiting who can sponsor them. According to a class action lawsuit filed by immigration advocacy groups last week, children are 'being separated from their loving families, while the government denies their release, unnecessarily prolonging their detention'." Julia Lurie on the cruelty of the Trump regime.

Tanya Park believes Liberals should care about the collapse of serious Conservative journalism: "Not because the Spectator and the Daily Telegraph were ever friends to progressive politics (they weren't), but because a functioning liberal democracy depends on a press that engages honestly with reality across the political spectrum."

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols predicts that general-purpose AI will poison itself: "We're going to invest more and more in AI, right up to the point that model collapse hits hard and AI answers are so bad even a brain-dead CEO can't ignore it."

"Alcohol has its many downsides as I can attest having a childhood punctuated by my father’s alcoholism, but it lowers people’s inhibitions making them willing to talk. It’s why you’re more likely to spark up a conversation over an interesting cask beer instead of waxing lyrical to the person next to you about the smooth flavour of an Arabica coffee bean." When it comes to social cohesion, beer beats coffee, says David Jesudason.

Ian Jones reminds us that Kenneth Williams was never off the television: "Yet over the next two decades he failed repeatedly to be – in one of his catchphrases from the BBC radio show Round The Horne – 'properly serviced' by the small screen. Despite all that graft on stage, he never landed a leading role in a TV drama series. For all the comic virtuosity that poured out of him in the Carry On films and his radio series with Tony Hancock and Kenneth Horne, he not once played lead in a TV sitcom." 

The Joy of Six 1426

"Left to her own devices, Reeves would not be contemplating potentially highly damaging tax increases when the economy is weak. Likewise, she would be cutting interest rates more quickly than the Bank of England has been doing. But those decisions are not in her hands." Larry Elliott argues that the UK’s economic policy isn’t decided by politicians, but by the OBR and the Bank of England.

Adam Bienkov suggests the Caerphilly by-election result shows that Reform UK is much weaker than it looks.

Peter Apps wonders if Zurich’s housing cooperatives be the solution to the rest of Europe’s housing crisis,

"Wilson refused to infantilise her readers. She spoke to us as the mature, curious consumers of culture that we were. Wilson tackled the hard stuff – the intensity of first loves, body shame, grooming and survival – with humour and empathy from the point of view of complicated girls and the women who raised them." Liv Little says Jacqueline Wilson transformed British girlhood.

"Take Ron Cowan, a key player for his home side of Selkirk and the Scotland squad of the early 1960s. By 18 he became the youngest Scot to ever tour with the British and Irish lions. Any border rugby town would celebrate a career like this for generations to come. But instead, switching to play rugby league for Leeds was seen as betrayal, and meant his accolades were understated. In fact, they were overwritten. Discarded altogether." Lucy Anderson asks if rugby union owe rugby league an apology.

Mike Gibson tells the story of Fever-Tree and how the gin-and-tonic boom made it the UK's most valuable soft-drinks company.

The Joy of Six 1420

"'They are treated with the most appalling hostility at the border with officials laughing at them, and shouting,' says Rivka Shaw, policy officer at Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit. Once in a hostel, 'the adults can tell they are children and they are treated differently – adults take their food or fight with the.'" Martha Gill describes the treatment of teenage asylum-seekers.

Christopher Ketcham argues that the powers the British and American governments are using to suppress demonstrations have their origin in the War on Terror: "The question now is whether the Trump administration will continue to expand the use of terrorism material support statutes to go after protest of all kinds – whether for Palestine, for racial justice, or for climate and the environment."

"Business is all about risks and some people will inevitably fail. But the problem is that too many aspiring business owners are floundering unnecessarily. The task for government, business groups and others is to ensure that everyone, regardless of their background, has the chance to realise their entrepreneurial potential." Ben Dellot explains why entrepreneurship is still the preserve of the privileged.

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead reports on the Open Spaces Society's call on Emma Reynolds, the new environment secretary, to prioritise legislation for wider and fairer access to nature.

"Andy and Piper are real in a way characters in even upmarket horror films often aren’t: they have history, catchphrases, a spiky-yet-devoted relationship, and neither asks for special treatment because of their circumstances." Kim Newman was impressed by this summer's horror release Bring Her Back.

Jason Watts on the remarkable Anderton Boat Lift and his family's connections with it.

Photograph by Mike Peel.

GUEST POST What is the technical debt of Thames Water?

Peter Chambers introduces us to the concept of "technical debt" and asks why no one talks about it when it comes to Thames Water.

The term "technical debt" was applied to an effect in software engineering identified in the 1970s by Professor Manny Lehman. Lehman was trying to identify how the new field of software was similar to previous fields of engineering such as civil engineering, which deals with infrastructure and other hardware. 

It was intended to appeal, as a metaphor, to indicate future costs to rectify present-day design choices and externalities. Manny’s work was intended to help estimate the cost of large software projects in a better way than looking out of the window and saying something like, “I think it will be a million and a half”.

What seemed odd with technical debt during my years engineering was that technical people and their managers always seemed to state in the fashion of, “you will need new tyres and an oil change”.

This persists in news stories of the perfidy of Thames Water. Financial debt can be stated in legally definite ways in loan paperwork, including tax liabilities. Indeed, fiscal matters are often described as “ironclad”, or “rules”, and debated in sacred terms. They pertain to the rights of rich and powerful people. By contrast matters of the commons pertain to the rights of the people. Tragic.

Technical debt is mentioned in statements of the form, “It would take many years of work, skilled staff, new pumps, new pipes, a reservoir and a clean up plant to make the tree-huggers happy”.

This is odd for two reasons. First, the informal estimate of hardware and labour effort could be turned into a project plan and cost estimate fairly easily by qualified engineers. This would be done by a water company, by a third-party consultant, by the Environment Agency or by civil servants working for the Environment Secretary. 

Second, the regulatory theory used for water companies in the UK is termed "regulated asset base". If the assets to be regulated are subject to any technical debt, then why is this not explicitly accounted for to the regulators.

You might think that this financial translation of raw technical debt is very complicated. Yet it need not be. The example of doing car maintenance annually is understood by millions. 

The financial statement is often a 12-month Road Fund Licence, an annual MOT, a major or minor service and possibly some exceptional items. Depreciation and replacement can be calculated using accounting conventions used by millions of people. The detail of pumping stations etc. is greater, but is finite and can be handled by contract consulting firms who would have engineers and accountants on staff.

So, Ofwat, what is the Technical Debt of Thames Water? And why do you not know? Or tell us?

Peter Chambers is a Liberal Democrat member from Hampshire.

Poundland sold for less than £1

In what I think is a Liberal England first, the Financial Times wins our Headline of the Day Award.

The photograph shows a branch of the chain in Lincoln. The Lost Pubs Project says:

The Lion Hotel was situated at 169 High Street. This pub was present by 1826 and closed in 1988. It was also known as The White Lion.  It is now used as a branch of Poundland. At one time it contained a cattle pound for cattle that grazed Holmes Common.

The Joy of Six 1321

"In the past two weeks, Elon Musk - a man no one elected to any office - has gained unprecedented access to Social Security payment systems, fired federal workers, shuttered entire agencies, and installed his loyalists throughout the government. If this were happening in any other country, we'd call it what it is: a coup." Parker Molloy complains that the media is treating this outrage like standard political news.

Rachel Coldicutt asks what Musk's rampage through Washington means for Britain's technology policy.

"Something significant happened last week. The UK government forced the chair of the Competition and Markets Authority to resign. Marcus Bokkerink’s crime? Not being sufficiently 'pro-growth'. The chair of a regulator who is supposed to ensure a level playing field for businesses has been replaced by a former Amazon executive." Sue Hawley argues that Keir Starmer's drive to cut red tape could unleash a new wave of dirty money and corporate bad behaviour.

Jonathan Mills draws parallels between British universities today and British Leyland in the Seventies: "When an organisation's revenues fall, or look like they will ... panic sets in. The organisation starts looking at profitability and because it's all set up around departments in the first place, that's how management think in a crisis. Unproductive departments must go, so they look at the department accounts and pick a productive department with the least "profit", and close it. Wonderful! Next year will see a return to profit! Except that it doesn't."

José Vela Castillo introduces us to the revolutionary immigrant architects whose stories inspired Brady Corbet’s film The Brutalist.

"The rest of the cast exited and still we waited. Frankly, having stood there like lemons for nearly an hour we were on the brink of giving up but then we heard her trademark voice – a cross between an exultant yell and a prowling growl – and she came bowling out of the theatre, extravagantly gesturing and slightly fried. Correction: slaughtered. Thrilled, it seemed to us, to see two schoolboys anxious for her autograph, she threw herself upon us and to our amazement, we wound up walking her back to the Savoy." David Benedict on his meetings with Elaine Stritch.

The British Establishment is a House of Straw

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The witness before the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry these past two days has been has been Alice Perkins, who was chair of the Post Office board between 2011 and 2015.

She also became a director of the BBC in 2014, which made her position ticklish when Panorama began investigating the Horizon scandal.

As John Sweeney, journalist and now Liberal Democrat candidate for Sutton Coldfield, wrote in Byline Times in January, this mean that in May, June and July 2015, Perkins had:

lived with the mother of all conflicts of interest. I have trawled through the relevant BBC minutes for that period and I can find no declaration of it.

But I'm not alleging any wrongdoing here. Having listened to Perkins before the inquiry, I am sure that she will have simply forgotten that she was a director of the BBC.

Yes, she followed the pattern for appearing before the inquiry that was established by Post Office leaders. In a really tight corner, blame you underlings, and otherwise claim you don't remember.

If the Post Office is at all typical of the standard of British management, then this inquiry has laid bare a major reason for our poor economic performance.

Alice Perkins is married to Jack Straw, and is the mother of Will Straw CBE, mastermind of the useless Office Remain campaign in the EU referendum.