There is chaos in the ranks of the Labour Party. Everybody knows and besides, as my late mother-in-law used to say, it was in the Telegraph so it must be true.
And yes there is certainly a great deal of disagreement within the party at all levels. Allegations from MPs who should know better about the way a local election was handled in Totnes must be music to the ears of the rightwing media (is there any other sort these days?), despite the fact that the way it was described differs from the truth in some quite significant ways. The MPs claim that the CLP has been taken over by Corbynistas when it would appear that the very opposite is true and the CLP steadfastly refused to support a Corbyn supporter in her attempts to be the Labour candidate in the by-election, resulting in her standing as an independent.
I am apparently a thug, an entryist, a trot, a member of militant and presumably an all round bad egg. I'm not sure exactly what an entryist is... oh, just looked it up and it turns out I am not an entryist after all. Entryist in this context is a member of Momentum who has been instructed to join the Labour Party and infiltrate their ranks. Sorry but I joined the party first and then decided to join Momentum too as they seemed to be pursuing the same agenda as me. Does that make me a back-entryist?
Presumably members of the Church of England who join the Conservative party are entryists, not that they are ever described thus. I note that they have been signally unsuccessful in bringing any sort of Christian ethos to the Tory party, so even if they are we don't have to worry about them.
Meanwhile back at Tory HQ all is presumably sweetness and light, everybody pulling in the same direction, steered by that safe pair of hands which is Mrs May, our very own Mother Theresa. Well that's clearly what they and the media would like you to believe but yesterday an announcement was made which clearly blows this concept clear out of the water.
On Thursday we were told that finally after much soul searching French energy company EDF had approved the financing of the Hinkley Point C project at a board meeting. It was a close run thing. Many people within the organisation were not convinced the project was a good idea, some of the technology was untried and may not work and the budget could easily over-run. Well let's face it it wouldn't be a real budget if it didn't. In the end it received approval by seven votes to ten and the resignation of two board members.
A safe pair of hands? Let's examine the facts. In what was one of her first parliamentary pronouncements Mrs May said unequivocally that she would be willing to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians if we were attacked by nuclear weapons. Exactly the sort of statement to give Express and Mail readers a mild orgasm. The men were immediately transported back to the nursery and Nanny whom they adored. The women because here was one of them proving when compared to men they can be equally unpleasant. Hooray!
Mrs May was on pretty safe ground here. She knows that there is little likelihood of a nuclear attack, and in the chaos if it did happen, no-one would know whether or not she did press the button, or whatever it is you have to do to unleash weapons of mass destruction. If she didn't there wouldn't be many people left to hold her to account and those who were still alive would probably have other things to worry about.
Now let us look at two other, more real and more pressing issues that Mrs May has had to deal with in the first couple of weeks of her premiership.
Firstly Brexit. A loathsome name for a loathsome concept. Despite anything the Express may say on the matter it is fairly clear that it is going to be a mess and businesses, and by implication those employed by them, are going to suffer.
One thing we do know is that Brexit means Brexit. How do we know? Well Mrs May told us. The only problem is that nobody knows what Brexit means. It's about as meaningless a phrase as 7=7. This is self evidently true yet tells us no more about what makes seven seven; what constitutes sevenness, what for example makes seven different from six or eighty three. Certainly from her actions so far it is clear that Mrs May does not think that Brexit means a straightforward leaving of the EU. Not only that but she has told us that no decision to invoke Article 50 will be made until the new year. Mrs May is so worried about what effect her actions might have that she is putting off making a decision.
The important thing about having a good pair of hands is that you can catch anything that is thrown at you. Brexit can hardly be a surprise, after all that is the sole reason that Mrs May is Prime Minister and not still Justice Secretary, yet here she is saying, sorry, wasn't ready for that one, could you throw it to me again, maybe next year.
Secondly Hinkley Point C. This ball has been in the air for such a long time that she must have seen it. Yet once again she holds up her hand and says, sorry, wasn't ready for that one, could you throw it to me again, maybe in the Autumn.
Philip Hammond must be absolutely livid. He always looks a bit of a prick, but the way she made him look on TV made him look like the todger on the Cerne Abbas Giant. There he was telling the nation that we were just waiting for final confirmation for EDF and then we would sign the contract. The Chinese were here ready, the marquees were up, I'm sure there would have been bunting, and then Mrs May pipes up with: Hang on a minute... be with you in a minute... just checking my diary... look can we make it some time in the Autumn...? Sorry about that.
This is leadership. This is a safe pair of hands. Imagine what the media would have said if Corbyn had been Prime Minister.
At this point I should say that I am very conflicted about Hinkley C. Our house is powered entirely by electricity, so I understand the importance of generating it. I understand the problems with using fossil fuels. I also understand the problems of dealing with nuclear waste, although fortunately I will be dead before the waste produced by Hinkley C becomes a problem.
Mrs Green and I buy our electricity from Good Energy which claims to be 100% renewable, although how they can tell escapes me. I am very much in favour of renewable energy but until we devise a proper method of storing it we will always be subject to the vagaries of the weather. I quite like the idea of building tidal barrages across our estuaries but I am also aware of the ecological impact this will have. The plain truth is we are suffering from chronic underfunding in the power generation sector, which I am sure is a direct consequence of its privatisation.
If we don't build Hinkley C we a probably buggered because it is planned to go on line in 2025, just as we turn off the last of our coal fired stations. Given that Hinkley C will inevitably over-run both its cost and time scale predictions 2025 doesn't look too rosy either way.
Mrs May's response to this was to put off making the decision. By the Autumn there may be no offer on the table. EDF are already really not keen and given this excuse they might just withdraw their offer completely.
I understand Mrs May's predicament, but I am not Prime Minister and I did not put myself forward for a job where I would be called on to make this kind of decision. I suspect she doesn't want to go down in history as the PM who took the UK out of the EU, thus possibly triggering a break-up of the UK and also as the PM who gave the green light to the biggest white elephant in the history of power generation, while simultaneously allowing the Chinese access to the National Grid.
Welcome to the real world Theresa.
Love Tim xx
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