Kemi the attention seeker somehow always makes two plus two equal five | John Crace
Losing sleep over the war in Iran? Worried sick about the cost of living? Can’t pay your energy bills? Then relax.Because Kemi Badenoch has a displacement activity for you.It’s becoming increasingly easy to understand the Conservative leader by viewing her as a hyperactive five-year-old at the back of the class who is constantly disruptive.Who can’t get through a lesson without some kind of attention-seeking behaviour.Who has a constant desire to be indulged even though her first reactions are invariably wrong.
Who flies into a temper tantrum when anyone dares to challenge her.Take the war.When Kemi first heard that the US had declared war on Iran, her immediate thought was to join in.After all, America was an ally so therefore it was de facto a good idea to come to the aid of Donald Trump.Ay oh, let’s go.
The Blitzkrieg bop.She seemingly didn’t pause to think whether the war had a legal basis or whether there was any strategy towards an endgame.No consideration of the long-term effects of a protracted war.Like The Donald, she just assumed Iran would keel over inside a week.An easy win.
And great images of military targets being destroyed for her social media feeds.She had the urge to do something.So it might as well be a war.Then reality began to set in as various members of her shadow cabinet suggested that maybe an offensive war wasn’t such a good idea after all.The Americans had no real strategy, the president and Pete Hegseth were liabilities and the UK public wanted nothing to do with another conflict in the Middle East.
Least of all one in which the main beneficiary would be the Russians,So for the last few weeks Kemi has been getting increasingly tetchy as people failed to understand that when she had said she thought the UK should take a more proactive role in the attacks on Iran, what she had really meant was the UK should not take an offensive role in the attacks on Iran,And like any toddler in the middle of a major strop, the fault was invariably someone else’s,The problem was that we were all halfwits for failing to have understood that yes means no,Even when the evidence against her was clear, there was no arguing.
The displacement activity had just moved on and we were all left to play catchup.It’s been much the same story with energy bills.Though Kemi still hasn’t made the connection between her enthusiasm for the war and the rising costs of oil.Nor has she quite understood that Labour’s promise to freeze the fuel duty cut until September means that fuel duty won’t go up until September.If at all.
The small print is not her strong point.She has been acting as if fuel duty was going up immediately.Nor has she quite understood that it is not Keir Starmer who started the war and caused the cost of living crisis.The reality is that the rest of the world is paying a Trump tax as a reward for the American people having voted an unstable, not very clever sociopath into the White House.But Kemi can’t bear to be seen to do nothing.
A period of calm, thoughtful reflection is not her style.So yet again she has raced to make the wrong call.Ask her to add two plus two and she will somehow always get to five.Kemi has noticed there is an international shortage of oil and that the price per barrel is about $110.She has also noticed the UK has two depleted oilfields in the North Sea that could be exploited.
What she hasn’t noticed is that the Norwegians retained ownership of their oil while we sold ours off,So British North Sea oil and gas get traded at international prices,Meaning there is precisely no knock-on benefit to UK consumers of extracting more fossil fuels from the Rosebank and Jackdaw oilfields,But Kemi sees this as a major win for UK energy security,At least we can take pride in having expensive oil and gas that was extracted from close to home rather than using foreign muck.
It was pointed out to Kemi at the weekend that new drilling licences in the North Sea would not reduce people’s fuel bills,Something her shadow energy secretary, Claire Coutinho, understood only too well when she was in government,Claire also used to be fully committed to renewables and net zero,But not any more,So Kemi has a new tactic.
She understands that reopening the North Sea will do nothing to cut the cost of living.But she’s going to do it anyway.Yet another displacement activity.On Monday morning Kemi was to be found on an unused oil rig in dry dock in Aberdeen – write your own captions – echoing the Trump mantra of drill, baby, drill.There’s so much she doesn’t understand.
It’s as though she thinks you just turn on a tap somewhere off the Scottish coast and petrol starts overflowing from the pumps all over the UK.This time, though, she has a new trick of copying Reform plans to remove VAT from energy bills for three years and to cut green subsidies.Even though it’s renewables that offer the best long-term hope of energy self-sufficiency.Go figure.Strangely, Kemi also has plans to cut windfall taxes on oil and gas companies at the very moment they are making windfall profits.
It goes without saying the Tories’ costings leave a lot to be desired.But you try stopping Kemi being Kemi.Meanwhile, Starmer was in Wolverhampton for Labour’s local election launch that wasn’t a launch.More of an embarrassed mumble.These are the elections Labour rather wishes weren’t happening as it faces near wipeout.
Keir spoke for about 10 minutes, mainly about how he had been on the right side of the Iran war from the start.Sadly for him, that probably won’t make a difference.He then took no questions from the media and the event petered out.Most of the cabinet had made the effort to travel to the Midlands and they looked bewildered.Why had they been made to come? None of us will ever know.
How many sweeteners does JP Morgan need to build an office in Canary Wharf? | Nils Pratley
The way Rachel Reeves told it last November after her budget, it seemed to be a done deal that JP Morgan would build a 279,000 sq metre (3m sq ft) tower in Canary Wharf to serve as its European headquarters. The chancellor was “thrilled” the Wall Street bank had chosen London and hailed “a multibillion-pound vote of confidence in the UK economy and this government’s plans for growth”.And, to be fair to Reeves, Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan’s big boss, also presented the plan as final. “The UK government’s priority of economic growth has been a critical factor in helping us make this decision,” he said.One did not have to be overly cynical to wonder whether Dimon had waited to give the green light until Reeves had confirmed her tax-raising budget would not introduce fresh levies on banks
British Steel on track to be fully nationalised within weeks
British Steel is on track to be fully nationalised within weeks, the Guardian understands, a year after the government took over the daily running of the loss-making business from its Chinese owner.The steelmaker, which employs 3,500 people at its plant in Scunthorpe, was taken under government control last April amid fears that the owner Jingye was planning to shut down the site.British Steel operates the last two remaining blast furnaces in the UK but it is still economically controlled by the Chinese company, which bought it out of insolvency in early 2020.Ministers moved to designate the steel industry as vital to national security last week, which could clear the way for a nationalisation on those grounds, a source with knowledge of the matter said.They are understood to have offered £100m to Jingye for British Steel earlier this month but were rebuffed
‘Soon publishers won’t stand a chance’: literary world in struggle to detect AI-written books
Recently, the literary agent Kate Nash started noticing that the submission letters she was receiving from authors were becoming more thorough – albeit also more formulaic.“I took it as a rise in diligence,” she said. “I thought it was a good thing.”But then she had what she described as her eureka moment: the letter with the AI prompt right at the top. “It read: ‘Rewrite my query letter for Kate Nash including a comp to a writer she represents,’” she said
‘Our assumptions are broken’: how fraudulent church data revealed AI’s threat to polling
If you had been keeping tabs on the news about church attendance in Britain lately, you would be forgiven for thinking the country was in the midst of a Christian revival.Stories of swelling congregations, filled with young people returning to the flock, spurred on by everything from social media to a rise in bible sales appeared to be confirmed by a 2024 report from the Bible Society.Based on data collected by a YouGov survey, it claimed church attendance was increasing in England and Wales. The findings drove headlines, and the narrative was established.There was just one problem – the survey turned out to be based on “fraudulent” data and has been withdrawn
F1 must find answers to safety crisis after Bearman’s escape but there are no easy fixes | Giles Richards
Oliver Bearman emerging unhurt from a huge accident at the Japanese Grand Prix was considered a lucky escape. Formula One must think it is catching a break given there is a full month to work out how best to reduce the chance of such an incident happening again. F1 is going to need every minute of that time given the complexity of the problem.Bearman’s Haas car was travelling at 307kph (191mph) when he was forced to veer off‑track as he came up behind the relatively slow moving Alpine of Franco Colapinto. The closing speed between the two cars was 50kph, a frightening pace
Worcestershire overseas signing leaves one-day final early to catch flight to England
Worcestershire’s new overseas signing has arrived under a cloud after leaving a one-day final in South Africa in order to catch his flight to England. Beyers Swanepoel was playing for Lions against Titans on Sunday when, according to a report by Times Live, he set off for the airport “around the 43rd over” of the second innings without informing his teammates as to why. It was widely assumed he had picked up an injury.The all-rounder had bowled his full allocation of 10 overs, but because there was no injury, Lions were denied a substitute fielder for the final stages of the match. Titans went on to chase down the target with a ball to spare
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