Professor Christopher Painter
@prfchrispainter.bsky.social
Politics and statecraft. Beware of blind alleys serving nefarious interests. Emeritus Professor, BCU. Posts in a personal capacity, as an academic and citizen.
This is not 'pragmatism'. It is gross irresponsibility in view of the extreme weather events of this Summer. It will merely add to the net global sum of carbon emissions, when the imperative is to do exactly the opposite. www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Burnham promises ‘pragmatic’ approach to North Sea oil and gas
PM tells reporters the government cannot ignore the energy resource ‘when people are struggling’
theguardian.com
Political bounces these days two a penny. What that suggests is voters are attracted to novelty, looking for immediate outcomes well nigh impossible to deliver, given prevailing financial and geopolitical realities. Marginal resource shifts are no substitute for longer-term structural reforms.
Starmer got it right on Ukraine; Trump fundamentally mis-read the omens. Starmer got it right on Iran; Trump, by contrast, sinking in a quagmire of forever Middle East wars.
Everything touched by 2nd Trump presidency has proved a fiasco: DOGE: ICE; tariff policy; fossil fuels; undermined confidence in vaccines; cultural dumbing down; alienated allies; claiming Ukraine had no cards to play; Middle East intervention; Board of Peace; and corrupting FIFA World Cup rules.
The world will only become a safer place once Netanyahu, Putin and Trump have all been removed from office. They are looking politically vulnerable, because of the impact on themselves, but also on each other, of their respective strategic military follies.
A fly on the wall insight on just one dimension of the fractured world in which Starmer had to try to effectively operate: Trump's White House cesspit. Shocking, even withstanding all that we already know. Tina Brown on Trump’s second term observer.co.uk/culture/book...
Tina Brown on Trump’s second term | The Observer
The former New Yorker editor reads the definitive account of how the 47th president learned to govern on impulse, greed and revenge
observer.co.uk
Good to see a front-line commentator pouring cold water on the fatally flawed idea of a Burnham coronation. Remember Gordon! Why Labour should take a beat before parachuting in Andy Burnham observer.co.uk/news/columni...
Remember Gordon! Why Labour should take a beat before par...
There are considerable risks to installing the new MP for Makerfield at Number 10 without a searching test of his mettle
observer.co.uk
Precedents suggest those constantly on manoeuvres to occupy the highest political office in the land rarely turn out to be the national saviours they perceive themselves to be.
It's now becoming abundantly clear not only that Trump's intervention in the Middle East turned out to be an embarrassing strategic calamity for the United States, but also that Trump is losing his bet on Putin having the stronger hand in Ukraine.
A very welcome piece demonstrating how far-right culture war claims are driven by ideology not evidence. The real threat to civilisation is when we allow these ideologues to erase the truth. observer.co.uk/news/politic...
‘Two-tier Britain’? The reality is far more complicated t...
The idea of “two-tier” public services has been weaponised by right-wingers wanting to whip up “pure cold rage” against immigrants, but in so many areas the concept simply does not stand up to scrutin...
observer.co.uk
Badenoch chasing Farage; Farage chasing Lowe; Lowe chasing Robinson. All chasing one another in a downward, self-defeating and ugly spiral.
The D-Day landings were infinitely more successful than the debaclè over which Hegseth has presided in the Middle East! BBC News - Hegseth attacks Europe over migration with beach 'invasion' D-Day speech www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Hegseth attacks Europe over migration with beach 'invasion' D-Day speech
The US defence secretary was speaking in Normandy, 82 years after allied forces launched their operation to liberate Nazi-occupied north-western Europe.
bbc.co.uk
Farage has done untold damage to the British economy by being instrumental in Brexit; enormous damage to British society by inflaming ethnic tensions; and incalculable damage to the probity of British politics by countenancing obscene levels of funding from disreputable sources.
Trump badly miscalculated over Iran. Looks like same may apply by cosying up to Putin over Ukraine. Despite continuing deadly bombardments, aerial attacks against determined adversaries cannot compensate for lack of success in a ground campaign. It's Putin who is increasingly the desperate one.
If Burnham finds his way into Downing Street then, yes, there is a high probability that Labour will revert to its comfort zone. It doesn't take too much imagination - or advice from former Prime Ministers - to work out the likely consequences of that for general election outcomes.
What the renowned 20th C philosopher, Bertrand Russell, observed about far right politicians: "first, they fascinate the fools. Then they muzzle the intelligent."
The political chameleon that is Andy Burnham. So much so that his commitment to 'change' the Labour Party now entails endorsing most of the strategic policy positions of the Starmer Government. observer.co.uk/news/politic...
Whatever your fantasy of the perfect Labour leader, Andy ...
The mayor of Manchester’s critics see him as an opportunistic chameleon, but it’s exactly this pragmatism that appeals to his supporters
observer.co.uk
The political language that Burnham deploys is redolent of a country long passed into history. The UK is highly pluralist, using whichever criteria, but including socioeconomic indices. Romanticised notions of working class belong to Orwell's Britain, not its 21st C variant.
Having run aground in the Middle East, Trump looking for another country he can bully without consequence. The hot favourite is Cuba.
Streeting and Burnham: we need to be back in EU: not any day soon; but one day; in the long term. Sounds remarkably like the very incrementalism they are supposed to despise. And now Burnham appears to have done a complete U-turn on rejoining the EU!
The Political and Media Myopia That Has Paralysed Keir Starmer’s Government Distorted and biased media coverage and short-sighted politics in Westminster have both prevented Starmer's Government from reaching its potential, argues Professor Chris Painter
The Political and Media Myopia That Has Paralysed Keir Starmer’s Government
Distorted and biased media coverage and short-sighted politics in Westminster have both prevented Starmer's Government from reaching its potential, argues Professor Chris Painter
bylinetimes.com
The latest leadership instability is as much a crisis over the ethos of political journalism in this country as a trauma for the UK's political system.
Trump and his 'peace envoys' have become almost superflous to the situation in Ukraine. They have few cards left to deal in doing Putin's bidding. That country is showing an increasing capability to determine its own future with the support of European allies.
Every advance of the nationalist right makes the world a more uncertain, unsafe place, leading to yet more economic dislocation. Everyone suffers, but especially those from demographic groups most likely to vote Reform - as already seen from the impact of Brexit.
Whether it be financial scandals or related conflicts of interest. A dysfunctional running of local authorities they already control, with high councillor attrition rates and poisonous in-fighting. Or seeking to replicate the chaos Trumpism has unleashed on US in the UK. Reform is the toxic vote.
The spike in UK government borrowing costs should concentrate minds. It is just a foretaste of what is to come if there is protracted political instability over coming weeks.
King Charles in Washington. A triumphal articulation of the chasm between British and Trumpian values. Trump reduced to the petty political pygmy that is his real essence.
The political circus continues in Trump's America. Nothing is quite what it seems!!
An on-going security threat in Europe from Putin's Russia; turmoil in Middle East; a US President in severe cognitive decline whose idiocy is causing yet another energy crisis; climate emergency accelerating. What's the obsession of the UK media! Who said/did what, when over Mandelson's appointment.
