Is it correct?

More Andrew-related opinion 🙀 [that's a cat sighing]. The Times leader on Saturday discussed the saga and included the phrase "It is correct that the couple's daughters, Eugenie and Beatrice, caught up in this drama through little fault of their own, remain princesses." What? Are they 8yos, crying themselves to sleep at night if they are no longer princesses? These are mature women in their late 30s who contribute little or nothing to British public life and the only justification for their grandiose titles is the technicality of being the offspring of a person who is the son of a monarch.

But my issue isn't about these two women - I couldn't care less about them. My problem is with my newspaper. It's reasonable to expect reasoned argument from the leader writers. "It is correct" is stated as though it's fact. It's the kind of specious assertion I'd expect in the Sun, Express or Guardian. Not from the erudite journal of record. You need to say why it is correct.

And "through little fault of their own"? Little? Not "no fault". Is the Times implying that these young women could have had some influence on their father's behaviour?

Honestly, if they have any moral integrity, they should renounce their Princess-ships and we would all recognise they've progressed beyond the age of 8.

That's enough on this sorry tale.

Footy updates 2025/20

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Recent matches:

EFL Cup 4th round:

Wycombe 1 Fulham 1 (Fulham won on penalties)
An excellent effort against a Premier League team

Arsenal 2 Brighton 0

Really nice to see a 15yo and a 17yo make their first starts

Newcastle 2 Tottenham 0

Spurs' first away defeat of the season

The draw for the quarter finals: Arsenal v Crystal Palace

Also a match I didn't expect (it's apparently in the Challenge Cup, whatever that is):

Whitstable 2 Bearsted 3
Bearsted are Whitstable's main challengers for the league title

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My forecasts for this weekend: (and ChatGPT's):

Burnley 0 Arsenal 3 CGPT: 1-3

Charlton 1 Swansea 1 CGPT: 2-1

QPR 1 Ipswich 1 CGPT: 2-1

Wycombe 1 Plymouth 0 CGPT: 2-2

Fisher 1 Whitstable 4 CGPT: 0-3

Tottenham 1 Chelsea 1 CGPT: 1-2

**EDIT - The Womens Super League is back after an international break

Leicester Women 0 Arsenal Women 2 CGPT: 1-3

Floating budgets

It seems to have become common practice for the Treasury to "leak" possible budget measures to see what reactions ensue - from economists, political parties, the media, lobbying groups - without necessarily intending to include them in the budget.

It started with George Osbourne. He leaked the pasty tax proposal; cue high street (and Cornish) anger, leading to a much milder form in the actual budget of 2012. Ditto a "caravan tax", which enraged Conservative voters and their MPs and never appeared in the budget. In an earlier budget the department floated information about child benefit and welfare cuts; the responses enabled him to decide which, and to what extent, measures were finally enacted. The practice has continued through Philip Hammond, Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt.

Now Rachel Reeves is at it. In recent weeks we've heard about freezing tax thresholds, property and wealth taxes, breaching manifesto promises and pension entitlements.

This is no way to run a government. In the old days (cue 1970s sound track) the concept of budget purdah prevailed - no knowledge of budget proposals outside a small government circle and definitely no discussing of, publishing of or even hinting at them before budget day. MPs of all parties were not "in the know". The rationale was to protect markets from insider knowledge, respect Parliament’s primacy and to avoid confusion and pre-emptive lobbying. In other words, grown up government rather than schoolboy politics. Gordon Brown was the last to adhere to the traditional secrecy, allegedly to the nth degree.

The old ways feel better, don't you think?

Shabs and Streets

This is not a post about football. Just thought I'd get that in before I lose half my audience. It's also not about chess. However, I have to start with a reference to a chess-playing footballer, otherwise you wouldn't understand the title. 

Eberichi Eze is a top class footballer who plays for England's best team - Arsenal - in the Premier League. He is also a competition-winning chess player. And his friends call him "Ebs".

Now you get it - the title refers to Shabana Mahmood and Wes Streeting. Get it?

Why am I talking about them? Because, in my opinion, the survival of the Labour Party as an electoral force may well depend on them. It's hard to know how Cabinet Ministers are performing; it's a complex job and most of the work they do is in the background but they are most often judged by their public performances. My (completely uninformed) instinct is that the Prime Minister has actually got the best people into these two key Cabinet posts. Solve the NHS and the Home Office/immigration problems and the rest is fluff. No-one cares about Gaza, Ukraine, football regulators, fiscal rules and the like when they vote. Get me a GP appointment, rapid cancer tests, shorter waiting lists, stop the boats, process asylum seekers quickly and fairly and....we'll vote for you. And just maybe the workforce will become more productive.

You might argue that economic issues like taxation levels and the price of food will carry huge weight but it just feels there's no quick fix; the economy will take longer than five years to get back on track. The same is probably true of housing: you almost certainly can't get enough houses built to meet the target of 1.5 million. Welfare entitlements/benefits is such a fraught issue that the politics vs economics will thwart real progress.

Then there's defence spending. No-one seriously believes the Russians are going to invade the UK (or that, if they did, their management of the country would be any worse than what we already have), so a target of spending 5% of GDP on nuclear missiles, aircraft carriers, drones and the like just seems to "working people" like a colossal waste of money which could better be spent on more urgent things.

I'm not saying the economy doesn't matter. I'm not saying security doesn't matter. I'm not saying you shouldn't at least try to solve the problems with housing and benefits. It's just that people matter and their lives are constrained by so many negatives at the moment that a few simple (I'm not saying easy) NHS and immigration solutions could make the world of difference to how the country feels. And if they feel better, there's at least a chance they'll vote for you.

So, Shabs and Streets, I'm with you. See it, say it, sort it.

You can't blame Brexit

Rachel Reeves recently "outed" Brexit. At an investment summit in Birmingham she said “The Office for Budget Responsibility do the forecasts for the economy. When we left the European Union, or when we voted to leave, they made an estimate about the impact that would have. What they’ve done this summer is go back to all of their forecasts and look at what actually happened compared to what they forecast. What that shows – and what they will set out – is that the economy has been weaker and productivity has been weaker than they forecast, despite the fact that they forecast that the economy would be weaker because of leaving the EU."

So are you saying there's nothing we can do about it? That Brexit has made us worse off and we just have to suck it up?

That's dishonest. If you say - and believe - that a Brexit Britain is intrinsically poorer than a not-Brexit Britain, isn't the logical thing to do something about that? Isn't it possible that proposing reuniting with the EU, or some aspect of that such as re-joining the Customs Union, could completely change the prospects of a left of centre government/coalition defeating the forces of the right at the next election? Could Labour really be bold enough to say "it hasn't worked so we need to reverse the referendum decision" as the central plank of their 2029 election campaign? I recently posted about rolling referendums or at least some clarity on repeat referendums but I'm not proposing a referendum. My proposal would be that a single issue "unBrexit" election would have exactly the same decisive effect as the 2019 Brexit election: a sea change.

I'm not saying any of that would be easy and I'm not saying that I believe it is the right thing to do. I'm just saying that political thought at the moment in the UK is dominated by the populist agenda and there is no counter-insurgency. The "centre ground" has become muddied by the belief that you have to fight populism on its own turf; maybe switching to a proactive, visionary approach could be more effective.

Could it work? Would the EU even want us back? Who knows. But it would be a clear differentiator which voters could understand as a positive vision for the future of the country. It could be a "dead cat" moment [no offence to cats] which distracts voters from the "mess" they think the country is in. Politically for Labour, it would establish clear water between them and Reform/Tory and would go some way towards negating pressure from the LibDems/Greens/nationalists ("we are the only de-Brexit party who can actually make it happen").

Does Labour even have a Boris figure who could make it happen? Not sure. Suggestions?

The Castle of Mey

The Castle of Mey. The solution to the King's problem.

The name of the problem is Andrew. Still a Prince, I believe. If I were the King (and I'm with Boris on this; it's a highly desirable life option) I'd be looking hard at where I would like him to live. Number one criterion is...as far away from me as possible. Hence the Castle of Mey, which is a few miles away from John o' Groats.700 miles away from London, only 200 from Norway.

The north of Scotland has a rich history with Norway so it's perfectly possible we could persuade Norway to annex that small portion of the north east coast of Scotland, in which case Andrew would be a Norway resident and they might even allow him to be extradited to the USA to give evidence in the Epstein/Maxwell investigation.

It should be easy to persuade Andrew of this. Large house? Tick - according to the Times it has 38 rooms including 15 bedrooms; not at all sure what he'd do with those but I'm guessing he would come up with some ideas. Grand living? Tick - it's a castle, for goodness sake. Title? You could call him King Of The North, which would have the additional advantage of annoying Andy Burnham. Two ticks.

Then there's the referendum. The next time there is one on Scottish independence, the King could legitimately campaign for the Yes camp, as "my brother is available to be your King". In which case, again, the extradition possibility comes into play.

You need to know how to play to people's egos, Charles.