Capitalists at Work

With the passing of David Hockney we have lost something precious: a master of his work. I tend to think there are three pre-requisites for genuine artistry: that the artist should first be a complete master of the technicalities - craft before art; that they should have a fine eye (or ear) for abstraction; and boundless productivity. Some might way that Vermeer provides a counter-example to the third of these, but I'd say that's a rarity. Hockney had it all.

Toughing things out isn't quite the same as playing for time, although the latter (an intellectually very dull strategy, but often effective) can be part of it. One reason it can work for the obdurate party is that an awful lot of opponents have read their Sun Tzu and are hoping to gain their victory by manoeuvre and psychology alone, i.e. without bloodshed - which involves the incumbent vacating the battlefield before any clash of main forces.

A couple of worthwhile calls on your time today. Let's take the lighter one first. From the mercurial AEP, whose regular output on energy-related issue is Pollyanna-ish net zero bilge, a lengthy take-down of the deep impracticalities of the putative AI boom as it is currently envisaged. The energy aspect is of course one major strand; cooling-water is another, and the emptiness of "OK, well we'll just build our own gas-fired power plants instead".

Watching Burnham's by-election purely as a spectator, I have no feel whatever for what's happening on the ground (rarely do the pundits either, these days). But one or two things stand out rather clearly: things that might not have been expected even just a month ago - which just goes to show. >  Burnham makes a pretty unconvincing King Across the Water / saviour of the nation. He comes across as an odd combination of entitled, nervous and petulant. Is he simply going to win anyhow? Who can judge?

BP is a genuine puzzle. How can an enormous company of considerable long standing with some seriously impressive attributes, be so maladroit in its senior appointments? With the summary eviction of Mr Manifold[1], BP will have had 3 chairs and 5 CEOs since 2020, and a heap of embarrassment. This is a crazy level of volatility at the top. It's not a company I have definitive views on; but inevitably I have had loads of dealings with them over my decades in the industry.

An odd barb sometimes thrown in this blog's direction (from who-knows-what troll factory) is that since Russia's invasion of Ukraine four years ago (four!) we have been predicting the imminent collapse of Russia itself. Well, we haven't. Ever. In fact, right from the start we have said that ultimately there's nothing to stop Putin taking Ukraine if he really wants to - which, if anything, was far too generous to L'il Volodya and his ramshackle army.

A bit of a plate-spinner here, pre-scheduled. I⁴'ve been meaning to open this one up for a while now but, well, events. So:  judge-only trials for criminal offences? OK, Lammy isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer [1] but then again, Justice Delayed is Justice Denied; and the backlog in the courts is appalling. Balancing the system by waiting for victims and witnesses to lose heart (or die) is no way to dispense justice. The guilty go free by default and simple delaying tactics.

I'm off on a short hol, but I leave you with my view - a prediction that has been simmering for 18 months, as you know (check the Mili tag). It's clear enough why Streeting might feel his only chance (ever) is to move now He may get 80 signatures, but he won't get elected Not sure if Starmer will stand and fight - John Major did (and won), but that was different in material ways In any case, if Streeting moves, Miliband wins Have fun. If I can find some wifi in a few days time, I might join in.

Not as much fun as you thought? Having long suggested that Team Starmer fully intends to tough it out - and they had plenty of advanced notice and planning time [1] for this crisis, at least - that's how it still seems, & strongly so, at the time of writing. There's only one oven-ready candidate in the wings, with no "anyone but [Wes]" votes against him: our old pick Ed Miliband. Team S is pursuing what I call the Sierra Strategy when I'm strategising in business.

... here's what happened in my manor (Croydon) in the Elected Mayor stakes: Yup, at first glance it appears Reform dented the Tories a lot less than the Greens dented Labour. It was an interesting campaign. The Tory Mayor (whose majority last time was even slimmer) is a solid, worthy and honourable guy, who was dealt a dreadful hand by the outgoing Labour regime that had bankrupted the borough to what I believe to be the deepest degree in the annals of UK local government failures.