Concrete Achievements

Author: Anthony Zacharzewski

  • Links from the week of 8 August 2022

    Articles, reports and other links I shared on Twitter this week.

  • Links from the week of 1 August 2022

    Articles, reports and other links I shared on Twitter this week.

  • Saying the quiet part of the funding formula out loud

    Saying the quiet part of the funding formula out loud. twitter.com/REWearmouth/st…

    There is genuinely never enough money, so there will be people in T Wells who have legitimate things that they would want to spend things on – it’s not just repainting the war memorial – but prioritisation is all of politics.

    (I used to live in Wadhurst, where Tunbridge Wells was seen as more or less the same as South Central LA)

    It also reminds me of a meeting I had as an official with the econ devt lead in one of England’s richest LAs, with no deprivation and negative unemployment. His complaint: development funding should be spread more equally.

  • Regulatory independence (inc on immigration) is the one unqualified benefit of Brexit…

    Regulatory independence (inc on immigration) is the one unqualified benefit of Brexit, bought at a cost in trade, rights and investment. So this might be a good thing. twitter.com/TheScotsman/st…

    The problems are
    (1) does the British state have capacity to make all these judgements consistently better than the better-resourced EU (maybe)
    (2) does the public like the idea of lower regulation on chemicals (doubt it)
    (3) do companies want to have two processes, one for

    the UK market with one range of chemicals and one for the EU market with a different range (almost certainly not, so an EU ban is an effective UK ban, but without a say for the UK.
    I suspect a lot of Brexiteers have in their heads that the UK is just in some hand-wavy way

    better at this than the Europeans, or ready to take a risk that will pay off. There’s certainly not much more democracy in obscure regulatory decisions shifting from Brussels to London.

    So even where Brexit is working as promised, the question is #WasItWorthIt.

  • Have had an enjoyable #be2107 national day around Brussels.

    Have had an enjoyable #be2107 national day around Brussels. A few random thoughts: Europe is much more present even on a *national* day – the King and military saluting the European anthem as well as the Brabançonne, EU flags alongside 🇧🇪 outside the palace.

    Video on Twitter

    Even the EU stars on the defence crest (don’t tell Liz Truss). A bilingual pop concert in the park with lots of the artists interviewed talking about multilingualism and @aliceontheroof calling for more cultural crossover between French and Dutch language worlds.

    Perhaps I’m Pollyanna-ish but I do have a sense of a growing Belgian identity that is explicitly bi/multi-lingual and bi/multi-cultural. It’s not much reflected in politics but more an emerging cultural space that politics could either kill or support.

    After the king’s speech yesterday I also noticed politicians today leaning on inclusion, solidarity and cohesion – though of course if you need to say it …

    Anyway, very rough impressions after a couple of beers, and with the caveat that I might have said the same about the UK a decade ago and now look at it being crucified by the English nationalist project – who knows what the future holds.

    In any case, it’s good to go to bed optimistic, and sometimes the social shift moves towards diversity and inclusion.

    Video on Twitter

  • I’ve said it before but I’m always surprised by how political the King’s speeches are…

    I’ve said it before but I’m always surprised by how political the King’s speeches are, compared to the UK. Today’s (for tomorrow’s fête nationale/nationale feestdag) talks about preventing the growth of inequality, solidarity inside the EU… vrt.be/vrtnws/fr/2022…

    “language that federates rather than divides”, a social model based on inclusion, and the need for an unshakeable commitment to democracy. I agree with a lot of it, so clearly the King is woke, and it isn’t partisan political, but it feels odd from a hereditary office holder.

    Democratic outrage at political influence of hereditary office / pro-solidarity and democracy messages from head of state

    Video on Twitter

  • Links from the week of 18 July 2022

    Articles, reports and other links I shared on Twitter this week.

  • Watching Penny Mordaunt and impressed with her strategy of “I’ll tell you what I’ll do…

    Watching Penny Mordaunt and impressed with her strategy of “I’ll tell you what I’ll do after I’ve won”. #marr

    “I know that you’re going to ask me a lot of questions, Sophie but it would be wrong for me to answer them.” [not an actual quote, but a fair summary]

    [Video of her directly lying is played] “This is an example of the campaign we were up against.”

    [Lying intensifies]

    I see why Mordaunt is the continuity Johnson candidate.

  • Links from the week of 11 July 2022

    Articles, reports and other links I shared on Twitter this week.

  • I think this is spot on from today’s ⁦@TheEconomist⁩ but the reason this was possible is…

    I think this is spot on from today’s ⁦@TheEconomist⁩ but the reason this was possible is a failed media-political culture that focused on horse race and both-sidesism rather than scrutiny and challenge.

    And scrutiny of policy was replaced by either Paxman-style shouting or breathless court journalism, both of which make politics all about the personality across the table rather than the ideas or policies they are standing for.

    Everyone with five minutes policy experience saw that Brexit could not succeed politically or in policy terms except at a huge price that had never been presented to voters. Where was the challenge? Opinion pages of the FT don’t count.

    There is an enormous reckoning needed in British media and politics and now the fever is starting to pass the UK needs to look at what cultures and process need to be put in place to prevent this sort of system collapse ever happening again.