Numerous civil servants remember their first encounter with Labour ministers last year, says Ed West on Substack. Britain’s new rulers walked into their departments, traded pleasantries with officials, then asked for “ideas about how to run the country”. The mandarins were confused: “That’s your job, minister.” Eighteen months on, Keir Starmer is the least popular prime minister in history, leading a party polling in the teens. Bookies strongly favour his resignation by the end of next year. As a conservative, I feared Labour would do lasting damage while bribing and flattering enough of the electorate to succeed politically. “Luckily, I was too pessimistic, and things are even worse than I expected.”

People complain about career politicians. Starmer has the opposite problem. He is notably bad at managing his MPs – he hasn’t even met some of them and apparently can’t remember their names. (Tony Blair was brilliant at this. His trick was to repeat someone’s name several times early in a conversation; it always stuck.) Admittedly, Starmer has a talent problem aggravated by the Corbyn era, which left hordes of MPs from trade unions and charities. These folk spent so long saying fashionable, popular things that they now have no stomach for doing necessary, unfashionable ones – hence their rejection of last summer’s welfare cuts. Why was this a surprise? Media scrutiny of Labour was so poor before the election that one hedge fund commissioned its own report – who would the MPs be, what were their policies, etc. Its conclusion was, essentially: “There is no plan, there is no vision, and they’re not going to succeed because they don’t have the talent.” The fund took a short position on UK gilts, essentially betting that Britain’s borrowing costs would rise. “They made a lot of money.”

🤝🖋️ Starmer is, belatedly, trying to get his MPs onside, says Patrick Maguire in The Times. In September he appointed a new political director, Amy Richards, who has been getting the PM to send backbenchers handwritten notes, invite them to No 10 and hold lunches in the members’ dining room. They say it’s almost becoming a challenge to avoid him.

Advertisement

If you’ve been following the post-budget stories, don’t forget to sign up for our discussion to decipher what it all means
Register here and join me for an exclusive, free online session to discuss the impact of the Autumn Statement and, most importantly what to do next. Watch me in conversation with Charlotte Ransom, CEO and Gerard Lyons, Chief Economic Strategist; both from Netwealth, one of the UK’s most innovative and successful wealth management firms.

THE BOLTHOLE This tiny one-bedroom home is down a quiet cobbled street in Bethnal Green, east London, says The Guardian. On the ground floor are the bedroom, a bathroom with terrazzo tiles, and a living space, while the modern kitchen and dining room occupy the first floor. The property has double-height ceilings and makes striking use of bare strand board on the walls, ceilings and staircases. Victoria Park, Columbia Road flower market and Brick Lane are within walking distance, and Bethnal Green underground station is a 10-minute walk. £650,000. Click on the image to see the listing.

With a new Russell Crowe film dramatising the Nuremberg trials, it’s worth remembering “what happened afterwards”, says Dominic Lawson in The Sunday Times. Though a handful of top Nazis were executed, vast numbers of those “intimately involved” in the Holocaust were absolved under the rubric of “only obeying orders”. This was, in part, down to the “efficiency” of the extermination process. Witnesses were required to secure a prosecution, but in many cases only a few survivors remained. At Belzec extermination camp, half a million people were gassed and just two survived. Only “a single person was convicted for this industrialised mass murder”.

The other reason was that the West German judiciary was “riddled” with old Nazis. A 1951 law required the state to re-employ former Nazi party members – “at the seniority they had previously enjoyed under Adolf Hitler” – and in short order they accounted for more than 75% of the judiciary’s top ranks. With the US and Britain distracted by the Cold War, some of the most depraved perpetrators of wartime atrocities were given pardons and freed from prison. Dr Herta Oberheuser, who had conducted grotesque medical experiments on camp inmates, returned to medical practice after just five years. Dr Hermann Pfannmüller, who took pride in demonstrating to his medical students how efficiently he killed disabled children, was freed two years after his conviction. One of his colleagues, also released after two years, went on to become president of the German Medical Federation. Yes, some faced justice at Nuremberg. But far more escaped it.

The Knowledge Crossword

Enjoying The Knowledge?

“Success is simply a matter of luck. Ask any failure.”
US author Earl Wilson

That’s it. You’re done.

Let us know what you thought of today’s issue by replying to this email
To find out about advertising and partnerships, click here
Been forwarded this newsletter? Try it for free
Enjoying The Knowledge? Click to share