Cabinet shuffle

Gulf News

 

THE international stock of UK prime minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is becoming diminished by the week and taking with it the last shreds of moral and political authority that Britain once had.

In all the political conflicts of pandemic mis-management and Brexit elitism, it seems that, in the mind of the British PM, what matters most is the pursuit of power. He has always been single-minded to this end and does all he can to resist constraints on that power.

Johnson, who is widely regarded by those who know or have worked with him, to have the attention span of a nat, is not interested in policy, let alone policy detail. He waivers constantly, in tune with nothing more than the shifting wind of opinion, and has no convictions about things that really matter such as Brexit, climate change, levelling up, culture wars or tackling poverty.

Apart from himself, all he cares about is how policy plays with the Tory Party, its supporters and the voters, many of whom he has hoodwinked into thinking he is something much more than he is.

All this helps to explain some of the sackings in this week’s cabinet reshuffle, because ministers whose stock has fallen with the venerable Party become vulnerable, regardless of their abilities.

The prime duty of Johnson’s replacements this week is hardly to deliver a particular agenda, but to keep themselves, and the Party, popular in readiness for the next election.

At the risk of re-stating what is now becoming patently obvious, the key things driving the Johnson government are riches for the already super wealthy, Party and Tory donor management, all aligned with increasing control of Parliament, the courts and the media.

From Johnson’s myopic perspective the cabinet reshuffle was intended to portray energy (working tirelessly, getting on with the job) and renewal. But, in the real world, all that happened was the removal of the least popular members of his team, which was also a non-damaging way to shift people who should have been sacked for incompetence and breaking rules long ago.

It was also a way for Johnson to ensure he is surrounded by an increasingly sycophantic protection ring.

This then folks is the guy that is leading the UK to a populist, ideological disaster, a nightmare world that will make a few dangerous people very wealthy and all too powerful.

Evening observation

 

THE sea is talking loudly this evening as a strong northerly wind whips in, mysteriously summoned by the rising dusk to herald an end to the tranquillity and heat of the day.

Wind and sea together - like a rogue orchestra’s out-of-control percussionists, one drumming relentlessly and the other crashing wave upon wave on the outlying rocks of the sandy cove.

Gone was the gentle nature of a bright and warm sunny day. The quickly fading light had drained the sea of its shimmering daytime blue and turned it to the colour of darkest ink, aside from regular flecks of curling white foam from constantly breaking waves.

A few miles across the ocean on the near horizon the mountains of Albania formed a grey silhouette, all definition of daylight gone save for the outline of peaks and valleys, neatly framing the edge of sea and sky, and leading the eye to a fading red-orange glow in the west.

On the roadside path above Saint Spiridon cove in the north of Corfu, there seemed no respite from the relentless, discomforting disturbance these twin forces of nature had connived to deliver on this first September evening of the year.

There was no relaxed promenading tonight by lovers hand-in-hand, young or old, and the neatly organised chairs and tables overlooking the beach area and normally packed by day, were devoid of occupation.

Above, the wind whipped the finger-like leaves of palm trees into a frenzy of straight lines, seemingly all intent on pursuing a single direction of pointless travel. 

And the blowsy sun umbrellas of the day were now tightly belted at the waist, rocking and billowing in  windy gusts, like solo dancers performing on the edge of night.

Corfu, September 2021

Sustainability lifeline

 

 

SPACE is a resource to be exploited for the benefit of all and undoubtedly holds many of the keys to humanity’s future. But though it might appear boundless and infinite it will not ultimately be to our advantage if we do not manage it in a sustainable way.

One of the most significant issues is the accumulation of space debris and, in this context, the first months of 2021 witnessed an unprecedented number of rocket launches. SpaceX alone notched up some 20 Falcon 9 launches between January and the end of May, a notable achievement in itself.

What is less clear, given the majority of these launches carried payloads of multiple smallsats to feed the company’s planned 12,000-strong Starlink constellation, is how much they are exacerbating the growing and still largely unaddressed debris problem.

There are still many unknowns relating to the proliferation of objects in Earth orbit, a fact that was highlighted by presentations at the annual European Space Debris Conference held virtually at the end of April [2021].

One paper identified a potential link between space junk and climate change - increasing levels of carbon dioxide could be lowering the density of the upper atmosphere, which may diminish the natural process whereby low Earth orbiting debris is naturally pulled downwards before it incinerates in the thicker, lower atmosphere.

Scientists studying this unexpected link between climate change and space debris propagation speculate that, in a worst case scenario, it could lead to increased orbital lifetimes of up to 40 years.

This could boost the amount of space debris as much as 50 times by the end of the century.
Such findings may heap further difficulties on the already complex problems faced by regulators wrestling with satellite operators amidst the headlong rush to deploy megaconstellations by the likes of SpaceX, Amazon and OneWeb in the west, as well as the Russian Sfera and Chinese Hongyan systems.

So how do we make space and our activities in it sustainable? Up to now the rules and regulations governing this are relatively weak. 

To be effective, space law regulations - backed by monitoring and a means of enforcement - must prevent as many potentially dangerous situations as possible from occurring. Legislation also needs to lay out a framework for responsibility and liability for when things go wrong.

Space law has largely worked so far because any issues have been few and far between and, on the whole, have been dealt with diplomatically.

As global populations grapple with the daily effects of climate change and pollution, the lessons of how we have mismanaged the environment and its resources are plain to see.

The same is true for space, even if the outcomes of our inactions today may only become apparent in the future.

While space sustainability has been a topic of discussion among academics and technologists for decades, the importance of protecting Earth’s orbital environment and the expanding sphere of our new domain has never been more relevant.

In the absence of robust, internationally agreed and long-term sustainability laws and guidelines, it is doubtful that commercial space companies, and some state players, can be relied on to police themselves in the space realm.

The questions surrounding space debris and the threat it poses become more urgent with every launch and, at present, the solutions on any level are far from certain. Now is the time to make sustainability a priority.

This Editorial by Clive Simpson was first published in ROOM Space Journal (#28), Summer 2021.

Flying to the edge

A FEW years ago while attending the annual Space Symposium in Colorado Springs as part of the ROOM Space Journal team I had the opportunity to sit inside a full-scale pre-flight module of Blue Origin’s space capsule.

It was on display outside the venue alongside a flown Blue Origin New Shepard booster, charred and scared from an earlier brief foray into low Earth orbit and so giving the whole display of touch of authenticity and realism.

Having clambered awkwardly through the access hatch and then across to my capsule seat I lay back and dared to think for a moment that this might be real. As my imagination fired the booster rockets I pushed back into my contoured couch before taking a quick look around.

There were five other passengers also likely lost in their own imaginary thoughts in what seemed a surprisingly simple but spacious space capsule. Big windows were aside each seat but the capsule was devoid of controls, buttons or levers that one might have imagined.

That’s because a Blue Origin flight differs from the Virgin Galactic mission in a few ways. Richard Branson uses a spaceplane with a pair of pilots onboard, whereas the Blue Origin capsule has no pilots (more space for paying passengers) and is be completely controlled by mission control on the ground.

Prior to today’s (Tuesday, 20 July) launch with passengers, Blue Origin has conducted 15 test flights - all spectacular in a very “Thunderbirds Are Go” kind of way but so far without any people on board, just a few experiments and plenty of data gathering instrumentation.

Just like the Virgin Galactic flight, the Blue Origin rocket will not launch its occupants into Earth orbit, but will give the crew a quick trip just above the line separating the atmosphere from space before returning back to the desert in western Texas. The Blue Origin mission will, however, fly at little higher to 62 miles high, compared to Virgin Galactic’s 55 miles.

Bezos’ landmark  10 minute flight is set to fly at 9:00 am EDT (14:00 BST), a date that that coincides with the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing. He is being accompanied by his brother Mark and two other passengers - 82-year-old trailblazing aviator Wally Funk and 18-year-old Dutch physics student Oliver Daemen - who will each break longstanding astronaut age records on the flight.

Oliver’s father, Joes Daeman - the chief executive and founder of Somerset Capital Partners - was one of the bidders for a seat on the first crewed Blue Origin flight but lost out to an anonymous bidder who paid a reported $28 million at the widely publicised auction.

After a “scheduling conflict” prevented the unidentified winner from joining the first flight, Daeman, who had secured a seat on the second New Shepard flight, was bumped up to take pole position.
       
Be under no delusion this is very much a commercial venture. Daeman’s flight will mark the start of paid space-tourism flights for Blue Origin and there are plans to loft the second round of paying passengers this autumn.

"We intend to have two more flights this year, in 2021, for a total of three [crewed] flights, and many more to come in the future," said Ariane Cornell, Blue Origin's director of astronaut sales, during a press conference in advance of the first flight. "We have already built a robust pipeline of customers that are interested." 

 For both Branson and Bezos one question remains. Will these brief and expensive trips to the edge of space they offer be consigned to the category of joyrides and a series of ‘selfies’ for the family album, or will they prove more meaningful?

The question is legitimate because, since the days of Apollo when astronauts Bill Anders, Jim Lovell and Frank Borman became the first to witness a full Earth against the backdrop of space, astronauts are unanimous that viewing our planet from space is life-changing.

Earthrise, the iconic image snapped by Anders, is often credited as spawning the environmental movement and Space Shuttle and Space Station astronaut Nicole Stott agrees, ascribing the impact of viewing Earth from space as an astronaut’s “Earthrise moment”. .

In her forthcoming book Back to Earth (to be published on 11 November 2021) Stott inspires readers of all backgrounds and beliefs to come together to tackle our planet's most pressing problems - from water insecurity and pollution to the existential threat of climate change.

Seeing Earth from space for the first time, Stott was overcome by a realisation that moved her deeply. “This brilliant blue marble, shielded from the cold emptiness of space by only its razor-thin atmosphere, is a naturally existing system perfectly designed to support human life,” she writes.

The benefits of tourists flights to the edge of space may yet prove great indeed if those onboard experience their own “Earthrise moment”.

 Note: the launch can be viewed live via Blue Origin

Carrying the Fire

GEMINI and Apollo astronaut Michael Collins died on 28 April 2021 at the age of 90 after a valiant battle with cancer. This day also marked the 64th wedding anniversary between Mike and his late wife, Patricia Finnegan Collins.

Mike Collins possessed a sharp wit, a quiet sense of purpose and a wise perspective, gained both from looking back at Earth from the vantage of space and gazing across calm waters from the deck of his fishing boat.

As the command module pilot on NASA's Apollo 11 mission, he circled the Moon while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin touched down at Tranquility Base on 20 July 1969. When his two crew mates returned from the surface, he was in the unique position to capture a photo of all of humanity - his fellow astronauts on board the lunar module and everyone else on Earth off in the distance.

“Today the nation lost a true pioneer and lifelong advocate for exploration in astronaut Michael Collins,” acting NASA administrator Steve Jurczyk said in a statement. “As pilot of the Apollo 11 command module – some called him ‘the loneliest man in history’ – while his colleagues walked on the Moon for the first time, he helped our nation achieve a defining milestone.”

A member of NASA's third group of astronauts selected in 1963, Mike’s path to joining the first Moon landing began with a three-day flight in Earth orbit. Assigned as the pilot aboard Gemini 10, he launched with John Young in July 1966 on a mission that demonstrated rendezvous and docking with two rocket stages.

Mike performed two spacewalks on Gemini 10, becoming only the fourth person to exit a spacecraft to work in the vacuum of space and the first to conduct two on the same mission. On his second extravehicular activity (EVA), he became the first astronaut to transfer to another vehicle, retrieving a cosmic dust collector from the exterior of an earlier launched Agena target stage.

After Gemini 10, Mike was assigned to what was slated to be a test of the complete Apollo spacecraft in Earth orbit (that flight, Apollo 8, later was changed to be the first mission to send humans into orbit around the Moon). In the course of his training, though, he developed problems with his legs and ultimately required surgery to correct for a cervical disc herniation.

Given the time needed for his recovery, he was removed from the crew and reassigned to Apollo 11. He was very happy to be part of the Apollo 11 crew - even if he was not one of the moonwalkers.

"It's one of the questions I get asked a million times, 'God, you got so close to the Moon and you didn't land. Doesn't that really bug you?' It really does not," he said.

"I honestly felt really privileged to be on Apollo 11, to have one of those three seats. I mean, there were guys in the astronaut office who would have cut my throat ear to ear to have one of those three seats. I was very pleased to have one," he said. "Did I have the best of the three? No. But was I pleased with the one I had? Yes! And I have no feelings of frustration or rancor or whatever. I'm very, very happy about the whole thing."

Having decided before Apollo 11 lifted off that it would be his last mission, Mike splashed down from the Moon having accumulated a total of 11 days, two hours and four minutes in space over the course of his two flights.

Mike Collins was born on 30 October 1930, in Rome, Italy, where his father, a career US Army officer,was stationed. After moves from Oklahoma to New York to Maryland to Ohio to Puerto Rico to Texas to Virginia, he attended St Albans preparatory school in Washington, DC. He then received an appointment to the US Military Academy at West Point, New York, where Mike earned his Bachelor of Science in 1952.

Enlisting in the Air Force, Mike was trained on and flew F-86 fighter jets out of Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada and George Air Force Base in California, before being assigned overseas to the Chambley-Bussières Air Base in France and to West Germany during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. He returned to the U.S. the following year, where he attended an aircraft maintenance officer course and then commanded a mobile training detachment, traveling to air bases around the world.

In 1960, Mike reported to the Air Force Experimental Flight Test Pilot School (later Aerospace Research Pilot School) at Edwards Air Force Base in California. He applied for NASA's second class of astronauts but was not selected.

Instead, in 1962, he took a postgraduate course on the basics of spaceflight, which included flying F-104 supersonic jets to 90,000 feet (27,000 m) and training in weightlessness on parabolic flights. He graduated and returned to fighter operations at Randolph Air Force Base in Texas when he was accepted with the third group of NASA astronauts.

Prior to flying on Gemini 10, Mike's first assignment was to specialise in the development of the programme's spacesuits. He then served as backup pilot for the Gemini 7 mission. Prior to the 1967 Apollo 1 fire, which claimed three astronauts' lives, he was training for the then-planned second crewed flight of the Apollo program. In the wake of the tragedy, the mission was cancelled.

Although he did not fly on Apollo 8 due to needing surgery, Mike still played an important role on the 1968 mission, serving as CapCom, or capsule communicator, from inside Mission Control in Houston. It was Mike who informed the crew that they were good to break the bonds of Earth’s gravity and set course for the moon with the words “Apollo 8, you are go for TLI!” (TLI stood for trans-lunar injection).

After Apollo 11 and spending 21 days in quarantine to protect against any possible "Moon germs," riding in ticker tape parades in New York and Chicago, attending a state dinner, addressing a joint meeting of Congress and touring 22 countries in 38 days, Mike resigned from NASA in January 1970.

Recruited by the Nixon Administration, Mike accepted a position as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, but found he did not enjoy the job and left after a year to become thefirst director of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum.

Mike advocated for its funding and oversaw the museum being built once its budget was approved by Congress. He presided over the museum's opening on July 1, 1976, when his Apollo 11 command module, Columbia, and many of his own personal effects flown on the mission went on public display.

In addition to Carrying the Fire, he authored Flying to the Moon and Other Strange Places, Liftoff! The Story of America's Adventure in Space and Mission To Mars: An Astronaut's Vision Of Our Future.

Of all the honours he received, Mike was most proud to be named a Fellow in the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, the prestigious international society founded in 1955 that represents the men and women who advance aerospace vehicles through flight test programme.

Outside of his professional career, Mike enjoyed physical challenges, including running in marathons and competing in triathlons. On his 50th birthday, he ran 50 miles as a personal celebration. In his retirement, he took up watercolour painting and attended art classes to improve his skill. His chosen subjects were the aircraft that he flew and natural surroundings of the Florida Everglades.

Above all else, he relished the time he spent with his family. It was for that reason that chose to leave NASA when he did, possibly missing a chance to walk on the Mon in favour of spending more time with his children and grandchildren.

He was predeceased by his wife, Patricia Finnegan Collins. He is survived by his sister, Virginia  (Nuchi) Collins Weart and by his two beloved daughters, Kate Collins (and husband Charlie Newell) and Ann Collins Starr (and husband Chris Starr) and he had seven grandchildren.

Hidden in plain sight

“I have been a political reporter for almost three decades,” writes Peter Oborne in his new book, “and I have never encountered a senior British politician who lies and fabricates so regularly, so shamelessly and so systematically as Boris Johnson.”

The Assault on Truth - more like a slim dossier with full supporting evidence - attempts to explain the current apparently shambolic state of UK politics, and how Johnson has turned it against itself as he seeks to divide and rule.

In the first part, Oborne uses a mass of irrefutable evidence to prove that Johnson (and most of his senior advisors and ministers) habitually lie, fabricate and misrepresent the facts.

Having built the case, seemingly rather easily it turns out, he examines Johnson’s methodology of deception by selecting some of the most powerful and shocking examples.

Oborne then attempts to answer the question, what led the Conservative party to install such a person as leader and the British people to put an already proven liar in Downing Street?

He suggests that morality in public life (an by inference perhaps society at large too) has changed in recent years, over-turning the protections against deceit and corruption instilled by our Victorian ancestors, many inspired by evangelical Christianity.

“It may be fashionable to mock them today, but the Victorians brought high ideals into government which changed the way that Britain was ruled,” he writes.

Oborne also claims - and he should know, having worked on both the Telegraph and Spectator (the latter under Johnson as editor) - that “a great deal of political journalism has become the putrid face of a corrupt government” flying in the face of the only valid reason to become a journalist, which is “to tell the truth”.

He writes: “Too much of the political class have merged. And this unnatural amalgamation has converted truth into falsehood, while lies have become truth.”

Much of the documented evidence in The Assault on Truth is both difficult to deny (although it has become the duty of Johnson’s ministers daily to defend the indefensible) and shocking at the same time.

With forensic dissection, Oborne notes the small and large steps along the twisting path of 21st century politics to the place we have sadly arrived at today, where lies and trite, three-word slogans rule over difficult or politically complex areas.

Johnson is presented as an ambitious, self-seeking politician whose campaigning exuberance and populist comic polemic character is gradually being undermined by “incompetence and dishonesty in high office”.

But while there is little doubt that Johnson is both deceitful and amoral, Oborne says the prime minister’s war on truth is also part of a wider, largely right-wing, attack on the pillars of democracy, which includes Parliament, the rule of law and the civil service.

Oborne is honest enough to admit that he has changed his own mind on Brexit since voting for it in the 2016 referendum. Given his calibre as a journalist and his lifelong pursuit of the truth the only surprise in this is that he did not see through the blatant lies of the Vote Leave campaign at the time.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing in this book is not that Johnson is a habitual liar (though that is bad enough) but that, as a society, the UK has been prepared to protect (via the media) and support (by the public) him and his government in it.

Ultimately, the consequences of allowing such political trickery and wickedness to go unchallenged and unchecked for so long are grave indeed.

 

 

 

 

 

The Assault on Truth - Peter Oborne (2021)

Best purchased from your local, independent bookshop.

Democratic betrayal

TO coin a phrase, the British government seems to be at “sixes and sevens”, an English idiom used to describe a condition of confusion or disarray. In one way this is probably a fair description but look deeper and many of the government’s actions under the leadership of Boris Johnson on both Covid and Brexit have distinctly worrying undertones.

Let’s clear up one thing first. To date the UK’s vaccine roll out, albeit so far mostly single doses, under the auspices of the NHS has been a very welcome success story.

And this is not, as Johnson and members of his cabinet have repeatedly and disingenuously claimed, been made possible because of Brexit, a narrative designed to polarise further division between the UK and EU.

If vaccines are a success story and offer a ray of hope in these troubled times, the same cannot be said for the government’s abject and, at times corrupt, handling of the Covid pandemic crisis over its first year.

Johnson’s “policies” and decisions have lead to one of the worst per capita death rates of any country in the world and the worst performing economy during the pandemic of any G7 country.

The Resolution Foundation think tank reported this week that delaying the winter lockdown caused up to 27,000 extra deaths in England, and it accused the government of a “huge mistake” which should be central to any public inquiry into the UK’s handling of the pandemic.

In its assessment of the past year, the Foundation says delaying the start of the latest lockdown until January - despite hard evidence of fast-rising cases before Christmas - led to around a fifth of all fatalities caused by the virus. It believes these could have been avoided if restrictions had been put in place in early December, as had been recommended

While it praised the vaccination programme and financial support for firms and workers, the Foundation said the same mistakes on lockdowns were repeated “three tragic times” - in March, September and December 2020 - precipitating longer and more onerous lockdowns.

In the spring of 2021, as we look back on a year of turmoil and sadness, one could be forgiven for thinking that memories are short and we have not only forgotten that we have been in this before but forgotten too how we got here. This is the UK’s third national lockdown and both of its forerunners were promised to be the last.

One also can’t help thinking that the Government is somewhat over-reliant on vaccines solving the crisis, with Johnson offering no insight, for example, into how he plans to make vitally needed improvements to his national Test & Trace system, which we learnt last week is now costing a staggering £37 billion.

This is Monopoly money on a mega scale and is a sum that seems almost impossible to justify whichever way you look at it, particularly when other countries have developed efficient and successful Test & Trace systems for a fraction of the cost.

And despite the government insisting on calling it “NHS Track & Trace” - another less than casual piece of deliberate mis-speak - the system is not led by healthcare staff but is run by Dido Harding, friend of health secretary Matt Hancock and wife of Tory MP John Penrose, through the private firm Serco which, according to its recent financial results, is doing very nicely thank you.

If Johnson’s roadmap out of lockdown for this spring feels a little too premature and date-driven then perhaps it is. Based on 2020 we should remain wary. After all, he has already proved to be the popularist master of raising expectations unrealistically and over-promising.

Of course, in such tumultuous times, people do need something to look forward to. But it should not be at the mercy of a government which never learns from its mistakes, either deliberately or through serial incompetence.

Ultimately, the un-vaccinated should not be going to nightclubs in June, only for us all to return to national lockdown at the end of carefree summer. In the end, the only thing worse than hope is raising false hope.
       
Against this backdrop are on-going and increasingly transparent and dishonest attempts to bury the corpse of a failing Brexit in the cemetery of Covid.               

During his tenure the prime minister has repeatedly lied to Parliament, to the Queen and her citizens, bent the rules, broken international law and broken the ministerial code on multiple occasions. The British government is overtly corrupt and it goes back on its word. Can it be trusted on anything it says, does or signs?

So far it has seemed that when Johnson and his government break the law at home they largely get away with it. But when international law is broken (especially when it reneges on an agreement like the Northern Ireland Protocol which was only recently negotiated, signed and hailed as a great triumph), we should not be surprised when the EU and countries like the US react adversely.

And all this after a month in which the government was keen to cover its dirty Brexit tricks by almost any means possible, not the least of which was buying editorial space in mainstream newspapers to run a number of disingenuous pro-Brexit news stories.

These actions do mean, however, that the government is becoming sensitive to the growing realisation that in reality Brexit is proving as damaging to the economy, if not more so, that the much derided “Project Fear” tried to warn back in 2016.

Such developments may only elicit a resigned shrug from the general population, especially given the more immediate impacts of Covid, but it is suggestive that Brexiters are aware their propaganda battle is being quickly eroded.

It is perhaps in this context that the government’s astonishingly dishonest Brexit ‘advertising’ campaign of recent weeks can be better understood.

On many levels it was designed to hoodwink the unsuspecting public because the campaign primarily consisted of placing paid-for stories in newspapers, including the Independent, the Daily Mail, The Sun, the Evening Standard and the Metro, along with hundreds of local newspapers.

To all intents and purposes they appeared to be legitimate news stories and it was necessary to look very carefully to see that these were billed as written ‘in association with the UK government’ or as ‘sponsored articles’.

At one level it is almost laughable but on another it does suggest a certain amount of desperation on the part of the government to create and promote dubious ‘good news’ narratives about Brexit.

The ground is clearly being prepared for a trade war with the EU, which shows that many in governance are ideologically determined to permanently toxify UK-EU relations, however badly that affects the country and its international reputation.

In some ways, the entire Brexit and Covid stories both come down to a gluttonous insatiability - a type of privileged greed, gestated by the right-wing and aligned with the inability of the British political class to impose any dietary restrictions on itself, and thus making way for an increasingly regime-like governance.

Caption: The Downing Street "briefing room" commissioned by Boris Johnson at a price tag to the taxpayer of £2.6 million. It looks like a standard hotel conference room along with cheap chairs, so one wonders why it cost so much? Note the 'Henry' vacuum cleaner on the right-hand side.