#Although one of these days I WILL draw him getting defenestrated

[astro-b-o-y-d]

I feel like I have more AUs where I make Bill a Not-Triangle than I do ones where I keep him a triangle

[peppernephew7-blog]

2:00PM Water Cooler 2/20/2019

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

All too patient readers, my schedule is complexified today. So I will toss out some red meat in the form of political news, finish up a post on the recent study on insect collapse, and then return for a latish Water Cooler revision with more of the usual featurs, especially The Bezzle. Thanks! –lambert UPDATE All done.

Politics

“But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?” –James Madison, Federalist 51

“They had one weapon left and both knew it: treachery.” –Frank Herbert, Dune

2020

Lots of Sanders news, as might be expected:

Sanders (1):

In his first 24 hours as a 2020 Presidential candidate, Senator Bernie Sanders raised $5.9 million from 223,000 donors https://t.co/k0r4xpBvf6

— OpenSecrets.org (@OpenSecretsDC) February 20, 2019

More than double what Harris raised on her first day. And he didn’t even have to go to the Hamptons to do it! In any other candidate, we’d see phrases like “brutal display of fundraising prowess.”

Sanders (2): “Bernie Sanders Is the Democratic Front-Runner” [The Atlantic]. The staffing question is answered: “A full operation is being put together, with the assumption that he will have well over $200 million in online fundraising to draw from. That includes top leadership of the campaign meant to illustrate the diversity of his support, demographically and geographically. Faiz Shakir, a former aide to Harry Reid, is leaving his job as the political director of the American Civil Liberties Union to be the campaign manager. In addition to his deep political experience, he will be the first Muslim presidential-campaign manager in history. Analilia Mejia, an organizer of Colombian and Dominican descent who most recently directed the Fight for $15 and Earned Sick Days campaigns in New Jersey and previously worked for the New Jersey Working Families Party, will be the political director. The deputy political director will be Sarah Badawi, who was most recently the government-affairs director for the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a liberal group that led the effort to draft Elizabeth Warren into the 2012 Senate race, and later worked on her campaign.” • Two things about the Sanders staff: First, though obviously competent and political, they’re not drawn from from the 2016 Sanders campaign. And although they’re Democrat-adjacent, none of them are currently outright (and treacherous) Democrat strategists or consultants. Second, the staff is fully identitarian-compliant. We’ll see how it all goes!

Sanders (3):

Faiz Shakir does have the right enemies:

Here's @johnpodesta and @neeratanden talking about Bernie's 2020 campaign manager @fshakir back in 2016.

They clearly don't like him. I wonder if this played into Bernie's decision at all 🤔#Bernie2020 #FeelTheBern pic.twitter.com/fYfFyj7fIa

— Carlo #Bernie2020 🔥✊🏻 (@yesthatCarlo) February 19, 2019

Sanders (3): “You Don’t Have to Like Bernie Sanders to Like Bernie Sanders” [Jezebel]. “If you support things like Medicare for All, tuition-free college, campaigns funded by small donors rather than wealthy interests, an end to mass incarceration, and reducing a truly staggering level of wealth inequality, then Sanders is the candidate who has fought for those things, often consistently throughout his career, often when no one cared that he was doing it. More importantly, the response to his 2016 campaign also helped galvanize a bottom-up national movement that has—through committed organizing, movement wins, and a new wave of national progressive politicians—remade Democratic politics in the span of just a few years. None of that means Sanders doesn’t need to be pushed left or that you have to find him charming. You don’t have to actually like Bernie Sanders to like what he represents.” • Long list here! More: “Sanders, who continues to struggle with white guy political myopia and sounding like an assh*le, still has the most aggressively progressive platform of any presidential candidate running right now.” • Indeed.

Sanders (4): “5 reasons to be skeptical of Bernie Sanders’ 2020 bid” [Chris Cilizza, CNN]. “Sanders simply doesn’t look like the Democratic Party that scored across-the-board victories in 2018. What he does look like — demographically speaking — is the current occupant of the White House.” • And, ya know, #MedicareForAll “looks like” what Trump is doing to Obama’s damp squib, the ACA. Cilizza’s gotta Cilizza, and I confess a sneaking admiration for him, because he embodies the conventional wisdom of the moment so perfectly. So, not uninteresting and worth a read!

Sanders (5): A breath of reality:

Why is "Bernie appeals to white voters" seen as an insult?

If anything, it is his strength.

It is mathematically impossible to win a presidential election without significant support of the white voters. pic.twitter.com/Zi8kwfkhmX

— Esha 🌹🌷🌹 (@eshaLegal) December 18, 2018

It’s almost as if identitarians care more about continued funding for their NGO verticals than winning….

Sanders (6): “Time to fight” [Carl Beijer]. “The time to make your decision is now. Because the center is already fighting to win – and if you do want to win the presidency and you do not act now, you will find yourself out-organized, out-numbered, out-resourced, and out-argued before you can even throw your first punch…. The time for preparation ends when the fighting begins. And ready or not, the fight has already begun.” • The fight began at the first DNC meeting after the 2016 election, when liberal Democrats punched the left right in the mouth (defenestrating Ellison, standing up Perez, purging all Sanders supporters from the Rules and Bylaws Committee, and subsequently rigging the primary calendar to favor Harris).

Harris (1): “Freedom Rider: Kamala Harris: The Fix is In” [Margaret Kimberly, Black Agenda Report]. “The Democrats are hoping that having another biracial black person on the ticket can make up for their lack of substance and hers. All Harris knows how to do is pander, and she doesn’t even do that very well. On The Breakfast Club radio show she was asked if she opposed marijuana legalization. ‘That’s not true. Look, I joke about it, I have joked about it. Half my family is from Jamaica. Are you kidding me?’ The promotion of a stereotype didn’t go over very well, including with her own father, who was angry enough to call her out in public. Donald Harris said that his ancestors “…must be turning in their grave right now to see their family’s name, reputation and proud Jamaican identity being connected, in any way, jokingly or not with the fraudulent stereotype of a pot-smoking joy seeker and in the pursuit of identity politics.” Not only had she offended her father but she was also lying. As attorney she opposed a 2010 proposition that would have legalized recreational use. She opposed it as late as 2015.” • I continue to be amazed that Donald Harris’s denunciation hasn’t viral. (Also, Kimberly’s “ancestors” is highly charged for some segments of “the African Diaspora.”)

Harris (2): “‘We’ve Lived Under Her Regime'” [Slate]. “‘[Harris] fought to uphold tainted convictions,’ [says public defender Lara Bazelon] says. ‘That’s from my perspective as someone who ran an innocence project and is an innocence advocate. There are other cases that bothered me as well, including her real inability to respond in an appropriate way, for example, when there was a big crime-lab scandal in San Francisco in 2010. When she was running the DA’s office, 600 cases had to be dismissed’…. She continues, ‘It became clear as these cases were being litigated that the higher-ups in her office were well aware of the corruption of the lab technician whose work was at issue and did not turn that information over to the defense as they were required to do. A judge got quite angry and issued a long ruling sternly rebuking Harris, and her response was to challenge that ruling by arguing that the judge’s husband was a defense attorney who had spoken publicly about the importance of disclosures in these kinds of situations and that therefore the judge was conflicted.’ Like President Trump has done with judges in the past, Harris made things personal.” • Ouch!

Brown: “Sherrod Brown’s opening: Less liberal than the liberals” [Politico]. “‘There’s nobody who says they could not get a fair hearing from Sherrod Brown,’ [Better Markets President and CEO Dennis Kelleher] said.” • Swell.

“‘Sustained and ongoing’ disinformation assault targets Dem presidential candidates” [Politico]. • If you look at the sources, it’s social media companies talking their books….

2019

Ladies and gentleman, I give you… The #Resistance:

Remember when Andrew McCabe, whose book is now a Number 1 best-seller on Amazon, raised over $554,000 in five days via GoFundMe because people apparently worried that he would fall into poverty and destitution as a result of his bold anti-Trump stance? What a gigantic scam

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) February 20, 2019

Realignment and Legitimacy

“Fracking company teams up with Susan G. Komen, introduces pink drill bits ‘for the cure” (with image of pink drill bit) [Salon]. From 2010, still germane. There’s your liberal identitarianism, right there. It’s not The Onion! I swear!

DSA collateral:

MOBILIZER 101 series. New and experienced activists welcome. 🙌First up: how to talk about Socialism and DSA https://t.co/4KtFAnZhr9 pic.twitter.com/aJtAoIqBqm

— DSA San Francisco (@DSA_SF) February 20, 2019

On the one hand, this is a strong effort. On the other, where’s the bullet point about the working place, the — stay with me here — (un)natural habitat of the working class?

Stats Watch

MBA Mortgage Applications, week of February 15, 2019: “The purchase index ended its four-week slide” [Econoday].

Debt: “How Scary Are Subprime Auto Loans?” [Bloomberg]. Shorter: Not especially, since they’re not levered. • But auto loan defaults are not a good sign for the working class balance sheet, as it were, at all, assuming most need cars to get to work.

Retail: “Alden-controlled Payless to close all 2,300 of its stores, including 34 in Greater Philadelphia” [Philadelphia Business Journal]. “Payless ShoeSource Inc. intends to file for bankruptcy protection later this month and close all of its approximately 2,300 retail locations, including the 34 in the Philadelphia region. It’s the second time the Topeka, Kansas-based company has filed for bankruptcy protection in two years.” • Purchased by Alden Capital after the first time, so you know it’s being sucked dry.

Shipping: “Hedge funds hunt for shipping debt in new market push” [Reuters]. “A growing number of hedge funds are moving into shipping debt, an asset class few have invested in before, looking to buy up loans and bonds as banks cut their exposure to the troubled sector…. European banks, particularly German lenders, are trying to offload distressed and performing loans to the industry which attracts high capital requirements. The European Central Bank’s banking supervisor has flagged troubled non-performing loans in 2019 as ‘a concern for a significant number of euro area institutions.'”

The Bezzle: “Tesla General Counsel Quits After 2 Months in Latest Upheaval” [New York Times]. “Tesla said Wednesday that its general counsel was leaving the automaker after just two months on the job, the second unexpected, high-level departure in the last month. The official, Dane Butswinkas, was a Washington trial lawyer who represented the company’s chief executive, Elon Musk, when he was sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission last year. The company said he had decided to return to his law firm.” • There’ll always be a lamp in the window for my wandering boy.

The Bezzle: “Hundreds Of Android Apps Found To Serve Invisible Ads” [Media Post]. “A massive mobile ad-fraud operation, involving hundreds of malware-laden Android apps, has been uncovered by Oracle. The scheme, “DrainerBot,” involved serving ads that were invisible to users, but that burned through their data allotments and depleted their batteries. The affected apps — including popular ones like “Perfect365” and “Draw Clash of Clans” — have been downloaded more than 10 million times.” • Oops.

Tech: “Apple Plans on Combining iPhone, iPad, Mac Apps by 2021” [Bloomberg]. “Apple Inc. wants to make it easier for software coders to create tools, games and other applications for its main devices in one fell swoop — an overhaul designed to encourage app development and, ultimately, boost revenue. The aim of the multistep initiative, code-named “Marzipan,” is that by 2021, developers will be able to build an app once and have it work on the iPhone, iPad and Mac computers, people familiar with the effort said. That should spur the creation of new software, increasing the utility of the company’s gadgets.” • Utility. Oh. iOS apps will be shitty on the Mac because they don’t conform to the Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines, which even today structure the UI/UX on that platform. So it’s another way for Apple to further crapify the Mac.

Tech: “Scream Time” [The Baffler]. “Silicon Valley’s awareness of the addictive, damaging nature of its products predates much of the recent self-care fad. The self-described “movement” that brought about the rise of “digital well-being” can be traced to a 141-page Google Slide presentation created by Google engineer Tristan Harris in 2012. Harris had gone to Burning Man and had an “epiphany,” according to Wired, realizing that maybe dopamine-triggering notifications on slot-machine-like pocket-sized devices weren’t geared toward users’ best interest. Back at Google, Harris was promoted by then CEO Larry Page after his memo went viral, becoming the company’s first “design ethicist.” Harris’ role would be to advise the sprawling surveillance empire on how to create more “ethical” technology. This arrangement, of course, would be like Facebook internally handling Fake News, the Sackler family tackling the opioid epidemic, or Exxon fighting climate change—the new normal.” • Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Transportation: “Southwest cancels hundreds of flights as it struggles to get its mechanical problems under control” [CNN]. “Southwest Airlines continues to grapple with an ‘operational emergency’ after an unusually high number of planes have been taken out of service. The Dallas-based airline has been forced to cancel hundreds of flights since late last week because of mechanical problems with its fleet. Despite an ‘all hands on-deck’ staffing policy for its mechanics, the company has not been able to resolve its problems. In a statement on Tuesday, Southwest (LUV) said there was no common theme to the issues facing its 750 airplanes and it was extending a staffing protocol instituted last week to ‘maximize availability’ of mechanics. ‘We are requiring all hands on-deck to address maintenance items so that we may promptly return aircraft to service and take care of our customers,’ it said. On Tuesday, more than 40 planes had maintenance issues — more than twice the average number on a typical day. That created a domino effect, disrupting Southwest flights across the country.” • Well, at least none of Southwest’s hangars caught fire. Readers, what’s with this story? I’ve always thought of Southwest as a well-run airline. Am I not cynical enough?

The Biosphere

Left on the cutting room floor from today’s post:

“Helping Farmers Prevent The Insect Apocalypse” [Exploring the Problem Space]. “Three words: sustainable intensive agriculture. Sure, organic and local help in little ways – but the planet needs help in a big way. Organic and local require more land to produce less food and we need to shrink the terrestrial footprint of agriculture. The less land used, the better – at least as a general rule.” • Hmm. However, the USDA’s list of suggestions looks pretty good. Yes, it allows herbicides and, through Integrated Pest Management, insecticides, but I think separation of concerns applies: Get the Filter Strips, Contour Buffer Strips, and habitats in place, and wean ourselves from the *cides as we go. Readers?

“Five things you can do to protect our insects from population collapse” [CNN]. “3. Be less tidy: Insects don’t like manicured lawns and whilst cultivated double-flowered plants look lovely in the garden, they are bad news for pollinators as they typically don’t produce pollen and their nectar is hidden deep inside their flowers…. You can help the insects in your garden by letting the grass grow longer and sowing some wildflowers. If every garden had a little patch for insects collectively it would probably be the biggest area of wildlife habitat in the world.” • That sounds good, because it’s less work. Also, CNN using the word “collectively”…

“Using Parking Meter Records and Tweets From Local Businesses for Sea Level Rise Research” [Weather Underground]. “Little is known about the social and economic consequences of these events, since these high-tide floods, also called nuisance or sunny-day floods, typically last for just a few hours at a time and rarely leave lasting damage. To document the occurrence of these floods, the researchers used tide gauge data in combination with satellite and photographic evidence of the flooding. An important source of these photographs were tweets from local businesses. When periods of flooding were identified, receipts from the parking lot flooded by the ocean were studied to determine by how much visits to the Dock Street area [in Annapolis, Maryland] were affected. During the period May 2016 – November 2017, 4584 hours of parking meter records were reviewed. They revealed that when the parking lot flooded, people did not go to nearby unflooded parking areas–they simply avoided coming downtown, resulting in a loss of revenue for local businesses. Even after the flooding ended, there was a more than six-hour lag until visitation returned to its usual levels.” • Interesting, and shows more potential for citizen science.

Water

“Fighting pollution: Toledo residents want personhood status for Lake Erie” [Guardian]. “Called the Lake Erie Bill of Rights, it would grant personhood status to the lake, with the citizens being the guardians of the body of water. If passed, citizens could sue a polluter on behalf of the lake, and if the court finds the polluter guilty, the judge could impose penalties in the form of designated clean-ups and/or prevention programs. ‘What has happened in Toledo is that we have lost our faith in the current mechanisms of power, and decided to take things into our own hands,’ said Bryan Twitchell, a Toledo school teacher. ‘We decided it was our personal responsibility to take action and pull us back from that brink so we can live near a healthy lake.'” • Next up: The Ohio, Mississippi, and Missouri rivers?

“Lake Erie Bill of Rights issue to go to Toledo voters” [Ohio Country Journal]. “The Ohio Supreme Court recently decided that a ‘Lake Erie Bill of Rights’ [LEBOR] initiative could be placed before Toledo residents in a special election Feb. 26, 2019…. the Supreme Court decided that based on a reading of case law and the Ohio Constitution, the board of elections in Toledo had no option other than placing LEBOR on the ballot. This outcome does not necessarily mean that if Toledo passes LEBOR, it is a done deal; if and when it passes, courts could determine it is unconstitutional and/or beyond the scope of the city’s power.” • That’s less than a week away. I hope our Ohio readers will keep us informed!

Class Warfare

“Known Assailants” [The Baffler]. “[T]he baseline skills of construction in the brick-and-mortar world—wiring a conference room, framing a house, fixing a transmission—aren’t lesser forms of intellectual work; rather, they call on different types of intelligence than the kind necessary to compose a quarterly process improvement report or a PowerPoint presentation on category strategy. Neither brand of labor is better than the other. Work is work. Everyone toils beneath a boss; most of us will never earn what we’re worth. And now that we’re on the other side of the interregnum, there are some real advantages to blue-collar jobs, at least in my world. None of the guys or women I know who skipped college and went straight into the trades are burdened by student loan debt. They own houses and motorcycles and go on vacations; they have good healthcare and can expect to collect on a pension when they retire.” • Until the unions are destroyed, along with the pension system. But I take the point.

News of the Wired

* * *

Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, with (a) links, and even better (b) sources I should curate regularly, (c) how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal, and (d) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. Today’s plant (Unna):

Unna writes: “Harvey’s Lake, Barnet, Vermont.” Since Vermont is in the news lately!

Some people who have not sent in pictures of plants did so. Thank you! But more would be nice…

* * *

Readers: Water Cooler is a standalone entity not covered by the annual NC fundraiser. So do feel free to make a contribution today or any day. Here is why: Regular positive feedback both makes me feel good and lets me know I’m on the right track with coverage. When I get no donations for five or ten days I get worried. More tangibly, a constant trickle of small donations helps me with expenses, and I factor that trickle in when setting fundraising goals. So if you see something you especially appreciate, do feel free to click below! (The hat is temporarily defunct, so I slapped in some old code.)

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This entry was posted in Water Cooler on February 20, 2019 by Lambert Strether.

About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

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Source: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/02/200pm-water-cooler-2-20-2019.html

[lamotheloves-blog]

Iain Dale: Did the Chief Whip knife Jones and other pro-Leave Ministers in this reshuffle?

Iain Dale is Presenter of LBC Drive, Managing Director of Biteback Publishing, a columnist and broadcaster and a former Conservative Parliamentary candidate.

I write this in the aftermath of the horror at Grenfell Tower in West London and I am fully aware that picking apart a reshuffle, after so many people have tragically died, makes the 'game of politics' seem petty. But writing about politics is what I do, so here goes.

I don't think I have experienced a reshuffle of which I've thought afterwards: yup, that was a good one. Timeservers remain in government while talented ministers are inexplicably sacked. This reshuffle was no different. There seems to be little long-term planning; little thought of career development, and little appointment based on expertise.

Appointments of Ministers below Cabinet level are generally shaped by the Chief Whip, with less involvement from the Prime Minister. Her new chief of staff, Gavin Barwell, will have been involved too.

And the one theme that runs through this reshuffle at Minister of State and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State level is the advance of Remain-supporting Tory MPs. It's as if last year's EU referendum had never happened. Many are wondering whether the new First Secretary of State, the arch-Remain supporting Damian Green, has also been wielding some reshuffle influence.

So here's the list as I write of 13 new Ministers or retreads (including recent whips) who supported Remain:

Mark Field

Jackie Doyle-Price

Steve Brine

Claire Perry

Alok Sharma

John Glen

Alistair Burt

Michael Ellis

Chloe Smith

Mel Stride

Steve Barclay

Anne Milton

Guy Opperman

I can find only three new entrants to the government who supported Brexit

Steve Baker

Jake Berry

Martin Callanan.

Thirteen to three: draw your own conclusions. Furthermore, Leavesupporting ministers Andrew Percy and Robert Syms have left the government. The question is whether Williamson has done all this deliberately off his own bat, or whether it's due to orders from Number Ten. I'm afraid that I can offer no answer, but it doesn't bode well for those of us who continue to believe that Brexit must mean Brexit.

One of the most concerning aspects of the shuffle has been the defenestration of the Brexit Department. Just six days before the negotiations with the EU are to begin, David Davis was left with one junior minister, Robin Walker. Last weekend his Lords minister, George Bridges, resigned apparently in part because he felt he couldn't do his job any longer because of the obstruction of Number Ten.

And he did so even though two of the main obstructors had left their jobs. One report claimed that they wouldn't even show him the draft Article 50 letter. He was in charge of preparing the Great Repeal Bill one of the most complex pieces of legislation ever to be put before Parliament. He was a uniting force, and well thought of in the Lords.

Then on Tuesday, the Minister of State in the department David Jones, the former Wales Secretary was summarily fired. It's been reported elsewhere that Davis was not consulted in advance, and that no reason was given although the decision is thought to be related to a slightly disloyal comment Jones is said to have made over the weekend, in which where he emulated Rab Butler's famous description of Sir Anthony Eden by describing May as the strongest leader we have got at the moment. Those last three words apparently did for him. How petty can you get? Jones had spent the last year building alliances in the foreign ministries of Europe, and had received praise for his Commons performances.

Bizarrely, Secretaries of State are rarely consulted over the appointment of their junior ministers. The Lords replacement for Bridges was Baroness Anelay, an arch-remainer and former Foreign Office minister. She was a valued member of Davis's shadow home affairs team back in the day when I was his Chief of Staff, and he had an excellent relationship with her so in some ways it's a canny appointment.

However, it's also a provocative one, and quite how she will get up to speed in the time available is one of the more daunting tasks faced by any new ministers. She is a natural conciliator, and one of the nicest people in politics. All eyes then shifted to the remaining vacancy. Surely May and Williamson couldn't appoint another Remainer. could they?

All sorts of rumours were flying around including one that claimed that Alan Duncan would get the job. One can only imagine what consequences that might have provoked. In the end Steve Baker, the Eurosceptic's Eurosceptic, was appointed in a last-minute bid to calm the concerns of Brexiteers.

But I just don't understand why would Number Ten appears deliberately to have provoked Davis when he was the first to rally around May in the hours after the election result? It doesn't take Einstein to work out that it might just be a good idea to consult him over ministerial appointments. I haven't spoken to him, so I have no idea whether he is even happy with the appointment of Steve Baker. On the face of it he might well be, but a more sensible appointment to that post might have been Dominic Raab. Raab succeeded me as his Chief of Staff and would have been brilliant in the role. In the event, he's been sent to the Ministry of Justice.

Moving on to other departments, what on earth was behind the sackings of Robert Halfon and Mike Penning? Halfon is one of the most popular Conservative MPs in the Commons, with no one having a bad word to say about him. Penning has been a highly impressive minister across several departments. Both illustrated how the Conservative Party had changed, and in PR terms were very useful, given their backgrounds. And yet both were axed.

In Penning's case, you could argue that if he was never going to get into Cabinet, maybe it was time for him to go. But if so, how does one explain the survival of a whole host of other Ministers of State? No names, no pack drill. Penning was the best Roads Minister in living memory, a superb Home Office Minister, and did well in every job he was given. And yet he never made it Cabinet, mainly because he was never seen as one of the 'beautiful people'.

Halfon was a key ally of George Osborne. Did this play a part in the decision to sack him? If so, how small-minded can you get? He really was (and is) the face of working class Conservatism. What message does it send to despatch him summarily to the back benches? Unless there's something I am missing, it's an inexplicable decision.

I could go on. But I leave you with a final thought. John Hayes survives yet another reshuffle. Kudos. Respect. I suspect he belongs to the Alistair Burt & Michael Gove category of ministers. Better to have them inside the tent pissing out

Quite why Tim Farron chose to resign on the day when the news was dominated by the Grenfell Tower disaster is anyone's guess. Reading some of the responses, it's as if he media hounded him out of office for his views on moral issues and his religion.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Had Farron given straight answers to straight questions, we'd have all respected that. But he didn't. He equivocated to a point when we all suspected the answers he was giving bore little resemblance to his real views.

The point about being a political leader is that you have lead the people, not follow the crowd. If Tim really does believe that homosexuality is a sin, let him come out and declare it. At least we could respect him for his honesty, even if most of us think he would be entirely misguided.