Fiscal crisis, corruption claims, shenanigans and legal threats. This feels like the week old-style politics sat on a grenade <\/p>\n
The worst-timed foreign visit by a politician this week was LA mayor Karen Bass deciding to attend the inauguration of the president of Ghana<\/a>. The second worst might be Rachel Reeves\u2019s decision to push ahead with her China bridge-building trip<\/a> against a backdrop of market turmoil, soaring UK borrowing costs and the inevitability of rising food prices. But look, maybe have no fear. The chancellor has apparently told all her cabinet colleagues to \u201ccease anti-growth measures\u201d \u2013 amazing \u2013 and also to come up with specific plans to boost economic activity. I am already picturing her opening the bits of paper from the hat. \u201cRight, I\u2019ve got 20 for \u2018build an effing time machine\u2019 and one that just says \u2018Pass\u2019. Sorry, Lammy \u2013 this isn\u2019t Celebrity Mastermind<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n As for auto-satirical lowlights further down the ministerial ladder, do keep your eye on anti-corruption minister Tulip Siddiq. The very regrettable lesson of the past few years in UK politics is that no matter how bad things seem, they can always take on a rosy glow in light of what comes after. The premiership of David Cameron seemed less foolhardy once we were living through the premiership of Theresa May. The premiership of Theresa May seemed less chaotic once we were living through the premiership of Boris Johnson. The premiership of Boris Johnson \u2013 well, lettuce not be too hasty<\/a>. But contemplating the Siddiq situation, was it really so bad that Chris Grayling once gave a ferry contract to a firm with no ferries<\/a>, considering that these days the anti-corruption minister could have three London properties<\/a> she\u2019s tied to investigated by the National Crime Agency\u2019s international corruption unit? Siddiq has distanced herself from her deposed aunt\u2019s authoritarian regime in Bangladesh \u2013 but not, it seems, from the properties given or made available to her by people with close links to that regime. Either way, we are asked to have full confidence in Keir Starmer\u2019s assertion that he has full confidence in her.<\/p>\n Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist<\/p>\n Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fiscal crisis, corruption claims, shenanigans and legal threats. This feels like the week old-style politics sat on a grenade The worst-timed foreign visit by a politician this week was LA mayor Karen Bass deciding to attend the inauguration of the president of Ghana. The second worst might be Rachel Reeves\u2019s decision to push ahead with … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30186\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}