They Wrecked Britain, and They’re Not Going Anywhere The Conservative Party is polling 15 points behind the opposition, and the popularity of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the Conservatives’ fifth leader in seven years, remains obstinately low. ....... While the wealth of the very richest rocketed, the party’s program of austerity, begun by David Cameron in 2010 and continued by each Conservative prime minister since, starved public services, created one of the most miserly welfare states in the developed world and contributed to the longest period of wage stagnation — for many, wage regression — since the Napoleonic Wars. Life expectancy is down, child poverty is up, and there are few signs of a reprieve on the horizon. Life under the Tories has become poorer, nastier, more brutish and shorter. .......... whether in government or in opposition, the Conservatives will continue to find ways to adapt and preserve power. No matter what happens in the next election, the historic vessel of Britain’s ruling class is not going anywhere. ....... the Conservative Party is not just the oldest but also the most successful political party in the world .......... Next year, Tony Blair will be the only Labour leader to have won an election in half a century. ....... Antique poles of ruling-class power — the monarchy, the unelected House of Lords, public schools and Oxbridge — continue to dominate the political landscape. .......... The first-past-the-post voting system remains distinctly undemocratic: Governments need claim only the support of about a quarter of the electorate to attain total executive control. ......... And then there are the public schools, whose name belies their exclusive, private nature. About half of Conservative leaders went to elite boarding schools like Eton and Harrow, which were founded in 1440 and 1572. ........... Only the University of Oxford, with roots back to 1096, can boast more illustrious alumni. Out of the university’s 30 prime ministers since 1721 (more than half the total), three-quarters went to public school. In Britain, the path to power often begins on the playground. .......... Britons are encouraged to take pride in the agedness of their institutions, to see themselves in the pomp and ceremony of the monarchy and the Lords, to relish their status as royal subjects rather than citizens............ — the Old Etonian James Bond, who breaks the rules with a gentleman’s charm; the humble wizardry of Harry Potter, who risks it all to save his enchantingly regimented boarding school from evil outside forces; and the magic of Mary Poppins, the English nanny who wants only to keep the house in order. ........... In 2019 alone, there were more than 30 new series of period dramas, which tend to be conservative-friendly depictions of the past .......... With most media moguls natural allies of the Tories, the newspapers’ daily drip feed of jingoism allows the Conservative Party to convincingly claim to reflect — rather than shape — the national mood. .......... Often Labour politicians seem keener on receiving the blessings of the current system — a peerage, a knighthood, a royal invitation — than on changing it. ......... Idealism and hope are scorned in favor of pragmatism and common sense, two terms that, in Britain, almost always seem to mean cleaving to the right. .......... The Tory philosopher Roger Scruton, described by Boris Johnson as “the greatest modern conservative thinker,” was surely correct when he wrote that “no conservative is likely to think democracy an essential axiom of his politics.” .......... Neither Britain nor the more Tory-voting England is fundamentally Conservative. ........ The Conservative Party’s remarkable ability to win elections has no corollary in nationwide popularity.
The Chatbots Are Here, and the Internet Industry Is in a Tizzy The new technology could upend many online businesses. But for companies that figure out how to work with it, A.I. could be a boon.
A Symbol of Loss in Almost Every Ukrainian Kitchen Soledar, crushed in Russia’s long assault on Bakhmut, was only a little town. But its salt is a national staple, and a matter of pride. ........... Ruslan, 45, was working 1,000 feet below the earth in one of Europe’s largest salt mines when the Russians launched their full-scale invasion. Almost a year later, he was fighting near the ruined city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine when the Russians took control of his nearby hometown, and the mine with it......... The mine provided more than 90 percent of the country’s salt, and its operator, the state-owned company Artemsil, exported salt to more than 20 countries. Now Ukraine is relying on imported salt for the first time in its modern history. ........ Salt was among the first resources that made the eastern Donbas region famous for its mineral wealth......... — excavations more than 1,000 feet deep, linked by more than 200 miles of tunnels, and caverns with cathedral-like roofs big enough to host orchestral concerts, a soccer match and even a hot-air balloon. The Soledar mine had become a tourist attraction, complete with a sanitarium built around the unproven health benefits of breathing salt-infused air. ......... The destruction of Soledar was part of Russia’s broader targeting of Ukraine’s economy. The occupation of Enerhodar — a town whose name means gift of energy, home to Europe’s largest nuclear power plant — helped the Kremlin turn Ukraine from an energy exporter into a country struggling to meet its own power needs. ......... Russian occupation of lands used to produce wheat, corn and sunflower oil — normally Ukraine’s top exports — has devastated the agricultural sector. The wreckage of Azovstal, the Mariupol plant where Ukrainian soldiers held out for months, is a testament to Russia’s decimation of the nation’s steel industry. And port blockades throttle what remains. ........... It was the head of the mercenary group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who released a video on Jan. 12 trumpeting the fall of Soledar — the most significant Russian territorial gain in months. He claimed he was filming his victory speech in the salt caverns. ......... The symbolism was potent, and contested by the Ukrainians: Officials and workers from Artemsil said the backdrop looked like a nearby gypsum mine. .......... The handful of civilians who remained, he said, were either too old to move or had looked forward to the Russian arrival because they supported Moscow. Any others, he said, had probably been killed. ........ Ruslan’s wife, son and daughter were evacuated from Soledar before the Russians came, and the family does not know when it will return. Some of his friends have given up on the thought of going home, building new lives in new towns. ......... In the meantime, he said, his family holds onto a single bag of salt from Soledar, saving it for holidays and the day they can go home again.
