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Streeting and Burnham say Blair does not mention inequality even once. 

Sreeting says about Blair’s essay, “the defining issue of our age is barely confronted at all. Inequality – the economic, social and democratic fracture running through modern Britain – is treated as peripheral rather than fundamental.” Burnham says Blair has not mentioned inequality even once.

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Cost of living (groceries and healthcare costs) in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania. WSJ talks to the member of Congress Mackenzie and voters in this region of Pennsylvania, in a competitive House District in 2026. Voters are not dining out, using food banks, and are 50-50 in their support for DJT vs Democrats, yet plan to vote Republican. They attribute the worst inflation to Biden when it went up 20% one year, with DJT trying to cut the cost of living but failing to make the kind of headway that is needed.

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Students are failing in math and need remedial preparation. Professors are alarmed at UCLA and UC San Diego. Governor Newsom pushed his not well thought out initiative to remove SAT/ACT preparation so that it would help disadvantaged students when it is exactly that kind of rigor that all students need. And to help disadvantaged student special programs and teachers should be setup before college entry not remove rigorous preparation requirements that all student can take and benefit from preparation. There is no substitute for discipline and hard work in education and this starts early in the K-12 process and goes through all the level to 12th grade when the preparation all over the world gets rigorous, as it is in Asian countries and in Europe.

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Guardian's Essay on the War and how it has undone Iran pushed it back by decades with internal suppression of dissent, the diversion of vital resources that could be used for building the economy and standards of living, failing to build a sovereign investment fund like Norway and other countries setting aside money for a rainy day. Much of the young educated voters and business in markets is in the cities in Asia and this class has to be integrated into development to create advanced developed nations instead of a small class of people controlling the nation's resources under an ideological or religious sectarian leadership. It failed in Spain in the Franco years, and now in Venezuela and Iran, Pakistan, because it does not grasp what happened in Asia- in China, in India, in South Korea where even under communist (China), military (South Korea), the integration of the students, middle class business, all sectors of society, leads to all sections of society building advanced societies improving education, healthcare, and modernization infrastructure, joining Europe and the US to build the future of science and technology. ...

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Hundreds of professors in UC university system in math, science and engineering protest removal of the standardized testing for college in California by Governor Newsom. After social justice movements misread what promotes and what doesnt the removal of standardized testing ACT/SAT tests by Governor Newsom is leading to a major disaster- as the number of unprepared students who need remedial help has increased 30 fold. The consequences are dire for the future of science and technology in America says the protest letter by hundreds of UC faculty-  “longer pathways through prerequisite material, reduced readiness for advanced coursework, and growing pressure to dilute quantitative rigor," for University of California system with 200,000 students — educating a huge section of the engineers in America’s universities.  "We now observe preparation gaps so severe that instructors must reteach middle-school mathematics.” “The SAT/ACT mathematics requirement is not an obstacle to equity; rather, it is a prerequisite for it. Failing to measure preparation gaps does not remove barriers; it moves them into the classroom, where they become harder to overcome.” Other points are that stanrdized tests are even more important in the severe grade inflation in 2026, and add AI-assisted application essays. The Washington Post says these are crusades for equity done the wrong way hurting the very students they are designed to help because the time to fix the problem is in the middle and high schools, after that it is impossible and leaves students no path forward. This experiment has failed and is a warning for other crusades for equity on "false pretenses," says The Washington Post. ...

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Obama Affordable Care Act ACA and its downfall are covered by two experienced authors over 2 book written over 2 decades. The authors are James Morone and David Blumenthal followed the healthcare issue over 25-30 years through the Clinton, Edward Kennedy and Obama efforts and wrote two books. The first was "The Heart of Power" on the healthcare situation from FDR to 2008. The last titled "Whiplash" in 2026, for which the authors are interviewed in Harvard Medicine magazine. C-SPAN has a book program on this book at a Washington DC bookstore. From the discussion on C-SPAN between Senator Michael Blumenthal, borther of one of the authors, James Morone and David Blumenthal physician, couple of conclusions are seen that may be new to readers. Q. What was the one single factor that doomed the Affordable Care Act? A. The deep antipathy towards the Obama administration influenced the response to the Obama handling of healthcare. The likelihood of Republicans accepting healthcare from a black person was simply not there say the book's authors in the discussion and Q&A on C-SPAN. Yet there were other reasons for the ACA failing. Obama had not gauged the mood of the nation well. UK Labour's Starmer won by a big majority in 2024 yet that does not reflect the mood of the British nation just 2 years later- by election year 2012 Obama's campaign was faltering and had to be rescued with Hispanic votes and a weak candidate in Utah's Mitt Romney. Obama lacked maturity and came in the way Bush came in when the list of candidates were mediocre in the US, similar to the period in the UK with David Cameron and Boris Johnson. To take on the health care issue required someone with the experience and caliber of LBJ, which Obama clearly lacked, coming from the minority community was not going to help in credibility. Obama's presidency was thus premature and to gain experience he would have done better in a key cabinet position such as at Department of State where an intellectual could have influenced world opinion in favor of emerging countries, a doable and necessary. Obama's lack of experience showed when he told Republicans two words in the first months in 2008- "We Won," perceiving arrogance it would set Republicans against him. The years 2008-2016 cost the US dearly in that the US needed a withdrawal from all of the Middle East which would require a strong president  with deep roots of support in all parts of the country including the south, to avoid recriminations. In the end by continuing the wars Obama weakened the US and let China move ahead. Q. Did Obama consider Medicare for All? A. Obama told Congressmen of his party according to Morone- if you can get 60 votes in the Senate for Medicare for All we can try.  Q. Would it take a major upheaval for Medicare for All to be accepted now that the health system is failing all Americans in 2026? A. It will take a world war or a economic depression- some major disaster for Medicare for All to be accepted in the US, say the authors. A pandemic happened in 1918 and again in 2019 the results were not positive, as the authors believe it unleashed the war on science after the vaccination for and against camps, leading to the culture wars in America seen today. Q  Obama's analytical mind thought he learned from the Clinton efforts in healthcare that failed. But he did not see things from the heart. There is good reason to think that the lessons learned of moving fast, letting Congress write the legislation, settling for what can be done not what needs to be done, were exactly the wrong lessons to be learned as opposed to writing off the Clinton experience entirely as Clinton's, and starting from scratch without preconceptions. In the end Obama if he was older, had more experience, and listened to the mood of the country would have realized that healthcare was for another day, and got right down to the most difficult challenge, to end the wars in the Middle East. Even small steps in the right direction would still have earned appreciation him today. Instead Bush and Obama, the most inexperienced of presidents will be remembered for wars they continued that weakened America.       ...

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Pistachio orchards in San Joaquin Valley, California, produce 1.6 billion pounds of pistachios in 2025 increasing to 2 billion by 2031, largest in the world. Pistachios are increasing in price and valued as a health food and in chocolate with climate in the San Joaquin Valley dry and cold ideal for this crop.

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Democrats continue to believe they lost in 2024 because they did not attack DJT enough. This fails to cite issues such as cost of living- surge in the third year of the Biden administration with 20% increase in prices and Biden failing to take notice and address this quickly. A wave of illegal immigration- the failure of Mayorkas, himself a Cuban immigrant in 1960, put in charge of Homeland Security and ICE, and Harris who was an attorney helping indigents in inner city San Francisco, to grasp the fears of border states and southern states. The failure to understand that the border was open and inviting waves of illegal immigrants, some with questionable backgrounds. This issue created a sense of unease in the fabric of society and American people. Other issues simply showed how Harris could not relate to the conservative people and average people in the country in the cultural aspect such as transgender, rural America. Biden pulling out suddenly, loss of rural vote- failure of Democrats since Obama to pay attention to rural voters, Harris not appealing to the white male vote in the US, are other factors that hurt Democrats. DJT gained with the shooting incident in Pennsylvania in which he survived, and the perception raised during a garbage truck and DJT photo that the Democrats derided, seen by the public as looking down on working class people. Democrats never really grasped how the political system had gone in reverse- the Republicans had put cultural aspect first and conservative now meant working class voters and white voters in rural areas/small towns, big cities, ( the Archie Bunker type of an earlier era who was now a Democrat, not the college educated and Ivy league Harvard type that had taken over the Democratic party). This continues to this day with some paradox as the business class and the billionaire class sit alongside the working class person in the Republican party DJT created. DJT did this in 2016 by pulling together workers hurt by Bush and Obama's policies favoring the educated classes and affluent, ignoring rural areas and farmers, and committing US to wars in the Middle East that squandered the Nations' resources and human lives. This was aggravated in the Biden/Harris/Mayorkas years by letting in migrants across the border by the millions that created a great deal of unease in the working classes. In this way labor unions or their rank and file left the Democratic party- a problem that plagues Democrats to this day, that Biden tried but failed to fix. The border issues had become complex by the latter part of the Biden administration because of the complete collapse of Venezuelan economy and the drug cartels in Mexico smuggling people and drugs across the border, for which the Biden administration or Harris had no answer.  It was the failure of administrations to continue the Monroe Doctrine in the form given by FDR as "Good Neigbor Policy," and JFK as the Alliance for Progress, allowing drug cartels and foreign European powers to intervene in the western hemisphere, desorying good governance in Mexico, Venezuela, Cuba and other nations in Latin America. By the second year of the DJT administration Venezuela, and the border were brought under control, and the situation in Mexico put in a new direction. ...

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Vernon Jordan points out the problems with media and new tech and the loss of quality journalism. He says this has damaged the political process in the U.S. and Europe by spreading rumor as facts, and not providing reliable information, with news and entertainment not being separated. The failure to educate people he says, risks in Jefferson's words the "perversion of power into tyranny."

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Where do you place a winner of the Democratic primary in Maine, Graham Plattner, an oyster farmer who dropped out of college at George Washington University, served briefly in the Middle East wars of Bush and Obama, and had PTSD. Is he working class, middle working class or is he from a downwardly mobile professional class considering he has parents who are well educated and father a prominent lawyer in Maine? Plattner easily defeated a 3 term governor of Maine with his average working class demeanor and language. He is for universal health care, (Medicare for All) universal child care, affordable housing, affordable college. Politics in the US has been moving away from the simple divisions before 1950 created by the Industrial Revolution- the workers in factories and the owners of capital allied with the professional middle class. The few owners of capital mostly college educated allied with people from the non college educated workers in factories who are conservative in their values and beliefs and on the other side the college educated professional middle class now downwardly mobile because of the many recessions and high unemployment from frequent financial crises, with college costing $80,000 a year putting them in deep debt. There is today in the WSJ a story of a professional worker who at $194,000 a year salary is not able to payoff $15000 debt which owners of capital have set at 26% interest and is in downward spiral. Some of this comes from large college and other debt. There is says WSJ Analysis $1.25 trillion in credit card debt alone with highest delinquency rates in decades in 2026. Cost of living has only made things worse and some of this happened as Biden poured money into the economy to help people hurt by the pandemic, yet with some short run consequences with demand strong businesses including hotels, restaurants and grocery stores, auto dealers, jacking up their prices by over 20% in 1 year and Biden failing to respond, getting overwhelmed by open borders migrants under Mayorkas and Harris (also hit by a sudden Venezuelan migrant influx). This is the America one has today- a confusing mix. This in reality means Democrats may take issue with Democrats, Republicans take issue with Republicans, and Democrats join with Republicans on issue by issue basis. It might actually be rational than irrational. On cultural issues if the country has gone over its head and moved too fast on some issues that are not for the general public good, people of different backgrounds can come together to get the best path. On economic issues things are never so straightforward, there are unpredictable consequences and the rules of economics are really not so straightforward either.  Providing relief can mean the government shouldering the burden as during the pandemic which it should, yet with caution as businesses can use the excess demand to raise prices and one is back to square one with everybody worse off as happened with Biden. Migrant flows and fears of insecurity in public spaces can lead to a severe public "discomfort that can waylay the best intentions of a Harris or Biden, leading to public "backlash." In fact the title of a recent book is "Whiplash." Current books include Floridan Marco Rubio's "Decade's of Decadence- How our Spoiled Elites Blew America's Inheritance of Liberty, Security and Prosperity." Rubio means it. Its authentic because as Rubio says repeatedly, his parents could make a living in the 1960's working in a factory with decent wages, low cost of living and low cost of college, the arithmetic between salaries and what you needed for decent home in suburbs and sending children to good public schools, then to college, all adding up. The result is that Rubio could go to college and serve in the Florida legislature. Rubio says in 2026, after the elites under Bush and Obama and faulty economic theory shipped all of our factories to China, that the story of his parents and his education would simply be impossible. This is what he told people in India on his first visit last week. His parents were Cuban immigrants, yet he identifies with Spain and with western civilization, a devout Roman Catholic. Rubio is a Republican, and is in large contrast with Alejandro Mayorkas, also from Cuba, and Biden's Head of Homeland Security. This is the mix of people and representatives in Congress,  business people, small business owners, professionals, that we have today in 2026 in the US. Plattner and Rubio, one a Democrat and one a Republican- both have something in common. Plattner also has general disdain for "the corporate interests, the billionaires, the Washington DC elites, and the establishment politicians."  The winds are blowing in the direction of getting things right- remembering that Eisenhower continued the work of the Kennedy and LBJ administrations (Eisenhower built the Interstate Highway System for instance, and LBJ gave America Social Security and Medicare). Before that Franklin Roosevelt a Democrat built on the work of his uncle Republican Theodore Roosevelt (TR gave America the idea of good governance and built the US Navy, FDR fought the Depression and stabilized a faltering economy after mistakes made by Republican Herbert Hoover could have happened even if Hoover was a Democrat. FDR was himself from a wealthy New York family and when he first met fellow New Yorker Frances Perkins before his struggle with polio, a haughty New York gentleman. That was before Frances Perkins as FDR's Labor Secretary joined forces with Roosevelt to give New York a modernized administration governance structure by 1940 that was applied to all 51 states after 1950. It allied labor with capital with fairness for all, and was the first such modern structure of this size the world had ever seen, which was the fundamental strength of the United States of America. It was imitated in Asia, first in the Shanghai region then China, and first in the Ahmedabad region and now India. The US is faced with the challenge of recreating and rebuilding this today, as first China, then India remind America of its roots which they have followed in their own style and culture.  First good governance, then good institutional structures, alligning labor and capital with fairness for all, strong affordable + accessible educational and healthcare systems, and investments of capital and labor for infrastructure + industrial development. ...

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Disagreements on how much to fund an education recovery effort in the Toy government of Mr. Johnson. Sir Kevan Collins resigns after his program designed to help students recover from the loss of study time from coronavirus at a cost of 15 billion pounds is rejected. The government plans to put 1.4 billion pounds, which Sir Collins calls too narrow, and not doing enough, delivering too slowly. Sir Collins had hoped to give 6th Formers and extra 100 hours of schooling and help prepare students for GCSE exams. He would have extended school time by 30 minutes in 2022 and setup a 35 hour week for students.

Netherlands plans to spend 2500 pounds per student, the US 1600 pounds per student, the UK 50 pounds per student.