Strange bleating noise through the fog of war

Ah yes, that strange bleating noise is our Prime Minister trying to make himself heard.

PM warns of politicians trying to divide ahead of social cohesion plan unveiling

Sir Keir Starmer insisted the UK is a diverse, tolerant country where people can live side by side.

Sir Keir Starmer has warned of politicians trying to “point fingers and divide”, as the Government prepared to publish its plan for social cohesion.

The Prime Minister said one of his biggest concerns was people in politics who he said “want to set up grievances between different groups of people”.


When the PM talks of those who "want to set up grievances between different groups of people", he is of course determined not to notice the array of grievances between his government and those who hoped for political competence. Grievances he has no intention of tackling as they turn into suppurating sores on the body politic.

Unfortunately Starmer has a plan, probably something to do with compulsory social cohesion. 

And sheep.

Bust before take-off

UK net-zero airline goes bust before take-off

EcoJet Airlines, the Scottish start-up promoted as the world’s first zero-emission regional carrier, has collapsed into voluntary liquidation without ever operating a commercial passenger flight.

Founded in Edinburgh in 2023 by prominent Labour Party donor Dale Vince OBE, who has given more than £5 million to the party, alongside former pilot Brent Smith, EcoJet aimed to retrofit existing aircraft such as Twin Otters and ATR 72s with hydrogen-electric powertrains developed in partnership with ZeroAvia...

The company, described as a start-up with no material assets, has no ongoing operations; shareholders agreed to fund the liquidation to ensure employees received full statutory entitlements.

All planned flights were formally cancelled.

Car thefts in Germany are on the rise – perpetrators avoid e-cars

Car thefts in Germany are on the rise – perpetrators avoid e-cars and steal combustion engines in particular

In Germany, car thefts increased again in 2023, but electric cars usually remain an exception for perpetrators: The BKA counts 15,924 permanently stolen cars in the "Federal Situation Report on Motor Vehicle Crime 2023", nine percent more than in the previous year. Organized groups bring many vehicles abroad that same night, which is why time pressure is becoming a central risk factor. High-priced vehicles often disappear on order. In the case of e-cars, there is apparently often a lack of customers. As a result, the damage is mainly concentrated on combustion engines.

Investigators describe that gangs mainly take vehicles with combustion engines because they can cover long distances without planning effort. Henning Hauswald, head of the "Soko Kfz" at the Saxony State Criminal Police Office, said literally: "Thieves have no time to drive to the charging station". This is a practical argument, because every additional stop increases the probability of detection.

Tracking systems on EV cars are an issue too apparently.

Headlines - the decline continues

UK households with air fryers face £126 charges from April

According to comparison site Go Compare, the average air fryer uses anything between 800 watts and 2,000 watts per hour to heat up and cook food. An average air fryer would cost 39p to run for an hour right now, or £141.50 per year if run for one hour per day.

But with the new prices from April, the cost will drop to £126.06 per year, after the cost per hour decreases to 35p. Overall, it's a decrease of £15.44 per year from April, when prices drop.

And more good news is that, generally, it's still cheaper to run an air fryer than an oven.

My underlining.

Although there are so many dodgy headlines out there in Media Land that we develop an eye for the more entertaining attempts to grab our attention. I reckon it's a job I could do, for example -

Mum Gail says her toilet is haunted by the ghost of a nineteenth century milkman

Rare tropical fish discovered in sock drawer

Keir Starmer to make vitally important announcement on AI

I'm not sure about the stories below the headlines, but maybe I could leave that to AI.

Little Tich - Big Boot Dance (1900)

 

Where do we go from here?

  
 

Where do we go from here?

Blair sparks row with Starmer after claiming UK ‘should have backed Trump from the beginning’ in Iran

He reportedly added: “If they are your ally and they are an indispensable cornerstone for your security ... you had better show up”.

Sir Tony’s comments were made in private on the understanding that he would not be quoted, but they have since appeared in the Mail on Sunday and The Sunday Time


It's isn't so much a question of disagreement between those two, as a question of having to pay attention to national political actors who should never have been on the stage. Yet this is only part of what we are reduced to. 

Starmer will presumably be replaced at some point by...

That's not something to dwell on either.

But no surprise

John Prescott's son joins Greens

David Prescott decision to join the Greens comes as the party overtakes Labour for the first time in the polls.

Karl Turner, who succeeded John Prescott as the Labour MP for Hull East in the 2010 general election, told Sky News the defection was "hugely disappointing" but "no surprise."

He added: "I suspect John Prescott would be furious if he was around today.

"But his anger would be aimed at the Labour Party for allowing progressive voters to leave Labour and go to what they see as a left-wing, more progressive alternative to the party he worked all of his adult life to elect into government, to change the lives of the many, not the few, for the better."

Politicians eh? They play strange language games where words such as 'progressive' seem to mean no more than progressively totalitarian, benefitting the few, not the many.

Interesting times unfortunately.