Follow the donations

Charles Talbot has a topical Critic piece on the political duplicity behind agitation over donations to Reform UK. Not news to anyone paying attention, but the whole piece is well worth reading as a reminder of how heavily the political dice are loaded.

Also a reminder that the Uniparty effectively buys voters with their own taxes, but we already know that too.  

Follow the donations

The left’s outrage over Reform’s donors ignores where much more political money goes

Controversy surrounding Reform donations over the last few months, a story which has rolled intermittently but inexorably on, may finally have been upstaged in the media spotlight by two record-breaking donations of £36m each from crypto billionaires Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne. Both men have desire to help Nigel Farage achieve victory at the next general election...

Leave aside for a moment the generous donations to the Labour Party from unions, or the £4m they received from hedge fund Quadrature days after the election was called in July 2024. Or the fact that this amount is about on par with the amount of money used to contest the Michigan senate race. The criticisms miss a fundamental point. Political donations are not confined to the millions received by political parties fighting it out in the electoral arena. Far greater sums are pushed annually through the myriad charities which fight for political causes. These dwarf the annual income of political parties — and are deployed to advance no less ideological causes.

A Nature Emergency

Apparently, the recent Neglect post photo may be an outcome of Amber Valley Borough Council declaring a nature emergency.

 

Tackling The Nature Emergency 

Council puts nature at the heart of future decisions

Amber Valley Borough Council says nature will play a greater role in how makes future decisions following its declaration of a nature emergency...

The council’s Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan, informed by Derbyshire Wildlife Trust’s Plan for Nature, sets out ambitions for protecting and enhancing biodiversity across the borough.

Work is also continuing on the council’s Climate Change Action Plan and its delivery plans for 2026 to 2028, with existing actions and projects being reviewed and developed following the declaration...

Councillor Amina Burslem, Cabinet Member for Communities, Street Pride and Wellbeing, said: “Declaring a nature emergency is about much more than making a statement. It is a commitment to put nature at the heart of the decisions we make and make sure that commitment is reflected in what we actually do.

“Residents may also notice changes in how some council-owned open spaces are managed, including allowing grass to grow longer in certain areas and reducing mowing to create more space for wildlife.”

Diversity doesn't mean political diversity

Reform could face action over £72m crypto donations, Rayner warns

Angela Rayner has suggested Reform UK could face action over two mega donations to the party under new laws being pushed through parliament.

The housing secretary was reacting to £72m in donations from two crypto billionaires – Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne – for Nigel Farage’s party given on Friday and Saturday in two lumps of £36m.

With fears that the cash from billionaires could distort British politics, Ms Rayner warned that Reform should not count on keeping all the money as new law Labour is pushing through parliament will be “backdated” to cover all donations from March this year.


As for me, I will believe in no belief that does not make itself manifest by outward signs. I will think no preaching sincere that is not recommended by the practice of the preacher.

Anthony Trollope - Barchester Towers (1857)

Burnham has chosen to feed the welfare monster

Along with many other people, I probably have BDHD, Belief Deficit Hypersceptical Disorder. Not officially diagnosed yet, but I still have hopes.

While I wait for my huge benefits claim to go through, Ross Clark has a very sobering CAPX piece on what he calls the welfare monster and Andrew Burnham's obvious decision to feed it rather than cut it or even faff around trying to contain it in a hard-nosed northern manner. 

The whole piece is well worth reading while we wait for Nemesis to show up to spoil the fun. Can't be long now.

Burnham has chosen to feed the welfare monster

• Andy Burnham seems to have concluded he can’t cut or even contain the benefits bill
• Welfare spending will rise by more than the entire defence budget
• The price of a welfare state is eternal vigilance of the cost

If you are not prepared to shave a penny off benefits, not only are you going to fail to fund defence properly, you have little hope ever of balancing the public books

Burnham seems to have come to the same conclusion: it is not politically possible for him to cut the welfare bill, or even to contain it. This voracious monster will be allowed to grow uncontrollably so long as Labour remain in office. Self-diagnosed ADHD sufferers will continue to drive their Motability cars, the mildly anxious and depressed will continue to be able to sign themselves off as unfit for work for the foreseeable future. And all because Labour MPs see it as their saintly duty to resist any welfare cuts.

Neglect

 

Cemetery photo taken during a short walk through Matlock two days ago. It doesn't usually look like this, but the word neglect came to mind, associated with the word Britain. Plus this famous quote of course - inevitable really.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

George Santayana’s 1905 work The Life of Reason

Even AI systems may begin to wonder

The forthcoming Holborn and St Pancras by-election is a grim prospect, an absurd contest, effectively between Green and Labour if current polls are a guide. 

Yet UK political life is absurd to begin with. More government, more laws, more regulations, more complexities nobody can possibly understand and nobody wants to understand anyway. Certainly not elected MPs. Certainly not that Burnham chap. Certainly not that Polanski chap.

It has become the great British mania, government for the sake of government for the sake of more government where the individual becomes lost in a maze of worthless abstractions swirling around the plughole of failure and betrayal.

Take Zack Polanski as an example. His political message for the voters of Holborn and St Pancras will be absurd because absurd is what he does. It's his political style, his act, the things he says which raise cheers from the absurd members of his absurd party all adding to a humongous pile of absurdity.

And Polanski’s pointless determination to make something of the absurdity, to pile one absurdity on another as if the great pile of nonsense somehow becomes more than nonsense. As if believers expect it to morph into a path to a better life for all - almost all - not those unreconstructed cynics who dare to describe Green hymns to a Green Utopia as twaddle.

And it’s fashionable. Good grief it’s fashionable. Great streams of fashionable twaddle, only worth repeating to like-minded folk who weave it into empty deserts of media vacuity. Even AI systems may begin to wonder if their data centre existence is worthwhile after all that learning.

The Green message may be absurd, but is not unfashionable, even for those middle class folk who aren’t quite persuaded by true believers. Not quite keen enough join the party. Not keen enough to offer more than a sympathetic political ear to the placard wavers with their cheerfully maniacal finger-wagging.

And yet the Holborn and St Pancras by-election will be held. Voters will vote. Votes will be counted. The winning candidate will be declared. The show will go on, and on, and on...

Stolen, expired, resold

Ashe Short has an interesting Just the News piece on investigations into U.S.-funded medical aid items stolen in Africa. The whole piece is well worth reading as UK debates about international aid seem to flop around going nowhere.

Stolen, expired, resold: USAID watchdog breaks up Kenyan pharmacy scheme

Reminiscent of Orson Welles' "The Third Man": Every stolen antibiotic or antiretroviral resold through a back-channel pharmacy represents both a taxpayer dollar that bought nothing and a patient who got an expired, mishandled, or counterfeit dose instead of treatment.

The United States Agency for International Development, Office of Inspector General (USAID OIG) has once again stopped the theft of U.S.-funded medical items...

The operation follows others performed by the OIG, which former USAID Inspector General Jonathan Schofield described on Just the News, No Noise last week...

In that interview, Schofield recounted another incident in Africa involving malaria and AIDS medication. He said that “hundreds of millions of dollars worth of commodities” were being shipped every year from the U.S. to Africa, and organized groups began stealing the products.
Dozens of people all around Africa arrested

“But these are criminals, so they weren't worried too much about refrigeration. They weren't worried about expiration dates. They wouldn't tell people how to administer whatever the product was,” Schofield said. “So, people were continuing – could get sick and die.”