One for Ed and Miatta

What’s behind North Korea’s coal industry push?

From miner housing to carbon neutrality, North Korea's coal strategy carries implications well beyond its borders

North Korea held the second plenary session of the ninth Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea from June 20 to 22. According to Rodong Sinmun, the party’s official newspaper, the meeting’s purpose was to review North Korea’s progress on 2026 party and state policies. These policies stem from strategic tasks set by the Ninth Party Congress and the new five year plan. The party also said it aimed to discuss and resolve pressing issues needed to put socialist construction on a stable, sustained path of development.

The second agenda item at the plenary session was titled “On Boosting the Coal Industry and Transforming Coal Mining Towns Nationwide.” North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said overcoming the coal sector’s remaining backwardness is an urgent task for the successful completion of the new five year plan.

What we need to counteract this horrific development is a determined visit to North Korea by a large delegation of UK climate protesters with their placards, soup and orange powder. This should attract Kim's attention and make him think again.

None of them would come back of course, a few people may see this as a disadvantage.


On March 15 this year, Kim visited the Chonsong Youth Coal Mine, part of the Sunchon Youth Coal Mining Complex in South Pyongan province, where he voted in Supreme People’s Assembly elections and met with miners. “For people to live, grain farming must go well,” he said. “For the state to live, coal farming must go well. Coal has been and remains the heart of our industry and the engine of our self-reliant economic development.”

Something to do with leopards and spots

Ed Miliband indicates development and climate will be at heart of UK foreign policy

Britain’s foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, is to indicate he will put the climate crisis and overseas development at the heart of UK international relations by taking up the country’s seat on the board at the World Bank.

The position, which is usually delegated to a junior minister, means Miliband will play an active role in shaping the changes to the World Bank that developing countries have called for, and ensuring the climate remains a core focus for overseas aid.

Miliband, who was energy and net zero secretary under Keir Starmer, will say: “International development is not an add-on to British foreign policy – it is central to it. By taking on the role of UK governor to the World Bank, I want to send an unambiguous signal that this government is serious about its global leadership on development and climate.”

The position is usually delegated to a junior minister? Didn't take Ed long to spot the opportunity and hop into the new role and the headlines. We may assume that he will have known about this move before accepting the role of Foreign Secretary and presumably hopes to pull Miatta Fahnbulleh's sustainability strings too, from a globalist position.

Maybe Burnham doesn't care about Ed's machinations and sees this move as a lone voice from a mysterious global outfit most voters don't understand. 

Yet in spite of his heavy focus on Manchester and repeated guff about the cost of living, Burnham is likely to be another globalist Prime Minister. No doubt we'll soon see how things pan out for Mad Ed.

The Kakistocracy

David King has a whimsical Quadrant piece on Australia as a Kakistocracy, entangled as it still is in Net Zero and the the ludicrous folly of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS).

The whole piece is well worth reading as we in the UK wonder if Miatta Fahnbulleh will turn out to be merely another servant of the UK Kakistocracy and  just as absurdly destructive as Ed Miliband.

An Ironic Blessing of ‘Atrocious Science’

While the tide finally seems to be turning in regard to realization of the futility of “Net Zero” – not only on economic grounds, but also because there is compelling scientific evidence that if accomplished it would have negligible effect on climate – there is an obstinate vocal rump who cannot, or just do not want to accept the scientific reality. Not least amongst them are our Chris Bowen and the UK’s Ed Milliband, two ministers driving policy agendas that amount to economic euthanasia.

The case against anthropogenic emissions having a material effect on climate spans observational data, theoretical analysis, and empirical (laboratory) testing ( see The Science is Settled); counter arguments appear to rely entirely on computer modeling of temperature even though model predictions have failed to match observed temperatures in both forecast and, surprisingly, hindcast. Sadly, persistence with with decarbonization/net zero policy agendas suggests that my earlier assessment that the Lucky Country is now a Kakistocracy (Green Idiocy’s Consequences) is increasingly apposite. These agendas have polluted our taxation systems, education priorities, corporate reporting obligations, research funding priorities, and more.

The 24-hour news cycle

The 24-hour news cycle is ruining politics

The relentless 24-hour news cycle and social media landscape have fundamentally altered political discourse by prioritizing quick, performative reactions over thoughtful deliberation, says Emma Revell

Of course, rolling news isn’t going anywhere. Unless politicians lose all semblance of control of their worst nannying instincts, neither is social media. And before we blame the hacks crowded on the Downing Street pavement, it’s worth remembering they’re only there because we’re watching. The doorstep circus runs on our attention. If we actually wanted politicians to think before they spoke, we might need to give them a moment in which to do it.

Some of us aren't watching though. Maybe public interest in 'the news' is dwindling and this also explains the 24-hour news cycle. 

Maybe it's big media engaged in frantic competition with social media and the smaller guys. The BBC is certainly becoming frantic in its attempts to avoid relying on a voluntary subscription model. 

Removed from the ballot paper

Klaus Bastian has an interesting Blackout News piece on political exclusion in Germany.

Exclusion from voting: Political opponents have AfD candidates removed from the ballot paper

Lower Saxony, July 2026: The exclusion of Bundestag member Martin Sichert from the election shows how political competition can be eliminated even before a vote. Reinhild Goes initially did not receive approval despite a recommendation for admission by the local election officer. The AfD district administrator candidate Stephan Bothe is also threatened with exclusion according to a recommendation of the Ministry of the Interior. On the other hand, the election committees admitted Jessica Schülke in Hanover and Robert Preuß in Gifhorn. The red-green local electoral law allows the evaluation of material from the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and political statements. Subsequently, party-political election committees decide on competing candidates. A full judicial review often only follows after the election. At the same time, UN Special Rapporteur Irene Khan criticizes such vague extremism assessments as "incompatible with international standards."

Ludwigshafen provided the blueprint for the exclusion from the election

Joachim Paul was not allowed to run in the mayoral election in Ludwigshafen in 2025. The election committee relied on material from the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. But the administrative courts did not fully examine the allegations before the vote. Instead, they referred Paul to the later election scrutiny procedure. Therefore, the election took place without the candidate of a party that was not banned.

The Politics Cartel

The word ‘Uniparty’ has been around for decades, especially in the US, but it’s a useful word here in the UK too. As any political sceptic knows, there is much to be said for viewing UK politics as a cartel which fixes the financial and political cost of being a supine voter– the Uniparty.

A few UK political parties offer only limited competition within cartel boundaries which are not explicit within their debates, manifestos or policies. Parties promote their particular political brand, but only within Uniparty boundaries and in so doing they fix the cost of being a supine voter - the cartel aspect.

This much is obvious enough, “they are all the same” is far from being an uncommon public comment at election time. Yet only a minority of voters seem to treat their frustration as being due a permanent political cartel where close party alignment is a feature, not a fault. Only a minority of voters seem to view the main political parties as one party and refer to it by a single name such as the Uniparty.

It is also clear, but clearly not clear enough, that the entire Establishment is a social and political cartel called rather vaguely the Elite, the Blob, the Swamp, the Kleptocracy or one of a number of other names. Or just the Establishment.

Unfortunately we are held back by language. The Establishment, the Uniparty, the mainstream media all have a tight grip on popular language, on how we articulate what goes on in the world of politics, how we articulate it to others and even to ourselves.

For example, within the boundaries of the Uniparty cartel, our current UK Prime Minister is described as a member of the Labour Party, which he is in a formal sense, but this means less than is usually assumed. He promotes himself and his party within constrained narratives formulated as typically Labour Party narratives, but always within Uniparty boundaries. What is not allowed is to change the way things are done in any radical way.

In other words, Andrew Burnham is the Uniparty Prime Minister from what we might call the Labour branch, but that is not what we hear from mainstream media. Neither do we usually hear it said that he represents the Establishment, the Blob, Davos, globalism, the Kleptocracy or whatever.

Powerfully useful words such as Uniparty are successfully relegated to the fringes of UK political discourse. The political cartel is successfully disguised because the main political parties do have different agendas, but within ill-defined but quite definite Uniparty and therefore Establishment boundaries.

Hence a major UK political question - where does Reform stand in all this?

 

Who pays for Manchesterism?

Shimeon Lee has a useful Critic piece on some of the ways in which Andrew Burnham's notion of “Manchesterism” is mostly about wasting other people's money. 

The whole piece is well worth reading for any UK citizen who feels unduly cheerful at the moment.


Who pays for Manchesterism?

Burnham spent nine years extracting money from Westminster, now he’ll be reaching directly into taxpayers’ pockets

Andy Burnham is now Prime Minister, and the country soon to discover what “Manchesterism” means when applied to the British state. Burnham’s nine years as mayor, alongside his earlier national record, offer a clear guide to the instincts he is likely to bring to No.10: a willingness to raise taxes, expand the state and prioritise policies that sound good but ultimately deliver poor value for money.

It is revealing that after being elected mayor in 2017, one of Burnham’s first acts was to impose a new charge on households in Greater Manchester. The new mayoral precept was initially set at £8 for the average band D property, funding the mayoral operation, including Burnham’s £110,000 salary. As so often happens with new charges, it did not remain modest for long. The charge more than doubled the following year, rising again in 2020-21, 2022-23, 2025-26 and 2026-27. By the time Burnham resigned to contest the Makerfield by-election, it had risen to £61.75, nearly eight times the original amount in less than a decade.

As residents paid more, the mayor built an increasingly elaborate network of advisers, commissioners and panels funded by taxpayers. These included a young person’s advisor paid £500 per day, a transport commissioner and an active travel commissioner each paid £650 per day, and an LGBTQ+ advisor paid £177 per day. He also established seven equality panels facilitated by “culturally appropriate organisations” which cost £392,435 a year. Taxpayers can only speculate how much larger that ecosystem could become when he takes control of Whitehall.