English Electric Lightning

 

Another version of the headline

AI could help GPs pinpoint patients at risk of dying from heart problems

Artificial intelligence could help GPs identify patients most at risk of developing deadly heart conditions, a study has found.

The AI system, known as Optimise, was trained by academics at the University of Leeds using health records of more than two million people over the age of 30 from between 1998 and 2008.

Hmm - another version of the headline could be shorter by three letters - 

AI could help pinpoint patients at risk of dying from heart problems

AI nannying perhaps, but it is not clear what the role of the GP is here, apart from being a treatment gateway. Could be one of those wedges we hear about, the ones with a thin end.

The barren glory

I myself had already spoken to you of that middle class which hungers so ravenously for place and office, distinctions and plumes, and which at the same time is so avaricious, so suspicious with regard to its money which it invests in banks, never risking it in agriculture or manufactures or commerce, having indeed the one desire to enjoy life without doing anything, and so unintelligent that it cannot see it is killing its country by its loathing for labour, its contempt for the poor, its one ambition to live in a petty way with the barren glory of belonging to some official administration.

Emile Zola – Rome (1896)


Today we know all about the barren glory of belonging to some official administration. From prime ministers downwards, all are familiar with a world of bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy. 

Ours has become a world particularly well suited to a constantly growing and evolving swamp of bureaucracy which attracts and sucks in those its makes its own. The Swamp as it is sometimes called – it’s a good modern name for a not so modern evil.

Should Mrs H and I wish to extend our house beyond certain official limits we’ll have to acquire official approval. The other day I topped up the AdBlue tank in our car, a bureaucrat’s answer to a bureaucrat’s problem. The whole car is a complex web of manufacturer’s responses to bureaucratic interference. Now we have the EV, a bureaucrat’s car. A Swamp car perhaps, to be powered by Swamp electricity - but not when the wind doesn't blow. There is no Swamp wind.

Senior politicians, senior members of the permanent administration, international bureaucrats, senior members of the judiciary, NGO and Quango executives, senior media people, major journalists, politically active celebrities and many others could be considered as a loose caste with one particular interest in common – support the Swamp, grow the Swamp.

We are stuck in a highly evolved bureaucratic Swamp where we cannot vote for anything but more bureaucracy, more Swamp, more Swamp people, more Swamp-related business. We are entangled with a whole caste of Swamp people who can’t do anything but Swamp-work. Even the UK monarchy joins in.

Nothing escapes Swamp-people. They have their Swampy fingers in everything from the corner shop to the local school, from light bulbs to the road network, from paint to social media, from petrol to sausages, from coffee to missiles to Swamp health, Swamp hectoring. Nothing escapes completely and nothing avoids being sucked in further, decade by decade.

The Road to Serfdom was a warning we failed to heed and now we are faced with our destiny – Swamp Serfs. We were warned and warned again, but still we voted Swamp.

Besides that, a wave of regimentation is sweeping the world—standardized schooling, like everything else out of a tin, is cheaper, easier, and certainly safer than my sort of venture. In the educational sense, as well as every other, individual effort is going to be swamped.

Dorothy Bowers - Fear for Miss Betony (1941)

Seeping, seeping, always seeping

But the brilliance, the versatility of madness is akin to the resourcefulness of water seeping through, over and around a dike.

F. Scott Fitzgerald - Tender is the Night (1934)

She's a Norwegian princess. He's an American self-professed shaman. Their wedding is this weekend

The Norwegian king’s eldest child, Princess Märtha Louise, will marry American self-professed shaman Durek Verret on Saturday in a picturesque corner of southern Norway...

The princess — she has retained the title — has said she can talk with angels, while Verret, 49, claims that he communicates with a broad range of spirits and has a medallion which helps ward off spells and cure diseases.

They were all mad. Or just going mad... Or drifting into superstitions that were disguised madnesses!

Ford Madox Ford - When the Wicked Man (1932)

Police stand by as Extinction Rebellion protests at Windsor Castle

Police in Windsor Home Park made no attempt to stop a mass protest from Extinction Rebellion activists at the Long Walk on Friday.

As part of the three-day protests, activists were staging a symbolic re-enactment by black-clad protesters of “oil slicks”, signifying “how our political, judicial and media systems now serve the interests of oil, money, and other villains”.


Destiny sometimes proffers us a glass of madness to drink. A hand is thrust out of the mist, and suddenly hands us the mysterious cup in which is contained the latent intoxication.

Victor Hugo - The Man Who Laughs (1869)

Where the soul is

Labour general election manifesto pledges to ‘drive innovation’

Shadow Tech Secretary promises to “place technology at heart of our missions and unblock tech barriers to restart engine of our economy”

Ah yes, but this is where Keir Starmer's soul is to be found - useless paperwork.

Pensioners face 'daunting' task of answering 243-question form to get winter fuel payment

The charity director of Age UK told the Sky News Money blog that completing the 22-page form would "pose a challenge for many".

Carnival

 

Poorly constructed lies

Our son recently sent me some thoughts about narcissists, particularly how they fail to read certain situations accurately because they cannot read other people accurately. It’s an interesting issue for many reasons.

For example, how did Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves allow themselves to be suckered into the recent winter fuel payment debacle? It’s worth using the word “suckered” because they seem to have been politically gullible, as if there was a covert intention to undermine their position and do it early.

With winter not so far away, Starmer and Reeves appear to have been lured onto the front pages of the freezing pensioner picture, as if someone knew they were gullible enough to buy it. As if that someone knew they wouldn’t see it as others were bound to see it. That’s the interesting possibility.

Our son used Chris Watts as a particularly extreme example to make the wider point more clearly - He (Watts) went out before the world media seeming pretty similar to a politician. Stupidly believed he could lie to the world and people weren’t going to see through his poorly constructed lies. He made all kinds of mistakes, referring to his family in the past tense and other awful errors.

Confidently at ease with public speaking, many members of our political class do appear to have this same inability to construct their lies convincingly, this same transparent focus on what they want, not how other people will read their words.

Narcissism is a spectrum of character traits and applying the concept to our political class has its limitations, but so often prominent public figures seem unable to understand the language of anyone they are not aligned with politically.

They don’t do genuine debate, being strangely intelligent and stupid at the same time. Curiously gullible too, much more gullible than they should be.

Weirdly Obvious

When it comes to politics here in the UK, we appear to have weird problems with stating the obvious.

For example, it is obvious that our politicians are so mendacious that it would be foolishly naïve to believe what they say in any public debate or announcement. There is no point – habitual mendacity is by far the most useful default assumption. Political mendacity is as old as politics, but near universal mendacity takes it to another level as they say.

In a more rational world we might expect our media to be tackling this mendacity problem as the only significant political problem. Until they do that, there is little value in performing their role - reporting what politicians say. But in our world the media report what politicians say as if the mendacity problem isn’t the destructive disease which it so clearly is. Which is weird.

Or maybe things are becoming weirder and weirder so something must change eventually. Maybe it’s a weirdly unstable situation. Yet if it turns out to be a stable situation - that’s weird too. Probably fatally weird.

Better hide the orange paint

Climate campaigner appointed National Portrait Gallery director

The National Portrait Gallery has appointed an environmental campaigner who called for an end to fossil fuel sponsorship in the arts as its new director.

Victoria Siddall is the first woman to lead the London gallery, which has been criticised for indirect links to the oil industry through its benefactors.

Ms Siddall, who raised environmental concerns in her previous gallery roles, helped to launch a climate change manifesto calling for fossil fuel funding to be cut in 2021.

An honest person is bound to wonder what "indirect links to the oil industry" are supposed to be. A less honest person doesn't have that headache.

Trevithick Day 2017

Trevithick Day 2017 and a replica built by the Trevithick Society. What fun.

If the flunkies disappear

Not an unfamiliar angle this, but worth dusting off while the media make a great noise about leaders and leadership. If we take a leader such as Kim Jong Un of North Korea, it is conventional to see him as the supreme leader from whose dizzy heights all important national decisions flow.

This is the simple viewpoint, the viewpoint uniformly preferred by the media, yet it is possible to view Kim as more puppet than leader. A puppet of history, ideology and totalitarian necessity. The whole of North Korean public life is predicated on Kim being a genuinely supreme leader, but it is possible to view him as no more a leader than anyone else.

Suppose we begin by imagining Kim waking up in the morning to a deserted palace, no flunkies, no breakfast, no whatever else he was accustomed to. No guards outside the palace, no limousines and his private swimming pool is empty. Nobody answers the phone and if he wishes to go anywhere he’ll have to walk. There is nothing he can do about it.

Kim as supreme leader merely reflects the behaviour of those people who at all times behave as if he is supreme leader. If they suddenly stop behaving in that way, then just as suddenly he’ll cease to be supreme leader. The behaviour of those around him is engineered, as is his behaviour. Reliably engineered, but engineered.

A most unlikely scenario, but useful as a thought experiment because coups do happen and leaders do become nobodies overnight. It’s a much more complicated way of looking at the leaders we have to contend with in real life though, so we don’t often do it. Or rather the media don’t do it.

The stooge Starmer for example…

Life is good in the swamp

 

Today's daily Bing image. Sums up the current political situation so well it's worth a blog post. 

Starmer signals

Starmer signals pain and 'unpopular decisions' to fix Britain

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Tuesday he would have to take unpopular decisions, raising the possibility of "painful" taxes on the wealthy and spending cuts to try to fix Britain's myriad of problems he blamed on Conservative misrule.

"There is a budget coming in October, and it's going to be painful. We have no other choice ... Those with the broader shoulders should bear the heavier burden," he said in a speech to voters he met during the election campaign, referring to a fiscal statement due on Oct. 30.

"We have inherited not just an economic black hole but a societal black hole and that is why we have to take action and do things differently. Part of that is being honest with people about the choices we face and how tough this will be," he said.


From this and earlier indications, Starmer and co. clearly intend to bloat the public sector even further, principally because they believe in it and don't know how to do anything else. The remarkable HS2 pantomime is to be repeated on an even grander scale. 

The man is an uninspiring, unimaginative bureaucrat, still clinging like Corbyn to his teenage ideology. In spite of the supposed educational differences between them, he seems to be less intelligent, less pragmatic, less politically astute than Angela Rayner - and that sentence took some writing.

Default password

U.S. offers $10m reward for Iranian hackers targeting critical infrastructure

It is alleged that the cyber criminals hacked into programmable logic controllers (PLCs), a type of industrial computer system used to control machines, leaving devices inoperable and displaying anti-Israel messages...

According to Dragos, an industrial cyber security company, Cyber Av3ngers were first observed in early September 2023...

Dragos believe that Cyber Av3ngers scanned the internet to identify accessible Unitronics devices, and then tried to log in using default credentials, which can be found in online operating manuals...

As a result, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) published an alert advising that facilities change the default “1111” password and set up multi-factor authentication, along with other recommendations.

No doubt it's a serious issue, but failing to change the default "1111" password seems a little lax. Maybe not though, maybe it's just human nature to leave it until something goes wrong. 

Operating this particular part of the infrastructure will have become more complex now, probably more tedious for the operators too. We may even see more employees in their fifties wanting to retire.  

Kamala's Climate Plan

It has been apparent for some time that the Democrats see the US presidency primarily as a ceremonial role. Kamala Harris certainly seems to view it that way. Wave, laugh, be sad or serious as the occasion demands, shake hands, read the script, make a few weak jokes, sign the documents and that's it.

As for personally understanding even the basics of a vastly important policy - it's not an essential part of the role  as she sees it - she makes that obvious enough.

Shirkers

Rise of the mid-life shirkers: Can Labour succeed where Jeremy Hunt failed?

Still at the golf course? Worklessness among the over-50s hasn’t budged since Jeremy Hunt told them to put down their putters and get back to the office.

The latest figures show that 3,622,000 people aged 50 to 64 were economically inactive – neither working nor looking for work. That is up by more than 300,000 since the start of the pandemic.

Oddly enough, there are circumstances where a substantial increase in shirking could benefit the whole country.  

 

We already knew about things getting worse

Sir Keir Starmer: Prime minister to say things 'will get worse before it gets better' in key speech

Sir Keir will continue Labour's attacks on the previous government, saying the situation is "worse than we ever imagined" as they "inherited not just an economic black hole but a societal black hole."

 

I do not blame myself for anything. I am a result, not a cause.

Sherwood Anderson - Windy McPherson's Son (1916)

Climate silence

Harris-Walz push ‘climate silence’! WaPo: ‘Why Democrats are so quiet about climate change right now’ – Dem ‘Party leaders appear to have calculated that climate silence is the safest strategy’ as ‘most voters rank other issues as more important’

Washington Post: Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats have not made significant mentions of climate change or the environment in recent stump speeches. ...

 
Harris and other top Democrats have not highlighted climate change or the environment in recent stump speeches, including keynote remarks at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this week. The split-screen approach suggests that Democrats see talking about the environment as a lose-lose proposition. If they call for curbing fossil fuel production to fight global warming, they risk alienating voters in Pennsylvania, a pivotal swing state where natural gas powers the economy. ...

With most voters ranking other issues as more important, and with Democrats wanting to paint a rosy picture of the future, party leaders appear to have calculated that climate silence is the safest strategy.

The interesting aspect is that saving the planet for us doesn't matter if not being elected is the price to be paid by them. Ed Miliband probably hasn't caught on yet, but his brother in the US may give him the nod.

What Housing Crisis?

A parody of course, but uncomfortably close to the reality.

That should take it over the £10 million

Council to pay consultants £350k to help them save money

An East Lancashire local authority has awarded a contract worth hundreds of thousands of pounds for a consultant to find savings. The proposal priced at £350,000 for external help to close Blackburn with Darwen’s projected £9.9million financial black hole by 2025/26 was agreed by its executive board in June.

I don't know much about the details of council work, but I'm sure I could find savings for them. I'm equally sure that many council employees could identify savings too - not that they would necessarily tell councillors. 

It's almost impressive.

Pensioner, 90, says he will have to shower once a week as government withdraws fuel payment and energy bills go up

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband admitted the rise in the cap was "deeply worrying" but defended the cuts to winter fuel payments.

He said: "The truth is that the mess that was left to us in the public finances is what necessitated that decision around winter fuel payment and us focusing it on those who need it the very most."


Political bungling on this scale has a certain solidity about it, an impenetrable block of wooden ineptitude which defies probing analysis because the incompetence is all there on the surface.

But there's more - Ed Miliband says "The truth is..." then effectively says "the Tories made us do it." It's not so much the issue itself, but the apparent inability to see this coming, the scale of political incompetence.

It's almost impressive.

Kamala's Policies

 

Signs in the cliffs

We’ve just arrive back from our summer holiday after a tedious journey up the M5, but now we're relaxing with coffee and dark chocolate. One day we went on a local geology tour organised by Sidmouth museum. It’s a subject Mrs H and I know nothing about so we knew it was likely to be an interesting couple of hours, which it was.

By the end of the tour, one impression stood out, apart from interesting details of the local geology and that was how little we’d noticed about obvious features of local cliffs.

 

Arrowed in the photo is an example of something we hadn’t noticed before even though we've walked past it many times. It’s a large oval shape in the rock with what looks like an attached tube shape going upwards to the right. It is thought that it may be the fossilised burrow of some long extinct animal.

 You may also notice the initials of morons carved into the rock.

Political Butlers

Peverell in his old age was still the perfect butler. He noticed nothing that he was not asked to notice.

Agatha Christie - The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding (1960)


Not a musing to be taken seriously, but it’s curious how Democrat voters in the US are not supposed to notice that Kamala Harris is the presidential spare nobody ever liked. She's the just-in-case deputy who never impressed, never achieved anything, never made an effort, never gave the slightest hint of having presidential ability or even basic nous.

Like Peverell the butler, millions of Democrat voters will presumably not notice any of this. They will notice nothing they are not asked to notice by the elites and the media. Almost as if they see themselves delivering their vote on a silver salver - to serve the Family you know.

It’s weird to watch.

The age of grievance is over

 

That small, provincial misanthropy

Petty feelings of envy, vexation, wounded vanity, of that small, provincial misanthropy engendered in petty officials by vodka and a sedentary life, swarmed in his heart like mice.

Anton Chekhov - The Husband (1886)

We navigate through life by avoiding surprises, which are in effect, anomalies in the otherwise even flow of daily life. There are numerous examples such as a flat tyre on the car, bad weather, Jehovah’s Witnesses knocking on the door and so on.

An obvious but major failing of modern life is how this natural avoidance has become far too petty for far too many people. We are hitting the problem good and hard here in the UK, where petty conflicts, absurd political expectations, irrational health advice, irrational health expectations and irrational expectation generally have degraded our ability to accept trade-offs.

We are losing sight of a fact of life that not every petty detail of daily life can be congenial, not every expectation met. The rational avoidance of anomalies, the one which evolved within us as human beings, it comes with trade-offs imposed by the real world. 

If we demand petty and unrealistic avoidance policies from government, then we end up electing liars as our Parliamentary representatives. We end up fostering a culture where lying is a basic tactic of the ambitious, even on a grand scale where billions are squandered and only the liars make a profit. 

The liars we elect and foster throughout our culture will purport to sell us a life without trade-offs, one where only other people have to accept the trade-offs. It doesn't work like that - not forever.

Art for sixth formers

'Art for sixth formers': Is the public falling out of love with Banksy?

For some, he is one of the 21st century's most significant artists. For others, he is a nuisance. After several of his latest animal-themed street designs were removed, critics are questioning if Banksy's fame now eclipses the political value of his work.

Dr Paul Gough, vice chancellor of Arts University Bournemouth and Banksy expert, says some of the reception to the artist's zoo series was a bit lukewarm.

"Some of the feedback was that the stencils were okay, but they weren't top-notch compared to what I've seen before," he says.


Imagine being known as a Banksy expert...

Although - after giving it some thought, it's clearly far better than being a climate change expert who is regularly featured on the BBC.

A very short honeymoon

Bruce Anderson has a worthwhile CAPX piece on the speed with which Labour party incompetence has already raised Conservative party hopes of an unexpectedly rapid revival. 


Labour are setting the stage for a Tory revival

Autumn approaches, but not much in the way of mellow fruitfulness. In the UK, the public mood has not seemed gloomier since the late 1970s. In much of the US, for gloom, read anger. On both sides of the Atlantic, there is a withdrawal of faith in institutions and in democracy itself. This is alarming.

In Britain, a new government usually leads to a renewal of optimism. This has been especially true of left-wing victors. In 1945, 1964 and 1997, there was a feeling of political rebirth. In the two latter instances, there was a considerable element of meretriciousness. Yet even so, the new masters made much of the country feel better about itself.

There is little sign of that now. Keir Starmer is a difficult man to read. One suspects that he is much more left-wing than he has hitherto felt it safe to admit and that there is also a social chip. Whatever the explanation, there seems to be no generosity of spirit, no eloquence, no ability to reach out to the nation.


A short piece based on some fairly obvious Labour failings, but worth reading as self-inflicted chaos looms.

It was never likely that the Starmer government would have a prolonged honeymoon with the electorate. Yet no-one would have thought that the couple would be sleeping in separate bedrooms quite this early. Labour still has a massive majority. To paraphrase Bagehot, one cannot underestimate the brute force of a parliamentary majority. But if the a government is only offering higher taxes on wealth creators plus all round wokery and no measures to deal with immigration, a Tory recovery might come sooner than would have seemed remotely possible in the aftermath of the recent unprecedented defeat.

Indeed you did, that's the problem

‘America, I gave my best to you’: Biden cries as he passes torch to Harris

Joe Biden cried as he wished his party farewell at the Democratic National Convention on Monday, weeks after he was forced to hand over the nomination to Kamala Harris.

The US president dabbed his eyes as he walked on stage and embraced his daughter, Ashley, who introduced him to cheering crowds.

“I made a lot of mistakes in my career, but I gave my best to you,” he told delegates, in a speech that lasted almost an hour.


No sympathy Joe, you shouldn't have been there.

The Spare

 

A penchant for freebies

Keir Starmer received £4,000 Taylor Swift tickets in freebies latest

Will Keir Starmer’s penchant for freebies continue now that he is prime minister? The first MPs’ Register of Interests for the new parliament was released on Friday, where members must list any donations, gifts and hospitality they have received.

It shows that Sir Keir received four hospitality tickets worth £4,000 to see Taylor Swift perform at the O2 in June. The VIP seats came courtesy of the Premier League, who are no doubt pleased to have a football-mad PM. In the last year Starmer has accepted over £18,500 worth of free tickets to see his beloved Arsenal play.

 

Meanwhile British clothing brand ME+EM was pronounced “the go-to label” for Labour women this summer after Victoria Starmer and Angela Rayner wore an assortment of their power suits and dresses. It turns out that the brand sent Rayner £2,230 worth of free clothes at the end of June.

At the time it didn't occur to me that Angela's green suit was a fashion item, I just assumed she bought it online in a hurry after the election. Shows how easy it is to miss things by skimming the media instead of reading it.

Slippery slopes and all that, but maybe it suggests we shouldn't read too much into a penchant for freebies among the actors on our political stage. Taylor Swift tickets may be saleable, but not much else and Angela's peculiar green suit doesn't do much for her image. What would? 

The Theory of Political Clues

Keir Starmer suffers post-election poll drop as 52% say UK ‘moving in wrong direction’

More than half of people think Britain is “moving in the wrong direction”, according to a poll which shows a drop in favourability for Sir Keir Starmer and his Cabinet.

The poll by Ipsos, conducted between August 9-12, showed a post-General Election drop in the perception of the Prime Minister, as well as his deputy Angela Rayner and Chancellor Rachel Reeves.

Of those polled, 22% said that they think things in Britain are heading in the right direction, 52% in the wrong direction and 19% neither.

It's time to invent the "Theory of Political Clues". This theory would predict the number of obvious political clues required to persuade a particular percentage of voters to wake up and pay attention. 

For a large percentage of voters such as the 52% we see here, the Theory of Political Clues might predict that at least 20 obvious political clues are required to wake up 52% of the electorate. 

For example, Angela Rayner, David Lammy and Ed Miliband count as three clues within the theory.  Net Zero, the BBC and Gary Lineker count as three more.

Of course anyone already paying attention will soon note that some people would require an immense number of political clues to wake up and pay attention. There is an upper limit here and unfortunately 52% may be quite close to a theoretical limit where there is a diminishing return with each additional political clue.

At this point the "Theory of Political Boneheads" steps in.

Not the word I'd use

Clapping for NHS in pandemic may have been 'dangerous', health watchdog says

Clapping for the NHS in the COVID pandemic may have been "dangerous" because "no organisation can be a national religion", the health service ombudsman has said.

Rebecca Hilsenrath also warned that "no organisation should be beyond constructive criticism".

I'm sure there are many better words than 'dangerous', but in the sense used here it does seem to be a slight crack in the wall.

Maybe it was dangerously gullible.

Or dangerously servile.

Or dangerously silly.

Rapid Sprint

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to crack down on people 'pushing hateful beliefs'

The Home Office has said it will "kickstart" an initiative to "tackle the threat posed by extremist ideologies".

The Home Office has commissioned a "rapid sprint" to develop a new approach to countering extremism.


As opposed to a "slow sprint" I suppose.

But mission-creep possibilities seem to be so inevitable that we may be tempted to see it as intentional. Those awful people who refer to Ms Cooper as "Pixie" for example, they could soon be in the firing line.

And what about those who speak of Starmer's rabble as "The Cabinet" as if they are a cupboard full of discarded curiosities with no relevance to modern life?

Those with the temerity to refer to refer to Keir Starmer as Kir Rong-un are even worse.

The Lifespan of Wind Turbines

8am Scramble

Doctors warn '8am scramble' for GP appointments won't end without more funding

Labour have promised to "end the 8am scramble" by allowing patients to "easily book appointments to see the doctor they want, in the manner they choose". But the Doctors' Association UK says the manifesto pledge will not be possible under current funding.

Our record is a little over 400 calls beginning at 8am before we managed to get through to GP reception and arrange a phone appointment. Yet in this case as in a number of others, a commercial pharmacist would have been quite capable of treating the problem. 

Rules and demarcation though, more funding beats better productivity and a new Labour government is an opportunity not to be missed.

Now it is all tame

What kind of person voted Labour in the last UK general election? It’s a question we could answer in many ways, but perhaps we should begin by saying that only a person who been politically tamed would vote for someone like Keir Starmer.


Now, it is all tame. It was bad enough, thirty years ago, when it was still on the upward grade, economically. But then the old race of miners were not immensely respectable. They filled the pubs with smoke and bad language, and they went with dogs at their heels. There was a sense of latent wildness and unbrokenness, a weird sense of thrill and adventure in the pitch-dark Midland nights, and roaring footballing Saturday afternoons. The country in between the colliery regions had a lonely sort of fierceness and beauty, half-abandoned, and threaded with poaching colliers and whippet dogs. Only thirty years ago!

Now it seems so different. The colliers of today are the men of my generation, lads I went to school with. I find it hard to believe. They were rough, wild lads. They are not rough, wild men. The board-school, the Sunday-school, the Band of Hope, and, above all, their mothers got them under. Got them under, made them tame. Made them sober, conscientious, and decent. Made them good husbands. When I was a boy, a collier who was a good husband was an exception to the rule, and while the women with bad husbands pointed him out as a shining example, they also despised him a little, as a petticoat

D.H. Lawrence - Autobiographical Fragment (1936)


Today life is even tamer. Consider again those we elect as our representatives, those narrow, chair-bound creatures with damp handshakes who would manage our lives down to every little finicking detail. Only tame, domesticated voters would vote for them - and they did.

Gail’s customers

Gail’s customers told to pay £1 extra for day-old croissants

Upmarket bakery chain Gail’s has come under fire for selling chocolate almond croissants for almost £4 despite them being reheated pastries that went unsold the day before.

The retailer lists the almond pastry as part of its “Waste Not” range, which means it is made using leftover croissants that are then “topped with almond frangipane and flaked almonds”.


Nothing wrong with that, some of us were brought up on the idea that leftovers can be made into a meal for the following day. Rissoles, bubble and squeak, soups and so on. Gail’s customers need to toughen up and help save the planet by scoffing lots of day-old croissants.

I'll stick with coffee and brand new dark chocolate though. 

Turkish Politics

 

GPs are demanding

GPs next in line for cash handout from Starmer

GPs are demanding an 11 per cent funding rise in the hope of becoming the latest group of public sector workers to secure a cash boost from Sir Keir Starmer.

Family doctors across the country are currently taking part in industrial action after the British Medical Association (BMA) threatened to bring the NHS to a “standstill” to gain increased funding for surgeries.


I don't know if it's merely a perception of change rather than real change, but stories such as this one seem to attract plenty of negative comments. In this case negative comments about personal experience of the GP service, as if fading respect for the profession is quite widespread.

It isn't only GPs of course, but also a wider dissatisfaction with social and political trends, official incompetence, media narratives and establishment attitudes to veracity. As if something big may be stirring just beyond the political horizon. It's not the far-right, but anyone paying attention knows that already.

Not only the science, but the scientists too

Obviously caused by climate change

London's gonorrhoea rate doubles in decade amid warning of antibiotic resistant cases

London’s gonorrhoea rate has doubled in a decade, new figures show, as health authorities warned of a concerning rise in an antibiotic resistant strain of the disease.

Analysis by the Standard found that the diagnostic rate for the sexually transmitted infection (STI) had jumped by 133 per cent from 2013 to 2023 – the highest rate of any region in England.

If we refer to the Directory of Official Causes, then climate change seems to be the most likely culprit here. Clearly it could be NHS underfunding, fossil fuels, Tory cuts, the far-right, online trolls or hate speech but climate change is my guess. 

Huge Impact

Met Office issues verdict as Hurricane Ernesto to have huge impact on UK weather

The Met Office has warned that Hurricane Ernesto could bring "unsettled" weather to the UK.

In its long-range forecast, forecasters predict that the start of next week will bring with it cloud and rain in parts of the country before clearing up later in the week.

The Met Office's forecast for the period between Monday, August 19 until Wednesday, August 28, reads: "An unsettled start to the week with cloud and rain in many areas.


Which gives us a nice example of journalistic language where -

huge impact = unsettled weather

Not quite in the catastrophic climate change league where the BBC, Sky and other premium players still reign supreme,  but coming on. Here's how it should be done -

How climate change is driving extreme fires in Greece

Sceptics about the impact of climate change point out that the amount of land area burned by fires globally is falling. But there are other, more sinister trends that climate scientists are worried about.

Don't fall for an okey-doke

A question from the video description -

Does anyone know what it means to fall for an okey-doke?

 

Translating Headlines

Swifties give fans second chance of seeing Eras Tour after Vienna gigs cancelled


It must be a sign of age when a chap reads a headline like this and can't go further without a translation. Yet the headline is not technical, not academic and supposedly written in English,

It's strange though, because even without a translation I decided to go no further. There is a hidden meaning even I can translate. It says "Don't Bother."

Fishy numbers

 

Hyper

Urban heat forecasts could be enhanced with machine learning

A new study led by the Met Office highlights potential improvements to hyper-local forecasts for heatwaves in urban areas by harnessing citizen observations, land cover data and machine learning...

The Met Office’s standard national-scale forecast has a resolution of 1.5km, which means that the grid squares are 1.5km x 1.5km. The urban temperature forecasts produced as part of this study took the resolution to just 100m, showing the potential for hyper-local forecasts for temperature, even within the same street.

A random survey of this development could hyper-interesting were we to ask a hyper-simple question - 

Is this article mostly hyper-cobblers?

Yes ___

No  ___

Something's getting a bit fishy

Out of interest I coped the Future Directions paragraphs from the previous Curiouser and Curiouser post into the BlaBlaMeter. Here's the output.

 Your text: 965 characters, 129 words

Bullshit Index :0.46

Something's getting a bit fishy. You probably want to sell something, or you're trying to impress somebody. It still may be an acceptable result for a scientific text.

Here's the text I used -


Future directions

Given the highly beneficial role of curiosity in childhood growth and development across both information-gathering and emotional spectrums, future research should focus on elucidating novel metrics for measuring the characteristic, thereby allowing for comparisons between studies and, in turn, the discovery and optimization of methodologies to foster/promote its persistence across childhood.

The present review suggests three primary means by which to achieve this goal. Firstly, metacognition frameworks should be further developed to operationalize internal curiosity in isolation or combined with external curiosity/interest. Secondly, research questions should be refined to more adequately explore curiosity across different physical and social contexts. Finally, curiosity should be assessed in non-US populations and particularly in minority communities to broaden our understanding of the cultural determinants and variability in the characteristics.

What a coincidence

N. Korea turns flooding into opportunity for spreading propaganda

Loudspeaker trucks blare their messages all day while families grapple with basic needs, such as how to feed their children

North Korean authorities have turned recent flooding into an opportunity for a massive propaganda campaign. Loudspeaker trucks and propaganda teams have been touring affected and unaffected regions daily, blasting praise for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and calling on people to take part in recovery efforts in the morning and evening. Accordingly, people complain of intense fatigue.

As we know, there are other parts of the world such as the UK, where flooding is used as an opportunity for political propaganda. And sunshine of course, we're one up on them there.

Curiouser and Curiouser

From the US -


How can scientists better understand, promote, and support childhood curiosity?

In a recent review published in the journal Nature Reviews Psychology, researchers explore current research on childhood curiosity, its definition, its variability across age, contexts, and culture, its long- and short-term benefits, and the ideal means to support its development.


Okay, I didn't read much further than this before skimming down to a section called Future Directions.


Future directions

Given the highly beneficial role of curiosity in childhood growth and development across both information-gathering and emotional spectrums, future research should focus on elucidating novel metrics for measuring the characteristic, thereby allowing for comparisons between studies and, in turn, the discovery and optimization of methodologies to foster/promote its persistence across childhood.

The present review suggests three primary means by which to achieve this goal. Firstly, metacognition frameworks should be further developed to operationalize internal curiosity in isolation or combined with external curiosity/interest. Secondly, research questions should be refined to more adequately explore curiosity across different physical and social contexts. Finally, curiosity should be assessed in non-US populations and particularly in minority communities to broaden our understanding of the cultural determinants and variability in the characteristics.

We're doomed.

Barely worth a comment

Armed police shoot man in Surrey village after reports of ‘weapon altercation’

Armed police have shot a man in his 20s in a village in Surrey, leaving him in a critical condition in hospital.

Surrey Police received reports of an “altercation” between two people including a man armed with a weapon in the street on Nursery Road, Knaphill, at 12.36am on Sunday.


Barely worth a comment...

barely worth pointing out that it's barely worth a comment...

but I've posted it now...

so too late...

in so many ways.

Sub

 

Putrid

Children to be taught how to spot fake news and 'putrid' conspiracy theories online in wake of riots

Changes to the curriculum could mean schoolchildren analyse articles in English lessons to weed out fabricated stories, learn how to identify fake news in computer classes and analyse statistics in maths.

Bridget Phillipson said she is launching a review of the curriculum in both primary and secondary schools to embed critical thinking across multiple subjects and arm children against "putrid conspiracy theories".

Here’s a good starting point.

It is not true that the function of law is to regulate our consciences, our ideas, our wills, our education, our opinions, our work, our trade, our talents, or our pleasures. The function of law is to protect the free exercise of these rights, and to prevent any person from interfering with the free exercise of these same rights by any other person.

Frederick Bastiat – The Law (1850)

A standard Fabian coward,

Simon Reader has a timely Africa Unauthorised piece on recent events here in the UK, Keir Starmer's response and what it tells us about the man who may yet turn out to be the worst Prime Minister we've ever endured.

The piece begins with the recent tragic Southport killings and goes to paint a vitriolic but disturbingly fitting picture of Keir Starmer and his response.


It’s Over For England

This was a jarring tragedy, a jolt of indescribably sharp pain to the hearts of families and neighbors. It was senseless, panicked, confusing…then it was enraging, so cue Keir Starmer, the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

As unlikeable goes, Keir’s up there. He wasn’t an especially popular leader of his party, (his only accomplishment was the destroying, with ease, of the Corbynista apparatus). He wasn’t a particularly compelling candidate. That he defenestrated the most useless opposition group in the “conservative” party history could not disguise his mediocrity; he was once an inept Crown Prosecutor – all pivot tables and formulas – he famously found no reason to prosecute the much loved monster Jimmy Savile, and is still a fixture within the “left”-wing lawyer industrial complex responsible for much of the country’s present anxiety.

My own view was always – naturally – panned. I saw him as a standard Fabian coward, privileged yet privately disgusted by his own country, whose greatest fear – like so many of his “labour” and “conservative” colleagues – was to be accused of “racism”. In 2020, he was one of the first British politicians to feign indignation at the death of an American career criminal in Minneapolis. He pranced into theatrical kneeling, then stood upright to claim he understand the roots of the violence that engulfed American cities during that dreadful summer. He has zero conviction and worse, the slightest veneer of it.

Vitriolic, almost disturbingly so, but well worth reading.

Some days are like that

 

A ‘kleptoparasitic’ species

The best way to stop seagulls from stealing your food revealed

Ascientist claims to have figured out how best to stop seagulls nicking your chips – by making eye contact with them before they attack.

Staring and pointing at the ‘klepto’ winged raiders can scare them off from trying to pinch your food on a beach day out, a professor said.

Expert in animal behaviour Paul Graham added that to avoid dive bombs from seagulls tourists should stand against a wall for protection...

He described gulls as a ‘kleptoparasitic’ species, they prefer stealing food from other species instead of doing the ‘hard work’ of finding it themselves.


That's a useful word...

Maybe they didn't notice the wolf

Three masked men remove Banksy artwork in Peckham hours after it was revealed

Three masked men have removed a Banksy just hours after the new piece was confirmed by the artist.

The anonymous graffitist unveiled a wolf howling as the latest piece in a new animal-themed collection...

The latest artwork was situated on top of a building in Peckham, south-east London, on what looks to be a satellite dish.


I expect they just wanted the satellite dish and didn't notice the wolf. Could be more difficult to dispose of now, but Nitromors might clean it up.

Only 75%

 

Benefit?

Major motorway to shut today as new speed cameras get rolled out

Drivers have been warned of new speed cameras being put in place along a major motorway in the UK.

The M80 in Scotland is set to benefit from new cameras and resurfaced roads which will aim to promote safer driving along the region.

The resurfacing is maintenance, something which should happen anyway, so not quite a benefit in the sense of it being some kind of advantage. Unless it's an advantage over no maintenance at all. 

Presumably the cameras benefit someone, not sure it's the motorists though.

Promises, promises

Following on from the previous post, here we have another chapter in the latest book in the vast library of political promises. What kind of person makes them? What kind of person insists on them, defends them, then expects to skip off to pastures new when they fail? 

Whatever could it be?

Inspired by an online chat with our son –

Many prominent politicians and famous celebrities often seem to have something in common. Whatever could it be? According to Bing AI –

Common signs of narcissism can vary, but here are some traits often associated with narcissistic behavior:

 

1. Grandiosity: An exaggerated sense of self-importance and superiority. This can include boasting about achievements and expecting to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements.
2. Need for Admiration: A constant need for excessive admiration and validation from others. Narcissists often seek out praise and may become upset if they don’t receive it.
3. Lack of Empathy: Difficulty recognizing or caring about the feelings and needs of others. This can lead to manipulative or exploitative behavior.
4. Entitlement: Believing they deserve special treatment and expecting others to comply with their demands. They may feel that rules don’t apply to them.
5. Envy: Often feeling envious of others or believing that others are envious of them. This can lead to resentment and competitive behavior.
6. Arrogance: Displaying haughty behaviors or attitudes. They may look down on others and act with a sense of superiority.
7. Interpersonal Exploitation: Taking advantage of others to achieve their own goals. This can include using people for personal gain without considering the impact on them.

These traits can manifest in various ways and to different degrees. It’s important to note that having some narcissistic traits doesn’t necessarily mean someone has Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD).

Weren’t the grownups meant to be back in charge?

Benedict Spence has a fine Critic piece on a familiar problem, the extraordinary shallowness of managerialism.


Weren’t the grownups meant to be back in charge?

Shallow managerialism has failed us already

Britain is a bastion of stability again. As Europe pivots right, America regresses, and Putin menaces the world, our happy home is sane once more. The unmentionables are out of government, the untouchables on the back foot, and the unquestionables in the ascendency. The Financial Times is bullish. Andrew Marr says the money’s pouring in. Brussels is fluttering its lashes at us. Olympic opening ceremonies, the height of cultural sophistication, are en vogue once more. The serenity is palpable. The swagger unstoppable. Yes folks, the twenties, slightly later than billed, are roaring again: the grownups are back in charge.

There may have been some trying times of late, but I think we can all agree (put that down) that we can see the improvements already. A sensible approach to government (I said down) has been sorely lacking, but now we have a prime minister and chancellor (indoor voices, please) who understand (is that smoke?) what needs to be done (can you not use that word?) to get the economy back on track, (that’s definitely smoke) provide a more progressive approach to solving crime (call 999) and create a fair, compassionate immigration system (I think we need to leave) that serves both the interests of the labour market (the door’s locked!) and shelters the world’s (break it down!) most vulnerable (*muffled screams*).


The whole piece is well worth reading as a good, solid dose of deserved sarcasm directed at the ridiculous beings who would rule over us.


In the aftermath of the Southport knife attack, Downing Street and Parliament were lit up in pink lights — lighting now considered a more subdued, tasteful gesture to the garish approach of spontaneously breaking into a chorus of “Don’t Look Back in Anger” when something truly horrific has happened to small children. That was supposed to be the end of it. The subsequent violence, and howls of anguish from the wings, has highlighted just how unsettled, and out of control, the grown ups really are. Out have come the usual suggestions — send in the army! Censor the internet! Bring back emergency covid measures! Anything, other than addressing the problems themselves.

Kamala Explains Cloud Storage

 

Declining interest in the Olympics

Michael Cook has an interesting Mercator piece on declining interest in the Olympic Games.

Could the Olympics die with the baby boomers?

The pageantry of the Olympic Games are diverting attention from a question which must keep members of the International Olympic Committee awake at night: will the modern Games survive?

"If we don't get young people playing sport, we won't be here for very much longer," IOC spokesperson Mark Adams said at a press conference last week. "We have to attract young audiences and go where they are... we have to attract young people to sport or we are dead, basically."

“Or we are dead”?

Did he really say that?


The whole piece is well worth reading, particularly the demographic and political stats.


According to Gallup, interest in the Olympics is falling across all socio-economic groups. But the political divide is reflected in who’s watching the Games. Democrats (46%) are far more likely to watch than Republicans (31%), college graduates (47%) than high school graduates (25%), richer households (44%) than poorer households (28%), over-50s (42%) than under 50s (30%).

If the IOC were a media organisation, it ought to be terrified by these stats. The Games is becoming entertainment for wealthy baby boomer Democrats – and millions of them drop off the perch every year. But the IOC is a media organization. According to the IOC, 61 percent of its US$7.6 billion in revenue in 2017 – 2021 came from media rights. Without an audience, how long will it be able to sell the games to broadcasters?

Streaks ahead

North-South divide for public EV charger availability threatens to leave behind parts of the UK in the electric revolution

There are almost 65,000 public electric vehicle charging points available across the UK but an uneven distribution across the country threatens to restrict uptake in undersupplied regions, new figures show.


Oh dear, what a pity, never mind.


England's worrying North-South divide

Unsurprisingly, London has the highest availability of EV charging points anywhere across England.

Official records show there are 234 chargers per 100,000 population, which is streaks ahead of the rest of the country for infrastructure.


Streaks ahead eh? Could mean 'streets' but it sounds as if there may be an Olympics fantasy in there somewhere. Although we're in fantasy land with this anyway, it's where Ed Miliband lives. He's streaks ahead of the rest of us. 

Birkin was right

“Knowledge is, of course, liberty,” said Mattheson.

“In compressed tabloids,” said Birkin, looking at the dry, stiff little body of the Baronet. Immediately Gudrun saw the famous sociologist as a flat bottle, containing tabloids of compressed liberty. That pleased her. Sir Joshua was labelled and placed forever in her mind.

“What does that mean, Rupert?” sang Hermione, in a calm snub.

“You can only have knowledge, strictly,” he replied, “of things concluded, in the past. It’s like bottling the liberty of last summer in the bottled gooseberries.”

“Can one have knowledge only of the past?” asked the Baronet, pointedly. “Could we call our knowledge of the laws of gravitation for instance, knowledge of the past?”

“Yes,” said Birkin.

D.H. Lawrence - Women in Love (1920)

Fake Economic Growth

 

The value of guarantees

I guarantee you will regret taking part, Starmer tells rioters

Sir Keir Starmer has told rioters they will regret taking part in disorder as unrest continued for a fifth day.

In an emergency address from Downing Street, the Prime Minister said that he would do “whatever it takes to bring these thugs to justice as quickly as possible” amid violence that has spread since the Southport killings.

The torment of understanding

Oh! to believe, to believe with his whole soul, to plunge into faith for ever! Doubtless there was no other possible happiness. He longed for faith with all the joyousness of his youth, with all the love that he had felt for his mother, with all his burning desire to escape from the torment of understanding and knowing, and to slumber forever in the depths of divine ignorance.

Émile Zola – Lourdes (1894)

There is a limit, vague and diffuse perhaps, but there is a limit to what people are willing to understand. Worlds beyond the comfort zone are understandable in principle, but no, we don't go there. 

It's an important distinction between what we are able to understand and what we are prepared to understand and allow into our established viewpoints. There is a viewpoint censor in case we find ourselves adrift on the strange sea of other possibilities, other people, other worlds.

The eternal indifference of the universe, the unimaginable vastness, the absence of purpose may be abstractions, but they are not abstractions we generally contemplate with enthusiasm in our day to day life. We need local human viewpoints, especially when we catch bleak glimpses of the impersonal behind our local reality. We reject the torment of understanding - the lure of the impersonal tempting us away from those comfort zones.

How do we cope with it in our digital world of instant communication? 

Not too well apparently. 

Even so, we are all aware that understanding ought to be better than not understanding. This was the core of Spinoza’s philosophical journey, he saw understanding as blessedness, the only thing worth striving for. Yet instead of understanding things ourselves, we have the option of proxies, someone else or some institution which purports to understand on our behalf.

Large numbers of politicians wilfully misunderstand the job they are supposed to be doing. Or they avoid understanding it, which amounts to the same thing. Political parties and big media promote themselves as proxies for understanding abstract ideas such as freedom, democracy, integrity, veracity, science, progress, government… even facts… even common sense.

Politically active people such as environmental activists use some obvious proxies. The catastrophe narrative is their proxy for understanding the environment - and themselves. A more impersonal understanding is evaded, personal motives, even emotions are hidden behind the proxy, out of reach.

To borrow or buy a sound mind

I haven’t watched a second of it, but the Olympics circus doesn’t seem to be going too well. For some reason I’m reminded of this quote from long ago.

No man is able to borrow or buy a sound mind; in fact, as it seems to me, even though sound minds were for sale, they would not find buyers. Depraved minds, however, are bought and sold every day.

Seneca - Letters From A Stoic: Epistulae Morales AD Lucilium (c. 65 AD)

Musk on Trump

 

Nothing to see here

Nancy Pelosi Discloses Buying 10,000 Nvidia Shares After Bipartisan Senators Introduce Bill to Ban Trades

She and Paul have been criticised for supposedly making trades based on insider information. The former speaker has continued to reject the idea of new legislation, stating in 2021 that "we are a free-market economy."...

Nancy Pelosi is popular among investors tracking Congressional trades, given her impressive returns of an estimated 700% since May 2014. The high returns have prompted several institutions to track the portfolios of Congress members and even issue ETFs aligned with their trades.

Many people will already be aware of this, but it is a useful reminder of just one of the issues Donald Trump may be up against. For years it has been obvious that some of the establishment hostility towards him may be fear of an anti-corruption drive and what it could uncover.

A dark day

'A dark day for UK human rights,' says UN adviser after Just Stop Oil activists jailed

Protesters now face up to two years in prison, but there has been international condemnation of the increasing severity of sentences for non-violent protest.

Five Just Stop Oil activists have just been jailed for up to two years after they climbed gantries over the M25 motorway and caused temporary gridlock.

The whole country would go dark if Just Stop Oil were to have their way.

A veil falls

Mark Johnson has a timely CAPX piece on what he calls 'Starmer's authoritarian streak'. Timely because government incompetence and civil unrest provide the rationale for governments to become more authoritarian, especially when they lack the ability to be anything else.


Starmer reveals his authoritarian streak

• The Prime Minister has vowed to roll out an invasive form of surveillance tech
• Live facial recognition turns us all into walking ID cards
• 74% of all face 'matches' by police facial recognition systems in the UK are incorrect

In a statement on the ugly scenes of public disorder in Southport, the new Prime Minister pledged a ‘wider deployment of facial recognition’ surveillance among a raft of other measures, designed to crack down on far-right agitators in the streets and online. In a moment in which he felt something had to be done, goaded by police chiefs intent on promoting their Chinese-style surveillance tools, Starmer reached blindly into the dark and pulled the first lever he could find. Without consideration for the consequences for our rights, freedoms or society more broadly he touted the rollout of one of the most invasive forms of surveillance technology available today.


It's a short piece but well worth reading as another sign of what is likely to be coming our way over the next few years. 

Even the Tony Blair Institute

A Telegraph piece by Nick Gutteridge is worth skimming through, it paints a picture of a government already drowning in the deep, deep waters between rhetoric and reality. A picture of a government which shows early promise of being famously incompetent.

The gaping void in Starmer’s agenda exposed by Labour’s first month in power

“Have no doubt that the work of change begins immediately”, Sir Keir Starmer promised the nation as he delivered his first address as Prime Minister one month ago.

In an unusually sombre speech for a leader who had just achieved a historic landslide, the Labour leader acknowledged that voters had become “weary” of broken promises...

Net Zero

Questions abound on the achievability of Ed Miliband’s plans for Net Zero, in particular his pledge to both decarbonise the UK’s energy grid and ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2030. The Conservatives had planned to decarbonise the grid by 2035, and pushed back the ban on selling fossil fuel vehicles to the same year.

Even the Tony Blair Institute, the think tank set up by the former Labour prime minister, has warned that Miliband’s relentless drive to renewables “could increase energy costs”.

Words which are as evasive as its founder, but we may assume that even the Tony Blair Institute knows that Net Zero will increase energy costs. Increased energy costs are designed into the policy, as is abject failure.

People best avoided

The other day Mrs H and I were chatting with relatives about some of the friendships our grandchildren have formed. Something we all mentioned is how easy it is to spot the more dubious friends our grandkids must learn how to deal with.

Friends, who though young, already take more than they give, are already familiar with the arts of manipulating others to their own advantage. Friends who are likely to prove unreliable or worse.

It’s something we all go through, learning how to spot and avoid dodgy people who are never likely to be anything else. Grandchildren are a reminder of how common the problem is. Eventually all youngsters have to learn how to deal with it as they grow up.

Then carry on learning as adults.

Representing no public interest

Where parties and governments are bad, as they are in most ages and countries, it makes practically no difference to a community, apart from local ravages, whether its own army or the enemy’s is victorious in war, nor does it really affect any man’s welfare whether the party he happens to belong to is in office or not. These issues concern, in such cases, only the army itself, whose lives and fortunes are at stake, or the official classes, who lose their places when their leaders fall from power.

The private citizen in any event continues in such countries to pay a maximum of taxes and to suffer, in all his private interests, a maximum of vexation and neglect. Nevertheless, because he has some son at the front, some cousin in the government, or some historical sentiment for the flag and the nominal essence of his country, the oppressed subject will glow like the rest with patriotic ardour, and will decry as dead to duty and honour anyone who points out how perverse is this helpless allegiance to a government representing no public interest.

George Santayana - The Life of Reason (1905-6)


Santayana writes here about armed conflict before the Great War, but any country could decline into this state of affairs. Governments always seem to find reasons to ignore the public interest. This key phrase describes very well the UK democratic decline we have seen for years - a government representing no public interest.

Net Zero – represents no public interest.

Forced uptake of EVs – represents no public interest.

Gender politics – represents no public interest.

VAT on private schools – represents no public interest.

Great British Energy – represents no public interest.

Mass immigration – represents no public interest.

For decades, the major UK political parties have have shown no interest in representing the wider public interest of voters, the day-to-day, life as it is lived interests. 

A question of context

Rolls-Royce boss says UK must move fast to be world leader in small reactors

Britain risks repeating the mistakes of the past if delays in rolling out small nuclear reactors persist, the chief executive of Rolls-Royce has said, urging the new Labour government not to pass up the chance to develop a world-leading industry.

Speaking as Rolls-Royce upgraded profit guidance and restored its dividend, sending the company’s shares to a record high, Tufan Erginbilgiç said British homes could be powered by its first small modular reactor (SMR) by 2031, if the government commissions the first of them this year.

But he highlighted delays in the competition process run by Great British Nuclear, warning that the UK must learn from its failure to become a global leader for offshore wind technology.


Those paying attention will have noted the dispiriting words "move fast" applied to government activity. Unfortunately the words don't quite fit the context.

I say Keir - it's all looking a bit crumbly

GPs vote for industrial action that could severely disrupt NHS services

Family doctors in the British Medical Association (BMA) voted overwhelmingly in favour of collective action in a ballot of 8,500 members, with 98.3 per cent backing action.

Doctors have been told they can “pick and choose” from measures including a limit on the number of patients they see to 25 a day, which could force patients to use A&E or 111. The BMA says that GPs have an average of 37 patient contacts per day.

It's grab a headline time

Culture Secretary to hold urgent meeting with BBC boss after Huw Edwards indecent images admission

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy will hold an urgent meeting with BBC boss Tim Davie after Huw Edwards admitted accessing indecent images of children.

It comes after the corporation said it knew of the veteran broadcaster’s arrest on “suspicion of serious offences” in November, but continued employing him until April.


Can't be particularly urgent and nothing to do with culture unless it's about getting rid of the BBC, but if a headline is there to be grabbed...

In any event there may be no point Ms Nandy whizzing round to the Beeb in the ministerial limo hoping to nab a few celebrity autographs, she is quite likely to find there is nobody to answer the door as they are all at the Olympics. 

Fast, Dangerous And Heavy