Happy New Year

 

Happy New Year All.

Blimey, 2024 has certainly been a strange year with “Sir” Keir Starmer coming top of the unpopularity contest, or "general election" as we are supposed to call it. Now we seem to be stuck with political leadership as inspiring as trouser stains, and as honest as Old Nick with a similar attitude to promises. 

Politically, 2024 feels like an old empty house, musty and cold with peeling wallpaper and the sound of rats scrabbling across the rafters as we close the front door and hope for better accommodation. Oh well, let us anticipate a more rewarding 2025. 

Happy New Year again to all those who happen to find their way here and linger for a while, if only because the weather is too unpleasant to venture out.

'Tis the season of tinsel and baubles and wondering why

New Year Honours: Gareth Southgate, Stephen Fry, Sadiq Khan and Keely Hodgkinson make this year's list

More than 1,200 people have been awarded honours in this year's list - including a host of Team GB athletes and people who campaigned on behalf of wrongfully convicted sub-postmasters.

Former England manager Gareth Southgate, London mayor Sadiq Khan and actor Stephen Fry have been knighted in the New Year Honours.

A rudimentary intelligence

We are old men trying to sing the loves of children; we are wingless bipeds trying to understand the gods. But the data of the immediate are hardly human; it is probable that at that level all sentience is much alike. From that common ground our imagination can perhaps start safely, and follow such hints as observation furnishes, until we learn to live and feel as other living things do, or as nature may live and feel as a whole. Instinct, for instance, need not be, as our human prejudice suggests, a rudimentary intelligence; it may be a parallel sort of sensibility, an imageless awareness of the presence and character of other things, with a superhuman ability to change oneself so as to meet them. Do we not feel something of this sort ourselves in love, in art, in religion?

George Santayana - Winds Of Doctrine Studies in Contemporary Opinion


Awareness is a rum aspect of life, we all know what it is but can’t easily be aware of how aware we are. Santayana’s take on it highlights the animal nature of awareness, how it has always been an aspect of what we are, that rudimentary intelligence we had before we were even human.

awareness
noun
1. the state or condition of being informed or cognizant of something
2. concern about and well-informed interest in current developments


We divide it down into social awareness, political awareness, physical awareness, spatial awareness and so on. Yet all these overlays tend to obscure how basic it is, how simply noticing something or not noticing it sits below those layers of interpretation. Often enough, awareness doesn’t extend to those layers of interpretation perpetually skating across the surface of what we are. It’s just awareness, that ancient rudimentary intelligence.

We’ve all seen a uncountable examples of awareness and lack of awareness, in numerous guises. It’s a complex, familiar and basic aspect of daily life. The person in the supermarket who blocks the cheese display, trolley held at arm’s length while gazing at the cheese as if hoping to watch it ripen a little more.

The car in front where the driver is obviously chatting away to a passenger and isn’t fully aware of other traffic, road conditions or the blue flashing light hurtling up behind both of us.

The UK Prime Minister who isn’t aware of his own abilities and how they don’t align with the requirements of the position, the expectations of those around him, the views of his voters and the promises he both made and implied.

Starmer’s inadequacies could be recast as inadequate awareness, particularly awareness of himself. Words such as dishonest, mendacious, ideological, bureaucratic, evasive, indifferent and even evil may be used to explain his inadequacies, but a lack of awareness does that too. His rudimentary intelligence is too rudimentary we might say, even without wishing to be sarcastic.

However obvious it may be to others, Starmer clearly isn’t aware of important political aspects of his role. He wasn’t aware of the impact of his winter fuel payment debacle, wasn’t aware that it was an absurd decision which could damage or even wreck his political career.

His assertions, explanations and pronouncements don’t work, his language doesn’t work, his political rhetoric doesn’t work, he lacks the awareness to make it all work. He is not aware of his own limited awareness, not aware that he should have stayed away from politics.

There are no depths

To my mind, the fascinating aspect of North Korea is how it offers us an example of how horribly inhuman a political regime can be. Not so much as a warning of what could happen here in the UK, but a warning that there are no depths beyond which ruling elites cannot sink. 

Take this story for instance. Our UK elites are not about to sink so far, but neither can we describe our current government as competent, honest or even entirely sane. 


Patient death in Pyongyang exposes healthcare system crisis

The operation was performed by an intern from Pyongyang Medical University, who was at the hospital as part of a standard six-month training rotation

According to a source in Pyongyang, a patient diagnosed with acute appendicitis died from hemorrhagic shock during emergency surgery on Dec. 5. Public concern grew when it emerged that the operation was performed by an intern from Pyongyang Medical University, who was at the hospital as part of a standard six-month training rotation.

The circumstances leading to an intern performing the surgery were complex. The head surgeon was absent, dealing with a personal crisis – his wife had been arrested for selling electronic devices in a marketplace, a reflection of how medical professionals must often supplement their incomes through informal trade.

Other qualified surgeons had been reassigned to government construction projects as “shock troops,” a common practice in North Korea where professionals are routinely diverted to non-medical labor.

Fundamental reset

HS2 in ‘very serious situation’, boss says

HS2 is in a “very serious situation” and needs a “fundamental reset”, the new boss of the company building the high-speed railway has warned.

Mark Wild, chief executive of HS2 Ltd, said he is committed to ensuring the railway opens “safely and efficiently”.

“The prize is clear. However, the programme is in a very serious situation that requires a fundamental reset to enable it to be delivered to the lowest feasible cost.

A "fundamental reset" eh? Taking us into 2025, we appear to have yet another term for "enormous quantities of  extra money". 

As 2025 Looms

As 2025 looms, it is tempting to offer a few predictions, but gazing into the future is best left to horoscope bods. Instead, here are a few quotes about the future and what it doesn’t tell us until it does.


Loss
He lived in the past, and was conscious every day that something in the past that he loved was dying and must vanish. No form of future civilisation, whatever it might be, which was gained by means implying the destruction of what he chiefly loved, could ever appeal to him.

Morley Roberts on George Gissing


Haunted
Did people realise that places were sometimes haunted by the future—as well as by the past? Did one...?

Donald Henderson - Mr. Bowling Buys a Newspaper (1943)


Dreams and dogma
There is nothing like dogma for bringing forth dreams. And there is nothing like dreams for engendering the future.

Victor Hugo - Les Misérables (1862)


Seekers
Every career has its aspirants, who form a train for those who have attained eminence in it. There is no power which has not its dependents. There is no fortune which has not its court. The seekers of the future eddy around the splendid present. Every metropolis has its staff of officials.

Victor Hugo - Les Misérables (1862)


Elusive wisdom
This supercilious and impertinent exploration of the generation gone by, by the present generation, is nothing to our credit. As a matter of fact, no generation repeats the mistakes of the generation ahead, any more than any river repeats its course. So the young need not be so proud of their superiority over the old. The young generation glibly makes its own mistakes: and how detestable these new mistakes are, why, only the future will be able to tell us. But be sure they are quite as detestable, quite as full of lies and hypocrisy, as any of the mistakes of our parents. There is no such thing as absolute wisdom.

D.H. Lawrence - The Lost Girl (1920)


Mistakes
Wisdom has reference only to the past. The future remains for ever an infinite field for mistakes. You can’t know beforehand.

D.H. Lawrence - The Lost Girl (1920)


A perpetual pursuit
We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow's end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the future every real gift which is offered them in the Present.

C. S. Lewis - The Screwtape Letters (1942)

Putting it another way

Compromised Already

Before Christmas, Christina Holmgren-Larson published a useful European Conservative reminder of Joe Biden's cognitive inadequacy.


WSJ: Biden’s Intellectual Capacity Was Compromised Already When He Took Office

Who’s been running the country for the past four years? commentator asks; “it sure as hell hasn’t been Joe.”

Verifying what anyone who hasn’t been in a coma for the past four years had already suspected, a bombshell article in The Wall Street Journal says President Joe Biden’s staff spent his entire presidency covering up the fact that the man America elected was in no shape to do the job.

Which makes us ask, along with DailyMail.com commentator Maureen Callahan, “Just who has been running the country for the past four years?”

Americans, radio/TV host John Cardillo, said, “have a right to know.”


A fairly short piece but it is well worth reading the whole thing because those paying attention could see the problem from the beginning. 

Senior staff and media hiding the mental incapacity of leaders is far from new, but in this case a substantial section of the US and global population knew what was being done to hide Biden's intellectual capacity, even if the details were hidden.

It isn't the same situation, but here in the UK we have a Prime Minister who for different reasons clearly isn't up to the job and never could be. Similarly, a substantial section of the UK and global population knows he isn't up to it.

Gauntlet

Starmer throws down gauntlet to watchdogs with growth edict

The PM, chancellor and business secretary have written to watchdogs including Ofgem, the FCA and CMA to demand ideas for growth and investment amid sluggish economic growth, Sky News learns.

Sir Keir has already signalled his aim of removing red tape, telling the government's flagship International Investment Summit in the autumn: "The key test for me on regulation is of course growth.


Removing red tape sounds like a worthwhile aspiration, removing reliable and competitively priced electricity not quite so worthwhile. 

Fog

Christmas travel chaos as thick fog sparks mass delays and cancellations at UK’s busiest airports

We're in the third day of persistent fog/mist here in our bit of Derbyshire. It's patchy as we found out on a trip to Matlock yesterday, sometimes more mist than fog and sometimes quite dense fog.

It reminds me of a short story by Morley Roberts. A very dense fog lasting for many days descends on London, so dense that people cannot even find their way home. People go crazy, break into shops to steal anything of value and even kill each other as law and order has broken down.

Couldn't happen now of course. We have cleaner air, quangos and progressive multiculturalism to protect us.

Ed's Great British Energy Mission Control National Energy System Operator Solar Taskforce

Sir Keir Starmer is accused of smothering Britain in red tape after Labour set up new quango every week since election victory

Ed Miliband has created four new bodies to help push through his controversial plan to decarbonise Britain’s electricity system by 2030.

The first, Great British Energy, was announced the day after the election, and was billed as a state-owned energy company, although it remains unclear whether it will ever produce electricity.

Four days later, Mr Miliband announced the creation of Mission Control, a new advisory body which he said would help him devise and deliver the Government’s Clean Power 2030 Action Plan.

In September, the Energy Secretary announced the creation of a new National Energy System Operator to help ‘accelerate Great Britain’s energy transition’...

Then, in October, Mr Miliband set up the Solar Taskforce, which will examine issues such as whether to make solar panels compulsory on all new homes.


I doubt if anyone sane expects this absurd government to deliver anything worthwhile. It's a sinecure fight for personal bureaucratic security as Europe goes down the tubes.

Fake

Reform UK overtakes Conservative membership - Nigel Farage calls it 'historic', Kemi Badenoch says numbers are 'fake'

Reform UK and Nigel Farage have been involved in a series of furious exchanges online with Tory leader Kemi Badenoch.

According to research from the House of Commons Library, there is no uniformly recognised definition of party membership and no established method or body to monitor the number of members each political group has.

Oh dear, presumably we should now expect a proposal to tidy that up with audited party numbers produced to a bureaucratic standard. 

Let us hope not. but some deranged meddlers might see it as an opportunity. Kemi and Nigel may have opened a door here, let us hope not.

Is entertainment a trillion dollar waste of time?

A light-hearted look at the vast amount of money spent on entertainment.

 

Boxing Day Tip

 

As it is Boxing Day, domestic matters tend to dominate, so here’s a vacuum cleaning tip.

Take an imaginary scenario where you are fiddling around in the kitchen when for some wholly inexplicable reason you manage to tip a substantial pile of instant coffee granules onto the floor. A natural reaction is to seize hold of the Henry vacuum cleaner, tow it into the kitchen and vacuum up the mess.

But beware!

When you use the Henry again and before changing the bag because they last for ages, you may notice a surprisingly unpleasant stale coffee aroma from the vac’s exhaust air. It’s rather like, but worse than the aroma of unwashed coffee cups which have been sitting around for too long – say six months.

No H&S here lads

Putting the poles back on a Derby trolley bus
From Alan H

 

It's a crowded field

Rachel Reeves voted ‘worst politician of 2024’ as shock voice says 'I’d be getting rid"

The Chancellor has had a turbulent year which concludes with Britain on the brink of recession after growth figures flatlined.

The award was delivered on the Rest is Politics podcast by former Conservative MP Rory Stewart who pointed to recent economic statistics as justification for giving the award to Reeves.

Hardly a shock and it's a crowded field anyway, but that's enough politics for a while. It looks like a pleasant Christmas Day out there, so we're off for a short walk before we cook the ostrich for Christmas dinner.

If Scrooge Slept In

 

Merry Christmas

 

A Very Merry Christmas Everyone. 

Many thanks to all who wander in to read these oddities, especially the good souls who leave a comment or two. 

Makes it all worth while.

Elevate their cause?

Lord Mandelson set to work with Farage to win over Trump

Lord Mandelson is set to call on Nigel Farage to help him win over Donald Trump’s administration.

Britain’s new ambassador to the US is ready to engage with the Reform UK leader as part of efforts to persuade Mr Trump not to go to war with Britain on tariffs.

The move comes despite senior Labour figures warning against any such overture to Right-wing politicians for fear it would “elevate” their cause.


Elevate above what? Our absurd swamp of a Labour government? Shouldn't be difficult, but good grief, we see some rum language in modern politics. It isn't easy to know what to say, but perhaps Labour could "elevate" its own cause if it approaches the task as an Augean stables kind of job.

Seems hopelessly unlikely, but if Labour ditches its leader, all senior Cabinet members, Net Zero, the BBC, its immigration policy... well it's a big stable. The party could then allow voters to know what its cause is and how it is to be achieved.

The economics of the bung

Britain on brink of recession after growth revised to zero

Britain is on the brink of a recession after a revision to official figures showed the economy stagnated in the third quarter of the year.

Growth from July to September was revised down from 0.1pc to zero, new figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed. Living standards also fell.

The UK and Italy were the only G7 countries to register no growth during that time, performing worse than rivals such as Germany, France and the US.

A remarkable achievement. Maybe economic policies based on increased taxes and bungs to political supporters do not offer the best route to growth. Rachel from Accounts may have to revisit her sums.

 

Diminished

It will be interesting to see if there is any reckoning over Joe Biden's long diminished capacity to perform his role as US President. To take just one recent example and as one of the video comments suggests, we may assume that he wasn't capable of pardoning anyone.

 

The Streisand effect again

‘Two-tier’ BBC refuses to play Keir Starmer parody despite airing anti-Thatcher song

The BBC has been accused of “two-tier broadcasting” following its refusal to play the Sir Keir Starmer parody Freezing This Christmas despite airing a song critical of Margaret Thatcher.

The broadcaster has continually refused to play the track, which uses the melody of Lonely This Christmas, Mud’s 1974 hit, in a parody about the withdrawal of winter fuel payments.

It's pleasant to see the BBC in a cleft stick, especially one which makes it seem even more furtive and inconsistent than usual.  

Disturbance

However, as it generally happens that those, who have had many experiences, vacillate, so long as they regard a thing as future or past, and are usually in doubt about its issue (II. xliv. note); it follows that the emotions which arise from similar images of things are not so constant, but are generally disturbed by the images of other things, until men become assured of the issue.

Baruch Spinoza – Ethics (1677)


As Spinoza said, shifting from one viewpoint to another counts as a disturbance and we don’t generally seek this kind of disturbance. It’s a barrier to change, a hill we would have to climb to see what’s on the other side.

This brings out an aspect of the term ‘confirmation bias’, because we don’t necessarily seek the confirmation. Sometimes we do, mostly we don’t, because seeking confirmation might be disturbing. In the main it’s just bias, protection against disturbance and the online world suggests it can be pretty crude protection.

This is what mainstream media cater for, not only bias but the underlying protection against disturbance. They even make conspicuous and repeated use of the word ‘disturbing’, as do politicians. Bias is the outcome, the behaviour we see, while the remarkably powerful spectre of disturbance is what keeps the bias in place. News stories which might be disturbing are presented as windows on a disturbing world, confirmation that a particular media comfort zone is the right comfort zone.

Apart from confounding factors such as vested interests, this issue of disturbance seems to account for the slow pace in which absurd public narratives are corrected. It can take generations or even centuries to correct even the most abject stupidity. Belief in witchcraft is a historical example, catastrophic climate change a modern one.

Crowds and Warnings

Before tootling off on a short local walk, Mrs H and I popped into a busy Costa this morning. We both noticed how crowded it was, especially as warnings from the RAC and AA have suggested that virtually the entire UK population will brave howling winds to be out on the roads over the next few days.

Travel news live: Christmas getaway weekend delays after M25 crash and 80mph wind weather warnings in place

Roads and public transport could be disrupted by strong winds as the Met Office forecast a wet and windy weekend for many.

The AA predicted 23.7 million drivers hit the road on Friday, making it the busiest day on the roads since the group’s records began in 2010.

It projected that Saturday would see 22.7 million drivers and Sunday 21.3 million.

Mangled

Lord Mandelson called an ‘absolute moron’ by Trump campaign chief

Donald Trump’s campaign manager has called Lord Mandelson an “absolute moron” and said he should “stay home” after the Labour peer was announced as the UK’s next ambassador to Washington.

Chris LaCivita, who masterminded Mr Trump’s presidential bid earlier this year, hit back at Sir Keir Starmer’s choice for the role and praised the incumbent, Dame Karen Pierce.

“This UK government is special,” he said. “Replace a professional universally respected ambo with an absolute moron - he should stay home! Sad!”

I don't have any particular angle on this, merely the belated pleasure of seeing Mandelson mangled so robustly and so prominently. 

Septuple Whammy

Usual health warning - it's the Grauniad

Elon Musk is becoming a one-man rogue state – it’s time we reined him in

He has bankrolled elections, stoked riots and ignored laws. We mustn’t make the mistake of playing nice with the world’s richest bully

Elon Musk is, more or less, a rogue state. His intentions are self-serving and nefarious, and his nation-state level resources allow him to flout the law with impunity. To put it into context, if dollars were metres, Musk’s money would be enough to take him to Mars and back, while a mere millionaire could only make a round trip from Paris to Amsterdam.


Reads like a bit of a lip-trembler, but understandable as Musk represents a septuple whammy for Grauniad folk. He's -

1. Very rich
2. Smart
3. White
4. Male
5. Politically moderate
6. Outspoken
7. In favour of free speech

Vote for me or...

MercoPress has a piece on plans by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to 'further democratize' his country. 

Maduro eyes Constitutional reform for Venezuela

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced Thursday that he was planning a constitutional reform to further democratize his country in addition to empowering the citizenry and consolidating freedom and national sovereignty. “I have formed a team with great international and national advisors to think together with our people about a great constitutional reform that will further democratize Venezuelan society,” Maduro said.

“We are going toward a democratizing process in an expanded stage of the Venezuelan society, our process and project is to go to a great democratization of the institutional political, economic, social, cultural, and educational life of all Venezuela,” he went on while heralding more democratic processes in 2025 with the elections of governors, mayors, municipal councils, legislatures, and the National Assembly. “We are going to make a great democratizing dynamic,” he argued.

From the perspective of this outsider, the current democratic process is easily summed up as -

'Vote for Maduro or else.' 

Maybe this is to be extended  - 

'Vote for Maduro's candidate or else.'  

We'll see.

Even that's a lie

Starmer: No regrets about decisions I’ve made

Sir Keir Starmer has said he has no regrets about the decisions he has made in the past six months and would do nothing differently.

The Prime Minister made the comments as he answered questions from the liaison committee of senior MPs from all parties for the first time.


Of course he has regrets, being the worst ever Prime Minister was never his ambition. Another regret must be his inability to spend every minute of his time flying around the world on endless meeting tours.

He's the mediocre lawyer who shouldn't be there and the whole world knows it. He can't do the job, doesn't know what his next move should be, probably isn't looking forward to Christmas, probably isn't looking forward to 2025, doesn't know if he'll still be PM by the end of another year of serial blunders and can't trust any of his colleagues.

Of course he has his regrets - or he's mad.

Dark Brandon

 

Regulatory decadence

Fred de Fossard has a timely CAPX piece on the malign effects of the UK Online Safety Act.


What tech company would do business in Britain?

• OpenAI's new text-to-video AI tool, Sora, will not be launched in the UK
• The pernicious effects of the Online Safety Act are now being felt
• Governments were warned not to heavily regulate tech, but they didn't listen

The Online Safety Act is kicking in and the reality of having an internet governed by Ofcom is starting to materialise; no matter what the Act’s advocates say, this reality isn’t pretty. Regulations like the Online Safety Act make Britain a bad place to do business and to be online. 

The whole piece is well worth reading as yet another indicator that the current rate of UK decline is not decreasing.


Following the summer’s riots, the Government seeks new ways of strengthening this law to suppress speech online. This is regulatory decadence at its worst. Ofcom is becoming one of the most powerful regulators in the country, and one of the strongest signs to stay away from the British economy. Until these regulators are brought to heel and these laws repealed, British prosperity will continue to suffer.

Influencer

‘Londoners beware’: Influencer’s warning after brazen Birkin bag theft on Oxford Street

An influencer is warning other women shopping in London’s West End “to beware” after CCTV caught the moment her new £10,000 Birkin bag was stolen as she tried on clothes at a boutique.

Model Janice Joostema, who boasts 1.2million followers on Instagram, said it had been “gut-wrenching” to watch a female thief swipe the item while she got undressed in a VIP changing room at Manière De Voir on Oxford Street.


Surely that's a successful bit of influencing. Perhaps not the kind of personal influence an influencer would wish to influence, but effective.

I wonder if Starmer counts himself as an influencer? Whizzing around the world as he does, suggests he isn't a good influencer because he has to work so hard at it. He doesn't have a £10,000 Birkin bag though. Not yet anyway. 

The Grauniad is disturbed

Donald Trump’s disturbing war on the press has now escalated

The Donald Trump vengeance tour is on the road and the media is in its crosshairs. “It should have been the justice department or somebody else, but I have to do it,” the president-elect intoned on Monday. “It costs a lot of money to do it, but we have to straighten out the press.”

“Our press is very corrupt,” he continued. “Almost as corrupt as our elections.”

Also on Monday, a 15-year-old student in Wisconsin killed two people, injured six others, and took her own life with a 9mm pistol. The US supreme court, however, accords firearms the same constitutional protections as speech and worship. In Trumpworld, guns and the second amendment rock, the press not so much.


Presumably the Gruaniad wishes its easily triggered readers to remain undisturbed by hints of an obvious, long-running cause for Donald Trump's attitude to media bias.

 

For the view he took of life was very simple, undisturbed by any sense of irony, unspoiled by curiosity, or desire to link effect with cause, or indeed, to admit the necessity of cause at all.

John Galsworthy – A Motley (1910)

Dolt Point Theory

As we know Dolt Point theory allows us to estimate critical Dolt Point weaknesses in any governing political party.

The Dolt Point is of course the point as which certain doltish indicators coalesce around a prominent individual who then becomes the focus of the developing Dolt Point, the point at which this particular individual must be ejected from his or her position in the party hierarchy.

Clearly we have a problem here in the UK, because three Dolt Points appear to be coalescing simultaneously around three prominent individuals, something Dolt Point theory would not have predicted in its current formulation. Equally clearly, those three Dolt Point individuals are Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves and Ed Miliband, yet if all three are not ejected, then one or more Dolt Points may survive relatively unscathed.

Apart from presenting Dolt Point theorists with a problem, we also have the spectre of uncontrollable Dolt Point Chaos, a theoretical area as yet unexplored. Unfortunately, Keir Starmer seems to be exploring it.

Sticking to the script

A reminder of what Dominic Cummings says about UK Cabinet meetings. Many will have seen it, but it is worth revisiting as the Starmer disaster unfolds. Starmer clearly sees himself as a very senior official, not as a Prime Minister ensuring political oversight of government.

 

Pob

Kellogg's just made a major change to Corn Flakes cereal after 66 years

Corn Flakes might not be the sexiest of all the cereal options in the supermarket, but they’ve been a reliable choice for decades.

However, Kellogg’s latest move might surprise some as it involves a major change being made to its iconic mascot, for the very first time.

After 66 years, Cornelius the cockerel is entering a new era, in a bid to connect with a younger generation and combat declining sales.


A quick and easy breakfast I suppose, but my father used to refer to all breakfast cereals as 'pob'. I've always see it as a pretty good description, whatever Cornelius the cockerel might get up to.

My breakfast is usually a lump of cheese and a couple of dry oatmeal crackers. Nothing complicated and certainly not pob.

Extinguished by the language

A new European Metacities Partnership takes shape to foster Metacity development in Europe

On October 30, 2024, during the leading 5G ecosystem event in Europe, Techritory, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed to commit to forming a European Metacities Partnership. The Memorandum was signed by 15 public and private organizations from six European countries – Latvia, Greece, Bulgaria, Belgium, Finland, and Cyprus...

The organizations that signed the MoU have also committed to taking specific coordinated actions, such as sharing insights in technologies, use cases, and business models, identifying EU-funded projects and inviting partners in consortia to write and submit proposals, and organizing industry workshops and discussion forums.


There could be something in the European Metacities notion, but it is very difficult to read a piece such as this without seeing yet another gravy train. Another taxpayer-funded middle class talking shop riding on the back of developments which were probably going to happen anyway.

The clues are all over the place - "EU funded projects", "workshops", "discussion forums." It's not encouraging - any inclination to examine the idea further is extinguished by the language.

Live

Watch live: Starmer meets world leaders in Estonia as he visits troops serving on Russian border

Watch live as Sir Keir Starmer meets leaders of Baltic states in Estonia for the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) conference on Tuesday, 17 December, before he visits British troops serving on Russia's border.

The Prime Minister will join leaders from the Nordics and Baltics to discuss support for Ukraine, the sustained threat posed by Russia, and wider European security.

Sir Keir will then visit British forces serving in the region to deter malign Russian threats.


We've known this for some time now, our Prime Minister is addicted to running away. Perhaps this time he's dreading Christmas with the family.

It also seems odd for the word 'live' to be associated with him. True in a biological sense presumably, but still odd. He give the impression of an old-fashioned automaton, a creature of cogs, wheels, springs and painted cotton assembled in a secluded workshop by a clockmaker. Or a toolmaker perhaps.

Reliance on weather gods

Carl Deconinck has a Brussels Signal reminder that all is not well with sustainable energy in Europe.


Sweden slams German ‘green’ energy policy reliance on ‘weather gods’

The recent spike in energy prices has caused diplomatic friction between Sweden and Germany, with Sweden’s Deputy Prime Minister Ebba Busch pointing the finger at Germany’s ‘green’ energy policy as its cause...

On December 16, she told German newspaper Bild: “It is difficult for an industrial economy to rely on the benevolence of the weather gods for its prosperity. The dependence on unsteady energy sources such as wind and sun has proven to be a challenge, as last week showed.

“Sweden’s Government supports renewable energies, but no political will is strong enough to override the laws of physics – not even that of [German climate minister Robert] Habeck … so it is strange when politicians are amazed at the results of a weather-dependent power system.

When the wind don't blow 

The amps don't flow

But Ed, dear old Ed

He don't seem to know

Spy Story

Alleged Chinese spy 'close' to Prince Andrew identified after row erupts

The alleged Chinese spy had been pictured with senior politicians including Lord David Cameron and Baroness Theresa May.

An alleged Chinese spy banned from the UK and linked to the Duke of York can now be named as Yang Tengbo, a High Court judge has ruled.

The man – who was banned from Britain by the Government on national security grounds – visited Buckingham Palace twice, and also entered St James’s Palace and Windsor Castle at the invitation of Prince Andrew.

The security services are probably quite miffed that this story has risen to the surface. Andrew's favoured associates must be an almost infallible guide to people they should keep an eye on. Oh well, lessons learned. 

Guess the Location

...2022 Procurement Act, which outlines the management and supervision of state procurement activities and establishes both civil and administrative penalties.

The law notably establishes distinct categories of state procurement while allowing for various procurement methods, apparently aimed at strengthening state economic planning.

Article 3 defines two types of procurement: “planned procurement,” which is directed by state planning organizations, and “free procurement,” which allows for voluntary contracts between procurement agents and companies.

Articles 4 and 6 establish conditions for agents to actively seek resources and participate voluntarily in procurement activities, enabling mutual benefit among involved parties.

Yes it's North Korea, couldn't possibly be anywhere else.

Wes Streeting On Manoeuvres

 

Sir Keir and the Lowerarchy

Having an idea there is a whiff of sulphur surrounding the Keir Starmer government, I recently reread The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis.


In The Screwtape Letters, Lewis imagines a series of lessons on the importance of taking a deliberate role in Christian faith by portraying a typical human life, with all its temptations and failings, seen from devils' viewpoints. Screwtape holds an administrative post in the bureaucracy ("Lowerarchy") of Hell. Until the book's final pages, Screwtape acts as a mentor to his nephew Wormwood, an inexperienced and incompetent tempter.


After Wormwood’s failure as a trainee tempter, it is easy to imagine how other Lowerarchy tempters may have been far more successful. The effect of Screwtape's crafty guidance is easily seen in political life today, Sir Keir Starmer being just one of his many successes.


Your man has been accustomed, ever since he was a boy, to have a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together inside his head. He doesn't think of doctrines as primarily "true" of "false", but as "academic" or "practical", "outworn" or "contemporary", "conventional" or "ruthless". Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the Church...

If he must dabble in science, keep him on economics and sociology; don't let him get away from that invaluable "real life". But the best of all is to let him read no science but to give him a grand general idea that he knows it all and that everything he happens to have picked up in casual talk and reading is "the results of modern investigation"...

Aggravate that most useful human characteristic, the horror and neglect of the obvious. You must bring him to a condition in which he can practise self-examination for an hour without discovering any of those facts about himself ,which are perfectly clear to anyone who has over lived in the same house with him or worked the same office.

C. S. Lewis - The Screwtape Letters (1942)

That which we have long declined to do.

Woman dies after triple shooting in London as police launch murder probe

A murder investigation has been launched after a woman was killed and a man was left in a critical condition following a triple shooting in north-west London.

Describing the incident as a “heinous act of violence”, the Metropolitan Police said officers were called at around 9.15pm on Saturday night to Gifford Road in Brent.

And barely an eyebrow is raised as our weakness shrugs and moves on.

I have just returned from a ride in my litter; and I am as weary as if I had walked the distance, instead of being seated. Even to be carried for any length of time is hard work, perhaps all the more so because it is an unnatural exercise; for Nature gave us legs with which to do our own walking, and eyes with which to do our own seeing. Our luxuries have condemned us to weakness; we have ceased to be able to do that which we have long declined to do.

Seneca - Epistulae morales ad Lucilium c. 65 AD

Throwley Old Hall

Interesting video about Throwley Old Hall in Staffordshire, not far from the Staffordshire/Derbyshire boundary. It can be seen from a couple of our walks, although we haven't been that way for a few years.

There is a nearby farm and holiday accommodation now, but when inhabited the Hall must have seemed a remote and strangely situated place. What went on there? It would be easy to make up stories.

 

More on gambling

Inside the town where Rachel Reeves is MP - abandoned shops and businesses on the brink

In Pudsey, the biggest town in Reeves's constituency, just under one in five people are aged 65 or over and here, like anywhere in the UK, the controversial scrapping of the winter fuel allowance is perhaps the one policy that Reeves is universally known for.

Susan Watson, 52, works in the local Age UK and has seen firsthand the impact that the removal of the £300 payment to help with energy bills is having.

She told the Express: "She's not too well liked anymore, put it that way.

Presumably Rachel is gambling too, on the Five Missions, Plan for Change, lots of Milestones and above all, the “relentless focus on delivering for working people.” She's gambling that her colleagues aren't useless ideologues and there is always a comfortable sinecure for failed Chancellors.

It's quite a gamble, apart from the last one, and this explains a good deal of political behaviour.

Maybe it's a clue

Man wins £70,000 payout after medication caused compulsive gambling habit

A66-year-old man who became a compulsive gambler and shopper after being prescribed a medication for restless leg syndrome has received a £70,000 settlement from his GP...

Leigh Day solicitors, which represented Mr Stevens, said the GP did not warn him of possible side-effects including an impulse control disorder which can cause uncontrollable gambling or shopping.


Interesting - Net Zero could certainly be described as uncontrollable gambling on a vast scale. Mass immigration too. The government is more casino than responsible government. 

Maybe it's a clue.

Starmer's Android Stare

Disappointed

UK economy unexpectedly declines as services sector stalls

The UK economy unexpectedly contracted in October, marking two months in a row of negative growth for the first time since the pandemic, new figures show.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves said she was “disappointed” by the data after a weak month for pubs and restaurants dragged on growth amid some uncertainty ahead of the autumn Budget...

The Chancellor said: “We are determined to deliver economic growth as higher growth means increased living standards for everyone, everywhere. This is what our Plan for Change is all about.

Probably the first of many disappointments in efficacy of the Plan for Change, whatever it is. No doubt it will have to be changed for another type of Change with more Plan in it and maybe a Milestone or two. 

I'm sure Rachel is nowhere near as disappointed as the general population though.  

Judging by the droppings

Iain Hunter has a useful FSB piece on being prepared for future tax raids by Rachel Reaves.


Taxed to Death

Taxed when you, taxed when you sell - even though you've made a loss

In the wake of that appalling Reaves budget on Halloween this year in which this Fabian functionary of the World Economic Forum raided family farms and heritable private pension funds, we really ought to consider what her next move will be. One thing we can be sure of is that she won’t leave it at that. The NHS needs more money, don’t you know? Therefore, some counter argument needs to be prepared in advance.

Judging by the droppings from left-wing ‘think-tanks’, she is bound to be taking a look at what she and others of her ilk no doubt regard as unearned profits when people sell houses for significantly more than they paid for them. This could take two forms: Either the imposition of Capital Gains Tax (CGT) on house sales; or the scrapping of the Residence Nil Rate Band of Inheritance Tax (IHT) which allows a married or ‘partnered’ couple to pass on to offspring tax free a family home worth up to £1 million. Or maybe even both.


Well worth reading as a reminder that our odious government is odious enough to raid any potential source of tax revenue rather than grasp the nettle of efficiency.


“But the NHS still needs more money”, states Reaves, “who else do I get it from?”

“You’ve got it”, say I. “Take it from the money you’re going to spaff up against the wall in Ukraine, on Net Zero projects, on useless ‘green energy’ projects, on foreign aid for useless green energy projects, on the migrants nobody wants, on the criminal amounts of waste you and we all know occurs in all parts of the public sector. You could even slash the civil service in half and no-one would notice. And get those who are left back into the office for at least nine hours a day, five days a week”.

“Any questions. Ms Reaves?”

Just in case anyone thinks I have mis-spelt Rachel Reaves name, I haven’t. It’s deliberate. To reave is a Middle English verb. Look it up.


Tom Armstrong did look it up -

Reave; from Old English rēafian - to rob

Wave the magic trowel

Government demands 'immediate, mandatory' housing plans from councils to build 1.5m homes

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said: "Our Plan for Change will put builders not blockers first, overhaul the broken planning system and put roofs over the heads of working families and drive the growth that will put more money in people's pockets.

"We're taking immediate action to make the dream of homeownership a reality through delivering 1.5 million homes by the next parliament and rebuilding Britain to deliver for working people."

I know nothing about building houses, but I wouldn't buy a house built from 2025 onwards. Some of them may be okay, but 'just shove them up anywhere' doesn't appeal to me as an underlying mantra.

Conspicuous ritualistic waste

The great principle of conspicuous ritualistic waste had been illustrated in a manner to satisfy the most exacting standard of the leisured class; and incidentally a subject of talk was provided.

Arnold Bennett - The Roll-Call (1916)

Wind turbine maker cuts hundreds of jobs on Isle of Wight

Wind turbine maker Vestas has said 600 workers at its Isle of Wight factory are at risk of redundancy.

Employees at the Newport plant have been told at least half of its manufacturing operation will be cut amid changing demand for turbine blades.

Evil or Incompetent?

 

Operation Pegasus

Police arrest 93 members of shoplifting gangs behind £4million retail thefts

A dedicated police squad has arrested 93 members of organised shoplifting gangs amid an explosion in retail thefts.

Operation Pegasus has “impacted 28 organised crime groups and high-harm individuals” responsible for more than £4 million in losses to businesses, the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) said.



Invidious comparison alert -

This shoplifting loss averages out at about £43,000 per gang member, a footling amount compared to government waste, yet we don't speak of the Labour Cabinet as a "taxlifting gang" do we? As we also know, £43,000 is substantially less than Starmer's freebies.

Why invidious?

Maybe "assisted" means "cheap"

Chancellor Rachel Reeves dodges questions on funding for assisted dying

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has declined to say whether funds would be made available to make assisted dying free at the point of use.

Ms Reeves, who gave her backing to a new Bill when Parliament had a historic vote in favour of assisted dying last month, said she is “not convinced” such a service would mean higher costs for the public purse.

But, asked on Tuesday about funding for assisted dying, she repeatedly refused to say whether it would be funded through public money.

So it's to be a cheap version of assisted dying. A DIY version perhaps, such as a kit purchased from eBay, although maybe we shouldn't speculate about how cheap it could be.

The Iron Fist

Ministers warned of cuts as ‘every pound’ of spending to face review

Cabinet ministers have been warned they must find more savings in their departments as the Chancellor said “every pound” of Government spending will be scrutinised in a major budget review.

Secretaries of State are being told that any outgoings which are not contributing towards one of Labour’s “priorities” must be cut as Rachel Reeves vows to wield “an iron fist against waste.”
 

An iron fist? Good grief, what do we say about such silly rhetoric? 

Waste is a large part of what they do - have a chat with Ed Miliband about subsidies and electricity generation which doesn't work without it.

Just Send Ed

Daily life interrupted as Pyongyang’s power shortage drags on

The regime is doing its best to provide power to essential hospitals that often deal with medical emergencies

The power shortage in North Korea’s capital Pyongyang remains severe, creating serious disruptions to daily life. Despite efforts to tap renewable energy sources like solar and wind power, these initiatives have had limited impact on addressing the electricity crisis.

There we are, a Pyongyang situation we in the UK may regard as an experiment. Clearly we need to send Ed Miliband there for a prolonged personal investigation into why wind and solar have had limited impact on Pyongyang power shortages.


North Korea faces a chronic shortage of electricity. Those who live in high-rise apartments are only able to use the elevators around rush hour. There is no electricity at other hours, forcing residents to make their way up and down the stairs.

Ed could spend some time living in one of those high-rise apartments and really get a feel for the issues. It would improve his fitness level too.

The Bunglerati

The scene is a poorly lit café somewhere in the back streets of a large city. The café has only two customers, two men sitting at a table in the corner of the room. One man is known only as Smith, the other is Sir Keir Starmer, UK Prime Minister.

Smith gazes around the café before speaking in a hushed voice – “your security team is outside, but we are quite alone here and may speak freely?”

“Of course,” says Sir Keir, adjusting his spectacles with a characteristic gesture.

“Very well. Before the general election you met one of my colleagues. He explained who we are. He also outlined our interest in your career, which until then was quite satisfactory.”

“Yes, I remember.” Sir Keir fiddles again with his spectacles. He seems nervous.

“As you know, Sir Keir, we are the Bunglerati, the real power behind global affairs. We are an ancient order and we advance by what is crudely termed failing upwards. By ensuring that projects, plans, developments do not quite go according to plan, we ensure, with infinitely fine calculation that they are taken out of our hands. As a result, our future members are promoted out of mere mechanical activities and the technicians remain where they are most valuable. Such is the philosophy behind the success of the Bunglerati.”

“Yes of course, I understand,” Sir Keir says.

“There is of course,” Smith goes on, “a great deal of subtle calculation in every one of our apparent failures, an absolute necessity to read the current game with superfine judgement, to calculate the correct level and necessary adjustments of what is commonly but erroneously referred to as responsibility.”

“Responsibility which is never mine,” Sir Keir interjects.

“Quite, responsibility which is never yours.” Smith strokes his chin for a moment.

“I make sure of that every time,” Sir Keir adds.

"Indeed you do, every single time." Smith stirs his coffee then adds “we have two problems here, Sir Keir. We of the Bunglerati presumed you would foresee and avoid them both.”

“Problems?”

“You seem puzzled,” Smith says.

“I am.”

“Yes, you would be.” Smith rises and glances at his watch. “We may be in touch again, Sir Keir and we may not. You are a very busy man.”

“Yes I am – very busy.”

“Indeed you are.” Smith pulls on his gloves and leaves the café.

In search of forgotten heroes

Alexander Chula has a very interesting Critic piece on Bishop Charles Mackenzie.


In search of forgotten heroes

The Church has consigned to oblivion those who risked all to end the slave trade

The grave was buried in dry silt and foliage, and it took an hour of hacking and digging in the stifling midday heat before steel chinked on stone. Slowly, amidst the clatter of hoes and machetes, six pillars emerged from the earth. The grave revealed, our excavation party set down their tools to say the Lord’s Prayer in Chichewa, the dust still hanging round them in the windless air.

We were in Mozambique, at the confluence of the Ruo and Shire rivers just across the border from Malawi. We had set off before dawn, travelling by dugout canoe along a stretch of water busy with crocodiles and known locally as Mtayamoyo — the place where you lose your life.

Here, on 31 January 1862, Charles Mackenzie lost his. The last warrior bishop of the Anglican Church, Mackenzie died horribly of blackwater fever whilst leading a campaign against slavery which has been consigned to oblivion in Britain, but deserves to be remembered as amongst our greatest moral crusades.


The whole piece is well worth reading, especially comments by Justin Welby as archbishop of Canterbury.


Earlier this year Justin Welby, as archbishop of Canterbury, gave a sermon in Zanzibar but chose to emphasise the faults of the early missionaries over their achievements and sacrifices. “They did not change their attitudes,” he averred. “They treated Africans as inferior.”

I am curious to know who exactly the former Archbishop had in mind. Mackenzie’s successors gave everything they had to the region, and their graves litter Malawi, still venerated today. They committed to sharing the lives of local peoples and — as I argue in my recent book (Goodbye, Dr Banda) — approached their cultures with a curiosity and respect seldom matched by Western visitors today. The imputation that they treated Africans as inferior dishonours men who died precisely because they considered Africans as worthy of that sacrifice as anyone else.

Nobody inside the suit

There is will in thought, there is none in dreams. Revery, which is utterly spontaneous, takes and keeps, even in the gigantic and the ideal, the form of our spirit. Nothing proceeds more directly and more sincerely from the very depth of our soul, than our unpremeditated and boundless aspirations towards the splendors of destiny. In these aspirations, much more than in deliberate, rational coordinated ideas, is the real character of a man to be found. Our chimeras are the things which the most resemble us. Each one of us dreams of the unknown and the impossible in accordance with his nature.

Victor Hugo - Les Misérables (1862)


Our chimeras are the things which the most resemble us. We know this too well when a chimera is an ideology.

This is what sceptics seem to dislike about ideology, it is possible for an ideology to become a largely ineradicable aspect of a personality. A chunk of personality goes missing, the chunk which would have allowed an ideologue to have a conversation within the domain of the ideology, but that domain now lies elsewhere, beyond the person, beyond their ability to have such a conversation.

To my mind this is why Keir Starmer seems to have no personality. His chimeras are all there is, nothing left, nobody inside the suit.

The ad problem

 

Then there's the BBC

BBC's Christmas comedy crisis: Why festive TV line-ups are losing their charm

We live in strange times. We're supposed to believe that a car dressed in a doily is award-winning art. That unrecognisable perma-pouting nonentities and auto-tuned wannabes are unmissable talents. And that each fresh crop of bungling political pygmies know what they're doing. Then there's the BBC. Is it still fit for purpose? Or is Britain's senior broadcaster, in the words Sir Keir Starmer used to describe the civil service, comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline?..

Christmas TV used to feel special, thanks to a long, distinguished list of comedians and comedies that encompasses Morecambe & Wise, The Two Ronnies, Only Fools & Horses, One Foot In The Grave, The Stanley Baxter Show, The Royle Family...and many more.

Sadly, this year's Yuletide line-up comes with a distinct whiff of "Will this do?"

Then there's the BBC. Is it still fit for purpose? No - obviously not and this has been the case for several decades.

 
Festive TV lost its charm many years ago, but Keir Starmer appears to have no intention of allowing the BBC to fade away in the tepid bath of managed decline. Taxpayer-supported state broadcaster is far more likely, possibly something even more grand, although his fresh crop of bungling political pygmies could even bungle that. Let us hope so.

Silent Night

A quiet Storm Darragh night in our bit of Derbyshire, although we're well away from the worst of it. Wind noise generally disturbs my sleep, but last night I couldn't hear it at all, maybe a faint murmur once or twice. Based on previous experience, our forecast gust speed was out by at least 10-15mph unless I'm acquiring overnight deafness.

It's forecast to be equally windy here over the next 30 hours, so maybe we'll see more forecast accuracy. Even some flying pigs.

Of great age

An interesting investigation into an obscure snippet of eighteenth century life.

Meanwhile...

While our media worry about important stuff such as Greg Wallace and a cookery programme, MercoPress has a reminder that Houthi attacks along the Red Sea have not ceased. 

Maybe Starmer has it as one of his "milestones" and David Lammy is busy working on it.

Western military pressure has been unable to stop Houthis attacks along the Red Sea, IISS report

The Houthis are growing in strength and trade through the Red Sea is declining despite ongoing international military pressure on the rebel group, a study has warned. The report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) said missions such as Operation Prosperity Guardian, Operation Poseidon Archer and EUNAVFOR Aspides had made little impact.

The paper, called Navigating Troubled Waters: The Houthis' Campaign in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, said military strikes had only temporarily disrupted the group's capabilities...

The question remains, why haven't the Houthis been weakened? The IISS report highlights several factors explaining the Houthis' resilience despite sustained international military pressure: Terrain and concealment, Iranian support, Evolving tactics, refining targeting criteria and weapons system; The use of low-cost, high-impact weapons, such as UAVs and uncrewed surface vessels, places disproportionate strain on the expensive defensive systems of their adversaries, and finally, international operations, including Operation Prosperity Guardian and EUNAVFOR Aspides, are primarily naval and lack ground components, limiting their ability to neutralize Houthi positions or disrupt supply chains.

Brain rot and toilet videos

Michael Cook has a timely Mercator piece on the Pope's antidote to brain rot caused by excessive use of social media.


The Pope has an antidote to ‘brain rot’

The Oxford English Dictionary has selected “brain rot” as its word of the year. As the Christmas holidays approach, other dictionaries and publications have nominated their own neologisms. The Collins English Dictionary chose “brat”, which Kamala Harris was apparently. I still don’t know what it means. The Macquarie Dictionary, the leading Australian dictionary, chose “enshittification”, which confirms British stereotypes about Aussie yobbos. The Economist chose “kakistocracy’, the rule of the worst, which, it says, fits President Trump’s cabinet nominees.

The others will fade, but brain rot is here to stay. It refers to the intellectual decay caused by overuse of social media, video gaming, doom-scrolling, zombie-scrolling, and so on. If you want to research the area further, check out the fabulously popular Skibidi Toilet videos, about animated toilets with talking heads trying to take over the world.


Not the the Pope is a sound guide to modern fads and fashions, but the whole piece is worth reading as we contemplate rather obvious cases of brain rot in our governing class. Or ethical rot, it isn't always easy to spot the difference.


After his reflections on literature earlier this year, the Pope turned to the study of history. Again, he emphasised the need for depth – we study history not to accumulate facts for trivial pursuit but to know ourselves and our societies better.

He introduces a useful distinction. Internet brain rot is diachronic or horizontal– concerned only with the here and now. But the human spirit needs to be synchronic, vertical, – looking to the past and the future. “No one can truly know their deepest identity, or what they wish to be in the future, without attending to the bonds that link them to preceding generations,” he writes.

Essentially Pope Francis is saying that control of smartphones is a moral crisis. If we fail to help the emerging generation conquer brain rot, we will have a lot to answer for. Society will be run by post-literate morons who grew up watching Skibidi Toilet videos.

The Guardian Fled X Because...

 

The march of the public health puritans

Two days ago Christopher Snowdon published a useful Critic piece on the latest manifestation of what seems like an endless stream of official hectoring over the food we eat.


Food for thoughtlessness

The march of the public health puritans continues

Misleading the public until the bitter end, the Department of Health and Social Care issued a press release this morning confirming that “junk food adverts” will be banned on TV before 9pm and online 24/7 from next October. It used the legally meaningless phrase “junk food” five times.

Junk food is in the eye of the beholder, but is obviously pejorative. That is why politicians and “public health” lobbyists use it. If they abandoned the weasel words and told us what is actually being prohibited, even natural allies of the nanny state might conclude that the advertising ban — which goes far beyond anything introduced elsewhere in the world — is a bit excessive.


The whole piece is well worth reading as these tedious assaults on our personal independence tend to drop out of the headlines as soon as some other insanity pops up.


We are only five months into a Labour government and already we have legislation going through parliament for tobacco prohibition, a ban on disposable vapes, a vape tax, an e-cigarette advertising ban, and a ban on advertisements for everyday food products. For those of us who believe in personal liberty and free markets, it is a depressing time to be alive. We can only hope that the pace of authoritarian government meddling slows down once Keir Starmer has implemented all the policies left over from the Rishi Sunak regime.

The five missions

Starmer promises his ‘plan for change’ will improve people’s lives

The Prime Minister has promised a “relentless focus on delivering for working people” ahead of a major speech setting out targets to measure progress on his Government’s plans.

Under the “plan for change”, the Government will promise a named, contactable police officer for every neighbourhood in England and Wales.

The speech on Thursday has been billed as setting out the “next phase” of Sir Keir’s administration, detailing the “milestones” for achieving the five missions laid out in Labour’s election manifesto.

Starmer does set himself up, as if he's taking advice from someone who wishes to undermine him. If he speaks of a 'plan for change' then his departure is the obvious image it must create even among the few who still listen to him.

Nobody cares about 'five missions, a 'relentless focus', a 'plan for change' or 'milestones'. It's evasive waffle and even after such a short time we know it's the best he can do - evasive waffle. 

For anyone who misses the wireless

 

For those who haven't come across it, Simon Stanhope's YouTube channel has lots of very well narrated stories. 

From the channel description -

This channel celebrates classic English short stories, in particular the mystery and suspense stories which were a staple of the popular periodicals of the Victorian and Edwardian eras.

Net Zero personal transport

 

A sign of desperation

Harry Phibbs has a useful CAPX piece about our desperately poor UK Labour government. So poor that it is something of a mystery.


Starmer’s reset is a sign of desperation

• Labour's ministers already come across as hunted and downtrodden
• This week brings the ultimate signal of government malaise: a relaunch
• Without a coherent set of beliefs, any Government is likely to flounder

This is a young Government. Labour have only been in power for five months. Yet already it has a tired, worn out feel about it. There is a sense of drift and pessimism. Every couple of days, a new sleaze scandal appears in the media.

This should be the phase when ministers are swanking and swaggering on the airwaves, basking in the limelight, confidently proclaiming the progress they are making for the brave new world. Yet do they come across as enjoying themselves? They do not. They come across as hunted and downtrodden. If they admit the Government is doing badly, that would be a gaffe, a story, a pit: ‘Minister breaks ranks…’ Yet if they insist the Government is doing well, that is so absurd a claim as to invite ridicule. So they try to say as little as possible. The Prime Minister engages in the displacement activity of constant foreign travel.

Quite short and familiar but the whole piece is well worth reading because this government is so remarkably inept and bereft of ideas. Phibbs is right, the latest reset is a sign of desperation - after only five months. To my mind it suggests a lack of talent far more damaging than outsiders might have supposed before the election. Useless we might have expected, but not this useless.

There is no need to bother with rumours in order to see that there is something very seriously amiss with the man at the top - Sir Keir Starmer.

Consider the contrast after Margaret Thatcher had been Prime Minister for five months. That took us to October 1979. That month, exchange controls were abolished – a radical change that transformed us into an open economy that faced the world with confidence. The end of July 1979 had seen controls on the dividends companies could pay abolished. Price controls were lifted and the Price Commission abolished. Wage controls were also scrapped. The Budget on 12 June 1979 cut the top rate of income tax from 83% to 60%. The Queen’s Speech on 15 May announced legislation that would give council tenants the right to buy their homes.

The heart of the matter

The EU-Mercosur trade deal still seems to be causing a degree of friction after only 25 years of negotiation, but nobody has ever accused the EU of being precipitate. 

According to Bing AI -

The negotiations between the European Union (EU) and the Mercosur trading bloc officially began in 1999. After numerous challenges and interruptions, a major political agreement was finally reached in June 2019, marking about 20 years of negotiations. The process has been lengthy and complex, involving many rounds of talks and a wide range of issues.


France will oppose the Mercosur treaty right until the end

Paris risks an embarrassing defeat this week, just as its government faces possible censure and collapse. But this won’t be the end of the saga.

Nationwide protests against EU-Mercosur deal start in Poland.

Protests organised by Polish farmers in opposition to the European Union's Mercosur agreement, the Green Deal and recent regulations concerning animal rights, have begun on Tuesday.


Former Uruguayan President José “Pepe” Mujica has described the core problem in simple terms which was probably obvious 25 years ago, but it does seem to go to the heart of the matter.

Regarding the stalled Mercosur-EU trade agreement, Mujica blamed resistance from European agricultural sectors, particularly in France. “They can’t compete with Mercosur,” he said, dismissing environmental and social concerns as pretexts for protecting local markets.

Pardon

House Democrat suggests making it illegal for presidents to pardon family members

Connolly, who currently sits on the House Oversight committee, said he understood the president's decision as a parent, but that presidents should not be allowed to pardon their own family members.

Biden claimed that his son was unfairly targeted and prosecuted, and granted a full pardon for Hunter Biden for all crimes committed between 2014 and 2024. The blanket pardon means the first son cannot be prosecuted or sentenced for his tax charges, his federal gun charge, or any possible crime he committed while on the board of Burisma.


It certainly doesn't look good, but maybe old Joe wishes to go down in history by attaching some kind of notable achievement to the Biden name. He's done that. 

Apparently the Democrats aren't so keen on his bid to be even more memorable than he is already. It's not difficult to see why that might be. 

Too Many Sirs

Sir Chris Wormald confirmed as UK’s new top civil servant

Sir Chris Wormald has been appointed Cabinet Secretary, becoming the UK’s top civil servant and the Prime Minister’s most senior policy adviser.

The current permanent secretary of the Department for Health and Social Care succeeds Simon Case, who is stepping down at the end of the year on health grounds after four years in the role.


I've been wondering why I find the moniker "Sir Chris Wormald" vaguely unsatisfactory for a bod at the top of Tottering Castle (UK). Is there a touch of nominative determinism in the air? Something to do with Wormald and Civil Service worms?

Nope, I think it's the prospect of another "Sir" steering their Blob towards our disaster.

Quick - change the targets

Starmer ‘sidelines’ flagship pledge to make Britain fastest-growing nation in G7

Sir Keir Starmer will “sideline” his flagship pledge to make the UK the fastest-growing economy in the G7 this week when he unveils new targets to make British people richer.

The Prime Minister’s pre-election promise is already under threat, with the US economy growing twice as quickly as the UK and a tax-hiking Budget lowering medium-term forecasts.

This week, as part of a new “Plan for Change”, Sir Keir will reveal different economic targets aimed at improving living standards by the next general election.

Hmm - economic targets aimed at improving living standards by the next general election eh? Here are a few suggestions, although it's really too easy.

Reduce taxation.

Acknowledge the crucial role of the private sector. 

Reduce immigration to achieve a closer match between house building and population.

No hurty words policing.

Halve university intake.

Make the BBC subscription only.

Ditch Net Zero.

Ditch Ed Miliband.

BBC goes to subscription only in 2025.

Genuine reform of the NHS.

First world roads without potholes.  

Rachel Reeves sacked.

Keir Starmer resigns.