A born amateur

Corbyn accused of running ‘sexist boys’ club’ by co-leader of new left-wing party

Jeremy Corbyn is seeking legal advice after Zarah Sultana sent an “unauthorised email” from Your Party’s account inviting its supporters to become paid members.

As the left-wing MP accused Your Party of being run as a “sexist boys’ club”, Mr Corbyn called on his backers to ignore Ms Sultana’s email.

In a statement signed off by the party’s five male MPs, ignoring Ms Sultana, he said anyone who signed up should immediately cancel direct debits and that “legal advice is being taken”.


He of course was an amateur — a born amateur. He worked so hard, and did so little, and nothing he ever did would hold together for long.

D.H. Lawrence - England, My England (1922)

Death by quango

William Yarwood has a familiar but very interesting Critic piece about the severe nature of the UK quango problem.


Death by quango

If Keir Starmer wants change, he should deconstruct the quango state

Phase two of Keir Starmer’s government and his so-called “Plan for Change” is now in full swing after his first big cabinet reshuffle last week. But let’s be honest, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter.

Now I’m not being glib for the sake of it, and I could make the case that it doesn’t matter because of the mediocrity of the ministers shuffled around, but the truth runs a lot deeper than that. It doesn’t matter who Starmer places in which position because the politicians themselves aren’t really in charge...

Unlike how the public imagines the machinery of government to work, the real power is not in Downing Street or Whitehall, but in the vast quango state that has grown unchecked for decades. A shadow state which politicians of all parties have either consciously or unconsciously created and allowed to fester.


We know we have a severe UK quango problem, but the whole piece is well worth reading as a reminder of how severe it is. If we can't even bring an absurd policy such as Net Zero into national debates then we aren't likely to achieve anything else worthwhile. That we can't isn't solely down to Ed Miliband. 

Until that reform is undertaken, it doesn’t matter who Starmer or indeed any future prime minister puts in his or her cabinet. The real government of Britain is elsewhere, buried deep in a sprawling, bloated and unaccountable quango state. And until that shadow government is confronted head on by our politicians no reshuffle, no manifesto pledge and no grand plan for change will matter.

What a charming picture

Burnham allies talk up Rayner return

  

Allies of Andy Burnham believe Angela Rayner could make a political comeback if he replaces Sir Keir Starmer as Labour leader.

MPs think that the former deputy prime minister could provide the Mayor of Manchester with support from inside the Parliamentary Labour Party ahead of his comeback to the Commons.


Don’t we make our world? Isn’t that our blessed, our betrayed responsibility?

Walter de la Mare - The Riddle and Other Stories (1923)

Charles Dickens Sandwich

Uninteresting 1B 2025

Scientists identify a mystery color in one of Jackson Pollock's paintings

Scientists have identified the origins of the blue color in one of Jackson Pollock’s paintings with a little help from chemistry

 

“Number 1A, 1948,” showcases Pollock's classic style: paint has been dripped and splattered across the canvas, creating a vivid, multicolored work. Pollock even gave the piece a personal touch, adding his handprints near the top

The Rules of Planet Starmer

It may be worth summarising, as far as possible, the rules-based system of planet Starmer. 

To begin with we have –

Rulers
Rules
The Ruled

There are of course many gradations of rules plus rules about the application of rules, institutions competent to rule on rule application together with rules about who applies which rules and rules about the ruling circumstances of rule application within the overarching rules of rule application. Rules ruling the hierarchy of rules begin with international rules and the rules ruling the application of these rules when the national rules of rule conflict resolution have to be applied according to local application rules and rules about the appropriate application of such rules, rule resolution rules and rule appeal rules. Rules concerning the application of rules to rules concerning the application of other rules must of course take note of the rules whereby the rules of applicability rule particular circumstances and if those circumstances arose via appropriate rules.

And deny everything anyway.

White coat clickbait

At least 1,147 died from climate-driven heat in UK this summer, scientists find

The UK saw its hottest summer on record this year, with experts saying extreme heat incidents were made more likely and intense by human-induced global warming.

A study led by researchers at Imperial College London, released on Wednesday, used modelling, historical mortality records and peer-reviewed methods to provide early estimates of fatalities this summer.

The team found climate change, caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation, increased temperatures by an average of 2.2C, but by as much as 3.6C between June and August.

As one of the comments points out, this brand of 'science' has degenerated into clickbait. 

We could ask what was on the 1,147 death certificates but we won't, white coat clickbait isn't worth it.

I feel that the process was gone through

Trump to go easy on embattled Starmer during state visit

Speaking on Monday, Sir Keir said that he felt “angry” and “let down” by Lord Mandelson, insisting he would not have made the appointment had he known what he knows now.

He said: “I am angry. I don’t particularly think anger helps here, but I feel let down. I feel that the process was gone through and now information has come to light, which, had I known it at the time, I wouldn’t have appointed him.

We can't call it revealing because we already know, but when Starmer says I feel that the process was gone through, it suggests yet again that this is all that matters to him, all he can see. He's process-driven.

In which case, we may as well assume that Mandelson's record of two resignations for politically problematic behaviour wasn't part of the process - so on planet Starmer it didn't happen.

It's quite difficult to understand the man without an underlying assumption that there is something weird about planet Starmer. Apart from Sir Keir Starmer, it seems to be uninhabited.

But we knew that.

The digital language police

Rhys Laverty has an entertaining Critic piece on how WhatsApp changed the word “turkey” to “Türkiye” when he meant the bird and not the country. 


Resist the language police!

Why are my words being censored by WhatsApp?

Given my severe phobia of birds, and farm birds in particular, I am the last person who should be writing about turkeys. But hey ho, cometh the hour and all that.

This week, whilst typing on WhatsApp Web on my laptop, rattling off what I though was a mildly amusing joke about Jamie Oliver’s war on turkey twizzlers some years ago, I found myself censored — yes, dear reader, censored I tell you. Before my very eyes, the word “turkey” was rendered “Türkiye”. I hadn’t even written it with a capital letter; I was mid-sentence. Cue some furious backspacing and de-umlautification.

A familiar trend but the piece is well worth reading as a reminder of what is a political and social trend, not merely a static feature of digital 'assistance'.

If you notice any of this, if you mispronounce a name, or if you fail to observe the quietly revised spelling of anointed words, even in the sanctum sanctorum of your own mind, you are exposed to both the world and yourself as Entirely The Wrong Sort. You are not Respectable. You have missed the latest episode of The News Agents. Gary Lineker is very disappointed in you. The interference of WhatsApp is particularly egregious because it intrudes upon my private communications. It is a Foucaldian policing of private desire, a life submitted to the progressive digital panopticon. It is multiculturalism working as intended.

The Piper at the Gates of Dawn Goes Missing

Chapter 7 was often missing from later editions of Kenneth Grahame's children's book - The Wind in the Willows. Too strange perhaps - unlike the idea of a toad driving motor cars. As for the idea of a mendacious and unreliable toad becoming Prime Minister - preposterous.

It is a strange chapter though, mystical and somewhat pagan, placed there in the middle of the book and not at all essential to the story.

 

Wi-Fi and a 'serious moment of peril'

I set up a new Wi-Fi router this morning. Even for an hour or so while the Wi-Fi was down, it became noticeable how much we use it and how many gadgets we have connected. Ten gadgets in total, not counting granddaughter's phone which has to be connected next time she comes.

A new Wi-Fi router hasn't made the news any more encouraging though - I spotted that almost immediately after logging onto the interweb. 

For example, the media still waffle on as if Keir Starmer merely has to pull his socks up to turn things around. As if another eight months of his mendacious bungling could be some kind of learning curve for Starmer and the horribly useless Cabinet blockers he picks with such unerring accuracy.

Keir Starmer issued 8-month warning as PM faces 'serious moment of peril'

The Prime Minister has been given an eight-month warning to turn the government around or else Labour could face a "serious moment of peril". The stark time limit has been issued by a number of Labour MPs and trade union leaders following the departure of two senior party figures. Sir Keir Starmer's 'phase two' of government kicked off with a major reshuffle following the sudden resignation of Angela Rayner, and then Lord Peter Mandelson.

But ask the person in the water first

‘Man overboard’ is offensive term, says Royal Yachting Association

The phrase “man overboard” is an offensive term that should be avoided, the Royal Yachting Association (RYA) has said.

The national governing body for sailing, which was founded in 1875, has suggested that it should instead be replaced with “person in water” in an inclusive language guide.

It is one of a number of recommendations issued by the RYA to use language that “honours and values” women and non-binary people within the sport and recreational activity.

It could be more appropriate to ask "what are your pronouns?" before risking a more proactive attempt to describe the situation to others.

The village idiot walks in Leicester Square

I've never been a fan of cities, they just keep growing as if nobody knows how big is too big, as if the growth that becomes a city isn't entirely human but impersonal, indifferent. There is something odd, artificial and not entirely sane about them.  

Happiness lies in the fulfilment of the spirit through the body. Thus humanity has already evolved from an animal life to one more civilised. There can be no complete return to nature, to nudism, desert-islandry: city life is the subtlest ingredient in the human climate. But we have gone wrong over the size of our cities and over the kind of life we lead in them; in the past the clods were the peasants, now the brute mass of ignorance is urban. The village idiot walks in Leicester Square. 

To live according to nature we should pass a considerable time in cities, for they are the glory of human nature, but they should never contain more than two hundred thousand inhabitants; It is our artificial enslavement to the large city, too sprawling to leave, too enormous for human dignity, which is responsible for half our sickness and misery. Slums may well be breeding-grounds of crime, but middle-class suburbs are incubators of apathy and delirium. No city should be too large for a man to walk out of in a morning.

Palinurus (Cyril Connolly) – The Unquiet Grave (1944)

Dodge

Carl Deconinck has an entertaining Brussels Signal piece on an emissions tax dodge by the Dutch government. 

Apparently the dodge is designed to offset inevitable financial damage done by EU obligations to cut emissions by 55 per cent by 2030, not because the obligations are deranged.


Netherlands to end ‘perverse’ carbon emission tax

The Dutch caretaker government is preparing to dismantle its controversial carbon emissions tax on major industrial companies, using a legal workaround to avoid a European fine.

According to the newspaper De Telegraaf today, the 2026 budget documents include €650 million in subsidies to fully offset the tax’s financial impact, leaving it in place on paper but stripping it of any real effect...

According to De Telegraaf’s sources, Brussels rules prevent the government from abolishing the levy altogether, a step that could trigger a €1.2 billion fine. Instead, the carbon charge will remain in theory, but with the rate lowered to such an extent — combined with the €650 million in subsidies — that it will no longer bite in practice.

Andy Plans a Reset Reset

Burnham prepares to challenge Starmer for leadership

Andy Burnham is laying the groundwork for a leadership bid amid growing speculation that Sir Keir Starmer will not last in post until the next election.

The Mayor of Greater Manchester has launched a new campaign group calling on Downing Street to introduce wealth taxes, nationalise utility companies and end the two-child benefit cap.

He is expected to explicitly criticise Sir Keir at Labour’s annual party conference later this month, calling for a “reset” to help Labour win the next election.


Presumably Andy Burnham isn't keen on the Keir Starmer reset so he plans to reset it. Unfortunately this appears to be something like the traditional advice for fixing a computer glitch -

Have you tried switching it off then back on again?

In this case, Burnham would switch off any possibility of economic recovery as the first step, neatly blending his reset reset policy with Ed Miliband's similar attempts to reset the electricity supply...

...they don't know what they are doing do they? Never did. 

Beyond power and personal advancement it's a void.

The mighty volume of the world

Examining the world in order to find consolation is very much like looking carefully over the pages of a great book in order to find our own name, if not in the text, at least in a laudatory note: whether we find what we want or not, our preoccupation has hindered us from a true knowledge of the contents. But an attention fixed on the main theme or various matter of the book would deliver us from that slavish subjection to our own self-importance. And I had the mighty volume of the world before me. Nay, I had the struggling action of a myriad lives around me, each single life as dear to itself as mine to me. Was there no escape here from this stupidity of a murmuring self-occupation?

George Eliot - Impressions of Theophrastus Such (1879)


We now have that mighty volume of the world before us, it’s the internet. In George Eliot’s day it was books, libraries, experience, an enquiring mind and the time and resources to nurture that enquiring mind.

Was there no escape here from this stupidity of a murmuring self-occupation?

Some escape and some don’t and the division isn’t new. Nobody has to join the internet, they can play with it instead, entertain themselves, imagine they are what they are not. Yet perhaps the division is much sharper and far less likely to be a matter of social class than it was in George Eliot‘s day. 

The division has become more familiar too - we constantly see the stupidity of a murmuring self-occupation portrayed in the shallow media as a Good Thing. We see it in celebrity culture, politics, fashionable science, sport and the arts.

Just be yourself

You are who you want to be

Own who you are

 
We have always seen this type of invitation to indulge in the stupidity of a murmuring self-occupation, but now we have dropped the murmuring in favour of something much louder and far more visible. It all goes to make the division deeper. 

Yet having that mighty volume of the world before us does appear to have raised a previously unknown problem for Those Who Know Best. They don’t know best and too many of us know they don’t.

Political judgement

Two scandals and two allies gone in two weeks - serious questions remain about Starmer's political judgement

This is not the first time Lord Mandelson has resigned in disgrace. So why did Starmer let him back in?..

He looked almost as green as the green benches on Wednesday as he insisted he had full confidence in his ambassador, despite warnings from Mandelson himself that more embarrassing material was about to emerge.


Serious questions? Oh come on - those questions were answered ages ago - Starmer has the political judgement of an earwig

Empty Chamber

 

A complete waste of time

Met Office Warns of Unpredictable Weather Patterns as Climate Change Intensifies

The Met Office has issued multiple warnings in recent months as the UK’s weather becomes increasingly unpredictable. In line with findings from sources like Daily Record, a growing number of extreme weather events have been recorded. From heatwaves to heavy rainfall, the shifts in weather patterns are noticeable.


Met Office’s new supercomputer will provide more accurate weather forecasts

Charlie Ewan, chief data and information officer at the Met Office, said the computer had to be massive to deal with 200 to 300 terabytes of data per day.

He told Metro: ‘The next decade could transformational for weather forecasting, and this phase allows us to plan and look ahead to the next generation of more accurately and timely weather predictions.’


Methods for predicting the future: 

1) read horoscopes, tea leaves, tarot cards, or crystal balls . . . collectively known as "nutty methods;" 

2) put well-researched facts into sophisticated computer . . . commonly referred to as "a complete waste of time."

Scott Adams

Oh dear, how sad

Peter Mandelson sacked as ambassador to the US

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has dismissed Peter Mandelson from his role as UK ambassador to the US following the discovery of more leaked emails revealing his close ties with Jeffrey Epstein.

The Foreign Office, in a statement, said the emails "show that the depth and extent of Peter Mandelson's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein is materially different from that known at the time of his appointment".

It continued: "In particular Peter Mandelson’s suggestion that Jeffrey Epstein’s first conviction was wrongful and should be challenged is new information."

Oh dear, how sad, never mind. 

The downside is that we may now anticipate another unsuitable appointment - there are many possibilities.

Blog Stats

Blog stats for this little blog have been weird for a while with far more hits per post than are likely to be real, especially from areas of the world where lots of AI training is going on such as the US. Not so much Europe for some reason. It leads a chap to wonder though.

Suppose I just make stuff up for a blog post, even more so than mainstream media usually do. Do AI systems train themselves on fiction and spoofs even if for humans, it is entirely obvious fiction? 

For example –


Sebastian Pants, the recently elected Labour MP for Fecklees and Low Maudlin has put forward a plan to introduce a Mindfulness and Serenity Agency under the Department of Health and Social Care. The idea has met with a lukewarm reception so far, but Mr Pants is not discouraged.

Sebastian Pants MP originally came to the attention of the media when he first arrived in the House of Commons in a suit made entirely from recycled yogurt pots collected by schools in his constituency. After careful cleaning and not a few rejections, the pots were processed into fibres for the recycled cloth used to make Mr Pants' suit, although he no longer wears it for “sustainability reasons.”

Although Mr Pants is understandably reticent about it, Harold Pants the inventor is an ancestor of his. During the 1930s, Harold Pants invented the Pants Gyrocopter, a kind of single person autogyro intended to be the mass transport of the air.

Unfortunately, while being piloted by local daredevil Bill Looms, the prototype Pants Gyrocopter was lost somewhere out at sea off the coast of Scarborough. This in spite of Harold passing on vital last minute steering advice through a powerful electric megaphone when Bill Looms was already over the sea.

Sadly, only the prototype Pants Gyrocopter was ever built and Harold Pants was last caught sight of boarding a ship bound for Argentina, accompanied by a woman who closely resembled Mrs Annie Looms.

Sebastian Pants, or Seb as he prefers to be known, says that Harold intended to invest what remained for the Pants Gyrocopter investment funds in a turkey farm. Harold’s intention being to repay any losses incurred. Sadly, Harold was never heard of again.

Not fit for purpose

EPCs are not fit for purpose with an industry insider warning of bogus surveys

Carbon emissions from homes with high 'EPC ratings' have been proven to be little different from poorly insultated properties, a new study has found.

The study compared estimates of CO2 emissions from 1,038 homes based on their Energy Performance Certificate rating with measurements derived from actual meter readings from these same homes.

The meter readings in the study showed minimal variations in emissions between properties of very different EPC ratings.


It's jaw-dropping stuff when a box-ticking game actually turns out to be a box-ticking game. Fraud and fakery in the CO2 emissions game as well apparently. 

Whatever next? Ed Miliband turns out to be an absurdly intransigent and ludicrously destructive ideologue? 

Cripes! 

The Fakest People In The Media

Andrew Gold interviews Mike Graham on some of the weird and dubious media characters he has encountered. An hour long, but consistently interesting and entertaining.

 

Emily the Voice

Being a London MP could 'count against' Thornberry in deputy leadership race, says Baroness Harman

Dame Emily, who has been the MP for Islington South and Finsbury since 2005, confirmed she will stand for the deputy leadership in a social media post on Tuesday.

The chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee vowed to be "a voice for the membership, unions, PLP, and our constituents - not just nod along" if she is elected deputy Labour leader on 25 October.


Hmm - a chap might assume that having the grace, charm and appeal of a serial nosebleed ought to count against Dame Emily, but this is Labour, so no degree of ghastliness is entirely off the table.

The order of her "voice for..." is interesting too -

Membership

Unions

PLP

Constituents

Easy Question

Mad science or a radical revolution - could refreezing the Arctic actually work?

A new report has reopened the controversy over so-called geoengineering.

Plans to save ice in the polar regions and "repair" the climate using technology are a "flawed" distraction from the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gases, according to a new scientific assessment.

But Professor Martin Siegert, a glaciologist at the University of Exeter, who led the new assessment, told Sky News that using technology to fix the problem was a "false promise".

The question is trivially easy for anyone paying attention - it's mad science...

Correction - it's bent science, but we knew that too.

It's almost as if Blob media is edging painfully, step by grudging step towards a view that politically favoured scientists are not universally trustworthy. Even worse, climate sceptics may have been right for decades. My word that must sting, so go slowly chaps, it eases the pain.

The Unquiet Grave

The English language is like a broad river on whose banks a few patient anglers are sitting, while, higher up , the stream is being polluted by a string of refuse-barges tipping out the muck of Fleet Street and the B.B.C.

Palinurus (Cyril Connolly) – The Unquiet Grave (1944)

The pollution we never dealt with. 

In any public arena, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer uses polluted political language to avoid the embarrassment of conveying any meaning whatever to his dwindling band of listeners. 

Starmer has nothing to teach us, nothing to teach anyone, but polluted language allows him to stagger on with dead speech after dead speech. He wouldn't even be worth meeting and surely that's something to dwell on.

 

  

No one over thirty-five is worth meeting who has not something to teach us, - something more than we could learn by ourselves, from a book.

Palinurus (Cyril Connolly) – The Unquiet Grave (1944)

Two Headlines

North Korea builds grain centers to tighten control over food distribution

"The system looks comprehensive on paper, but practical problems could emerge, such as electricity shortages, lack of technical personnel and logistical deficiencies," a source told Daily NK


Malnutrition spreads across North Korea as food prices surge over 50 percent

As food prices continue climbing, the regime has attempted to intervene through price caps and market restrictions, but these measures have proven largely ineffective

Inside a British micro apartment

Another interesting video from Big Clive.

Must have been climate change

Fossils show pair of baby pterosaurs ‘died in violent storm’

The cause of death of two young pterosaurs that had baffled researchers has been revealed by paleontologists in Germany in what they have described as “a post-mortem 150 million years in the making”.

Analysis of the well-preserved fossils of the hatchlings, found in the lagoonal deposits that make up the Solnhofen Limestones of southern Germany, revealed both the flying reptiles sustained similar injuries immediately prior to their deaths – broken wings.

The team, from the University of Leicester’s Centre for Palaeobiology and Biosphere Evolution, said the discovery is powerful evidence of ancient tropical storms and how they shaped the fossil record.

Fortunately, 150 million years later, Ed Miliband is busy tackling the global climate issue.

Unfortunately, today those baby pterosaurs would have to navigate the perils of wind turbines. What would the RSPB make of that?

The Great Cultural Studies Hoax

A video uploaded six years ago, but it's worth revisiting this issue as a reminder that it hasn't faded away. 

 

It's easy to sneer

Paul Sutton has an entertaining FSB piece on the downfall of Raynetta.


THE FALL OF A POLITICAL GIANT

Can I just say how appalled I am by the crowing over Dame Angela Rayner's downfall? It's motivated simply by spite and snobbery, plus disgraceful sexism on the 'Moldovan trans/hooker' chic, which she so stylishly immortalised.

It's easy to sneer, yet millions of working-class girls might have been inspired to leave school with one NVQ and up the duff - to resurface as property millionaires, from juggling trust funds and ‘expenses’.

In fact, Rayner is something of a polymath.

Short but well worth reading.

Could have been worse

 

Gravy Wrestling

This is how Starmer's Cabinet appointments should be decided - gravy wrestling for all those aspiring to be passengers on the increasingly non-mythical gravy train. 


'I competed in Gravy Wrestling Championships to escape 9-to-5 job and now have gravy addiction'

An NHS worker who competed in the World Gravy Wrestling Championships as an “escape” from his nine-to-five job has said he now has a “gravy addiction” and has the sauce with almost every meal.

Darren Machen, 45, said he had always dreamed of becoming a wrestler, and while at college in 1997 he staged a jelly wrestling match with his friends. After university, Darren fell into an NHS procurement job and later started comfort eating chocolate biscuits and crisps while doing little exercise until he reached 16st (102kg) in 2024.

However, he decided this year to compete in the World Gravy Wrestling Championships held in Rossendale, hoping the excitement would serve as an escape from his nine-to-five office job. Competing as The Yorkshire Pudding, Darren wore a T-shirt with a picture of the favourite Sunday roast accompaniment on it, along with a rugby scrum cap, Y-front pants and a cape.

A descent into madness

James Price has an interesting Critic piece on the madness of the political left in Britain


The British left has descended into madness

Whilst the national media focus on Reform, the left is seeing its own foment

In some countries, election days are occasions for fanfares. Americans have “I voted” stickers and Australians have their sausage sizzles — hot dogs handed out from barbecues. In Britain, on the other hand, it’s the subtle touches that denote polling day. Village halls or leisure centres, stubby pens, dogs tied up outside those neutral black and white “POLLING STATION” signs — and, more recently, shouts of “Allahu Akhbar!”

This was the scene in Leeds last year, when Mr, now Councillor, Mothin Ali won the ward of Harehills and Gipton for the Green Party. This novel twist on drab acceptance speeches did not go unnoticed, though Cllr Ali has been swift to decry those who did notice as “Islamophobic” in one of his first utterances as a public figure.


The whole piece is well worth reading as another reminder of how deranged the British left has become. The obvious danger is that lunatic political activism has become mainstream in Britain and shows no sign of abating. As we know, this is not the cosy eccentricity of a dotty aunt, being far more sinister than that.


The difference between left and right in Britain, is that beyond the bluster, there is little that Reform and the Conservatives disagree on. Reform have the energy and zeal, the Tories have the intellectual hinterland and the scars on their back from fighting the Blob. Together, they could make a powerful electoral and political coalition which could save Britain.

The left, on the other hand, will always find ways to fall out with one another. The well-represented but braindead liberal democrats, the left of the Labour Party, the Your Party (or perhaps “Your Parties” by the time this comes out) and now the Greens have confirmed that they will fall down under the weight of their own contradictions.

With their enemies this mad, bad and dangerous, the right could seal a glorious comeback for the country — provided it doesn’t repeat the suicidal factionalism of the Left.

Hold the Popcorn

Angela Rayner steps down over stamp duty row

• Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner has left her government job after an investigation into her tax affairs over her purchase of an £800,000 flat in Hove, East Sussex.
• Ms Rayner referred herself to the independent adviser on ministerial standards Sir Laurie Magnus over the issue earlier this week.
• She admitted to wrongly listing the flat as her primary residence, which resulted in a lower stamp duty payment, and said she was working with lawyers and HMRC to resolve the matter.

Good oh - maybe now she'll tell us what she thinks of Starmer and the Cabinet, although the primary residence claim was rather blatant. 

Maybe she'll just sink into the obscurity they all deserve, so no point stocking up with popcorn just yet.

Place your bets

In his CAPX piece, William Atkinson raises the question most of us must have asked ourselves.


Will Angela Rayner fall victim to her own class war?

• If Starmer strikes Rayner down, he could make her more powerful than he could possibly imagine
• The Deputy Prime Minister has long been the Tory bête noire – Aneurin Bevan in a power suit
• Many political commentators have been blind to the reality of Angela Rayner

For many of my fellow Conservatives – all five of us – Angela Rayner’s ongoing tax travails have brought a deep sense of satisfaction. Since her election as Labour’s Deputy Leader five years ago, Rayner has been the Tory bête noire – the class enemy writ large, Aneurin Bevan in a power suit, who happily and openly branded her political enemies scum while her colleagues ummed and erred.

Yet there has always been a competing tendency within Tory world – a fascination. For reasons perhaps best left to the comfortable quiet of the therapist’s office, there are many Conservatives who look at Rayner and wonder why she isn’t one of us. Even without her enthusiasm for right-to-buy, her life story could be a triumph of Thatcherite aspiration. To go from leaving school at 16 while pregnant and without qualifications to becoming Britain’s Deputy Prime Minister is no mean feat. For the Tory Anarchist, there is a natural charm about a politician who likes a fag, a drink and a third home.

In the final paragraph, Atkinson tells us where his money is -


Last night, I made a bet with a pair of fellow politicos – that, within a year and a half, Rayner would be Britain’s Prime Minister. Perhaps I am being too bullish about Big Ange. Perhaps my brief career spent largely covering Tory leadership collapses and putsches has blinded me to the reality of Rayner, Starmer and Labour’s positions. Or perhaps, whatever Magnus rules, Rayner will march on.

Fareham leads the way

'Not an optional extra': Councillors want climate change protected in devolution

Councillors in Fareham have said protecting the environment is “not an optional extra” when it comes to devolution.

It comes as opposition Liberal Democrats at the borough council successfully tabled a motion asking the council leader to write to ministers on climate change.

Councillor Chrissie Bainbridge (Lib Dem, Portchester Castle) said: “This isn’t about politics – it’s about protecting our environment, safeguarding public health, and securing our children’s future.

“Fareham has shown real leadership. Now we need the government to listen.


Fareham Councillors must buckle down and do their bit towards adjusting the global climate in a benign direction. Nobody anywhere on Earth must be disadvantaged by bad weather - beat that for egalitarian posturing.

Yet what the blue blazes does a chap say about such limitless ambition? Fareham must be a strange place indeed where political folk see the constraints of reality as optional extras. 

Not that we're unfamiliar with the approach. 

But I’m not satisfied

Chancellor Rachel Reeves admits economy 'is not working well enough' as she reveals Budget date

In a video posted on social media on Wednesday, Ms Reeves said: “Britain’s economy isn’t broken. But I know it’s not working well enough for working people.

“Bills are high. Getting ahead feels tougher. You put more in, get less out. That has to change.

“We’ve got huge potential - world-leading brands, dynamic industries, brilliant universities, and a skilled workforce. We’re a global hub for trade.

“Fixing the foundations has been my mission this past year... But I’m not satisfied. There’s more to do.”


I bet she isn't satisfied, but it isn’t easy to say anything new about this situation, because in a sense her incompetence has fallen below an invisible floor. Our Chancellor's  inability to perform the role is clearly beyond even modest correction.

We have a political party and a leadership which effectively blagged its way to power on the back of a very unpopular government with the aid of inadequately alert voters. We may refer to the party manifesto, vested interests, an inflexible public sector and so on, but the problem to be analysed here is too simple for that – Rachel Reeves shouldn’t be there.

As many know but too many don't, political oversight of government requires a pragmatic acceptance of what works and what doesn't. A pragmatic outlook should take precedence over ideology and political posturing, but it doesn't and therein lies the overall simplicity of the problem.

An analogy might be hospital bed-blockers. We have office-blockers in a number of key ministerial positions, Prime Minister, Chancellor, Foreign Secretary, Education Secretary and so on. They can't perform the role competently and there is a shortage of those who can.

Rachel Reeves isn't alone in her disappointment.

Unbalanced

Graham Linehan arrest: Met Police chief says officers 'in impossible position and should not be policing culture war debates'

Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has said his officers should not be "policing toxic culture wars debates" as he responded to his force's arrest of Father Ted writer Graham Linehan over anti-trans posts.

It comes hours after health secretary Wes Streeting told Sky News the government needs to look at whether police are "getting the balance right".

Yes Wes, it is a a matter of getting the balance right, but your party, the way it frames every political debate, its core political outlook is unbalanced. 

Anyone who isn't unbalanced knows all this and is aware of how essential free speech is as the only way to preserve what has been called the 'market-place of ideas.' 

It the core problem, unbalanced political actors and their usefully unbalanced idiots. If you become Prime Minister Wes, and we know you have your eye on the role, then your Labour Party will still be unbalanced.

Jaguar Car Evolution

Interesting video. To my eye it suggests that Jaguar car individualism began to fade after 1957. It's a matter of taste, all gone now though.

 

Booby Prize

Former UN climate chief urges Australia to set ‘prosperity’ target of cutting emissions by 75% by 2035 – ‘Would increase the country’s chance of winning rights to host Cop31 in 2026’

The intervention by Christiana Figueres, an architect of the 2015 Paris agreement when she was the executive secretary of the UN framework convention on climate change, comes before discussions about Australia’s commitment, due to be announced next month...

Figueres said setting a target of a 75% or more reduction would be “not a burden”, but instead be “Australia’s ticket into the prosperity of the future”. She suggested the ambitious goal would increase Australia’s chance to win the rights to host a major UN climate summit in Adelaide in November 2026.


You are playing with people’s lives, as fanatics always do.

George Gissing - The Nether World (1889)

Phase two

Starmer to hold first cabinet meeting since No 10 shakeup - as he declares start of 'phase two'

 

Reeves undermined

Reeves undermined as Starmer poaches her Treasury deputy in No 10 reshuffle

Sir Keir Starmer has hired a string of experienced economists for senior No 10 positions in a move that threatens to undermine Rachel Reeves.

Darren Jones, the former chief secretary to the Treasury, has been moved to a new role as Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, focused on delivery of the Government’s policy agenda.


Reeves undermined by Starmer eh? He'll have to dig a deep mine to do that.

He'll be digging upwards though, there is that.

We would build the United States of Europe

Jerome K. Jerome on idealism circulating among political idealists after the Russian Revolution and especially the Great War.


This time, we were out to play the knight; to save the smaller peoples; to rescue our once "sweet enemy," fair France. Russia was the disturbing thought. It somewhat discounted the knight-errant idea, riding stirrup to stirrup beside that barbarian horseman. But there were possibilities about Russia. Idealism lay hid within that sleeping brain. It would be a holy war for the Kingdom of the Peoples. With Germany freed from the monster of blood and iron that was crushing out her soul, with Russia awakened to life, we would build the United States of Europe. Even his voice was changed. Joan could almost fancy it was some excited schoolboy that was talking.

Jerome K. Jerome - All Roads Lead to Calvary (1919)

106 years later...  

Boredom as a phone antidote

There's a personal aspect to this video - it's all about a problem I don't have but I see it in others, particularly younger folk. 

Maybe that's because I'm an oldie, I'm not addicted to my phone, I'm familiar with quiet moments, with putting the book aside to allow my thoughts to drift, with gazing out of the window...

And we’re about to find that out

Will 4chan pay its Ofcom fines?

Message board 4chan is refusing to pay fines issued by Ofcom for breaching online safety duties.

Earlier this year, the communications watchdog launched an investigation into the website over concerns it was hosting potential illegal content. And, in June, Ofcom issued 4chan with a “provisional notice of contravention” – a formal warning by a regulatory body – for failing to comply with two information requests...


As we already know, this didn't go anywhere and nobody outside Ofcom seems to have been surprised. As the former chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre suggests, Ofcom will have to realise that it isn't a regulatory superpower. The question remains though - how did it ever think otherwise?

Speaking to PublicTechnology sister publication Holyrood, the former chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre, said: “I’d be cautious about moving forward – and some of this is at Ofcom’s discretion but quite a lot of it is actually later legislation from parliament. The country should not get itself known primarily in tech for regulation. We do need to innovate securely. You can’t just legislate your way to security and safety online. There has to be a whole sort of business culture about it… In tech, there’s no such thing as a regulatory superpower, and we’re about to find that out.”

The policy forever scrambling to find a rationale

Tom Jones has an interesting CAPX piece on attempts to build a rationale for mass migration on the back of problems posed by declining birth rates.


Infinite migration will not solve our fertility crisis

• Some policymakers warn that foreign workers will be crucial to offset demographic decline – they're wrong
• Why do we assume that migrants will continue to adopt the fertility patterns of the countries of origin?
• We need productivity improvements, not population increases at all costs

At the annual Jackson Hole symposium in Wyoming this week, central bank leaders from Japan, the Eurozone and the UK warned that their economies need further immigration in order to fuel growth.

According to their warning, ageing populations and declining birth rates threaten long-term economic growth and price stability across advanced economies, and without a significant increase in foreign workers, labour shortages will intensify and inflationary pressures may rise...

When the mass migration project began, policymakers told us it was pure economic rocket fuel. As the huge economics benefits failed to materialise, we began to be told that the benefits were primarily cultural. Now we are told our societies will simply collapse without it. Immigration, as noted Christopher Caldwell, is the policy forever scrambling to find a rationale.


The whole piece is well worth reading, particularly in view of the fertility convergence issue. I recall reading a book about demographics and the impending first world problem of declining birth rates about fifty years ago. Even then, immigration was seen as an ineffective solution because of fertility convergence. It is not new.


The argument that immigration is essential to fix our ageing population works on the assumption that immigrants will not only supplement the working age population, but also increase the fertility rate. But the idea that migrant communities will continue the fertility patterns of their country of origin is not borne out by evidence, which shows that when women find themselves in a different fertility context, they adapt their behaviours accordingly – an effect known as fertility convergence. While the total fertility rate (TFR) of non-UK-born women is higher than UK-born women, that is not the full picture; the fertility of non-UK-born women has been in long-term decline and in 2021 stood at 2.03, below the TFR replacement rate of 2.1. In fact, the TFR rate of non-UK-born women has not reached above 2.1 since 2014.

Ed casts a shadow over the hors d'oeuvres

Ed Davey reveals he has written to King to explain Trump state dinner boycott

The Lib Dem leader said on Wednesday he will be boycotting the dinner next month during the US president's second state visit to the UK because of the situation in Gaza.

He told Sky News on Thursday: "I've written to him [the King] personally explaining my thinking.

"And it's with deep regret that I've had to take the decision, but I feel with what is going on in Gaza, it's the best way I can get my voice heard."


Of course Ed has written to the King, he intends to be the Lib Dem spectre at the banquet, ahead of the Autumn Conference in September. 

Not quite Banquo perhaps, but maybe Ed hopes to eclipse the King and Trump as his righteous shadow flits along the wall when hors d'oeuvres are served.

It's not going well

 

For anyone lucky enough to have missed this visual summary of our government

Angela Rayner dodges £40,000 stamp duty

 

Angela Rayner saved £40,000 in stamp duty on her new seaside flat after telling tax authorities it was her main home, The Telegraph can disclose.

The Deputy Prime Minister is understood to have removed her name from the deeds of her house in Greater Manchester a few weeks before buying an £800,000 seaside flat in Hove, East Sussex.

The changes enabled Ms Rayner to avoid paying £70,000 in stamp duty, which would have been applicable if Hove was her second home. Instead, she is thought to have paid £30,000 in stamp duty, saving her £40,000 in the process.

When even ducking and diving isn't done well

Damian Pudner has a useful CAPX piece on the looming fiscal crisis in France and a comparable situation developing here in the UK.

France’s fiscal crisis is a warning for Rachel Reeves

• Public debt in France has hit 114% of GDP
• The situation in France shows you do not need to default to lose control
• If Reeves refuses to change course, she will discover – as France has now – the brutality of the markets

Across the Channel, France is staring down a full-blown fiscal crisis. Public debt has hit 114% of GDP, with the IMF expecting it to rise beyond 116% in the months ahead. The deficit is on track for 5.4% this year. Investors have finally lost patience with the French state’s long-standing habit of spending like Louis XIV – lavishly and without restraint – while reforming like Louis XVI, reluctantly and far too late. The consequences are plain. Ten-year borrowing costs have risen to 3.5%, the spread over German Bunds is at its widest in a decade, and the CAC 40 – France’s benchmark stock index – has shed more than 3% in just three days, dragged down by the banks...

This is a sovereign debt crisis playing out, in real time, in a G7 economy. Britain should be alarmed.


The whole piece is well worth reading as the umpteenth reminder that voting for spivs and shysters instead of a capable government was never going to be a sound idea.


Which brings us to Rachel Reeves. The chancellor talks endlessly of ’iron discipline’ and ‘stability’. Yet her most striking move has been to elevate Torsten Bell – a man whose career has been devoted to advocating higher taxes and a bigger state – into her inner circle. To investors, this signals not reform but resignation: the expectation that Britain will dodge the hard choices of structural change and instead lean on redistribution, conveniently repackaged as responsibility...

Markets do not price fairness. They price credibility and risk. If they conclude the Treasury is trading reform for redistribution, they will simply demand a higher return. With debt already near 100% of GDP, the arithmetic is unforgiving. Every notch higher in yields diverts billions from schools and hospitals into the pockets of bondholders. Redistribution, yes – but not the kind Reeves imagines.

Spot the Eggcorn

Samsung's Galaxy Z Flip 7 is put through the ringer as a teardown shows its difficulties

I'd have called 'ringer' a malapropism in this context, but apparently it might be better described as an eggcorn. Makes sense, presumably only people of a certain age would be familiar with a wringer.

From Wikipedia -

Eggcorn

An eggcorn is the alteration of a word or phrase through the mishearing or reinterpretation of one or more of its elements,[1] creating a new phrase that is plausible when used in the same context.[2] Thus, an eggcorn is an unexpectedly fitting or creative malapropism. Eggcorns often arise as people attempt to make sense of a stock phrase that uses a term unfamiliar to them.

Sumo and the city

Sumo and the city: Why Londoners are falling for the ancient sport

It’s the calm before the stomp. In just a few weeks, the Royal Albert Hall will be filled with a clay circular ring covered in a layer of sand.

Over 40 Japanese juggernauts, all sporting greased-back topknots, boasting bulging bellies and weighing in at well over 300 pounds, will aim to slam each other to the ground, winning the plaudits of a palpable (and, probably by this point, vibrating) crowd. 

The Grand Sumo Tournament, taking place from Wednesday 15 to Sunday 19 October 2025, is being hosted outside of Japan for the first time in 20 years. This milestone moment marks a bigger trend: sumo is having a moment right now.

We see lots of people who seem to have adopted the sumo look, both male and female. Not sure if the tattoos are supposed to be part of it.

Gadget culture

An interesting Daily NK piece on the use of electronic devices to encourage favourable attitudes towards China within the North Korean population. 

How China uses electronic devices to spread cultural influence in North Korea

The primary motivation is supporting local manufacturers struggling to find buyers in China's domestic market

Chinese local governments are quietly backing large-scale production of electronic devices designed specifically for the North Korean market, according to sources familiar with the operations.

Factories officially registered as electronic parts assembly companies are busy manufacturing small, unlabeled devices that cater to North Korean consumers. The product line includes SD card players, rechargeable video players, and other popular “MP” devices that have become staples across the border...

“There’s a definite strategy in China of progressively increasing influence over North Korea while concealing official involvement. China is currently building pro-Chinese sentiment inside North Korea,” the source concluded.

The Nit-picking Nudge

Another example of the extremely common psyops technique described in the previous post. We might call this the Nit-picking Nudge where a narrative is being implanted in such way that discourages further analysis.

Sounds like another example of pearl-clutching over plebs having access to the power of AI. Those Who Know Best don't seem to like that at all.

 

Google reveals just how much energy each Gemini query uses - but is it being entirely truthful?

A new study from Google claims its Gemini AI model only uses very minimal water and energy for each prompt - with the median usage sitting at around 5 drops (0.26 milliliters) - the equivalent electricity used for 9 seconds of TV watching (roughly 0.24 watt-hours), resulting in around 0.003 grams of CO2 emissions.

Experts have been quick to dispute the claims, however, with The Verge claiming Google omitted key data points in its study, drastically under-reporting the environmental impacts of the model.

One of the authors of a paper cited in the study, Shaolei Ren, associate professor of electrical engineering at the University of California told the publication; “They’re just hiding the critical information. This really spreads the wrong message to the world.”

Let it pass through

Xandra H has an interesting FSB piece on how uncertainty is used to implant certain narratives while avoiding further enquiry. A familiar but broadly effective 'Nudge Unit' type of technique, as the National Lottery example illustrates.

You have to be in it to win it!

This used to be the rallying cry for getting people to participate in the National Lottery. There is a certain logic to that statement, because, taken at face value, it is undeniably true. However, the odds of you actually winning, along with the extremely disruptive effect it will have on your life, seldom influence anyone’s decision about whether to buy a ticket or not. That one phrase instantly conjures up a narrative that imagines the winner will finally be without a care in the world and no financial worries for the rest of their lives, striding said world like a colossus.

It also feeds into the group identity idea. All over the country, people just like me are also risking their money for the grand prize, and we are all in it together. The lucky winner will be instantly elevated above the common herd and be given a free pass out of the garden of earthly woes. What’s not to like?

Why am I talking about the National Lottery? Because, having talked quite a lot about psyops, I have often been asked about how to mitigate the effects. It isn’t easy, but it is possible. The above example shows that the purpose of such phrases is to get the receiver to create the narrative that the sender wishes them to have; thus, compelling them to act on that narrative without further enquiry. In the above case, yearning to make happen what they have just imagined compels them to buy a ticket. After all, you have to be in it to win it! I rest my case.


Or You have to be with us or a denier. 

Or You have to be with us or far right. 

Or... 

The whole piece is well worth reading, even though anyone paying attention will already understand the issue well enough as it is certainly not new. The examples given are worth revisiting though, even for those who are relatively immune, because the technique is so widely used. 

Ed Miliband uses it all the time, not that he has anything better available, given his firm rejection of science, engineering, economics, integrity, veracity and sanity.

When someone makes a statement or suggestion that triggers a narrative based on evoking strong emotions, try letting it pass through with as little attention as you can manage. Then, when you are ready, think about the topic raised and how it would or wouldn’t fit into your own pattern-matrix. Your instincts, if you are in a legal frame of mind, will protect you from immediate damage if there is no actual threat. This is only one of many ways of protecting yourself from psychological threat and damage in the “new world”.

Good Luck

MoD worker sues after colleagues fail to give him 'good luck card' when leaving his job

A Ministry of Defence worker at NATO headquarters sued for harassment after he wasn't given a 'good luck' card when leaving his job.

James Eyles was 'upset' not to have his time on the base formally marked, an employment tribunal heard.

The accommodation stores manager claimed he had been targeted because of his disabilities - which included PTSD, depression, anxiety and paranoia.

However, the panel dismissed his claim, ruling that being given a card by colleagues was 'discretionary' and that he wasn't the only one on his team not to have his departure recognised.


Good luck everyone...


Overall, the tribunal concluded that none of Mr Eyles' claims were well-founded and many of them did not happen at all.

He still works for the MoD.


We'll need it...

Protections needed

Protections needed to stop people believing chatbots are friends – expert

A media expert has warned that new protections are needed for artificial intelligence (AI) services because users can be tricked into believing chatbots are their friends.

Alexander Laffer, a lecturer in media and communications at the University of Winchester, said there needs to be responsible development of AI as systems have been created to respond to the capacity of humans for empathy.

He warned that chatbots should be designed to “augment” social interactions but not replace them following cases where people have become too “fond or reliant” on their AI companions, leaving them open to manipulation.


Protections needed? Blimey, how often do we have to repeat the ancient question posed by Juvenal –

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? also applies to experts.

Government is not our friend either, neither are ambitious politicians and neither are numerous experts. This feels like yet another move in the censorship game.

An interesting aspect of AI is that Those Who Know Best appear to be worried that AI promises to be far too powerful for plebs.

Three Pads

'Three Pads Rayner' is dubbed a hypocrite after splashing out on an £800,000 seaside flat

Labour’s Housing Secretary has been dubbed ‘Three Pads Rayner’ after it emerged that she had shelled out £800,000 on a luxury flat in Hove, East Sussex.

She is said by neighbours to have bought the ‘biggest and nicest flat’ in the Victorian terrace block, with sea views and celebrity neighbours, and has been spotted sipping wine on the beach as well as taking to the water in a kayak.

The 45-year-old Deputy Prime Minister already owns a large family property in her Greater Manchester constituency and has use of a grace-and-favour apartment in historic Admiralty House in Westminster.

Oh dear, a veil falls and unfortunately there aren't many left. Naturally Angela may do as she wishes with her piles of ill-gotten, but the working class credentials have taken a significant knock. 

Even physically attacking an egg-thrower* didn't shelter John Prescott from the 'Two Jags' jibe, so Angela would be unwise to try that route back. 

*See John Prescott Rumble in Rhyl

A public-sector procurement scandal for the ages

John MacLeod has a useful Critic piece on the continuing Scottish ferries malaise.


The calamities of Caledonian MacBrayne Ltd

Scottish ferries are in a ferry bad shape

There was once a MacBrayne skipper called Duncan “Squeaky” Robertson — a master-mariner from Skye, of small stature and formidable personality, of whom many tales are told.

Like about the day in the Twenties he took the steamer Plover — a tough little ship; in 1918, she had seen off a U-boat — on what should have been a routine hop from Tarbert (Harris) to Lochmaddy (North Uist.) This was in conditions locals would have thought a bit fresh, southerners as a gale and your American as a hurricane.

The Plover duly vanished in foam and hail, never reached Lochmaddy and rumours — pre-wireless, pre-HM Coastguard helicopter, pre-satellite — fast circulated of her last seen disappearing between two enormous waves.

Then, after a day or two of fraught silence, she puffed into Kyle of Lochalsh. Ventilators were missing, ladders bent, railings mangled — her funnel heavily caked in salt as the Plover’s whey-faced passengers tottered ashore.

Squeaky leaned over the bridge-wing. “We had a bit of a breeze,” he announced laconically.

A century on, what is now Caledonian MacBrayne Ltd — Scotland’s state-owned ferry operator in the Firth of Clyde and the Hebrides — is in its own perfect storm.

An ageing fleet, incessant breakdowns, crumbling infrastructure, incessantly cancelled sailings, repeated delays and, at the Fergusons yard in Port Glasgow, a public-sector procurement scandal for the ages.

The whole piece is well worth reading as yet another example of political lessons which remain forever unlearned.

Reading Lesson

Nigel Farage to champion Lucy Connolly’s story in US Congress

Nigel Farage will tell Lucy Connolly’s story to key Donald Trump allies when he gives evidence at a free speech hearing in the US next month.

The Reform leader will travel to Washington in early September to testify to members of Congress about threats to freedom of expression in the UK.

He is set to bring up the case of Mrs Connolly, who was released from prison last week after being jailed for 31 months over a social media post.

There is no doubt that Nigel Farage has something Keir Starmer doesn't. Farage can read the mood of the people he needs to read, Starmer can't. Starmer can read speeches of course, but not very well.

Another talent Farage has in abundance is the ability to read and needle his political enemies, Guardian folk and the BBC in this case. Starmer struggles to tell friend from foe, although that should be particularly easy by now. 

No worries

 

The superior advantages of being alive

 

Thus reflecting, I opened the lychgate of Bouldersby Churchyard and entered. I have a strong liking for churchyards. They are quiet and restful places where one can meditate with satisfaction on the superior advantages of being alive.

R. Austin Freeman- The Surprising Experiences of Mr. Shuttlebury Cobb (1927)


It’s an odd business though, being alive. There is no alternative experience to act as a contrast to being alive, nobody we can ask for their experience of not being alive. Apart from various implausible notions of an afterlife of course, but they don’t help folk who have to deal with the world as it is.

During our recent holiday, we strolled past a churchyard every day. Quiet it was, as churchyards should be, with lichen-covered gravestones, many barely legible and ancient yew trees here and there. Peaceful yes, but Freeman was right about the superior advantages of being alive.

Although presumably there is no BBC in the afterlife, no climate change, no scam emails, no mobile phone updates, no having to drive up the M5 after an enjoyable holiday…

An international laughing stock

Andrew Tettenborn has a useful CAPX piece on the absurdly sinister Online Safety Act.


Ofcom is turning the UK into an international laughing stock

• Ofcom has fined US-based 4Chan £20,000 for breaching the absurd Online Safety Act
• The UK is coming across as a would-be bully that wants to control the internet
• When our allies tell us that we have given up on free speech, we should listen to them

We know that the Online Safety Act (OSA) is a disaster. The group it is billed as protecting, children and young people, is not only rebellious: it is precisely the class most adept at using VPNs and other devices to circumvent it. And this is even before you get to the unintended consequences. The more we try to regulate the semi-respectable internet sites out there, the more we push thrill-seeking young people to the darkest and most frightening corners of cyberspace, where they can suffer serious harm. Furthermore, the greater the pressure on the young to sign up to dodgy free VPNs, the greater the likelihood of their later suffering trolling and identity theft. Some protection.


The whole piece is well worth reading, if only as a reminder to watch how this sinister mess evolves and comment on it while we can. As for the laughing stock aspect, we were there already, this is more confirmation than revelation.


This year, Ofcom, which administers the OSA, wrote formally to American online forums Gab, Kiwifarms and 4Chan, demanding that they agree to obey UK law and file vast amounts of OSA-required compliance paperwork with Ofcom to prove it. Since none of these sites have any presence or assets in the UK (although they are popular here), they gently reminded Ofcom of the existence of the First Amendment, and less gently told it to go knit. We don’t know what happened to Gab or Kiwifarms: but Ofcom has now, apparently with a straight face, fined 4Chan £20,000 and threatened further daily fines until it complies. Understandably 4Chan is unamused. It has said that it won’t, and that there’s nothing Ofcom can do. And of course it is right: as its Connecticut lawyers said with nice understatement in their response to Ofcom, ‘American businesses do not surrender their First Amendment rights because a foreign bureaucrat sends them an email’.

To dispute ad infinitum about everything

Corbyn’s new party in chaos as co-leaders squabble over antisemitism remark

Jeremy Corbyn has hit back at Zarah Sultana after she accused him of “capitulating” over antisemitism when he was Labour leader as tensions at the top of their new left-wing party grow.

The Islington MP said it was “not really necessary” for Ms Sultana, with whom he is currently co-leading the as-yet-unnamed party, to “bring all that up”.


We know beforehand that it is possible to dispute ad infinitum about everything—and so we do not dispute.

Mikhail Lermontov - A Hero of Our Time (1840)

With depressing and unceasing predictability

Joseph Dinnage has an topical CAPX piece on the remarkably incompetent state of our UK Labour government.


Labour’s incompetence exposes their election strategy

• This Government has reached levels of unpopularity that it took the Tories all of 14 years to attain
• With depressing predictability, Labour demonstrate their ideological incoherence and political incompetence
• Labour are relying on their party seeming the least incompetent of the bunch by 2029

I don’t want to come over all Shawshank Redemption, but 412 days have passed since Labour were elected last year. A lot can happen in that time. I’m informed by Google’s inbuilt AI system that one could theoretically have run 366 marathons. A child could have been conceived with some months left over to start raising the thing. You could even have mastered intermediate-level Spanish. Yet what Labour have managed to achieve in their first year and a bit in Government eclipses even these admirable pursuits. In just over a year, Keir Starmer’s regime has reached levels of unpopularity that it took the Tories all of 14 years to attain.


The whole piece is well worth reading as a reminder of just how predictably incompetent Sir Keir Starmer's government has become. 

There is nothing whatever to suggest that Starmer or Labour are capable of turning it round either. We have reached a stage where no sane person expects anything better and deep pessimism has become the rational outlook.


With depressing and unceasing predictability, Labour demonstrate both their deep ideological incoherence and political incompetence. With its approval ratings in the gutter, Reform UK surging ahead in the polls and ‘Jezbollah’ hot on its heels, the Government is relying on one of two outcomes come 2029.

And not at all sinister

Government plans to build AI agent to help citizens with ‘life admin’

Leading firms have been invited to join civil service tech experts to start work on a prototype of a ‘helper’ that ministers hope could be rolled out to the populace

Government has proposed a state-run “AI agent” that citizens could deploy to help with day-to-day administrative tasks.

At the start of this week, government invited representatives of companies specialised in agentic artificial intelligence to “team up with in-house Whitehall experts to test this technology together”. Ministers hope that, over the next six to 12 months, firms will support the creation of a prototype agent by taking steps “to share their expertise and dedicate AI specialists to… a hybrid team” where they will work alongside civil servants.

The ultimate aim is to create a government-run tool that would be available to the public to “take on boring life admin by dealing with public services on your behalf – from filling in forms to completing applications and booking appointments”.

"Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently."

George Orwell - 1984 (1949)