Unfortunately, we got her

A piece on the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill with two contrasting opinions.

Educators are split over the government's proposed Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill, with some saying the move will improve fairness and accountability and others warning it could limit innovation in academy schools.

Opinion 1

Katharine Birbalsingh, headteacher of Michaela School in Wembley, north London, called it "absolutely appalling".

"I'm just really concerned because, at the moment, school leaders have the freedom to do various things that are right for their intake," she told Sky News.

"This bill will take those freedoms away."

Ms Birbalsingh, also known as 'Britain's strictest headteacher', added: "We got unlucky because we could have had Wes Streeting as education secretary, which would have been fine. Unfortunately, we got her [Bridget Phillipson].

"She [Ms Phillipson] is so arrogant. She's just marched in there and gone, 'I know what I'm doing, I'll just do what I want'."


Opinion 2

The founder of Oasis Academies, Steve Chalke, told Sky News: "We're excited about the changes because we feel that education has been in a very, very poor place for the last decade or more.

"Schools have been stripped of resources and there have been giant problems about the recruitment and retention of teachers.

"We feel that this important bill is beginning to address all of those issues."...

He added: "We at Oasis are excited about all of this, but that doesn't mean we don't have questions.

Hmm - one opinion sounds like the hard-nosed voice of experience, one sounds more... well more like jelly.

Other options must be kept open

'Make democracy great again': Thousands protest against Trump at rallies in every US state

Thousands of people gathered in various cities across the US as protests against Donald Trump and Elon Musk took place in all 50 states on Saturday.

The "Hands Off!" protests were against the Trump administration's handling of government downsizing, human rights and the economy, among other issues.

In Washington DC, protesters streamed on the grass in front of the Washington Monument, where one person carried a banner which read: "Make democracy great again."


Here in the UK, we saw something similar after the Brexit referendum, although at the time we may not have seen it as a growing international trend in supposedly democratic regimes. 

Maybe these US defenders of democracy are after a version of Keir Starmer's proposal in 2018, a second vote if the first one doesn't go your way -


Sir Keir told Labour activists if a general election was not possible "then other options must be kept open".

"That includes campaigning for a public vote," he said.

"It is right for Parliament to have the first say but if we need to break the impasse, our options must include campaigning for a public vote and nobody is ruling out Remain as an option."

Defunct EPA Museum

Watch: Peek inside the now-shuttered EPA Museum that closed because it cost $4mil to build, $600k annually to operate & received less than 2000 visitors

Climate Depot's Marc Morano: "The now-defunct EPA Museum evokes memories of an old East German government propaganda effort. Future generations will look back on this climate-obsessed era and marvel that a civilization ever took this climate crap seriously."

The video embedded in the linked page is worth watching.

The Final Tea Party

Something strange is going on with elites and we all see it.

A characteristic of elites is that they must have a certain status which sets them apart or there would be nothing to define them as an elite. Status has been achieved in many traditional ways as we know, such as wealth, costume, asset ownership, religion, profession, social class, language, education and so on.

Yet in comparatively recent decades, traditional elite status has been vigorously eroded by economic growth, mass production, mass education, mass media, cheap books and a much wider access to information.  

In our digital age, the erosion of elite status has become so acute that it has had some strange effects on one particular aspect of status - the role of high status gatekeeper to social and political narratives which control and circumscribe behaviour. We have seen the rise of weirdly nonsensical and clearly untrue luxury narratives which still circumscribe behaviour, but in absurdly damaging ways. More absurd than the past at any rate.

Alice and the rabbit hole provides an excellent idiom for this ridiculous state of affairs. Modern elites have become rabbit hole gatekeepers for the world of the Mad Hatter’s tea party. In this bizarrely artificial world they bolster their status with nonsense narratives which a mass audience finds difficult to digest and impossible to align with common sense.

We call this weird development ‘woke’ or ‘progressive’ or ‘politically correct’ or 'environmental' or a host of other names, but all of these shifting nonsense narratives are suited to shoring up the crumbling status of elites as opposed to non-elites.

Elite nonsense has always been with us of course, always valuable as an arcane badge of elite status. Yet in our modern world, the arcane nonsense has retreated down the progressive rabbit hole where nothing makes sense, where rational and informed people cannot follow. 

The Mad Hatters are having their final tea party.

The clues are in the questions

Westminster council offers staff chance to take ‘privilege’ quiz

A flagship Labour council offered staff the option to take a “privilege test” in a move to combat unconscious bias against ethnic minorities.

Westminster Council workers are asked to take an online quiz which gives a privilege score based on answers to statements like “I am a white male” or “I have an illness or disability”, according to the Daily Telegraph.

The council said the questions appeared on a Powerpoint presentation from 2021 and do not form “any part of formal policy, training or recruitment process.”


The clues are in the questions so we may as well extend them into the realms of deranged absurdity where they belong -

I frequently travel by private jet +100

I am given free tickets to expensive shows +50

I travel in an armoured limousine +100

I feel oppressed by privilege tests -10

I can't afford to run the central heating in winter -20

I have dandruff -10

I work for Westminster Council -1000

Missing Highs

Highs and lows of Five-Year Keir: The PM's journey from Doughty Street to Downing Street

Sir Keir Starmer's first five years as Labour Party leader have seen dramatic highs and lows - but the next five will perhaps be even more challenging.

To win the backing of left-wing Labour activists, he backed a wealth tax on the top 5% of earners, abolishing university tuition fees, nationalising water and energy and restoring freedom of movement between the UK and EU countries. Whatever happened to those promises?

Presumably that's where some of the highs are, lying to the rabble, but it's a bit of a stretch. There are attempts to paint Starmer as a capable international statesman, but it's all very thin and mainly based on his attempts to sidle past Brexit, in his freebie trousers perhaps? 


Though the UK is no longer in the EU, Sir Keir has forged strong alliances with European leaders - particularly France's President Macron - as he attempts to build a "coalition of the willing" to defend Ukraine. And he has won the trust of Ukraine's President Zelenskyy.

The stupidification

Malcolm Clark has a useful Critic piece on Scottish education. It is not complimentary.


The stupidification of Scottish schools

Scottish education is being dumbed down in the name of diversity

At the end of last year, Scotland’s education chiefs announced a new list of approved texts for pupils taking English exams at secondary schools. It represents everything that is wrong with Scottish education and the country’s cultural Establishment.

Ten years ago the SNP government decided there would be only one compulsory question asked in Scotland’s equivalent of GCSEs and A levels in English, and it would be about Scottish authors. It was claimed this would encourage pupils to study the great writers Scotland has produced, from Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson to Burns and Lewis Grassic Gibbon.

There was nothing to stop a teacher teaching other great writers like Jane Austen, but this compulsory question would highlight Scotland’s proud literary tradition. Now, with this latest revision of the list of approved texts, it is clear the country’s education chiefs are on a mission to dumb down. The list, we are told, is all about “increased diversity”.


The whole piece is depressing but well worth reading as an indicator of how far down the rabbit hole progressives can go. Even further than this presumably.


That’s why this list perfectly embodies Scotland’s new national culture after 25 wasted years of devolution. It’s no accident the bulk of the list is made up of short texts with simple, sometimes even infantile language that require the least possible effort from pupils. Kids are even reassured they only have to study the first section of Duck Feet. Perish the thought they might have to deal with a whole novel!

There is of course one other terrifying possible explanation for the cultural vandalism this list represents. Might many of Scotland’s teachers now be so lazy and so thick this is all they are capable of teaching?

Buckle

Trump will buckle under pressure from Europe, says German economy minister

BERLIN (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump will buckle under pressure from Germany and Europe in an escalating trade war, German Economy Minister Robert Habeck said on Thursday.

"That is what I see, that Donald Trump buckles under pressure, corrects his announcements under pressure, but the logical consequence is that he must also feel the pressure, and this pressure must now be exerted from Germany, from Europe," Habeck said in a news conference.


That's an odd one, there is quite a widespread impression that Europe is buckling under pressure from its own incompetence. Europe buckling under pressure from Europe we might say.

Trump may move on trade because that's what he does, how he makes deals. His first move was to get the issue on the table and he's done that. As for his next move, we'll have to wait and see. 

Meghan's keepsake packaging

This morning Mrs H and I were chatting about the celebrity antics of Meghan and Harry, particularly the entertaining attempts by Meghan to create a lifestyle brand. She isn't the only one playing this tawdry game of course, but she is remarkably unconvincing even by celebrity standards.

Mrs H was particularly amused by this advice from Meghan -

Her raspberry jam - which is made in a factory - will be 'presented in keepsake packaging,' and she advised fans to 'repurpose' the jars 'to tuck away love notes or special treasures, and to remember this pivotal moment with me', adding: 'Think of it as our time capsule'.

Meghan, 43, continued: 'And by the way, once you've enjoyed every spoonful of this fruit spread, you may want to do what I do: rinse the jar and use it as a small bud vase for flowers on your nightstand, or to hold your pens on your desk.'


The entertaining aspect is its transparent shallowness, the idea that any sensible adult could go along with such crudely tacky marketing. Some will go along with it presumably, just as some adults accept free tickets to Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter shows.

Yet is anyone seriously interested in the Meghan Markle show, except as a casually entertaining demonstration of just how vacuous celebrity marketing can be?

But were they cheaper than Amazon?

  

N. Korean state security agency orders thousands of spy camera glasses from China

The ministry's control over smuggling and distribution channels enables it to import spy cameras despite sanctions violations and their use in illegal activities

North Korean traders have ordered a large shipment of spy camera glasses from China, Daily NK has learned. The cameras will likely be used for undercover investigations by the country’s state security apparatus.

A source in China told Daily NK recently that North Korean traders ordered thousands of spy camera glasses in early March.

Legal plunder

But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.

Frédéric Bastiat - The Law (1850)

 
Among the husbands was Shalikov, the tax-collector—a narrow, spiteful soul, given to drink, with a big, closely cropped head, and thick, protruding lips. He had had a university education; there had been a time when he used to read progressive literature and sing students' songs, but now, as he said of himself, he was a tax-collector and nothing more.

Anton Chekhov - The Husband (1886)

In the prosperous year of 1856, incomes of between a hundred and a hundred and fifty pounds were chargeable with a tax of elevenpence halfpenny in the pound: persons who enjoyed a revenue of a hundred and fifty or more had the honour of paying one and fourpence. Abatements there were none, and families supporting life on two pounds a week might in some cases, perchance, be reconciled to the mulct by considering how equitably its incidence was graduated.

George Gissing - Born in Exile (1892)

Boost

My workers’ rights Bill will boost the economy, insists Rayner

Angela Rayner insisted her workers’ rights package would boost the economy after a Cabinet colleague suggested it could be watered down...

Businesses have also warned that the unintended consequences of the reforms risk strangling entrepreneurs in red tape and undermining Sir Keir Starmer’s drive to get people back to work.

But in a rebuke to her critics, the Deputy Prime Minister insisted that both her legislation and the 6.7 per cent minimum wage rise this week would drive economic growth.

Well 'boost' is a change from 'turbocharge', but maybe 'boost' is more suitably modest for measures which aren't likely to boost anything much, although we shouldn't exclude the possibility of unemployment receiving a boost. 

Angela's colleagues are likely to be happy enough that she refers to it a "my" workers' rights Bill though. They'll vote for it but don't necessarily want ownership.

Strangely Wealthy

 

Not an April fools' jape

Met Office warns of sunburn risk as temperatures soar to 22C across UK

The Met Office has urged Britons to put protect themselves from the sun this week, as the UK prepares to bask in temperatures as high as 22C.

The mercury is set to climb gradually this week and could peak at 22C on Thursday in the south of England, the Met Office said.

This means the UK could be enjoying sunny weather with temperatures even higher than Athens or Barcelona on Thursday, where highs of 17C and 16C are forecast respectively.

A Night Shift For Solar Panels?

Net Zero here we come: Boffins work out how to power solar panels with moonshine. 

Jaw dropping potential: British solar panels which work at night

As we all know, solar panels work best when it’s sunny and don’t work quite so well overnight, but a British start-up called MoonPwr has developed a patented nano-film coating composed of certain novel molecular structures based on selenium which are particularly sensitive to moonshine.

Encouraging laboratory pilot studies suggest how more funding could turbocharge the project to fruition and thereby pave the way for solar panels which work fairly normally by day and generate a certain amount of moonshine electricity at night.

“Obviously our new coating doesn’t provide a night output which is strictly comparable to that generated during the day,” said an AI spokesthing, “but we have been working on the principle that some output is better than none.”

Ed does gravitas his way

 

Sir Ed Davey rides hobby horse at local election campaign launch in Oxfordshire

 

source

Sir Ed Davey declared the local elections 'a two-horse race' as he launched the Liberal Democrats’ local election campaign in Oxfordshire...

Illustrating his point, he rode a hobby horse over a series of jumps before smashing through a blue fence, vowing to do the same to the Tories on May 1.

It's possible that "Sir" Ed Davey isn't making cynical fun of gullible Lib Dem voters, but even the Lib Dem faithful don't usually promote their political hobby horses like this - not yet anyway.

Giving business loans to babies

Retire at 140

Medical breakthroughs mean more of us will live to 150, new research suggests

We could soon live to the age of 150, medics claim.

They say more of us will reach the massive milestone thanks to modern tech, new medicines and healthy living. Longevity medicine expert Dr Debonneuil said: "If the current trend continues, we could see individuals living to 140 or 150 in good health.

It's clickbait of course, these stories pop up every now and then, but the prospect of greatly extended longevity is horribly interesting because of all the possible downsides.

Sir Keir Starmer celebrated his 110th birthday by reiterating his government's commitment to growth, while Chancellor Rachel Reeves reminded us that she has proved people wrong in the past...  

Surely that's an advantage

Labour civil war erupts as Lisa Nandy set to be ousted for 'not working hard enough'

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy faces being axed from Sir Keir Starmer's top team amid claims "she doesn't work hard enough". Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson is also set to get the chop as part of a pre-summer Government reshuffle, reports have suggested.

This would come after what might be poor local election results on May 1, critics have suggested. Speaking to the Mail, a source said: "Lisa seems to work about two days a week on her portfolio." She has also been criticised for reportedly being interested in the "sport" part of her brief in running the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

We've seen enough of "Sir" Keir Starmer and his Cabinet to work out that any Minister 'not working hard enough' is a bonus for the rest of us. 

She may be useless, but a Cabinet of Lisa Nandy clones could be an improvement on worse than useless which is what we have now.

'Lisa for Prime Minister' should be the cry. Yes it's a hollow cry, echoing forlornly from the depths of bleak desperation, but these are desperate times. 

Come on Lisa!

You've Got to Pick a Pocket or Two

Wealth tax fears as Labour uses AI to value all homes

The Welsh Government ordered the programme, which runs on artificial intelligence, to review council tax bands.

Rachel Reeves faces growing calls from Left-wing MPs to slap a levy on the rich, which would be based on assets such as property...

The computer model has been developed by the Valuation Office Agency (VOA), a body within HMRC, for the Labour run Welsh Government.


They were a time-serving lot, who knew how the cat was going to jump, but they kept out of crime and shunned anything imaginative like the plague. I shouldn't think one of them had ever an ambition which couldn't be put in terms of office or money, or a regret except that he had missed a chance of getting at the public purse. True-blue Whigs, all of them.

John Buchan – The Dancing Floor (1926)

Mother’s Day Madness

By gum, Mother’s Day becomes more bonkers year by year. A sound measure of the phenomenon is provided by our local Sainsbury’s.

This morning we strolled out to Sainsbury’s and were treated to the sight of queues of traffic trying to use the traffic island at the supermarket entrance, queues of traffic trying to get in, would-be shoppers trying to find a parking space and queues of traffic trying to get out.

QED

Labour’s next IMF moment

Jon Moynihan has a usefully depressing CAPX piece on what the next four years are likely to bring for us here in the UK.


The economic consequences of Labour – the story so far

• Growth toward the end of last year was bound to be slow-to-no; and so it proved
• Before the election, recession looked likely. After the Budget, it was becoming pretty certain
• Why are we stuck with more government, more tax, more regulation whatever the party in power?

The end of this week, one in which we have had both the Chancellor‘s Spring Statement, and the second reading of the awful Employment Rights Bill in the Lords, offers a useful moment to take pause and look back over what economic plans Labour have managed to put into play so far; what economic effect their actions have had; and what we can expect to happen in the coming months and years.

We can expect nothing good is the message, but the whole piece is well worth reading as a reminder that expecting nothing good from this Labour government is a rational expectation.


So, what will be the economic consequences of Labour? Four years or more to go before the next election. Will the size of government be slashed? I wouldn’t gamble on it. Will taxes be reduced? It’s not in their DNA. And regulation? Much of the barrier to building houses in the UK is the enormous cost of being required to provide 50% of build in social (i.e. zero profit) housing. Is reducing that number a nettle the Chancellor is prepared to grasp? Will the Government dump the ludicrous Football Regulator bill; be prepared to abolish Diversity, Equity, Inclusion across the public sector, as has been done in the US? Will Ed Miliband be fired and the more egregious of the net zero regulations and costs be rolled back? Will we finally realise we can’t go on having the highest electricity costs in Europe, and cease the egregious renewables subsidies?

We can hope for all this, but I doubt that much of it will come to pass. Most likely, the current pattern of talking good stuff and doing bad stuff will continue. In which case, things can only get worse; and we are on our way, some time in the next few years, to Labour’s next IMF moment. Oh dear.

The NGO class

 

Poll Play

BBC to poll public on what they want from broadcaster

The BBC is running its “biggest ever public engagement exercise” as the corporation polls audiences to ask what they want from their public broadcaster at the moment and in the future.

From Thursday, the corporation will send out the Our BBC, Our future questionnaire ahead of the forthcoming review of the corporation’s royal charter which sets the BBC’s mission, public purposes and funding.


Fund it by voluntary subscription. Easy, no need for a poll, but... 

Tim Davie, BBC director-general, said: “The BBC belongs to all of us and we all have a say in its future.

Which means there will be no future where the BBC hand has been removed from the public pocket. Voluntary subscription is not even on the table, not the real table where deals are done.

Poll away, it won't make any difference, the core decision has almost certainly been made already.

Deal or No Deal

I’ve been idly browsing the internet this morning, taking a gander at various online comments about Donald Trump’s approach to ending the Ukraine conflict.

The most striking characteristic is how hostility towards Trump so often outweighs any constructive alternative to his approach. His approach can be criticised, but most people don’t do that, they don’t put up any alternative other than hostile sentiments which seem to have more war as a consequence.

Even an outsider who has not followed this issue closely can see that as things stand now, the people who must be at the table are Trump, Putin and Zelensky. European leaders are not particularly important because of their obvious problems with political cohesion.

Equally obvious is that the nature and location of some kind of demilitarised zone is a key aspect of any deal. Seems clear enough, but most of the comments I’ve seen this morning are little more than useless anti-Trump rhetoric with no specific alternatives, nothing to put on the table and as far as I can see, no table.

Sounds like a 'counselling force'

European allies not united on armed deployment in Ukraine as Macron announces 'reassurance force'

Emmanuel Macron has announced a plan for a "reassurance force" with several countries in Ukraine - but not all European allies have backed the idea

When questioned about the "reassurance force", Sir Keir said it was "designed to deter" Mr Putin and defend whatever peace deal is agreed.

A "reassurance force" does sound rather like a "counselling force," but maybe it's just another attempt by European elites to seem relevant. If so, it's not impressive and the whole world must know it. 

From a UK point of view, it's a feeble attempt at distraction from the mess at home and the hopelessly unimpressive crew presumably voted in to provide rational political oversight. Even Labour voters must harbouring a few doubts about that though. 

The threats are bigger too

EU advises citizens to stockpile food and have 72-hour emergency kit ready amid war fears

Hadja Lahbib, commissioner for humanitarian aid and crisis management, told journalists: "In the EU we must think different because the threats are different, we must think bigger because the threats are bigger too."

She added: “We are saying to member states: 72 hours of self-sufficiency is what we recommend.”


On casting my admittedly creaky mind back to the Brexit referendum debate, I'm sure I don't recall Remainers pointing this out as one of the many EU benefits. Must have missed it.

Maybe this is why "Sir" Keir and his unlovely crew are so keen to sidle back into the EU - everything is now so much bigger and more exciting.

Lunch

It's Mrs H's birthday today so we're off out for coffee and later a spot of lunch. Not much blogging today, but there isn't much going on in the world apart from the traditional stuff - wars, scandals, incompetence and general bungling.

Oh and I think they mean 'defuse' here, not that it matters much -   

UK does not want to 'escalate' Donald Trump's trade wars, says Rachel Reeves

The chancellor seeks to diffuse the looming conflict with the US president, who has just promised to impose a new tariff on imported cars.

Rover JET1

Sweet Tooth

Man who stole £220 worth of Creme Eggs banned from entire county

A man who stole over £200 worth of Cadbury’s Creme Eggs from a Peterborough fuel station has been banned from Cambridgeshire for three months.

Police arrested 26-year-old Deon De Groot after he entered a Tesco Express in Welland Road, Dogsthorpe, at about 11.40am on Saturday (22 March). He was seen packing the chocolate eggs into a duffle bag.

He stashed away £220.50 worth of Cadbury Creme Eggs and left the store without paying, weeks ahead of Easter, said Cambridgeshire Constabulary.

By gum - some people must have a sweet tooth, although from the sound of it this guy isn't necessarily a fan and maybe has other problems apart from turbocharged dental decay. 

It's decades since I tried one of the horrible things and don't intend to repeat the experience. I don't dislike sweet things, but there are limits and Creme Eggs are well over it.

Expect Starmer to ban them in 3, 2, 1...

Playing Cards

Chairwoman appears to accuse Harry of ‘playing victim card’ as he quits charity

The chairwoman of a charity set up by the Duke of Sussex has appeared to criticise Harry for “playing the victim card” after he quit as patron amid a boardroom battle.

Dr Sophie Chandauka issued a statement in which she alleged there had been “poor governance, weak executive management, abuse of power, bullying, harassment, misogyny, misogynoir”.


Even without knowing the details of this spat, it is just about worth noting that words such as "misogyny" and "misogynoir" count as aces in this dreary, tedious, unproductive game of cards.

Just don’t ask how they’re made

An old question, one of many we could ask that Ed isn't going to answer, but always worth asking again.

Ghost MOT

Government attempts to stamp out 'ghost MOT' fraud are 'flawed'

Attempts by officials to stamp out 'ghost MOT' fraud have been criticised by a former inspector who says the new system being trialled to clampdown on the illegal activity is 'flawed'.

In recent months there has been a worrying increase in dodgy mechanics selling ghost MOTs on social media - and an equally concerning increase in drivers searching for their services...

New data suggests there is growing public interest in these fraudulent MOT services, with online searches for terms including 'ghost MOT near me' and 'dodgy MOT near me' rising sharply over the past year.

Reminds me of an old Jaguar I saw in our Tesco car park a few months ago. One virtually flat, bald tyre and the car was leaning so much that it probably had serious suspension problems too. I'm sure it had an MOT though. 

Vehicles which would never pass an emissions test are not particularly uncommon round here. Once or twice it has been so bad that we parked by the side of the road for a while to avoid following clouds of exhaust smoke. 

A sign of the times.

Shoddy

Households ‘will be saddled with shoddy heat pumps under net zero plans’

Defective heat pumps will be fitted in new homes under net zero plans, the Government has been warned.

From 2027, new homes will be fitted with a heat pump as standard under rules that are expected to be introduced within weeks.

But while heat pumps installed under Government grant schemes in existing homes must be fitted by accredited technicians, there are no such standards for new homes.

I'd be more concerned about that new home being built in a shoddy manner as builders shove them up to meet shoddy targets formulated by a shoddy government basing its decisions on shoddy science and shoddy technical advice leading to shoddy policies implemented by shoddy Ministers with the backing of a shoddy civil service.

It isn't only shoddy Ed.

The Motability Beemer

William Yarwood has a topical Critic piece on how the Motability scheme is widely abused.


The Motability scheme is taking the British taxpayer for a ride

A noble scheme is being used excessively and sometimes opportunistically

It all started so nobly. The Motability scheme was set up to help people with serious mobility impairments — those who genuinely couldn’t get around without a vehicle. A simple, compassionate concept: if your disability makes life harder, the state can step in to keep you mobile and independent. For almost 50 years, what made it remarkable was precisely how unremarkable it was.

But as the old saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions — or in this case, the road to bankruptcy is full of taxpayer-subsidised BMWs.

Because what was once a targeted support scheme for the genuinely disabled has ballooned into something unrecognisable. Last year alone, a record 815,000 people made use of the scheme — that’s 170,000 more than the year before. Thanks to data crunched by the TaxPayers’ Alliance, we now know what’s fuelling it.


The whole piece is well worth reading as yet another example of political and cultural decline. 


What’s clear is that Motability is no longer a lifeline for the most vulnerable. It’s becoming a mainstream perk — one that taxpayers are expected to fund without question.

While Motability Operations earns revenue from the sale of used cars, much of its funding also flows from the PIP system — and that means it’s funded, to a large extent, by taxpayers. It benefits from exemptions to vehicle excise duty, insurance premium tax and VAT, so while your council tax goes up, NHS waits lengthen, and the roads resemble the lunar surface, someone else is cruising around in a brand-new car courtesy of the state.

Aldous Huxley on the power of technology

If the BBC had maintained this standard of analysis, who knows where we'd be now? 

Possibly we'd be in much the same place, as there is an impersonal element to the impact of technology on cultural drift, as Aldous Huxley explains so well. Once the seed is sown...

One of his “best friends owns and runs the internet”

Rosie O’Donnell says Trump’s win should be ‘investigated’ as ‘one of his best friends runs the internet’

Rosie O’Donnell has said there should be an investigation after she questioned how Donald Trump comfortably won every swing state in the 2024 US election, claiming that one of his “best friends owns and runs the internet”.

The 63-year-old comedian recently left the US and moved to Ireland after Trump's return to the White House, which the star says has helped improve her health and sleep.

I'm not sure this is a gain for Ireland.

The right thing to do.

Rachel Reeves defends accepting free Sabrina Carpenter concert tickets

The Chancellor today defended the fact she accepted free tickets to see pop star Sabrina Carpenter live.

Rachel Reeves claimed she took the freebie because it was “the right thing to do from a security perspective”.


By gum she's rum. The right thing to do was to turn down the offer of freebies. Any notion that accepting them was "the right thing to do" is outstandingly preposterous, even by the preposterous standards of Rachel from Accounts. 

Ensuring her public utterances at least make sense would be the right thing to do. A fairly basic accomplishment for Chancellors I reckon, making sense.

Snake-oil Ed

Davey: Tory ‘disdain and neglect’ led to rise of Reform

The Conservative Party’s “disdain and neglect” has allowed for the rise of Reform UK, Sir Ed Davey has said.

The Liberal Democrat leader said Nigel Farage has “nothing to say” and that his party is peddling “superficial, simplistic, snake-oil solutions”.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has a “sneering attitude”, he said, referring to her recent comments that a typical Lib Dem is “somebody who is good at fixing their church roof”.

Falling off paddle boards, mass immigration, higher taxes and being impoverished by Net Zero, that's what people want to see, not “superficial, simplistic, snake-oil solutions”. Ed knows.

Ed also knows he's not even trying, thinks he doesn't need to at the moment. Disdain will do, it's in the Lib Dem blood anyway, mixed with snake-oil.

Who's That Not Knocking at My Door

Numbers Game

Rachel Reeves to cut 10,000 civil service jobs in effort to lower government costs

Rachel Reeves has promised the UK’s economy and living standards will improve, as she pledged to cut running costs of government by 15% and civil service jobs by 10,000.

She said she was “not satisfied with the numbers that we see at the moment”, telling Sky News: “It’s not possible within just a few months to reverse more than a decade of economic stagnation, but we are making the changes necessary to get Britain building again, to bring money into the economy.”


A cut of 10,000 civil service jobs is substantially less than natural annual turnover, so effectively it's a freeze on recruitment for a few months. I remember those. 

Will anyone notice? Probably not, it's a political number, not an item of useful information, as even Rachel from Accounts must know. 

The number employed by the civil service is now 34% higher than its minimum in 2016, and only 3% less than its most recent peak in 2005.

The irony meter is unfixable

Labour benefit cuts may breach equality law, says human rights watchdog

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has said it is considering whether the plans set out by Liz Kendall to cut disability benefits comply with the Equality Act.

A spokesman for the EHRC said: “The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) must consider the equality impact of the proposed benefit reforms on disabled people.

“The public sector equality duty (PSED) requires government departments to have due regard for how their policies and decisions affect people with protected characteristics.”

Bad actors

Heathrow shutdown is embarrassing at best - but at worst it points to serious vulnerabilities in UK infrastructure

As one of the busiest travel hubs in the world, Heathrow is considered a part of the UK's critical national infrastructure. The power failure and the chaos that ensued on Friday exposed that system's overall vulnerability.

At best it's an embarrassment. At worst, it points to serious vulnerabilities across the country that could be exploited by bad actors.

With a Cabinet of bad actors doing nothing to hinder the importing of more bad actors, it's a bleak prospect. 

From "Sir" Keir Starmer acting the fool over clown world sable-rattling to Rachel from Accounts... no she can't even act badly...

...to Ed Miliband adopting the role of Chief Eco-Seer while busily erecting idiot eco-vulnerabilities all over the place....

No it's too depressing, I'm off out for a coffee. 

Whisper it softly

Forest of Dean step closer to getting biosphere status like Canary Islands and Hawaii

The Gloucestershire district may soon join the 759 UNESCO biosphere reserves across the world

Climate emergency cabinet member Chris McFarling (G, St Briavels) who put forward the proposals said it was “has been an eight year project”. And that the biosphere status would be a celebration of the Forest of Dean district’s exceptional environment.


It's a perennially rum game this climate emergency lark. If we're all doomed by the unstoppable heat of runaway climate change, then something as fragile as the Forest of Dean biosphere is doomed too. 

Unless - and whisper it softly - nobody believes a word of it.

Including Ed.

The hours just float away

Two days ago I managed to damage the middle finger of my left hand while chopping wood. Somehow I managed to crush it with a big log. It's heavily bruised, inclined to bleed around the nail and an X-ray this morning showed a fracture at the end of my finger.

Not too serious and I'm right-handed anyway, but these things absorb so much time. I've had good local hospital treatment, but NHS time is different, the hours just float away.

BBC zealots

Norman Fenton has a very interesting TCW piece on his experience with the BBC and climate change zealots.


How I was used by the BBC’s climate change zealots

THE man-made climate change scam is in the news again because of the developments in the case of Professor Michael ‘hockey stick’ Mann versus Mark Steyn. Although last year Mann ‘won’ his ludicrous 12-year defamation case against Steyn for calling out Mann’s hockey stick nonsense, the case exposed Mann for the pompous academic lowlife he is.

In the last few weeks the judge reduced the damages awarded from $1million to $5,000, ordered Mann to pay massive legal costs, and has now sanctioned Mann for lies presented in his evidence. The climate change hysteria and its authoritarian net zero agenda preceded Mann’s flawed hockey stick ‘research’, but Mann’s work and influence have been a major factor in accelerating the UN/WEF Agenda 2030 of ‘you’ll own nothing and be happy’ while being cold, unable to travel and dining on bugs.

The net zero agenda is the most dangerous threat to our future freedom and sovereignty, so the more the work of ‘climate scientists’ like Mann can be exposed for the garbage that it is, the greater chance we have of stopping the descent into madness.

And that brings me to the reason for this article, as maybe I can now provide further evidence of the extent of the scam and the role mainstream media (and even myself unwittingly) played in it.

Far from being an unfamiliar issue, but the whole piece is well worth reading as an interesting personal story of becoming entangled in a media culture of gross zealotry, bias and misinformation.

Race to the Crypt

Climate change ‘can teach schoolchildren about race’

Climate change can be used to teach children about race, a national curriculum review has been told.

Global warming should be used to allow teachers and pupils to “explore conversations about race”, according to the Runnymede Trust.

As we have known for many years, there is something we could call "institutionally obsessive" where a non-commercial institution pursues its purported aims in an obsessive manner. It has to be obsessive to ensure that those aims never become obsolete as a matter of institutional survival.

This has become so prevalent among large charities and charitable trusts that the situation should be reviewed externally, otherwise we appear to be stuck with this kind of absurdly unhelpful nonsense and corrupted education.

If the political pendulum is to swing back, then it will have to swing back good and hard, but there are far better directions for charitable sentiment.

Oh dear, how sad, never mind

Greenpeace ordered to pay more than €600 million to oil company over US pipeline protests

Environmental group Greenpeace must pay more than $660 million (€606 million) in damages for defamation and other claims brought by a pipeline company in connection with protests against the Dakota Access oil pipeline’s construction in North Dakota, a jury found on Wednesday (19 March).

Dallas-based Energy Transfer and subsidiary Dakota Access had accused Netherlands-based Greenpeace International, Greenpeace USA and funding arm Greenpeace Fund Inc. of defamation, trespass, nuisance, civil conspiracy and other acts.

Greenpeace USA was found liable for all counts, while the others were found liable for some. The damages, which total nearly $666.9 million (€613 million), will be spread out across the three entities.

Greenpeace plans to appeal of course and there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth, but at this rate, normal folk will be running out of popcorn. 

Is popcorn environmentally friendly? No matter, coffee and extra dark chocolate will have to do here in sunny Derbyshire.

Laughable

Kemi Badenoch: I will not reunite the Right with Farage – it’s laughable

Kemi Badenoch has dismissed Nigel Farage as a reality TV star, saying government is not an episode of I’m a Celebrity.

In an interview with The Telegraph, the Conservative leader rejected calls to “unite the Right” and argued that the electorate should not confuse being entertaining with having policies to deliver in government.

Mrs Badenoch said that “politics” was not “showbusiness” in a rare direct attack on the Reform leader, whose party is ahead of the Tories in opinion polls.

The mess that is UK politics may be too serious to be wholly laughable, but making fun of the political snake pit does lighten the mood occasionally. To claim  that “politics” is not “showbusiness” pushes the distinction too firmly. 

We merely have to remind ourselves of Ed Davey falling off paddle boards, Angela Rayner raving in Ibiza, Ed Miliband wagging his finger or eating a bacon sarnie, Boris Johnson being Boris Johnson, Rachel from Accounts trying to understand economics, anyone from the Green Party being anyone from the Green Party and Keir Starmer pretending to be an international statesman.

It's laughable, because whenever the mood asks to be lightened there is always plenty of material and more arrives every day.

Eminent Expert hits back

Theresa May hits back at Kemi Badenoch over Tory leader’s claim net zero by 2050 is ‘impossible’

Retorting that “net zero by 2050 is challenging but achievable”, Baroness May wrote on social media: “It is supported by the scientific community and backed by the independent Climate Change Committee as being not just necessary but feasible and cost-effective.

“We are already seeing the impact of climate change. From extreme weather events to supply chain disruption and increased climate-induced migration.


By gum, some loons never leave off being a loon. Baroness May of Maidenhead now apparently, which nobody could possibly find encouraging, even on a sunny day with birds twittering in the hedgerows and daffodils popping up all over the place.

Maybe Baroness May should have opted for a more suitable career such as shroud recycling, she's good at casting a damp, grey shroud over everything.

A mere tool

Starmer piles pressure on Trump not to side with Putin over Ukraine ceasefire ahead of US-Russia phone call

Sir Keir Starmer has piled pressure on Donald Trump not to side with Vladimir Putin in a crunch phone call on a Ukraine ceasefire.

The Prime Minister spoke to the US president on Monday night, updating him on plans to deploy thousands of British, French and other troops to Ukraine as peacekeepers if Putin ends his war.


It matters little whether the enlistment is voluntary or extorted; the moment a man becomes a functionary and is enrolled in the hierarchy, he loses the best portion of his independence; once a dignitary and placed at the top of the hierarchy, he gives his entire individuality up, for henceforth he lives under the eye of the master, feels the daily and direct pressure of the terrible hand which grasps him, and he forcibly becomes a mere tool.

Hippolyte Taine - The Modern Regime (1893)

More Nuts

Mrs H and I were in Holland & Barrett this morning, stocking up on nuts and coincidentally we were asked if we wished to join the nuts who donate to Comic Relief.

Okay, it wasn't phrased quite like that and as usual we refused, but it's another of those minor intrusions into daily life which have become too familiar.

Compromise and Stupidity

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote about the interesting link between power, compromise and stupidity. Interesting because we see something similar in modern times. 
 

Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer - After Ten Years (2017)


Bonhoeffer explained this source of stupidity as a common human tendency to compromise both ethically and intellectually when faced with the demands of an upsurge in power. He was of course looking at the issue from the perspective of the rise of Hitler and the National Socialists in Germany, but the tendency may be wider than the brute power he knew.

For example, we in the West are living through an upsurge in a powerfully demanding political culture. Although not at all comparable to the rise of German National Socialists, modern Western political culture does demand ethical and intellectual comprise, a level of compromise strongly associated with stupidity. We know this because we observe it.

Not only that, but modern cultural propaganda is more technically invasive. It isn’t George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four, but it does demand an invasive level of compromise and in so doing it demands stupidity - and gets it. It demands stupidity from political leaders too, as they try to forge their compromises with reality.

In this sense, sceptics are those who in their various ways resist compromise. It isn’t a matter of intelligence or the ability to understand complex reasoning, but a refusal or merely a sufficiently strong reluctance to compromise reason, experience and what is already known.

We know what's better for you

 

Mandatory Bungling

UN hails rare climate success story as emissions from construction stop rising

The annual review from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), published on Monday, showed global emissions from construction in 2024 remained at the same rate as in 2023, despite continued urbanisation...

The UN report sets out targets for governments to accelerate this action. It calls on major carbon-emitting nations to adopt mandatory zero-carbon building codes by 2028, with all other countries following no later than 2035. These energy codes would require new buildings to produce zero net emissions, cutting future greenhouse gas output.

Not great news for Starmer's target of 1.5 millions homes built in England over this Parliament. It looks even more shaky than it did when first proclaimed, or has the original proclamation been lost yet? 

As this ludicrous target becomes more and more entangled in the sticky webs of reality, maybe we'll be treated to a three-cornered responsibility scrap between Angela, Ed and Keir. 

Let us hope so, may as well eke some entertainment out of what seems like the inexorable nature of our decline.

Bring your own cement

Empty promises: N. Korean schools force students to bring their own cement despite state ‘support’

Even teachers scoff at "school support month"—just empty talk while repair costs are passed directly to students and parents, according to a source

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has promoted educational activities as the “No. 1 affair of state” and emphasized state support, but the burden of supporting schools still falls entirely on students and parents, Daily NK has learned.

An elementary school in Tongnim county recently required students to bring sand or cement to renovate the school before the new semester begins in April. Students were tasked with providing materials to fix deteriorated floors that emit dust.

Goat Yoga

Unfortunately, all the May 2025 goat yoga sessions at Chatsworth in Derbyshire are sold out.


About the Session

Join us to enjoy the easy going freedom of yoga with our goats.

We're combining the practice of yoga asana (postures) with the enjoyment of baby goats at the Chatsworth Farmyard. This practice will be full of fun and laughter, as goats roam freely around and on you as you practice your poses in our outdoor paddock.


A pity, Keir Starmer's Cabinet might have benefitted from a goat yoga session. It could lead at least a few of them towards a more contemplative view of politics and even life as it is actually lived. 

Although donkey yoga might be more appropriate for Starmer's Cabinet - or lion yoga.

Nuts

Doctors ‘overdiagnosing’ mental health conditions, says Streeting

Health Secretary Wes Streeting has said doctors are “overdiagnosing” mental health conditions.

Asked whether he thought this was a problem, he said: “I want to follow the evidence and I agree with that point about overdiagnosis.”


It's quite a well known problem. Many doctors suffer from malingerphobia, a morbid fear of malingerers. Too often, their reaction to a suspected malingerer is to slap on a possible mental diagnosis and refer them to the psychiatric bods, merely to get the supposed malingerer out of the surgery.

Unfortunately, malingerphobia leads to exactly this problem, the “overdiagnosing” of mental health conditions. There has been a case where someone applying for the job of GP receptionist was mistakenly identified as a malingerer, diagnosed as a bit bonkers and shoved off for psychiatric assessment. 

Sadly, the error was never identified and the would-be receptionist never worked again.

The Wrongest Man Again

Carney wastes no time tearing into Trump, but can he save Canada from becoming America's 51st state?

Donald Trump's second term has begun with him tearing up the established rules-based order in the West in pursuit of his own foreign policy. This includes wanting to take control of Greenland and the Panama Canal, and starting trade wars with once close allies.

A Climate Depot piece previously quoted in January is worth another look.

Mark Carney: The Wrongest Man at the Wrongest Time Ever – Climate-activist banker seeks Canadian leadership

Try as I might, I cannot think of anyone—save Justin Trudeau himself—whose politics and policies are less compatible with the zeitgeist in the West at the moment than Mark Carney. Throughout Western Europe, people are fed up with leaders who favor open borders, social justice politics, and the economics of decline (as dictated by Net Zero energy policies). Carney practically embodies all of the above. He is, in so many ways, the wrong man, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. And yet…

One of two things will happen in eight weeks when the Liberal Party chooses its leader. Either Carney’s candidacy will fall flat, proving that he is too out of touch even for leftist Canadians, or it will succeed, proving that leftist Canadians desperately want to corroborate Mencken’s supposition that “democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.” If it’s the former, then perhaps Canada can resuscitate its near-depression-level economy and become a global energy leader again. If the latter, then…well…maybe President Trump has the right idea.

Just don't mention Musk

Nasa’s stranded astronauts welcome newly arrived replacements to International Space Station

Just over a day after blasting off, a SpaceX crew capsule arrived at the International Space Station on Sunday, delivering the replacements for NASA’s two stuck astronauts.

The four newcomers — representing the U.S., Japan and Russia — will spend the next few days learning the station’s ins and outs from Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. Then the two will strap into their own SpaceX capsule later this week to close out an unexpected extended mission that began last June.


times 3.12.83 reporting bb dayorder doubleplusungood refs unpersons rewrite fullwise upsub antefiling

George Orwell - Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)

Honk if you like our hobby

Protesters gathered outside Tesla dealership call for boycott

Protesters gathered outside a Tesla dealership in London have called for people to boycott the Elon Musk owned electric car maker.

Organisers are encouraging Tesla owners to sell their cars and for people to dump stock.

A small group of demonstrators at the Tesla centre in Park Royal, west London, held up banners that read “Honk if you hate Tesla” and “Enough fascist nonsense”.


One of the comments begins "Oh for goodness sake get a hobby..." but of course this is probably an example of their hobby.

Even Ed doesn't make claims like this

Beware of Email Scam Promising to Cut Energy Bills by 92%

Cybersecurity experts are warning consumers about an email scam promoting a scam email that advertises a plug-in device allegedly slashing energy bills by 92%. The email directs users to a phishing website, claiming that the product can significantly cut household energy costs by optimising electricity usage.

However, as reported by Manchester Evening News, this so-called energy-saving device has been linked to fraudulent activity, with multiple consumers experiencing unexpected charges and undelivered orders.


0/10 for this effort.

Good grief, the decline really has set in if we can't even rely on scammers to do their job properly. Some scams are now so absurd that a chap is bound to wonder if scammers know their business. 

Have they been trained correctly, through an approved scammer's apprentice scheme? Obviously not. If scammers carry on like this, we'll soon see claims about a device which supposedly cuts energy bills by over 100%. 

Ever Wondered Why Keir Starmer Is So Wooden?

Charlie Boyle has uncovered the Starmerbot secret.

Harman on diverse opinions

Labour MPs and officials briefing against work and pensions secretary should 'shut up', Baroness Harman says

The government is set to announce "radical welfare reforms" next week as it faces major concerns from Labour MPs.

Labour MPs and officials briefing against work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall should "shut up", Harriet Harman has said.


The following reflection of an English parliamentarian of long experience doubtless applies to these opinions, fixed beforehand, and rendered unalterable by electioneering necessities:

"During the fifty years that I have sat at Westminster, I have listened to thousands of speeches; but few of them have changed my opinion, not one of them has changed my vote."

Gustave Le Bon - The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1895)

So long, NHS England, and thanks for nothing

Matthew Lesh has a topical CAPX piece on Keir Starmer's 'abolition' of NHS England and a reminder that in StarmerWorld, 'abolition' doesn't necessarily mean 'abolition'.

So long, NHS England, and thanks for nothing

• The PM's NHS reform is welcome, but unlikely to reduce bureaucracy
• To sort out our healthcare system properly, it must be decentralised
• Bureaucratic restructuring is not the wholesale reform the NHS needs

NHS abolition was not on my bingo sheet for Keir Starmer’s Government. But here we are. A political earthquake. Kissinger has gone to China. The party most closely associated with Britain’s healthcare system are the ones who finally be replacing it with a much more successful European-style social insurance system. Finally, fewer Britons will die compared to world-leading healthcare systems, like Australia’s.

Reader, I have fooled you. None of this is true.

What Starmer has in fact abolished is NHS England. While this may be a gift to headline writers, it is not a radical step, it’s a bureaucratic reorganisation. A separate quango will no longer be responsible for overseeing the budget, planning and delivery along with commissioning GPs and some other services. Instead, this function will be bought in-house to the Department of Health and Social Care. The nameplates on several buildings will be changed, new stationery ordered and different email addresses in use. But fundamentally, the NHS will remain the same.


The whole piece is well worth reading as a reminder that "Sir" Keir Starmer has no notion of a world beyond the corporate state and no notion of any world beyond his ideology. This useless bureaucratic fiddling is merely a pale and irrelevant attempt to share a tiny fraction of Trump's radicalism.

Perhaps next time we read headlines about ‘NHS abolition’ it will mean something a bit more meaningful than a bureaucratic restructure.

Rab goes to hospital

 

Flabby

Starmer: I will tackle our flabby state

Sir Keir Starmer has warned that the British state has become “overcautious and flabby”.

“People want a state that will take care of the big questions, not a bigger state that asks more from them,” he says. “We need to be operating at maximum efficiency and strength.

“I believe in the power of the state. I’m not interested in ideological arguments about whether it should be bigger or smaller. I simply want it to work.”

He says that the state was at its best – “dynamic, strong and urgent” – in response to last summer’s riots, but admits: “That’s not the state that most people will recognise”.

"I believe in the power of the state" - we knew that, but therein lies the problem, that and mendacity, incompetence, lack of experience, futile ideology, censoring the dissident, inadequate colleagues, a fractured culture, failing policies, misplaced public optimism, dishonest media, too many narcissists, poor advice, too many quangos, a lack of accountability and an absurd reliance on slogans. 

For example, what the blue blazes was “dynamic, strong and urgent” if it wasn't good evidence of an automatic instinct towards censorship and repression? 

There's always one

My Postman's hairdresser has an aunt and her cousin has a brother in law who lives three doors away from a man who thinks that Starmer may be doing a good job.

From Alan H

Electric Stupidity

Just Stop Oil activists pour orange liquid over robot at Elon Musk's Tesla store in London

Just Stop Oil activists urging “shut down the fascists” have poured orange liquid over a robot at Elon Musk’s Telsa store in London.

Two Just Stop Oil protesters poured orange liquid latex over an Optimus robot at the Westfield Tesla store on Wednesday, demanding the UK government phase out fossil fuel burning by 2030, the protest group said.


However amusing this silly protest against an electric car manufacturer might be, it is easy to agree with Dietrich Bonhoeffer about the dangers of unrestrained stupidity. 

Eccentric as they seem now, there is something sinister about people so willing to believe and act on totalitarian political nonsense. Their somewhat pitiful stupidity is also a pointer to the vastly more sinister stupidity of people behind them. 

Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer - After Ten Years (2017)

Looking after things

Labour axes one quango – after creating 27

Sir Keir Starmer has announced plans to scrap one quango – after the Labour Government he heads created 27 in eight months.

The Prime Minister said he would “abolish” the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR), which looks after payment systems such as Mastercard, to reduce the burdens on business and promote growth.

It will, however, merely be merged into another quango, the Financial Conduct Authority.


Ah, so he hasn't scrapped it, merely merged it. I didn't know there was a Payment Systems Regulator looking after payment systems such as Mastercard. A chap is bound to wonder what 'looking after' means here. Hmm...

I hope 'looking after' isn't anything like Rachel from Accounts 'looking after' our taxes...

Or David Lammy 'looking after' Chagos...

Or Yvette Cooper 'looking after' the immigration debacle...

Or Bridget Phillipson 'looking after' private education...

Or Angela Rayner 'looking after' housing policy...

Or Ed Miliband 'looking after' UK energy...

Or Lord Alli 'looking after' the Starmer wardrobe.

Or...

Miracles

Religious TV channel Word Network fined £150,000 over claim miracle water product can cure cancer, says Ofcom

An instructional video told viewers to order the water "then place your hands on your bills, legal papers, credit cards and loved ones", according to the broadcasting watchdog.

The episodes in May 2023 promoted a 'Miracle Spring Water' product and implied it could "improve serious health conditions or financial situations", according to Ofcom.


Blimey, this is even worse than charlatans who claim they can, in an apparently mystical sense, lay their hands on the UK economy and create economic growth by the miracle of 'turbocharging'.

Fortunately we may be fairly confident that Ed Miliband isn't relying on "Miracle Spring Water" to turbocharge our energy supplies. Ed has put his faith in... er... Greta?

By gum this is gross

Children call for MPs to act on climate justice

Young climate justice campaigners from around the UK have shared their message with MPs at an art exhibition in Parliament.

Schools up and down the country have been getting Creative for Climate Justice – an initiative which helps young people raise their voices in a call for a fairer and greener future for all.

The scheme is a partnership between CAFOD, Christian Aid, Oxfam GB, Send My Friend to School; and the Royal Society of Literature, with support from The Climate Coalition.


The finest childlike faces have this consecrating power, and make us shudder anew at all the grossness and basely-wrought griefs of the world, lest they should enter here and defile.

George Eliot - Daniel Deronda (1876)

Follow the money

 

Like a blue-bottle

Chancellor dealt major blow as business confidence sinks: Bad news for Reeves ahead of Spring Statement

Rachel Reeves was dealt a further blow last night as figures showed business optimism had plummeted to its lowest level in four years...

The figure tumbled to 91.4 – the lowest since January 2021 – from 92.2 in December. A reading of 100 is average, while a gauge below 95 is negative.


The lowest since January 2021 eh? So Rachel from Accounts has managed to reduce business confidence to a pandemic level.

Blimey.


A stupid woman, now, would insist on going over the whole thing again, like a blue-bottle that starts in banging about the room after you're sure you've driven it out of the window.

Edith Wharton – The Children (1928)

Nope - go to the source

Drivers ‘confused’ by transition to electric motoring, ministers warned

Many drivers are “confused” by the transition to electric motoring, ministers have been told.

The AA said most drivers are “not hostile” to electric vehicles (EV) but more incentives are required to boost demand.

A survey of more than 14,000 of its members indicated many are unclear about the shift to EVs.

Nope - go to the source. With a few exceptions, the Blob is where confusion reigns supreme, beginning with almost the entire political class from Ed Miliband upwards.

Out of control

Use of Human Rights Act in immigration cases ‘out of control’, Conservatives say

he use of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in immigration cases is “out of control”, the shadow home secretary has said, as the Conservative Party will push for it not to apply in immigration decisions.

Chris Philp said Parliament has been “circumvented” by the ECHR and those presiding over tribunals were not using enough “common sense”.

It has been obvious for a long time that the Blob is out of control and whatever they are promised, voters have no evidence that major political parties intend to resolve the problem. If past experience counts as evidence, then it suggests that the major parties will carry on lying to us.

Political parties are out of control too and to a good approximation, voters have no influence over them.

Investing In Twaddle

I've only skimmed this info on the UKSPF - UK Shared Prosperity Fund. It's a pleasant sunny morning here in our bit of Derbyshire, so skimming loads of twaddle is as far as I'm going. The words 'investment' or 'invest' occur 186 times, but the overall impression is of government bureaucracy spinning webs of patronage via too much twaddle. 

UK Shared Prosperity Fund: prospectus

1.1 What is the UK Shared Prosperity Fund?

The UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF or the Fund) is a central pillar of the UK government’s ambitious Levelling Up agenda and a significant component of its support for places across the UK. It provides £2.6 billion of new funding for local investment by March 2025, with all areas of the UK receiving an allocation from the Fund via a funding formula rather than a competition. It will help places right across the country deliver enhanced outcomes and recognises that even the most affluent parts of the UK contain pockets of deprivation and need support.

It seizes the opportunities of leaving the European Union, by investing in domestic priorities and targeting funding where it is needed most: building pride in place, supporting high quality skills training, supporting pay, employment and productivity growth and increasing life chances. It will reduce the levels of bureaucracy and funding spent on administration when compared with EU funds. It will enable truly local decision making and better target the priorities of places within the UK. It will lead to visible, tangible improvements to the places where people work and live, alongside investment in human capital, giving communities up and down the UK more reasons to be proud of their area.

Places will be empowered to identify and build on their own strengths and needs at a local level, focused on pride in place and increasing life chances. Local places will be able to use the Fund to complement funding such as the Levelling Up Fund, and mainstream employment and skills provision to maximise impact and simplify delivery.

The Fund’s interventions will be planned and delivered by councils and mayoral authorities across England, Scotland and Wales – ‘lead local authorities’, working closely with local partners and the Scottish and Welsh governments.

Lib Dems coming up on the inside

 

Britain must lower the cost of crime

James Vitali has a useful Critic reminder about the cost of UK crime, our weak and ineffectual approach to it and the inevitable consequences.


Britain must lower the cost of crime

The lawful majority are suffering from the effects of the criminal minority

Before anything else, the first duty of government is to keep its citizens safe – from external threats and from the injuries of others. Indeed, that is why we have government in the first place; we establish it because alone we are unable to provide for our own safety.

Order and security are the prerequisites for all other societal goods. We frequently think of liberty and order as somehow mutually exclusive, but actually, they are mutually constitutive; we cannot truly live a life of freedom and prosperity until we are confident that we will not be arbitrarily deprived of our life, liberty or property by criminals, or threatened and intimidated by foreign actors.

Governments can fail in other areas of policy. Citizens can tolerate low economic growth for at least some period. They can put up for a time with an irrational tax system or a self-defeating energy policy. But when government fails in this core competency to protect its citizens, it is an issue of an altogether greater magnitude.


All very familiar, but it is well worth reading the whole piece as a reminder of how unserious modern UK governments and the political class have become. 

Unserious in the sense of being weakly evasive when it comes to tackling serious problems. Unserious reliance on misleading language, unserious meddling with trivial issues of social behaviour, unserious in the promotion of facile noble causes which are neither causes nor noble.


More people need to be put behind bars, not fewer. To give communities a break, repeat offenders deserve tougher sentences. And we need to get smarter at policing at both the tactical and strategic levels. Tried and tested policing methods like stop and search need to be pursued without fear or favour, and police forces should focus more on those hotspot areas that attract the most crime.