Liar Lies Shock Horror

No 10 denies Reeves 'lied about £21bn black hole' before budget

Rachel Reeves has been accused of “lying” to the public about the state of the country’s finances to justify £26 billion in tax hikes announced in her Autumn Budget...

But it has since emerged that Ms Reeves made those comments just days after receiving a letter from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) stating that the economic outlook had improved and that, rather than a deficit, she in fact had a £4.2 billion surplus.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the letter showed Ms Reeves had "lied to the public" and was “bribing Labour MPs to save her own skin”, as she called for her to be sacked.


Does it matter? This is Rachel from Accounts being criticised here. Nobody with even a modest degree of acumen is likely to pay attention to her tedious mendacity.

She emits economic numbers no moderately alert person would ever believe. She concocts facile strings of reasoning which aren't likely to convince a single MP, journalist, grounded observer or even a BBC presenter.

Nobody paying attention is surprised, shocked or even particularly interested. Rachel from Accounts is widely known to be habitually dishonest, so nobody who knows anything is listening to her within the framework of mendacity she erected. Her verbiage is reported because stories still have to be churned out, but that's it.

When the BBC Might as Well be Replaced With AI

A short piece in Climate Skeptic where Chris Morrison makes an interesting point about the BBC and Net Zero. Interesting because the point made won't stop there. 


If the BBC Never Questions Net Zero it Might as Well be Replaced With Cheaper AI

What's the point of employing so many journalists just to regurgitate the official line?...

Opinions may differ, but suitably prompted AI could easily replicate much of the climate output of the BBC over the last two decades.

Satisfaction Almost Guaranteed

As Keir Starmer clings onto power with regular cascades of mendacious drivel, there must be some satisfaction for him, something to outweigh the unpleasant aspects of being widely despised as an absurdly dishonest bungler.

The cardboard knighthood, the office, chauffer-driven cars, security, international trips, photo opportunities, they must inject some satisfaction into the willing veins of certain people and Keir Starmer must be one of those people.

The role of a modern UK Prime Minister may be as fake as a nine pound note but the satisfaction must be enough to convince Starmer that he has achieved something worthwhile. 

He hasn't achieved anything worthwhile at all, but the State chooses to wrap him in a Prime Ministerial cocoon which tells him otherwise and he goes along with it.

For now.

It's a weird world

Government ‘not in favour’ of controversial efforts to dim the sun

Ministers have expressed their opposition to efforts to reflect more of the sun’s rays back into space, noting they are “not in favour”.

Commons Leader Sir Alan Campbell warned that solar radiation modification could expose the climate and environment to "risks", after a Labour MP called for a debate on geoengineering experiment rules.


It's a weird world where shamelessly useless fund-hunting can be upgraded to 'controversial'.

We sometimes choose absolute nonsense

Starmer insists Labour 'kept to our manifesto' despite record-breaking tax rises

He said it was "not true" his government has misled the public after promising not to raise taxes again after last year's budget.

And he refused multiple times to say he had broken his manifesto promise not to raise income tax, national insurance or VAT "on working people".

"We kept to our manifesto in terms of what we've promised," he said.

"But I accept the challenge that we've asked everybody to contribute. I want to be really clear on why we've done that," Sir Keir continued.

"That is because we need to protect our NHS, to make sure that it's there for people when they need it and their families when they need it.

"Secondly, to make sure we've got the money to put into our schools. So every single child can go as far as their talent will take them," the prime minister added.


He knows it's nonsense, but having painted himself into a corner he is willing to make use of nonsense as a simple enough way to deny that he has any knowledge of corners or painting. 

Yet it leads directly to Starmer coming across as ever more foolish, both for painting himself into a corner and for denying it with ludicrously obvious dollops of nonsense. 

As a political tool, even nonsense has its limits, the point where no advantages are gained from using more of it. 

 

Our choice is usually mistaken from a false view of our advantage. We sometimes choose absolute nonsense because in our foolishness we see in that nonsense the easiest means for attaining a supposed advantage.

Fyodor Dostoevsky - Notes from Underground (1864)

Clickbait headlines are everywhere

NASA Scientists Discover DNA & RNA in Asteroid Bennu

In a remarkable scientific breakthrough, NASA has confirmed that samples returned from asteroid Bennu contain all five nucleobases used to build DNA and RNA, alongside 14 amino acids essential for life as we know it...

The building blocks of life, specifically adenine, guanine, cytosine, uracil, and thymine, were identified inside briny mineral deposits in the asteroid’s dust and rocks. This suggests Bennu, or its ancient parent body, once hosted small bodies of water.

It's a most interesting finding and the whole article is well worth reading, but why bung such an obvious exaggeration into the headline? DNA and RNA haven't been discovered in samples returned from asteroid Bennu, but clickbait rules presumably.

Clickbait headlines are everywhere, degrading everything they touch, even worthwhile articles and stories.

A great question indeed.

Climate Depot’s Marc Morano’s statement on COP30’s ending:

“Thank You, Mr. President! Trump’s masterclass move not to send U.S. delegation, blamed for failure of UN climate summit!” – (See: POLITICO: ‘The U.S. absence allowed’ BRICS nations & petro-states to team up to derail COP30)

“I have attended in-person 21 out of the past 23 international UN climate/environmental summits. I can declare that after spending a week in Brazil at COP30, it was the biggest UN climate sh*t-show ever! Thank God, President Trump chose not to send an official U.S. delegation to the UN climate summit for the first time in its history! (I was part of CFACT’s self-declared ‘unofficial’ U.S. delegation in Belém, Brazil) America’s absence helped speed along the total irrelevance of this 30th annual UN climate summit.)

The UN COP30 failure was so spectacular that even the mainstream media could not paper over it. POLITICO cited a European government official asking: ‘What the f*ck are we even doing here?’ A great question indeed.

Musk's 5-step algorithm for running companies

 

Make money from recycled twaddle

Reeves to hammer London in Budget tax grab on homeowners and workers

Ahead of delivering her Budget speech in the Commons on Wednesday, Ms Reeves said: “Today I will take the fair and necessary choices to deliver on our promise of change.

“I will not return Britain back to austerity, nor will I lose control of public spending with reckless borrowing.

“I will take action to help families with the cost of living, cut hospital waiting lists, cut the national debt.

“And I will push ahead with the biggest drive for growth in a generation.”

I've just remembered that today is the Big Day for Rachel from Accounts.

Let us hope it's her last.

And Starmer's.

Slow Learners

BBC cuts Trump criticism after bias row

The BBC has been forced to cut a line from its Reith Lectures calling Donald Trump “the most openly corrupt president in American history”.

Rutger Bregman, a Dutch Left-wing historian and philosopher, was invited to give the BBC lecture at Broadcasting House last month.

But when his speech was broadcast on Radio 4 on Tuesday morning, his description of the US president was edited out following legal advice.


By gum, I bet that lesson took some swallowing by BBC sloths. It's not only the bias, it's a bland refusal to adapt which ought to seal the fate of the BBC.


Bregman previously made an appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2019, berating the attendees for refusing to address “the real issue of tax avoidance by the rich”.

His 2017 book, Utopia for Realists, advocated for open borders and a 15-hour working week.

Unbearably vain and destructive

Dame Joanna Lumley describes humans as ‘unbearably vain and destructive’

Dame Joanna Lumley has bemoaned humans for being “unbearably vain and destructive”.

The actress, who stars in the upcoming A Ghost Story For Christmas: The Room In The Tower, said she loves “frightening stories”.

“I do believe that there are ghosts,” she told the Radio Times.


Two of the most persistently destructive aspects of social and political life are virtue-signalling and the vanity which encourages it.

I didn't realise she's a Dame, nothing vain about accepting that of course.

But Foma has control of our media and publishing

James Martin Charlton has a topical Critic piece on Dostoyevsky’s depiction of what has become a pervasive modern pest - the virtue-signalling activist.


How Dostoyevsky dissected activistic hypocrites

Dostoyevsky’s outrageous grotesque now runs riot in our institutions

Over the past decade or so, a very particular type of character has made its presence known in many of our offices and institutions, veritably tyrannising our lives. Countless numbers of us have suffered this type in silence or experienced humiliations — or worse — at their hands. Only now are they being acknowledged, as articles appear on activist capture, notably at the BBC. Yet readers of one of Dostoyevsky’s lesser-known novels will recognise the type, epitomised by the compellingly awful Foma Fomich Opiskin in the early novel The Village of Stepanchikovo...

We recognise Foma immediately as the pattern of the office and institutional activist. For Foma advertises his virtuous capacity for seeing past stale conventions to create a more egalitarian society. It is this self-proclamation as an avatar of a better world which has impressed his host’s mother and others, and even seems to have drawn in the colonel. For Foma turns the colonel’s instinct towards fairness against him, guilt-tripping his host for perceived slights.


The whole piece is well worth reading, even for those who haven't read the book. Worth reading not only as a reminder that virtue-signalling activists aren't a new problem, but also a reminder that we probably have even more of the pernicious pests. The BBC is full of them.


Foma is a character on a par with Shakespeare’s portraits of overweening rogues; he has something of Malvolio’s Puritan scornfulness, Iago’s manipulative genius and Parolles’ bravado and cowardice. He also bears a strong resemblance to Molière’s Tartuffe. Contemporary stages, sitcoms and novels should be full of Foma’s likenesses, mirroring and mocking our encounters with them in reality. But Foma has control of our media and publishing just as he did the colonel’s household. We must on no account allow him to become the fixture Dostoyevsky pictures him becoming in the Stepanchikovo estate. For if we cannot resist this mere popinjay, how will we resist the Demons that Dostoyevsky shows us to be following him?

And more would go if they could

Labour’s taxes are driving people out of Britain, Business Secretary admits

Labour’s tax rises are forcing wealthy people to flee Britain, the Business Secretary has admitted.

Peter Kyle said he was not going to “duck the fact” that individuals of a high net worth had been driven out by Rachel Reeves’s tax raid on non-doms.

He also said entrepreneurs were abandoning the UK “in their droves” because they “haven’t had the funding to succeed”...

Some 257,000 British nationals quit the UK in the year ending December last year – more than three times the previous estimate of 77,000.

The trend is unlikely to be a purely practical matter of taxation and failure to reduce obstacles to economic growth. Mostly that perhaps, but not entirely. 

A visceral desire to escape this absurd Labour government and its contemptible, tin-eared incompetence must be another factor for competent people who can leave.

We don’t need no stinkin’ awareness

Consciousness is inference Karl Friston once wrote. A useful idea which can take us along some strange but strangely familiar paths.

For example, anyone disposed to accept a statement passed on by a social consensus or political party may easily sidestep the need to verify the statement via inference. When inference isn’t needed, neither is a conscious awareness that the statement only relies on consensus.

The consensus says – We don’t need no stinkin’ inference.

If inference is consciousness and consciousness is inference then to control inference is to control consciousness. Those who merely accept a consensus may not be fully conscious of good alternatives.

The consensus says – We don’t need no stinkin’ alternatives.

A slogan or mantra may be crude and inaccurate as a statement about the real world, but simple enough to bypass inference. In bypassing inference, awareness of the crudity and inaccuracy is also likely to be bypassed.

The consensus says – We don’t need no stinkin’ awareness.

What is happening here transcends incompetence.

Countries agree compromise climate deal at COP30 - but omit mention of fossil fuels

The deal would boost finance for poor nations coping with global warming, but it fails to namecheck the fossil fuels driving it.

As the United Nations summit wrapped up in Brazil, applause masked disappointment in the many weak parts of the agreement...

Panama negotiator Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez said: "A climate decision that cannot even say 'fossil fuels' is not neutrality, it is complicity. And what is happening here transcends incompetence."

He added: "Science has been deleted from COP30 because it offends the polluters."

Can't argue with that, COP30 does transcend incompetence, whatever that means. Science hasn't been deleted from COP30 though, it was never there. 

The clue, as Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez probably knows quite well, is that it's all about money, has been from the beginning. 

By gum this racket has been going on for a long time though.

Loser

Keir Starmer would lose to Angela Rayner according to bombshell leadership poll

Sir Keir Starmer would lose a leadership contest to Angela Rayner, polling of Labour members has revealed. More than half of party members surveyed would vote for Ms Rayner as leader if they went head to head.

Only one in three would back Sir Keir. The former deputy leader topped the poll on 52% with the Prime Minister languishing on 33%. The poll also shows that three other potential rivals - Andy Burnham, Ed Miliband and Wes Streeting - would beat Sir Keir in a head-to-head contest.

Not surprising but it isn't easy to know what to say about the possibility of Seaside Ange becoming Prime Minister.

Unfortunately, alternative possibilities offer no reasons to be cheerful. The most remarkable aspect of it all is that there are enough Labour members left to be worth polling.

Starmer addresses G19

Starmer addresses G20 summit - but Trump boycotts talks

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is in Johannesburg for the summit - and he spoke about the bloc's "critical" importance on its first day...

"Growth must be a mission for us all to embrace as the means to improve lives, fund public services and to keep our people secure.

"The G20 has worked together before to fix fundamental problems in the global economy. We need to find ways to play a constructive role again today in the face of the world challenges.

"I'd like to see us come together around a five-point plan for growth that leaves no one behind."


Ah yes, that's Starmer-talk, a five-point plan. Could be turbocharged as well, but we can't have everything.  

Meanwhile a more sensible approach -

Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, skipped a foreign ministers meeting in February, and said that he would not waste American taxpayers money on an agenda which was focused on diversity, equity and inclusion and climate change.

Nightmare

 

'COP is a nightmare but best process we've got', says Ed Miliband as climate talks run into overtime

Countries gathered in northern Brazil are still locked in a stand-off over a deal to wean the world off fossil fuels, the main cause of the climate crisis.

Other key sticking points are cash for developing countries to adapt to more extreme weather, like drought in Afghanistan, which they have generally done little to cause.

 

Meanwhile here in the UK, Ed "Windmill" Miliband's energy policy is delivering cheap, clean power to nobody at all, just what saner minds always knew it would  deliver.

Meanwhile, Rachel from Accounts seems to be intent on making sure that the "Miliband Nightmare" is even less affordable and a just a little more scary for many people Labour is supposed to represent - not that it ever did.

I’m just trying to do my best

Rachel Reeves: ‘I’m sick of the mansplaining on how to be Chancellor'

Rachel Reeves has fired back at her critics, saying she’s “sick of people mansplaining how to be Chancellor to me.”...

She explained: “I’m not a public personality. I’m not in show business. I’m the Chancellor. If you want people to enter politics, you have to remember they’re human beings.

“I’m a mum with two kids. I’m a wife and a daughter. I wasn’t born into this, and I’m just trying to do my best.”

Oh dear, if she thinks that's an appropriate excuse for a failing Chancellor of the Exchequer, then she's a fool. 

But we knew that.

Sooner or later Keir Starmer may acquire a small spine and explain to Rachel Reeves why she has to go. Assuming he doesn't go first of course, but if he does she'll probably follow him through the notorious revolving door.

Squabblers Squabble

Sultana accused by Corbyn allies of encouraging 'ultra leftists' to disrupt Your Party conference

A spokesperson for Ms Sultana says she believes Your Party should "unite the entire left" in a row over the influence of far-left groups.

Allies of Jeremy Corbyn fear Zarah Sultana is encouraging members of far-left splinter groups to disrupt Your Party's inaugural conference...

They include the Revolutionary Communist Group, the Socialist Workers' Party (SWP) and the Socialist Party (SP).


That she was “advanced” you could also postulate, but “advanced” in a strange way that would make her all the more dangerous, if only to small circles;. You would know, if you happened to know the type, that she would have “principles” that at odd moments would wreck enterprises, homes, or the lives of friends — always for the purest of motives.

Ford Madox Ford - The Marsden Case (1923)

Run for the exits

Horror fire sparks panic at COP30 as panicked attendees 'run for exits' in frenzied scenes

A huge fire erupting during COP30 in Brazil sparked scene of panic on Thursday. Delegates were seen running for the exits after the blaze broke out in the pavilion area of a venue where UN climate talks are taking place.

UN and security crews rushed to the area to try and put out the fire, as the building was being evacuated. Firefighters also rushed to the scene to quash the flames, with social media footage showing the fire rising from the venue and smoke engulfing one of the corridors. The efforts may be aided by rain starting to fall after the blaze erupted.


It sounds as if all the delegates evacuated. The things they do for us.

Concrete Actions

Pope Leo XIV urges ‘concrete actions’ to stop climate change & says God’s creation is ‘crying out’

BELEM, Brazil (AP) — Pope Leo XIV on Monday urged countries at United Nations climate talks to take “concrete actions” to stop climate change that is threatening the planet, telling them humans are failing in their response to global warming and that God’s creation “is crying out in floods, droughts, storms and relentless heat.”

In a video message played for religious leaders gathered in Belem, Leo said nations had made progress, “but not enough.”

Not that it matters, but -

CO2 total emissions by region, 2000-2023

Behind the door we don’t open

Starmer announces national summit on challenges facing men and boys

Sir Keir Starmer has announced that his Government will hold a national summit on the challenges facing men and boys next year.

 

Starmeresque Landscape via AI

Do you ever have moments of political indifference where you know political games are simpler, more sordid and much bleaker than we usually admit? I do and I suspect many others do too.

I don’t mean another bout of angst, disillusion or cynical disgust. I'm rather fond of a spot of cynical disgust every now and then. Instead we could be better off making a clean breast of things - in a socially honest kind of way. The political arena is a cold, grey and inhospitable landscape, much bleaker than we care to admit – that kind of honesty.

Suppose we take political rhetoric as an obvious example. Let’s apply a bit of bleak simplicity to it.

Political rhetoric is a loose grouping of language games affecting enough people emotionally to congeal into a few political parties. Social class, taxation, health, welfare and education are enrolled to provide emotional stimuli and induce certain emotional responses. The language games cannot be rational, analytical or investigative or they would lose the emotional crudity they need to congeal and survive.

It is not necessarily productive to pursue this argument as an argument, but as an example of how we could easily and consistently analyse political rhetoric into nothing but language games designed to persuade by inducing emotional responses. The details of how language games gain political traction may be complex, diffuse and fragmented, but once they are established, the analysis is simple. Bleakly uninvolved but simple.

This kind of bleakly uninvolved approach isn’t new and I suspect substantial numbers of people have always teetered on the edge of it from time to time. But most of us don’t quite take the plunge, because to do so would deprive us of interesting, if frustrating political discourse.

Maybe the bleak political landscape lies behind the door we don’t open, the one we are aware of but prefer to leave closed and in many cases locked. Behind the door there are no comfort zones, only bleak reality.

Voting is Weird

Voting for a UK political party is weird. It’s not like getting a plumber to fix the leak under the sink. If the plumber bodges the job, causes a major flood, ruins a carpet and clears off without fixing the leak, we don’t use him again.

If we vote a political party into government and it fails to deliver any of its pre-election promises, squanders vast amounts of taxpayers’ money and makes a shambles of everything it touches, millions of loyal voters will still vote for it again.

That’s weird.

To verify compliance

North Korea launches multi-child family inspection campaign as officials visit homes to renew certificates

Visitation teams are checking whether families have valid certificates and if mothers are actually receiving reduced work hours and doubled vacation days promised by the regime

North Korea’s Central Committee has ordered provincial party committees to pay special attention to families with multiple children, dispatching “visitation teams” to homes to verify compliance with pro-natalist policies and renew family certificates that previously required parents to visit government offices themselves.

So backward, surely it would be much easier to verify compliance with a digital ID system. North Korea should invite Keir Starmer and his team over for a prolonged visit.

Leading the Charge

UK Border Stops £500m Fake Goods Influx — Guess Which Countries Are Leading the Charge?

Over the past three years, UK borders have intercepted counterfeit goods worth over £500 million, mainly from China, Hong Kong, and Turkey. The figures expose a sophisticated shift by criminals towards high-value, less voluminous fakes that pose increasing risks to British consumers and businesses...

Faced with such a vast and borderless threat, it is clear that simply seizing goods at the border is not enough. Officials emphasise that effective action requires strong international partnerships between industry, government, and law enforcement to disrupt criminal supply chains at their source.


Cynical guesswork here, but what we also see is an official incentive structure where failing to solve the counterfeit goods problem is what keeps official career structures in place.

Monitoring, seizures and intelligence gathering will provide what seems to be a vital service and to a significant degree it will be just that. Yet the inevitable incentive structure will ensure that enforcement never goes far enough to endanger the bureaucracy and knock a few rungs out of official career ladders.

Kept in a cloud environment

Digital ID data will all be hosted in UK, minister claims

As it continues to face a litany of questions seeking details of the planned identity regime, the government has now indicated that the supporting infrastructure will be on UK shores

While data related to new virtual identity – use of which will be a mandatory part of all pre-employment checks – will be kept in a cloud environment, the physical datacentre facilities used for this storage will be situated in the UK, according to junior Cabinet Office minister Josh Simons.

All powered by Ed's vitally important, saving the planet for future generations, sustainable energy policies of course. Anything else would be inconsistent, hypocritical heat-doom...

But in that case, does this development imply that our digital identities are likely to disappear during dark nights when there there is little or no wind?

Well of course not, Ed's twaddle is just twaddle when it comes to anything important. The datacentre facilities won't rely on Ed's sustainable energy, not for something as vital as digital Orwellian infrastructure.

Preposterous

Is there after all a key to the preposterous enigma of the universe?

Arnold Bennett - Imperial Palace (1930)


Even the question seems mildly preposterous, but perhaps there is a preposterous aspect to the universe.

What is it for?
What's the point of it?

Where does Keir Starmer fit in?

Starmer has complete confidence in Starmer

Starmer vows to lead Labour into next election despite terrible polls

Sir Keir Starmer has insisted he will lead Labour into the next general election - as a poll suggested only a third of his own voters want him to.

The Prime Minister said he was “utterly focused” on tackling the cost of living, as he warned Labour against wasting time on leadership rows.

Sir Keir used a Mirror interview to attempt to silence doubts about his position, after the extraordinary briefing war last week over suggestions Health Secretary Wes Streeting was plotting a leadership challenge.

His gravity was unusual, portentous, and immeasurable, not because he admitted any doubt of himself but because he perceived it necessary to forestall any doubt of himself in others. And herein he ranged with that very numerous class of impostors who are quite as determined to keep up appearances to themselves, as to their neighbours.

Charles Dickens – Our Mutual Friend (1864-1865)

Surely Not

 

Two Headlines

Climate change means many kids in Lancashire no longer have sledges in the shed

Anyone still in doubt about the impact of climate change should think back to the winters of the 90s when sledges were found in the sheds of most Lancashire families.

Rising temperatures due to climate change has led to milder winters and fewer occasions when schools are closed, youngsters can go sledging and cars had to be dug out of the drifts.

Lancs warned to brace for snow this week as weather chart predicts freeze

People in Lancs are being warned to prepare for snow as new weather maps predict 50 UK counties will be blanketed when temperatures plummet this week.

The warning arrives as the Met Office expects the freezing blast to bring temperatures as cold as -7C to multiple regions as Arctic air arrives from the north.

Neither Civil Nor Service

Civil Service employing at least 500 diversity officers

At least 500 civil servants are employed across Government to police and develop diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) policies, The Telegraph can reveal.

Some Whitehall departments have seen the numbers of staff whose jobs involve overseeing equality, diversity, inclusion, gender, LGBT or race policies double in the past year since Labour came to power.

The figures have only been extracted from Whitehall after a two-year battle by the MP Neil O’Brien, who used freedom of information (FOI) laws and parliamentary questions to counter attempts by officials and ministers to block the release of the figures. They are an underestimate as some departments have still refused to answer.

All young men yearn at times for some place where there will be no work to do, and it speaks volumes for the happy administration of this realm that every young man in his yearning fondly turns his eyes to the Civil Service.

Walter Besant - The Eulogy of Richard Jefferies (1888)

The depressing question

Rayner plots move against Starmer

Angela Rayner is laying the groundwork for a leadership challenge against Sir Keir Starmer.

The former deputy prime minister and housing secretary is already offering Cabinet roles to MPs in exchange for their support, The Telegraph has been told.

A source familiar with Ms Rayner’s moves said she was “on manoeuvres” and was “getting her ducks in a row” for a leadership bid, adding: “The unions will back her and help her.”

Ms Rayner has also joined Tribune, a pressure group of MPs on the soft Left of the Labour Party, led by the architects of the welfare rebellion.

One problem with Starmer and his Labour regime is the depressing question - does the party have anyone who would be a more capable Prime Minister than Keir Starmer? He seems to have chosen his Cabinet in such a way that the question of a challenger is particularly difficult.

Seaside Ange on manoeuvres raises the question yet again and it isn't an easy one to answer. She has baggage but so does Starmer. She is ideologically limited but so is Starmer and Rayner may not be as ideologically intransigent. 

Strewth what a possibility though -

 

The ship goes down but the band plays on

BBC journalist probed by secret services over China spying allegations

A BBC journalist is under investigation by the UK’s security services over alleged links to Chinese espionage, according to reports.

Sources told the Mail on Sunday that the journalist is suspected of cultivating potential targets for a hostile state while previously working in Brussels for another media outlet.

The person remains employed by the BBC, which has refused the Mail’s request for comment.

We're off to Sainsbury's soon. We don't eat popcorn, but may increase our stock of dark chocolate. In spite of everything, life threatens to become amusing. 

If Seaside Ange elbows her way back into the political circus, this winter could become quite jolly. Until the bills come in I suppose. 

The ship goes down but the band plays on.

Modern Britain In Four Headlines

Labour civil war erupts as MP breaks ranks calling for Keir Starmer to be replaced

Blackburn MP quits Jeremy Corbyn's new party due to 'infighting'

BBC must get its house in order, Starmer to tell Trump

Peter Mandelson spotted peeing in public as he's stripped of honour

The desire to be what we're not

Inevitable perhaps, but that 'fake admiral' chap with the uniform which doesn't fit properly has been arrested.

 
All we know about the Remembrance Sunday ‘fake admiral’ after police charge man

A man has been charged after an alleged military imposter wore the uniform of a Royal Navy rear admiral at a Remembrance Day ceremony.

Jonathan Carley, 64, from Harlech, Gwynedd, has been charged with wearing uniform or dress bearing the mark of His Majesty’s Forces without permission.

He will appear at Caernarfon Magistrates’ Court on December 11.


Strange thing to do, poor chap, but it's the kind of thing which has happened before in various parades. I recall a similar case round here some years ago where a bloke wore medals he'd bought but hadn't been awarded.

It's not a particularly valid comparison, but I'm reminded of our 'Prime Minister' with his absurd knighthood, gifted clothing, worthless speeches, empty promises and feeble attempts at being a real statesman.

Not a particularly valid comparison, but there is something there because we all know it to some degree, the desire to be what we're not.

The internet’s most powerful propaganda tool

 

Superior is Superior

Suppose over recent decades, there has been a significant decline in the social status of a broadly factual outlook plus a decline in curiosity about the real world. Suppose whole classes of superior persons are rising above the factual strata of the industrial revolution. Not a wildly unreasonable supposition perhaps.

Taking it further, we are seeing a particularly damaging development for the technical, factual culture we inherited – in many important areas, social superiority now carries more weight than truth.

It always did of course, but upper classes willingly promoted and absorbed the science, engineering, discoveries, inventions and wealth which went with the industrial revolution. Now the social value of it all has levelled off, socially superior classes have as much as they need and the weight of social superiority has reasserted itself. To be superior has more social value than veracity.

The Superior person does not search for better explanations of how the world works, the superior person merely asserts explanations consistent with superiority. Some narratives supporting superior explanations are difficult for practical folk to digest because they are nonsense. This does not undermine superior explanations, it enhances their superior credentials. 

Superior explanations rely on social credentials, not supporting evidence. Not that this is a drastic change, but now life has become exceedingly comfortable for elites, it has become advantageous to reassert the value of social credentials over facts. The technical stuff is done, superior people have enough of that thank you very much.

Starmer denies something again - key points

Starmer denies No 10 aides to blame for attack on Streeting: Latest

Key points

• Starmer warns his senior team that anyone briefing against ministers will be fired
• 'Voters don't give two monkeys': Streeting refuses to discuss Labour briefing war
• Aides tell Starmer briefing didn't come from them
• Reeves responds to slow GDP figures
• Shadow chancellor says PM and chancellor 'are in office but not in power'
• PM is going 'nowhere' says former Labour comms chief
• Britain rapidly going down the drain*

* I added the last one, thought it deserved a mention.

The BBC must lose

Kevin Myers has a powerful Brussels Signal piece on the BBC/Trump debacle.


Theodore Roosevelt urged, Speak softly and carry a big stick. Donald Trump urges: Bellow like hell and swing a two-handed, double-edged, nuclear-tipped claymore. Different forays, different mores. So MAGA takes on the taxpayer-subsidised cult that is the BBC, the Battle of the Capitals, and by God, the Beeb deserves whatever it gets. It is a cult that lies repeatedly, but operating at so many levels of dysfunctionality that it can blandly deny “knowledge” about the many things that it really should know. Yet when dissenters to its liberal dogmas are being interviewed, they can usually expect a well-researched gotcha gin-trap, that will leave an interviewee limping out of the studio and a small smirk sewn onto an interviewer’s face.

Yes we know about BBC bias and dishonesty, but it's well worth reading the whole piece because a dose of healthy vituperation can be good for the soul. It's good for mine anyway.

So the BBC’s armed forays into the language and culture wars in the liberal interest reveal the power of the schismatic toxins within the anglophone world. Trump’s extraordinary achievement has been to recognise the loathing that ordinary people feel for these liberal disorders and to turn it into a powerful political movement. However, the triumph of Mamdani – a name that means “follower of Mohammed” (what a surprise) – has revealed not merely the limits of that power, but also the depth of the divisions within the Judaeo-Christian communities in the USA. But for now, that is a longer-term issue: Next comes the battle between the BBC and Trump. For the sake of the British people and what little remains of their values, the BBC must lose.

Zak The Alien

 

A light on the hill

Tim Davie launches fightback against BBC’s ‘enemies’

Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary, echoed Mr Davie’s sentiment in a further attempt to shore up support for the BBC, which also faces the threat of a $1bn lawsuit from Donald Trump.

In a statement to the Commons, Ms Nandy described the BBC as “a light on the hill for people here and across the world”. She declined to give her support to Sir Robbie Gibb, the former Conservative communications chief who now sits on the BBC Board and is being blamed for orchestrating a “Right-wing coup”.


A light on the hill? Strewth, that's an unfortunate image cobbled together by Ms Nandy.

Presumably "a light on the hill" is looking down on us from on high, which of course is how the BBC sees itself. It's a perspective which has become a major part of the problem while Ms Nandy seems to be too dim to shed much light on anything.

The word "fightback" wasn't well chosen either as the word "fight" was a key insert in the catastrophic spliced video debacle. Was the splicing done on the same hill?

The Institute of Positive Mediocrity

Introduction

Here at the Institute of Positive Mediocrity we have devised a number of interactive courses for ambitious and self-motivated mediocrities who do not intend to allow their mediocrity to be a professional barrier to what we at the Institute call Positive Mediocrity.

Within our course modules, candidates will be presented with a number of Positive Personal Strategies towards understanding and enhancing the Mediocrity Profile which most suits their ambitions and temperament. 

We present both positive and negative Mediocrity Aspects, any two or three of which may be combined to form an Individual Mediocrity Strategy.

For example, we have –

Loud Mediocrity
Virtuous Mediocrity
Gregarious Mediocrity
Superior Mediocrity
Down to Earth Mediocrity
Fanatical Mediocrity
Vanilla Mediocrity

There are of course many other Mediocrity Aspects on offer here at the Institute, such as Scientific Mediocrity, Technical Mediocrity or Artistic Mediocrity with all their numerous subdivisions. 

However, we warn all our Mediocrities that Vanilla Mediocrity is best avoided except by advanced practitioners and should never be used without careful combination with other Mediocrity Aspects.

For example, Lisa Nandy MP has chosen to use Vanilla Mediocrity as a standalone Aspect with some success, but the weakness of this approach is still uncomfortably apparent.

Or take Jeremy Corbyn MP as another example. Mr Corbyn has chosen to combine Fanatical and Vanilla Mediocrity for decades, but again without the success other strategies might have offered

Here at the Institute we have many courses on offer from beginner to advanced. To take just one more example in this brief introduction, we tackle the thorny problem of Pompous Mediocrity, a strategy which is usually best avoided except by specialist practitioners such as senior BBC presenters.

For more information, contact the Institute of Positive Mediocrity

The ‘greater truth’

Harry Phibbs has a useful CAPX piece on the increasingly ghastly BBC. 


The BBC’s arrogance will be its downfall

• Our national broadcaster has shown itself to be a purveyor of disinformation
• Reading the BBC's politicised interpretation of events does not count as impartial news
• To survive, the BBC must take some accountability and move to a subscription model

The extent of the hubris is remarkable. The BBC has been caught out in an appalling act of disinformation. Panorama doctored a Donald Trump speech to falsely show him supporting rioting. This has been described as ‘a mistake’ – as if it were some kind of technical glitch. But the misrepresentation was clearly deliberate – Trump’s call to protest ‘peacefully’ was spliced and diced into a call to ‘fight’.

For the BBC, it was all in the cause of presenting Trump as a baddie. If there is a piece of inconvenient evidence which doesn’t fit that narrative, then it must be twisted to ensure it does. The BBC staff will smugly convince themselves this is morally justified, providing viewers with the ‘greater truth’.


BBC bias will be familiar to all but the hopelessly deluded, but the whole piece is well worth reading because Phibbs makes a key point in the above paragraph, his point about the 'greater truth'. 

This type of 'we know best' mendacity lies behind climate change, Net Zero and various threads of what generally seems to be a covert Fabian agenda. The mendacity is intentional - clearly so.

 

They’re utterly deluded

 

That's nothing

Learner driver has failed their theory test 128 times - racking up a £2,944 bill

For many people learning to drive, the journey to receiving a licence can be long and arduous.

For some, however, it is longer than others. Figures released by the AA Driving School today reveal one learner has spent £2,944 taking their theory test 128 times without success.

Another passed the exam only at the 75th attempt, which cost them more than £1,700 in total.


That's nothing, a learner politician called Ed Miliband is Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero but still doesn't know how Net Zero is supposed to work. 

Ed is 55 years old but still trying.

 

Keir Starmer explains everything

 

We don't need no stinkin' neutrality

So far, only one political leader is prepared to mount an outspoken defence of the BBC

So far, the only British political leader prepared to mount an outspoken defence of the BBC is Sir Ed Davey.

The Liberal Democrat argues that seeing the White House take credit for Mr Davie's downfall - and attacking the BBC - "should worry us all".

He's called on the PM and all British political leaders to stand united in "telling Trump to keep his hands off it".

Without bias the Lib Dems would struggle, as would all political parties, but Ed Davey has taken the unusual step of effectively admitting it. 

Scrambling to prop up the national broadcaster

BBC warned it faces 'last chance' after Trump meltdown: Labour MPs scramble to prop up the broadcaster - with Starmer silent

Ministers and Labour MPs are scrambling to prop up the national broadcaster following a direct attack from the US President overnight.

Mr Trump described Mr Davie and BBC journalists as 'very dishonest' and a 'terrible thing for democracy'.

The intervention leaves Keir Starmer - who has so far remained silent on the developments - walking a diplomatic tightrope.

If nothing else it's good to see the turmoil, accusations and finger-pointing, but I still wouldn't bet on significant reform. 

Hope I'm wrong though - what a day that would be.

It’s a technique

Often I am horrified myself when I think of my responsibility; for the Government persecutes us, and the absurd legislation that rules us is a veritable Damocles' sword over our heads.

Gustave Flaubert - Madame Bovary - 1856


Leaping gracefully from Gustave Flaubert to Rachel Reeves, we might remind ourselves that her forthcoming Budget is intended to be a Damocles' sword generating a mild sense of unease then a temporary sense of escape when it finally fails to fall.

Afterwards, life is a little worse than it need be but it trundles on with Damocles' sword still suspended over us, doing its job. 

Government persecutes us, and the absurd legislation that rules us... yes it's still absurd and it still rules us.

It’s a technique.

Assured

BBC to apologise over 'doctored' Trump speech as fresh row erupts

• BBC chairman Samir Shah expected to apologise for controversial edit of Donald Trump speech on day of Capitol riot on January 6, 2021

• Row erupts between BBC’s Nick Robinson and Boris Johnson, as the Today presenter hits out at ‘political campaign by people who want to destroy the organisation’

• Ex-PM Johnson describes his remarks as a ‘diversionary tactic’

Speaking to the Mail on Sunday later, Mr Johnson said: “There is a difference between trying to destroy the BBC and trying to hold it to account.

“This is just a diversionary tactic from an organisation that is too arrogant to think it might be at fault.”


As usual this one seems destined to rumble on until it stops rumbling. Nothing worthwhile will be done because, apart from the satisfaction of closing it down and levelling the whole sorry mess to the ground, the only worthwhile move is to require the BBC to fund itself via subscription.

It won't happen though, those who could do something have already been "assured".


Following Tuesday’s reports, Downing Street said Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy and senior officials in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport had received a copy of the memo and were “assured” by the BBC that the broadcaster will be examining the issues raised in the report.

Getaway Car

 

By asserting manifest absurdities

Maurice Cousins has a useful Critic piece on the corruption of language as a vehicle for political control, especially as it relates to the manifest absurdities of UK energy policy.


The new “enemy within”

Britain needs clear thinking and cheap energy

During the 1970 general election campaign, Enoch Powell delivered a speech in Birmingham in which he warned that Britain was under attack from what he called “the enemy within”. This enemy, he said, was not a physical adversary but a moral and intellectual one. It operated through ideas, slogans and intimidation rather than armies and violence.

Its weapon of choice was purely linguistic. By “asserting manifest absurdities as if they were self-evident truths”, elites dissolved the public’s confidence in its own capacity to reason. The result was paralysis. Ordinary people began to mistrust their senses, defer to official narratives and police their own speech. He warned: “In the end, it renders the majority… incapable of self-defence by depriving them of their wits and convincing them that what they thought was right is wrong, what they thought was real is unreal.” This was the same pathology that George Orwell had described a generation earlier in Politics and the English Language: the corruption of language as the corruption of thought.


The whole piece is well worth reading as a reminder of how crucial it is to retain free speech as a cultural norm. 

For example, the term 'politically correct' is much more useful than the term 'woke', as 'politically correct' demands 'correct language' in a way that 'woke' doesn't. The covert notion of 'correct language' is where censorship shoves its foot in the door.


I was reminded of Powell’s “enemy within” speech this week after reading Professor Sir Dieter Helm’s latest essay on British energy policy. Helm, Oxford economist, former government adviser and hardly a radical, accused ministers of presiding over an energy system that is “not cheap, not home-grown and not secure”. It was his second broadside in a week. In a recent podcast, he went further, predicting that the government would eventually have to renege on renewable contracts if we ever wish to return to economic competitiveness.

Having to renege on renewable contracts is the big one of course.

Plots

Starmer reportedly facing plots to oust him as PM

Labour MPs are plotting to oust Sir Keir Starmer, reports suggest, even as the prime minister has welcomed rebellious backbenchers back into the fold.

The new intake of Labour parliamentarians are among those said to be discussing the mechanics of a future coup, according to the i Paper.

It comes amid despair about the party’s poll ratings and discontent that the government may break Labour’s manifesto promise not to raise income tax.

It's a good job we have journalists to delve into the political mood, keep their ears to the ground and uncover these stories for us.

Milei criticizes Mamdani

As reported in MercoPress, Argentine President Javier Milei recently made an important point about the damaging notion of capitalism as a “necessary evil” within the developed world. 

Here in the UK, we have major political parties and huge government bureaucracies where that notion is tacitly accepted as a foundational axiom of modern government. 


Milei criticizes Mamdani and praises Trump

In his appearance on Thursday at the America Business Forum in Miami, Argentine President Javier Milei seized the opportunity to lambast New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, praise his US colleague Donald Trump, and seek investments for his country. Milei described his own electoral victory as a mandate for capitalist reform...

Milei's central theme was an apology of free-market capitalism and a dire warning against socialist ideas, which he referred to as the “Kuka risk” (a pejorative term for Kirchnerism/Peronism).

He argued that Western societies have mistakenly accepted the notion that capitalism is a “necessary evil” that requires state intervention to address “unequal impact” and prevent monopolies.

Milei contended that this justification for state intervention leads to ever-expanding government control, eventually reaching the same destination as those who openly hate capitalism: “the total control of the state, the economy, and people's lives—that is, communism.”

The existence of some mysterious, superior method

Starmer hit by revolts on Lammy's handling of jail crisis and tax

Sir Keir Starmer faced extraordinary Cabinet infighting over David Lammy’s handling of the scandal over prisoners being wrongfully released and a Labour revolt on an expected manifesto-busting increase in income tax.

As he flew home from the COP30 summit in Brazil, the Prime Minister’s grip on his Government and his party looked increasingly shaky.

Ahead of the Budget on November 26, a split has erupted at the top of Labour over breaking its manifesto promises on tax hikes,.

Oh dear, what a rabble they are. I don't think Lammy is the worst of them though, Ed Miliband has done far more damage and he is said to be a popular candidate for replacing Starmer when the absurd muddler is finally shown the door. It's a revolving door though, so he'll be fine - probably better off too.

On a more serious note, it's another reminder of a catastrophically weak and deluded leadership which cannot grasp the essentials of strong leadership. They just don't get it we might say. Or perhaps, as in the Emile Zola quote below, they are dimly conscious of the existence of some mysterious, superior method of leadership, if only...

...if only.

The post title is a phrase taken from Emile Zola's novel La Débâcle and his graphic and poignant description of a catastrophic French defeat in the Battle of Sedan during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.

Aghast and confounded, having failed so far to acquire the first idea of the rationale of the campaign, he was dimly conscious of the existence of some mysterious, superior method which he could not comprehend, against which he ceased to struggle, although in his dogged stubbornness he kept repeating mechanically:

“Courage, my children! victory is before us!”

Emile Zola - La Débâcle (1892)

The process followed

Culture Secretary breached governance code in appointing football watchdog chair

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy was found by a probe to have breached the code on public appointments by failing to declare she had received donations from her pick to chair the new football watchdog.

In a letter to Sir Keir Starmer, she apologised for “unknowingly” breaking the rules by not disclosing that David Kogan had given £2,900 to her leadership campaign in the 2020 race to succeed Jeremy Corbyn.

The Prime Minister replied that she had “acted in good faith”, but reprimanded her by saying “the process followed was not entirely up to the standard expected”.


It's "the process followed" again, but surely Sir Tier Starmer is being disingenuous here, even while sticking firmly to his own denial process.  

It is clear enough that Lisa Nandy's pick for chair of the new football watchdog was well down to the standards expected from Sir Tier's government.

Sanity Takes a Holiday

Claire Lemaire has a Brussels Signal piece on a familiar EU failure mechanism, its obsession with uncompetitive green rules.


‘Uncompetitive EU green rules’ push bloc’s industry to outsource more

Stricter environmental regulations in the European Union are making it harder for domestic companies to stay competitive.

Firms are now turning to subcontractors outside Europe, where rules are less demanding, to reduce costs. The result: European industries risk losing jobs and expertise, even as the EU pushes to lead on climate change...

Other EU regulations — including the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) and the Deforestation Regulation — also carry major implications for trade but remain external rules, separate from the trade agreements themselves.

Admission incoming - my main reason for the post was an opportunity to make an award , the Loony Nonsense of the Week award, which this week goes to -

The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). 

Not a huge achievement as I invented the award this afternoon as a one-off* for this post. Yet surely the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism should be formally recognised as an outstanding EU achievement in the arcane field of ludicrously damaging bureaucratic eco-twaddle.

*There are far too many candidates to continue the award beyond this one.

Starmer defies

Starmer defies Farage on net zero at COP30 summit in Brazil

Sir Keir Starmer rejected Nigel Farage’s attacks on net zero as he pledged at the COP30 summit in Brazil that the Government would press ahead “full speed with the clean power revolution”.

The Prime Minister insisted that the shift to green energy will deliver hundreds of thousands of jobs for Britain and economic boosts in regions across the country...

In a speech at the world leaders’ gathering at the COP30 climate change summit in Belem, in the Amazon region of Brazil, the PM was due to defend his push for clean energy, with more onshore and offshore windfarms, as well as solar power farms, arguing that green power was “the economic opportunity of the 21st century”.


There are two types of knowledge. One is knowing a thing. The other is knowing where to find it. Sir Keir Starmer is a stranger to both.

Not quite Samuel Johnson

Planning for the worst

M&S boss warns customer confidence dented by Budget worries

The boss of Marks & Spencer has said Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s pre-Budget speech had fuelled customer worries over tax hikes and warned shoppers were now “planning for the worst”.

Chief executive Stuart Machin said the retailer’s customers were “increasingly concerned about rising costs and taxes” and what might be in store in the upcoming Budget.

He said the Chancellor’s unusual step to deliver a pre-Budget speech on Tuesday did not help ease fears or give certainty to businesses and consumers.


Hmm - it's probably much more than Budget worries. Having to make a pre-Budget speech was bound to remind people yet again that this is the worst government in living memory, Keir Starmer the worst Prime Minister and Rachel Reeves the worst Chancellor.

Whether or not Labour voters know it, they are to a significant degree voting for the Fabian Society. This goes some way to explain the teenage ideology behind the absurd mess the party is making of its Parliamentary majority.

According to Copilot AI -

Senior government posts, including Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves, and Wes Streeting, are confirmed Fabian members, signaling continued influence at leadership and ministerial levels

While the Fabian Society does not openly publish a comprehensive list of its Labour MP members, credible sources and historical records indicate that approximately 200–220 Labour MPs are members of the Fabian Society, encompassing the leader, many cabinet members, and senior figures across the party. This represents a significant proportion of the parliamentary Labour cohort.

We have turnips

 

A Headline and a Quote

 

 Trump and his media buddies are taking the muddling of reality to a whole new level

In this stupid world most people never consider that a thing is good to be done unless it is done by their own set.

George Eliot - Middlemarch (1871-72)

The Type Against the Individual

Sadiq Khan in Rio: war of words with 'climate wrecker' Donald Trump

Sir Sadiq Khan has criticised Donald Trump in a set-piece opening speech at a Brazil climate change conference - the London mayor’s fifth foreign trip of the year.

He told the “biggest-ever gathering of mayors” that the US president was one of the climate “wreckers” they needed to fight back against to reduce the threat of global warming.


No mention of a "fight back" against Xi Jinping though, must be a reason for that. 

It's a reminder of a 1933 Hugh Walpole quote about a fight he foresaw between what he called the 'type' and the individual. In this sense Sadiq Khan is a 'type', a conformist progressive, he based his career on it. Trump is an individual.


I couldn’t help thinking yesterday as I listened to him that that may be the fight the whole earth is slipping into — the type against the individual.

Hugh Walpole - Vanessa (1933)

We're worse than even you feared

Starmer and Reeves hint at tax rises to come ahead of unusual pre-budget speech today

Last night, Sir Keir gave Labour MPs a taste of what's to come by warning of the need for "tough but fair" decisions.

Speaking at a party meeting in Westminster, he said the budget "takes place against a difficult economic backdrop".

"It's becoming clearer the long-term impact of Tory austerity, their botched Brexit deal and the pandemic on Britain's productivity is worse than even we feared," the prime minister said.

Blimey, for a chap pretending to be UK Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer isn't very strong on personal responsibility or anything resembling The Buck Stops Here. His knighthood clearly wasn't collected for something as courageous as that.  

It has been equally clear for ages that he doesn't mind scraping the barrel and as many barrels as it takes to plod on, plod on then plod on some more.

Just give it up you ridiculous man.

Man?

Shortage of rashers

Ryanair boss hits out at chancellor over growth as profits climb 42%

Europe's largest airline by passenger numbers says it remains cautiously optimistic it is on track to secure fare growth across its financial year as a whole.

Michael O'Leary told Sky's Mornings with Ridge and Frost programme that Rachel Reeves "hasn't the rashers how to deliver growth" while taking aim at a planned rise in air passenger duty slated for next April...

"Until she starts cutting these insane taxes and stop trying to tax wealth, the UK economy is doomed to continue to fail", he said.

So Reeves "hasn't the rashers how to deliver growth", not an expression I've heard before but every little helps. Won't push Rachel from Accounts into doing something useful though, her boss hasn't the rashers either.

Mysterious Account Tests the Waters

Gu Cheng has an interesting People News piece about a mysterious mainland social-media account relating to the mostly opaque Xi–Zhang power struggle in China.


Mysterious Account Tests the Waters: Xi–Zhang Power Struggle Loosens Externally, Tightens Internally

Xi’s Diplomatic Tone Turns Weak and Fatigued

[People News] Recently, former CCP Central Party School professor Cai Xia revealed that He Weidong and Miao Hua had formed a secret army in Langfang, Hebei, sparking widespread attention and heated discussion. Around the same time, a mysterious mainland social-media account called “Wind Direction Observer” (风向观察) suddenly released alleged court documents detailing the trials of former Rocket Force leaders Li Shangfu, Wei Fenghe, and others accused of colluding with foreign powers.

Both incidents were not from official sources, yet occurred in close succession. Coupled with the recent, markedly softer diplomatic tone Xi Jinping adopted in meetings with U.S. and Japanese leaders, these developments highlight that, after the CCP’s 20th Fourth Plenary Session, fierce internal struggles within the military persist — and that the complexity of the power structure at the top far exceeds what is visible on the surface.


It's worth reading the whole piece, if nothing else it makes our UK media obsession with Andrew Whatsit seem even more trivial.

Then came Xi’s meeting with his nemesis, new Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.

In their first summit, Xi found himself completely on the defensive. After the CCP failed to interfere in Japan’s election, Xi sulked and withheld congratulations; Takaichi ignored him and confronted him head-on.

She listed every sore point: the East China Sea (including the Senkaku Islands), rare earths, concern over detained Japanese citizens, safety of overseas nationals, the South China Sea, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and North Korea abductions — directly challenging Xi’s regime on all fronts.

Xi was speechless.

Unprepared and without his cue cards — or with cards that lacked any answers — he was utterly stumped.

Such questions went far beyond the CCP’s script; even Cai Qi, his chief of staff, would never dare write responses for these.

The government debacle burial process

Elliot Keck has a useful CAPX reminder of the government debacle burial process.


The Covid Inquiry has become an expensive farce

• The Covid Inquiry is likely to have spent around £230m by next summer, a daily spend of about £160,000
• An almost unlimited remit was built into the Covid Inquiry from the start
• By the time we get to the Covid Inquiry's final report, the pandemic will be a distant memory

‘Flawed analysis’, they called it. For years, we at the TaxPayers’ Alliance have been forecasting the ultimate cost of the Covid Inquiry. And on pretty much every occasion, the inquiry has completely dismissed our warnings, saying it was based on ‘hypothetical future expenditure and an imaginary end date’.


The whole piece is well worth reading - this item of blatant bloating for example.


One of the biggest items of spending – almost £15m or nearly 10% of the total cost – has been ‘Every Story Matters’, described as the largest public engagement exercise ever undertaken by a UK public inquiry. It has led to 58,000 stories being shared with the inquiry. Which undoubtedly meant a lot to those telling them. But it’s difficult to see what value this has when it comes to answering the question: was the government’s approach to the pandemic the right one?

Return of the Demented Sheep

Ed Miliband 'to hit Brits with £100 boiler tax rise' in new heat pumps plot

 

I thought I had never seen anyone quite so fluent and so futile, and yet there was a kind of feeble violence in him like a demented sheep.

John Buchan - Mr Standfast (1919)

No great awakening

Criminal on the run for 10 years caught by Met facial recognition

Half a second after the live facial recognition (LFR) camera snaps the young man walking towards Leicester Square, an alert pings on Sgt Kevin Brown’s handheld screen with a matched image.

Two faces flash up alongside each other on his smartphone-sized device. One is an image of the young criminal taken by the LFR camera and the second is a police mugshot with details of the serious offences he is being sought for by Scotland Yard.

Within seconds, the young man in his 20s is stopped and questioned by two officers. In minutes, they establish he is wanted by the Met for a crime meriting at least a year in jail. He is arrested, handcuffed and taken into custody.

Another hint that technocrats in the developed world see China as the government model to follow, at least in terms of social control. It is particularly obvious here in the UK. 

Human behaviour suggests that a few stories such as this will accustom most people to a life of mass surveillance if surveillance is sold as safety, which of course it will be. The obvious negative aspects could become more obvious later, but familiarity is likely to dull the impact as familiarity so often does. There will be no great awakening.

David Starkey on the Fabian Society

 

Minister swallows a whole word salad

Minister vows to push for ‘accelerated action’ on climate at Cop30 in Brazil

Scotland’s Climate Action and Energy Secretary has pledged to push for more ambitious action to tackle climate change when she attends Cop30 in Brazil.

Gillian Martin said Scotland has a “unique opportunity” at the UN summit in November as Regions4 president and European co-chair of the Under2 Coalition...

She said: “We have a unique opportunity as Under2 European co-chair and Regions4 president to champion the essential work taking place across the globe to support vulnerable communities who are at most risk from the impacts of climate change.

This soggy word salad is merely bureaucracy, nothing to do with the world beyond the bureaucratic bubble of meetings, resolutions, agendas, posturing, announcements, brochures, discussion papers, media briefings, logos, NGOs, quangos, lectures, strident finger-wagging, virtue peddling, overseas travel and more meetings.

Then even more meetings.