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Wednesday, 12 February 2025

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Labour suspends 11 councillors over offensive WhatsApp messages


Labour has suspended 11 councillors from the party following an investigation into offensive messages in a WhatsApp group.

Andrew Gwynne, the MP for Gorton and Denton in Greater Manchester, was sacked as health minister on Sunday and suspended from the Labour Party after messages were leaked.

Another MP, Burnley’s Oliver Ryan, was suspended on Monday,



The most striking aspect of this latest embarrassment is how it reveals yet again how many members of the political class prefer pub banter to the dull grind of professional behaviour and acquiring expertise. We've known it forever of course, it has been an issue for a very long time.

Perhaps the trick is to be occasionally amusing but always professionally competent, but at the moment most of us would probably settle for competent, or even occasionally competent. 


And therefore if the more foolish a man is, the more he pleases himself and is admired by others, to what purpose should he beat his brains about true knowledge, which first will cost him dear, and next render him the more troublesome and less confident, and lastly, please only a few?

Desiderius Erasmus - The Praise of Folly (1511)

Several



Google Calendar removes Black History Month and Pride Month because keeping them is ‘unsustainable’


The company has also removed references to Women’s History Month in March and Indigenous Peoples Month in November among other observances...

Several Google Calendar users have been left furious with the removal of the events.



That's good to hear - only several dissatisfied users. To brighten our day further, two of their comments are mentioned -


“Calendar used to capitulate to fascism,” one disgruntled user wrote on the user support page, adding: “This is shameful. Reinstate these calendar dates.”

“Grow a pair google. The ‘great’ orange leader doesn't get to own facts or history,” another wrote.

Tuesday, 11 February 2025

Sinking Flagship



Labour's 1.5m new homes goal thrown into doubt as minister admits we don't have enough workers to build them


Labour’s flagship pledge of 1.5 million new homes this Parliament was thrown into doubt as a minister admitted to a shortage of workers to build them.

Skills minister Baroness Smith of Malvern was frank about the need to train up more construction workers to achieve the challenging target to tackle the housing crisis in London and other parts of Britain..

“I’m not confident that we’ve got enough skilled workers, no that’s what we’ve inherited,” she told Times Radio.



It's strange how informed people will have known this already, even those who know nothing about the building industry. Maybe they did some research so I suppose that counts as cheating in political circles. Or maybe it's worse, maybe it's far right cheating.

As informed people also know, there is another major skills shortage in the Labour party, but somehow Skills minister Baroness Smith of Malvern is unlikely to tackle that one, presumably because the last government can't easily be held responsible for it. 
 

Dead people receiving checks



Bats



Starmer has declared war on £100m bat shed - but has he got a solution?


For the last six months, the prime minister has singled out the most hated construction site in Britain for criticism - a kilometre-long, £100m shed to protect bats in Buckinghamshire from the high speed trains of the future.

Sir Keir regularly thunders that this is the emblem of a broken planning system. His chancellor says such things will never happen again. But is their joint political sonar advanced enough to avoid a collision in the coming months?


Sir Keir regularly thunders? He doesn't come across as a thundering type, but maybe it's down to the acoustics of the bat shed.

It's typically political to single out one prominent aspect of the HS2 mess and present it as if this is almost the same as dealing with the problem. It's a start, but the way to go about it was in his hands from the beginning, or would have been had he adopted the Donald Trump approach. 

In that case, repeal laws, get rid of obstructive bureaucracy, abolish quangos would have been Starmer's primary activity from the off, but it wasn't. 

Instead we have had the winter fuel payment debacle, damaging tax rises, yet more immigration, ludicrous house building promises, absurd adherence to Net Zero, ridiculous international posturing and enough mendacity to fill a kilometre-long bat shed.

Monday, 10 February 2025

Quick Learners



French labour minister calls for speedy AI integration in business


French labour minister Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet has urged companies and employees to embrace artificial intelligence without delay, as President Emmanuel Macron hosted a major AI summit in the country...

“We must speed up AI adoption across all sectors,” she urged.



It is remarkable how quickly politicians acquire expertise. 

It's much the same in the UK, although Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet must envy the expertise of Ed Miliband. Our Ed seems to be the only person in the world to understand how and why the global climate changes even though he is not so hot on the best way to consume bacon sarnies. 

Political Parties Don’t Work



If we have learned anything political from recent decades, it must at least be a hint that voting for political parties is a waste of time. As a means to provide rational political oversight of government, political parties don’t work.

Here in the UK, Conservative, Labour, Lib Dem, SNP and Green have in one way or another demonstrated their inability to perform a rationally pragmatic political function unconstrained by ideology. To take a single example from many, it is possible to describe Keir Starmer’s Cabinet as a rabble, probably without raising a single informed eyebrow.

Here in the UK, the Establishment is now regional in the form of the EU and global in the form of the UN, WEF and a complex range of transnational bodies, including media. Political parties are not equipped to deal with this. Possibly could be but aren’t.

 Instead, political division has become a matter of hidden thoughts and motives, where parties are a way to hide the worst and display something better, or at least acceptable to the perennially optimistic voter.

We have Reform of course, which promises to correct the failings of established parties and as we know, this new party is attracting substantial numbers of potential voters if polls are any guide. Yet how will Reform ensure that it does not attract the charlatans, liars, ideologues and incompetents the other parties fail to guard against? We don’t know.

It could be said that voters of the UK have conducted a decades long experiment in the democratic value of political parties. The conclusion is unmissable, for UK voters political parties don’t work.

Sunday, 9 February 2025

Hanson on Trump's technique

 

How does she know?



Rayner fails to deny saying Starmer ‘could not run a bath’


Angela Rayner has failed to deny saying Sir Keir Starmer was “incapable of running a bath”.

A new book about Sir Keir’s leadership claims that the now Deputy Prime Minister texted the remark to a confidante during the party’s time in opposition.

Get In, by political journalists Gabriel Pogrund and Patrick Maguire, includes the line: “It could not be Starmer, she [Rayner] said, because he was incapable of running a bath – never mind the opposition.”



I often think I'm underestimating how horrible this Labour lot are. Not that Rayner is wrong of course. The situation is so dire that I'm not even sure she wouldn't make a better PM.

Blimey.

Dumping Ground



UK could become ‘dumping ground’ for Chinese solar panels due to Trump tariffs

Alicia Keans MP, the former foreign affairs select committee chair, told The i Paper she was “gravely concerned about how reliant we are on Chinese Communist Party-made energy infrastructure”.

“It puts our energy security at risk, which puts our national security at risk,” she added. “The Chinese Government has bought up the processing of all critical minerals required to make solar panels. I’m not saying we can’t have solar panels coming from China, but overreliance is risky.”


My word, aren't they keen to bring Donald Trump into everything? 

This is not even a minor problem, the UK is not suited to the widespread adoption of solar power. A much more serious problem is that Parliament seems to have become a dumping ground for inadequately educated MPs.


UK Worse Place In World To Put Solar Power

In 2020, the World Bank published this report on the potential of solar power:

Solar Photovoltaic Power Potential by Country

The TeleBlobs



Former culture secretary warns Netflix revolution has made BBC licence fee unsustainable


Sir John Whittingdale has responded to a new report which suggests that viewers have turned off from the BBC and moved to streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon...

The former Tory minister said: “The broadcasting landscape has changed dramatically since the last BBC charter review with more and more people choosing to subscribe to streaming services. At the same time, the number refusing to pay a licence fee is growing each year putting increasing pressure on the BBC’s finances.

“It is plain that the compulsory licence fee model cannot be sustained for much longer and that we need to begin the debate now about the role of the BBC going forward and how best to fund it."


Translation -

You are stuck with the state broadcaster and you will be made to pay for it, whatever you think of the quality, because that isn't the point. We don't know what the point is yet, but we do know that your opinions don't come into it.

Oh - and you are stuck with government culture secretaries too. 

Saturday, 8 February 2025

There’s a bad habit in British politics



Dr Jake Scott has a very useful constitutional reminder in CAPX.


Tony Blair’s bad laws have broken Britain

  • Rather than scrap laws which aren't working, we just replace them with worse ones
  • Donald Trump has torn up the US political playbook – we can learn from him
  • The UK needs a 'Great Restoration Bill'

There’s a bad habit in British politics: rather than fix bad laws, we make worse ones.

This week, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner announced her intention to establish a ‘council on Islamophobia’, that would ‘provide advice to ministers on tackling Islamophobia’. This law is almost a direct product of the 2010 Equality Act, which made the unforgivable mistake of submitting our equal legal standing as British citizens to the legal sanctification of identity.

In turn, as they always do, when these identities clash, rather than re-asserting the legal equality provided for by the historic British constitution, the choice has been made to resolve this bad law with an even worse one. A bad law, it must be remembered, designed to fix the other bad laws of the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act, the 1976 Race Relations Act and so on.



The whole piece is well worth reading because the UK has spent decades enmeshed in a political culture of new laws and new regulations which benefit nobody but the Blob. Particularly useful is Dr Scott's reference to this as a 'bad habit in British politics'.

It is a bad political habit, easily observed all over the place. "They should ban" culture is just one aspect of it, endless fiddling with petty rules and regulations is another, wanting to be submerged in the EU yet another. It's influence is vast and so destructive that the habit must be broken before we are.  

Drowned in Ale



We've got chickens



King and Queen host celebrity-packed dinner at Highgrove

The King and Queen were joined by celebrities at a black-tie dinner celebrating Italian cuisine and "slow food".

Among the guests for Charles and Camilla's event at Highgrove House were Victoria and David Beckham, Dame Helen Mirren and Stanley Tucci...

The Queen spoke ahead of the dinner with David and Victoria about life in the Cotswolds, which the former Manchester United midfielder said was "so beautiful".

He added: "We love it. We are very happy there. We've got chickens..." Camilla then interjected: "I've got chickens too!"



And a mixologist apparently.


The King also made a martini with Italian mixologist Alessandro Palazzi, laughing when the lemon almost went up his nose as he tried to take a sip.

Friday, 7 February 2025

Squirm



Reeves dragged into Starmer voice coach lockdown row as PM rages against ‘partying’ Tories

Now it has emerged that Ms Reeves was part of a meeting attended by a “small team” – of which the coach was a “core part”, Downing Street said – that helped Sir Keir prepare for a press statement on Brexit.

Sir Keir's press secretary said the PM believed it was not reasonably possible for Ms Mellinger to have done her job from home, which is why they met face to face, as she accused the Tories of “desperate mud-slinging”.


Blimey this is undignified stuff. We expect it of course, but it should be rather less common than it is. All it does is allow the main actors to become familiar with squirming, although it's surprising they aren't better at it. 

Starmer will need another hefty dose of plane trips after such a major squirm, it seems to be the only thing which keeps him going.

Best Comment


Trump could deport Prince Harry – this is how

The idea that Montecito’s most famous Apache pilot might be in the US unlawfully gathered pace this week, when it was announced that a lawsuit trying to make his US Visa records public will reopen in court next week.



Best Comment -

T.L. Wainscot

No refunds.
No returns.

How Kim Jong Un Travels



A video from a year ago after Kim Jong Un visited Russia, but still an interesting example of the paranoia within the North Korean regime. Interesting because it's clearly more than paranoia, it's theatre too. Brutal theatre, but still theatre.

 

Thursday, 6 February 2025

An over-promoted middle manager



Senior Source, who is presumably a senior Tory MP, has an interesting Critic piece on Kemi Badenoch.


Badenoch must go

The hapless Conservative leader is consigning the party to complete irrelevance

She’s got to go. It’s a marker of how badly things are going for the Tories that I have to clarify which of my colleagues I’m talking about.

Last week, after a disastrous interview with Harry Cole, in which she tried to not only defend the Boriswave but demand an apology from those who criticised her, the calls began for Priti Patel to resign. This was understandable. Priti was a terrible appointment in the first place, one that baffled almost everyone, but her continuing on the front bench after that interview will cause incalculable damage. It’s difficult to imagine anything more contradictory to winning back voters’ trust than the guilty figures of the old regime using their positions on the shadow front bench to justify the most disgraceful aspects of their legacy.


The whole piece is well worth reading, because we may be witnessing the collapse of a major UK political party. Perhaps the Tory future is not quite as dramatic as collapse, but with a floundering Labour party and irrelevant Lib Dems, the incompetence of our political establishment is impossible to miss.


I was also told that, as an engineer, she would be able to fix the party machinery. CCHQ has been so badly run that they’re incapable of renewing the lease at Matthew Parker Street. This is symbolic of an organisation that has completely collapsed — well before her time, and not something I assign any blame to her for. But keeping the building requires donors, who she is terrible at dealing with; at the latest event she turned up late, left early and forgot to ask for any money. Her answer to getting the operation back on track is an all-staff meeting to say they “must do better”. This is wrong on three levels; first, the hard-working will resent being lumped in with the lazy; secondly, the lazy won’t respond to a pep talk; thirdly, everyone will resent being blamed for your lack of cut-through, particularly given you are so well-known for being lazy.

This smacks so strongly of an over-promoted middle manager because, at the end of the day, that’s what she is.

Axe



Keir Starmer wants to axe Rachel Reeves in bombshell reshuffle


Keir Starmer wants to axe Rachel Reeves as Chancellor in a major shake-up of his top team to revive Labour's plunging popularity.

In a shock move, the Prime Minister is considering moving Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to the Treasury to boost the country's economic fortunes.



Well that could leave us with a tricky problem. We'll have to come up with a suitable name for Yvette Cooper without making use of the too-obvious Ed Balls connection. I'm not sure I'll be able to resist that.

We already have those



'Self-healing roads' could help fix pothole problem, scientists say


A senior lecturer at Swansea University told Sky News it was a "complex process" but that the aim was to "stimulate" materials to close cracks by themselves.

Potholes could soon heal themselves, according to a team of researchers.


We already have self-repairing potholes in Derbyshire. After a pothole is filled with ordinary tarmac, within a relatively short time it often repairs itself,  gradually reinstating itself as a proper pothole.

Or is that not what they mean?

Wednesday, 5 February 2025

The greatest quality in life



His desire, beyond everything else in life, was to be honest: to pretend to no emotion that he did not truly feel, to see exactly how he felt about life, and to stand up before it unafraid and uncowed. Honesty seemed to him the greatest quality in life;

Hugh Walpole - The Cathedral (1922)


Suppose we do a thought experiment and attempt to imagine ourselves as Ed Milband. Not that the idea makes sense and presumably most people would reject it anyway, but the point of the thought experiment is to raise the question of why we wouldn’t want to be Ed.

No doubt there are quite a few reasons, but to my mind the important one is honesty, our honesty is something we can’t imagine giving away, yet modern UK politicians do not put much value on honesty. 

In other words, the thought experiment is not unlike an invitation to imagine downsizing, perhaps from a pleasant house in a reasonable area to a caravan in somewhere like Jaywick.

Yet millions of UK voters vote for political parties which do not put much value on the honesty of their candidates. Then after each election, attitudes towards the political arena end up as akin to attitudes towards cheating in football - okay when our side does it but appalling behaviour by the other lot.

Voting for political parties doesn’t work, it doesn’t deliver reasonably honest politicians and we’ve known it for decades, yet we put a high value our own honesty. It's odd.

And the winner is



The most dangerous places to live in England and Wales mapped - full list of areas


Community Safety Partnership (CSP) areas crime rates

Westminster 434.1

Camden 188.8

Middlesbrough 166.2

Kensington and Chelsea 158.2

Tuesday, 4 February 2025

The Weird One


Presumably his password wasn't "toolmaker"



Keir Starmer forced to abandon his personal email account after Putin's hackers compromise PM


Sir Keir Starmer was forced to shut down his personal email account after a suspected Russian hack.

A new book called Get In recounting Starmer’s rise to power and his early days at Downing Street revealed that in 2022, Starmer was warned that his email may have been compromised by Russian hackers.

His head of office, Jill Cuthbertson, circulated a notice instructing staff not to email Starmer under any circumstances.



I wonder what his password was? Not "toolmaker" I hope, or "turbocharged". I suppose "growth" would be too short.

Other people's money



EU Socialists fined for ‘funding UK Labour Party’

A left-wing think-tank connected to the Socialist faction in the European Parliament, the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS), has been fined €35,960.09 for breaching regulations on party funding.

The Authority for European Political Parties and European Political Foundations (appf) ruled that the FEPS “irregularly” gave European taxpayer money to a New Year Conference in 2023 held by the UK Fabian Society...

The appf is a body of the European Union in charge of registering, controlling and imposing sanctions on European political parties and European political foundations.


Socialists and other people's money eh? There is no hope of keeping track of it all and no possibility that there will ever be enough.

Monday, 3 February 2025

The 5 Commonest Mistakes People Make When Cleaning The Bath



The post title is of course a spoof clickbait headline, but it's a rum business when a spoof headline such as this can be more plausible than the genuine headline below.

Or is it genuine? Do we live in Clickbait World?


Heathrow third runway would 'spike global warming emissions by 30% from airport even with eco-fuel for planes'

A third runway would increase global warming emissions from Heathrow by around 30 per cent, according to a new analysis.

Rachel Reeves has argued that developments in sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) mean that the Government can back airport expansion while still meeting its net zero legally binding commitments.

Between a speech and a snore



Starmer accused of breaking lockdown rules for hiring voice coach during COVID


Prime Minister Sir Kier Starmer hired actress Leonie Mellinger in December 2020 when he was Labour leader and when London was in Tier 4 restrictions...

Conservative former minister Richard Holden has written to Sir Keir asking whether he thinks he was breaching the law.

A Labour spokesman said: "The rules were followed at all times."

It is understood Sir Keir was working at the time with a small team that was preparing him for a response to Mr Johnson's Brexit deal, with a TV camera filming it all.



Oftentimes they were asleep, but occasionally might be heard talking together, in voices between a speech and a snore, and with that lack of energy that distinguishes the occupants of alms-houses, and all other human beings who depend for subsistence on charity, on monopolized labour, or anything else but their own independent exertions.

Nathaniel Hawthorne - The Scarlet Letter (1850)

Like an HR manager, not a leader



Keir Starmer in panic mode as book reveals closest aides slammed his terrible leadership

Keir Starmer's authority received a major knock yesterday after it was claimed his closest advisor described him as an "HR manager, not a leader".

A new tell-all book about Keir Starmer's time as leader of the opposition is set to reveal that the PM's closest aides, advisors and confidants spent years condemning his lack of leadership skills.

In a huge blow to the Prime Minister, his own Downing Street Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney is claimed to have blasted his boss for acting "like an HR manager, not a leader".



If Labour Party insiders already knew about Starmer's lack of leadership skills, it does leave us wondering about a wider lack of leadership skills within the party. 

Or maybe it doesn't leave us wondering at all, because Starmer's Cabinet suggests there are no leadership skills within the party anyway, and unfortunately this isn't a great surprise.

Leaders left the room long ago. 

Sunday, 2 February 2025

Missing the Lesson



Trashing a reputation



It is remarkable how quickly Keir Starmer acquired a reputation for habitual dishonesty. It wasn't acquired recently and the story below is already one of many. Online comments all over the media suggest there are many people who do not trust anything Starmer says.

Yes it's only politics, but politicians generally make some attempt to avoid trashing their reputation this quickly. Almost as if Starmer and co. have not yet realised that political reputations are no longer defined within mainstream media, or even within national borders.   


'Fudging the facts!' Starmer accused of 'pretending' he attended state school by former pupil

Peter Lampl, a former Blair adviser and founder of the education charity Sutton Trust, slammed the Prime Minister over his VAT tax raid on private schools, arguing that the policy has denied less well-off students the same opportunities afforded to Starmer when he was younger.

During their school days, Starmer and Lampl both attended Reigate Grammar, a self-acclaimed leading independent school for boys and girls aged between 11 and 18.

When Starmer first joined, the school was funded by the council but became an independent school just two years later. The local authority agreed to cover the fees for students who had joined before the switch and, soon after, Starmer received a bursary when he started sixth form.

Starmer's fellow alumnus Lampl, whose charity aims to transforms thousands of young lives, wrote: "I don’t pretend the school we went to was a state school, Starmer does. But he is fudging the facts.

"I am helping young people to benefit from an education that made all the difference to me, Starmer is destroying the opportunities to have the same chances he had."

Addressing previous questions about his schooling, the Prime Minister said: "As far as I was concerned, I started school as a 'state boy' and I finished as one too."

Shock Therapy


A short video about the reforms of Javier Milei in Argentina. One of the most interesting aspects of Milei's radicalism is that governments of the developed world already know reforms like his do work. Their problem is that genuine reform downgrades the role of government. They prefer fake reform. 

Governments don't see radically slimmed-down and more tightly focussed government as a price worth paying for the plebs to gain prosperity and freedom. They can vote for it, but they ain't going to get it.

Saturday, 1 February 2025

It's apparently beyond us



Nicholas Boys Smith has an interesting Critic piece on the restoration of the Palace of Westminster, interesting because it highlight how poor we are at major public projects.


A sense of palace

It’s apparently beyond us to fix one of the world’s greatest buildings

The creation of the modern Palace of Westminster after the medieval palace’s destruction by fire is a Victorian epic; a three-part novel of Dickensian satire, Trollopian industry and Disraelian hutzpah. It is one whose final success we are unable to match today despite greater wealth and technological resources due to failings of ambition and ability to execute.


It's a subject about which I know very little, but the whole piece is well worth reading as it fits so well with a whole raft of current failings.


Besides this history of purpose and beauty, ambition and delivery, the saga of modern Britain’s inability to restore the Palace of Westminster is frankly pathetic. It is the quintessential exemplar of “Broken Britain”, of a state no longer able to conceive sensibly ambitious plans or execute them effectively, of a state so focused on posturing and process that it has forgotten about common sense and outcomes.

Giving the game away



My apologies to DiscoveredJoys, I intended to post a comment of his on the Weeds post a few days ago, with his list of new public bodies. It relates to Keir Starmer's promise to “clear out the regulatory weeds.” In case anyone missed it, the list tells a story, so here's the comment -


Arch Bureaucrat declares bureaucracy a problem. Do new public bodies give the game away?

Great British Energy
National Energy Systems Operator
National Wealth Fund
Industrial Strategy Council
National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority
Great British Railways (yet to be created)
Passenger Standards Authority (Announced)
Skills England
Regulatory Innovation Office
National Data Library (Announced)
National Care Service (Announced)
Fair Work Agency (Being legislated)
School Support Staff Negotiating Body (Being legislated)
Armed Forces Commissioner (Being legislated)
Border Security Command
National Centre of Policing
Ethics and Integrity Commission (Announced)
Independent Football Regulator (Being legislated)

I put it to you, m'lud, that clearing regulatory reeds doesn't extend to clearing centralising regulatory powers (and jobs for the fellow travellers).

Friday, 31 January 2025

By gum they like their clichés



Miliband will ramp up net zero drive to ‘compensate’ for third Heathrow runway, says Harman

Harriet Harman said Ed Miliband would push the Government to step up its efforts on the green agenda to “compensate” for the decision to back a third runway at Heathrow Airport.

Mr Miliband, the Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary, threatened to resign over expansion of the airport in 2009 but has ruled out quitting this time after Rachel Reeves announced Government support for the project.

Baroness Harman said Mr Miliband would find the situation “uncomfortable” but she believed he would stay in the Cabinet to “put his shoulder to the wheel” on the net zero drive.



Presumably Miliband won't need to ramp up any compensation until the third runway is built, so he has no need to put his shoulder to the wheel and strain every sinew just yet.

He probably sees those who oppose Net Zero a bad eggs and although the fight against climate change is an uphill battle, it is better to be safe than sorry in case a perfect storm of catastrophes is caused by our neglect of measures which in reality are as easy as pie and not the can of worms sceptics claim.

Voices from the playground



Ex-minister involved in Liz Truss's mini-budget criticised for 'work ethic' comments


Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Political Thinking with Nick Robinson, the now shadow home secretary said: "There are nine million working-age adults who are not working.

"As we compete globally with countries like South Korea, China, India, we need a work ethic, we need everybody to be making a contribution...

A Labour spokesperson said: "Chris Philp was the architect of the Liz Truss Budget which crashed the economy and sent family mortgages rocketing...

Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader Daisy Cooper added: "No one can doubt Chris Philp's work ethic after he crashed the economy in just 39 days as Treasury minister under Liz Truss.


Nine million working-age adults who are not working sound rather a lot, responsible politicians might even see it as cause for concern. If not, they could explain why, but apparently this is not the preferred approach.

One of the causes for voter dissatisfaction may well be the refusal of political actors to raise their game.  

An intelligence matter




As we know, the concept of human intelligence is problematic, particularly the underlying assumption that some people have more of it than others. It doesn’t always work like that. 

Particularly problematic is the idea of intelligence as a linear IQ scale. This has significant and obvious problems such as the overlap between behaviour considered to be intelligent and that which is regarded as foolish. Depending on various circumstances and situations, supposedly intelligent  individuals can exhibit either.

Another important aspect is avoidance. Pragmatic individuals usually spot and avoid foolish language, decisions and actions, sometimes more effectively than those who are supposedly intelligent.

Another facet is integrity. Some people have a moral inclination to avoid foolish behaviour, even when there are potential benefits. Conversely, there are those who, despite being regarded as intelligent, may opt for the advantages and shrug off the foolishness.

In the public arena, it is remarkable how often unprincipled fools lack the intelligence to exhibit principled intelligence. Consequently, it has become obvious how fallible the notion of intelligence can be, yet still we try to make use of it. 

Thursday, 30 January 2025

Anecdote



Trump blames diversity hiring for Washington plane crash that killed 67

Donald Trump has blamed a diversity hiring spree for causing the deadly crash between a military helicopter and a passenger plane that killed 67 people in Washington DC.


This is not a comment on this horrific disaster, but it reminds me of an interesting article I read a few years ago. I don't have a link either, so it's merely an anecdote which may have no bearing on this particular accident.

The article was by an FAA insider. It went into specific details about problems with DEI hiring policies for air traffic control staff, saying that these policies would eventually lead to a major accident.

O’Leary on the Chancellor

 

Driving nowhere



Today we decided to whizz off into Derbyshire for the morning. A cold day but blue sky and sunshine were forecast, so off we went.

Problem one occurred on a scenic country road which was blocked by a police car because of an accident further on.

Problem two occurred on the alternative route which was jammed with heavy traffic due to road works, so much so that we turned round and went to a local coffee shop instead.

Problem three occurred on the road back home which was blocked by a police car due to another accident further on.

With frequent delays and obstructions, crumbling or poorly patched roads and numerous potholes, the pleasures of driving are a thing of the past, at least round here. 

Comfort Zone



The other day found me visiting my old pal Dr Baz Broxtowe of Fradley University. We were drinking coffee in his office when in what seemed like a moment of decision he presented me with a virtual reality headset.

“Try this,” he said, “while I load up the latest version of our project.”

“Oh right – interesting.” I examined the headset, it wasn’t a type I knew and it had no brand name.

“The software the headset runs is called Comfort Zone and it’s a bit hush-hush, so I’d rather you didn’t tell anyone,” said Dr Baz as he fired up a pair of computer screens.

Once I’d adjusted the headset and Dr Baz had his Comfort Zone software running, I found myself in virtual room, a fairly small square room, almost featureless apart from a kind of bed jutting out from one wall and three plain doors. Everything was pale in colour, not quite white and well lit, although it wasn’t clear where the light came from.

“Where am I?” I asked with all the originality of a thousand movies.

This is Comfort Zone. If you wish to go somewhere just say or point, if you want to know anything just ask. 

The voice was deep, low-pitched and wasn’t the voice of Dr Baz. “Where can I go?” I asked.

Anywhere or anywhen as anyone. 

Anywhere?

Yes, near enough. How about Cromford in the county of Derbyshire, you often visit Cromford and go for walks along the canal, through the woods, over the hills.

“Okay, take me to Cromford canal,” I replied.

I don’t know how to describe the next bit. One second I was in that pale, virtual room, presumably the Comfort Zone starting point, and the next second I was on the towpath of Cromford canal. After a few seconds while I adjusted myself to the disconcertingly abrupt transition, I look around, a virtual Cromford canal appeared to be correct in every detail.

Nothing jarred or didn’t look right. Canal, towpath, trees lining the opposite bank, the A6 to my left, all correct apart from one thing, a vole swimming across the canal.

“I haven’t seen a vole for years.” Well I had to say something.

Perhaps not, but we put them back.

“Oh – virtual rewilding here we come. Okay, take me along the tow path at walking pace,” I replied and off we went. The sensation wasn’t like walking, but visually it was spot on until I passed under Arkwright’s stone bridge and saw a few ostriches over by the rugby ground.

“Ostriches at Cromford?”

A glitch, they will be removed.

And the ostriches were gone. No fading, just gone. Apart from the ostriches it was an impressive demonstration. I also had a feeling that something had been learned and the ostriches would never come back. A pity, but I could easily see the attraction of Comfort Zone for those who don’t want to play computer games.

“But why Comfort Zone?” I asked Dr Baz a few minutes later as I handed back the headset. I didn't really like wearing it, made me feel queasy.

“Imagine a future where Comfort Zone is your home, your real home. A real room with a bed and a bathroom, a room from where you can go anywhere, see anything, chat, watch sport, play games, read or just meditate on a starlit seashore.”

“Well yes, but what about the basics, food, laundry, personal contact.”

“Fast food deliveries so you don’t need a kitchen, laundry services and isolation from the weather and if you wish it, isolation from other people. Hell is other people as someone said.”

“Yes but all that isn’t part of your software. You are talking about a real room presumably in a real building with real services.” Stating the obvious I thought.

“No but our software could be part of a complete lifestyle package, a way for millions to own nothing and be happy.”

“I’ve heard that before, but who funds it all?” I asked.

“I don’t know, but it’s lavish,” replied Dr Baz.

Wednesday, 29 January 2025

Two Men in 1981

 

Down the tubes



‘Trump’s done 100 things in one day and Starmer still hasn’t done anything. We need a Trump’

As someone who conducts focus groups for a living, I was hardly surprised by the poll this week that showed that so many British voters back Donald Trump’s agenda on issues such as migration and free speech...

That’s partly because of the state of public disaffection when it comes to successive governments’ handling of those issues in Britain.

But my lack of surprise was down to something else too. It has become clear from the work I do that many British voters admire Trump’s approach – on policy but, more importantly, on what amounts to his sheer determination.


It is no great stretch to say that Starmer and his unedifying crew hoped Kamala Harris would defeat Donald Trump in the recent US Presidential Election. We know why too, and now that reason has been hammered home good and hard. Compared to Trump, Starmer doesn't even manage to come in as third rate.

As this Telegraph piece suggests, Trump's energy, determination and headline policies seem to attract widespread political approval here in the UK, in spite of years of negative media bias towards him. A better man than Starmer would see this and resign, taking Reeves with him. 

Weeds



Starmer vows to clear ‘regulatory weeds’ ahead of Reeves growth speech

Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to “clear out the regulatory weeds” to encourage growth, as Rachel Reeves will say that Britain has been “held back” and “accepted stagnation” in a major economic speech.

The Prime Minister invoked his New Labour predecessors and Margaret Thatcher, and said that for “too long regulation has stopped Britain building its future”.

It comes as the Chancellor is due to set out policies on Wednesday to encourage economic growth, and hail the region around Oxford and Cambridge as having “the potential to be Europe’s Silicon Valley”.


Europe's Silicon Valley? Not Britain's Silicon Valley? 

As everyone knows, Starmer and Reeves have a major political problem in that nobody believes what they say. It has become impossible for either of them to make speeches and announcements. They do make speeches and announcements, but they no longer have the ability to make themselves heard. They gave it away.

Nobody cares what "regulatory weeds" are supposed to be and nobody cares what Starmer proposes to do about them. Nobody cares about "Europe's Silicon Valley" either, apart from those people likely to be the recipients of taxpayers' largesse. 

It's the two dead parrots sketch.

Tuesday, 28 January 2025

How the brain differentiates



Study reveals how the brain differentiates hot and cold sensations

When we touch something hot or cold, the temperature is consciously sensed. Previous studies have shown that the cortex, the outermost layer of the brain, is responsible for thermal sensations. However, how the cortex determines whether something is hot or cold is not well understood. Thermal sensitivity is often subjective and individualistic; what is a comfortable temperature for someone might be too hot or too cold for someone else.



No particular point to make here, apart from mentioning climate activists who screech doom and disaster and claim -


as if they can tell the difference.

Going for a drive

 

The last cheerleader



Ryan Bourne has an interesting CAPX piece on Donald Trump's decision to reject the OECD's global tax cartel.


After Trump’s OECD bombshell, the UK must slash corporate tax

  • The US has rejected the OECD's global tax cartel – putting Britain in an economic bind
  • OBR forecasts assumed the Treasury would gain £2.8 billion by the end of this Parliament
  • Being the last cheerleader for an economically suicidal half-dead global agreement makes little sense

The effects of Donald Trump’s return to the Oval Office are already being felt at His Majesty’s Treasury. On inauguration day, President Trump signed an executive order instructing his government to ‘notify the OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] that any commitments made by the prior administration on behalf of the United States with respect to the Global Tax Deal have no force or effect within the United States’.

The US, in other words, is set to shatter the new OECD corporate tax agreement that’s taken a decade to thrash out. That leaves the UK, which has already integrated parts of that deal into law, in a fiscal and economic quandary.



The whole piece is well worth reading as we cannot be confident that our UK government is capable of responding pragmatically, or even responsibly. 

As things are, "Sir" Keir Starmer's government looks very much like the last cheerleader for tax cartels. Plus a few other ideas with multiple points of failure. 

Tempest in a Teacup



Just Stop Oil protesters disrupt performance of The Tempest starring Sigourney Weaver


The Alien star, 75, is escorted off stage after activists say: "We'll have to stop the show ladies and gentlemen, sorry."

A video posted online by the climate protest group shows the activists, carrying a sign reading "over 1.5 degrees is a global shipwreck", as they are met with boos and a few cheers from the audience.


Choosing to disrupt a Shakespeare play does suggest temporary refugees from middle class comforts, but this seems to be the way of it. Ballet next I suppose, twirling across the stage in Just Stop Oil tutus.

It's an odd business though, because we've always had middle class loonies. Sometimes they get into government, sometimes they don't, sometimes they do bad things, sometimes they merely amuse us. 

It leaves a chap wondering about evolution and survival of the fittest. What's the survival advantage for a middle class loony? The career of Ed "Kitchens" Miliband certainly suggests there are advantages. Journalism, the BBC, politics...

Monday, 27 January 2025

Trainees



It may be an age thing, but when I take a gander at our political elites, I tend to see them as trainee recruits who have a degree but aren’t doing too well and don’t give the impression that training them is worthwhile.

They think too much of themselves, should be doing something else and now is the time to tell them. It’s odd, but Keir Starmer and his shower do give that impression - mouthy trainees who never quite grasped what the world of work is about, duds who should be doing something less taxing (pun intended).

Merely an impression this one, but it's not easy to see them as serious people doing a job they know how to do. It's not easy to see them ever learning how to do it. 

A new 'fusion approach'



The cities that will be 'submerged by global warming'


Scientists from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, have predicted that global sea levels could rise by a staggering 6.2 feet (1.9 metres) by 2100 if carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions continue to increase.

In its IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, released in 2023, the UN estimated that under high-emission scenarios, global sea levels would rise by between 0.6 and 1.0 metres (1.9 and 3.2 feet).

However, the researchers from NTU took a new 'fusion' approach to their estimates by integrating statistical methods with expert judgments.

They claim that this offers a clearer, more reliable picture of future sea-level rise.



Gosh, so a new 'fusion approach' has integrated statistical methods with expert judgments. An impressive development and we may be sure it is nothing like fund-hunters' guesswork.

I've attempted to use a 'fusion approach' to estimate how many rational people believe stories such as this one. The fusion approach seems sound enough because the number it generates is zero, offering a clearer, more reliable impact assessment of research conducted along these lines.

Two Approaches



N. Korea executes nuclear power plant researchers over project failures


They were branded "anti-party figures" who had "contradicted the party's guidelines for socialist construction"

North Korean authorities have executed and imprisoned several key researchers involved in nuclear power plant construction, Daily NK has learned.

According to a Pyongyang source speaking to Daily NK on Tuesday, two senior researchers were executed and four junior researchers were punished for “failing to successfully complete their project and close the gap with international technological standards.”



A chap is bound to wonder what Kim Jong Miliband thinks of current progress at the Hinkley Point nuclear power project.


Hinkley Point C: EDF says fish issue could delay new plant operation

EDF has stated that a “lengthy process” to identify acceptable compensation for the loss of fish stemming from Hinkley Point C could have "the potential to delay the operation of the power station."

Sunday, 26 January 2025

More News From The NHS



Xandra H has an interesting Free Speech Backlash piece on staff troubles in the NHS.


More News From The NHS

And It's Not Good

I’ve been sitting here since just after Christmas wondering if we all need an existential challenge occasionally in order to either confirm our current position, or refocus us in a new direction.

I say this because I have just had one myself, and as a result, relearned that things are sometimes not at all as they seem to be and that even people you have known for some years, can view a situation in a completely different way than you expected, based on what you know of them.

The thing that started all this off was a procedure adopted by the NHS HR department to help staff at work develop better team relationships and the lower grades to have a more equal relationship with their managers. Unfortunately, it seems to me that they hadn’t thought through all the possible unforeseen consequences of adopting it; or maybe they did and thought it was the right way to proceed?

I will tell the story and you can decide for yourself what position you would adopt in the circumstances.


The whole story is well worth reading.

A voice from the Titanic



Reeves hits back at ‘Rachel from accounts’ nickname saying she has spent her life ‘proving people wrong’

Rachel Reeves has hit back at her critics, saying she has spent her life “proving people wrong” when asked if she is hurt by the nickname “Rachel from accounts”...

But asked if she was hurt by the nickname, she said: “I’ve probably been called worse things… in the end, people are going to judge me on the job that I’m doing now, that I’m doing as chancellor of the exchequer.”



Oh dear - the job you have been doing and are doing now is why the name sticks.

It began almost immediately with what? The career claims perhaps? Or maybe the winter fuel payments debacle because it was and still is an absurdly foreseeable political blunder. Being landed with that was a resignation issue, but here you are.

The increased NI as a tax on employment was another debacle in a swamp of debacles, but now it's the strident insistence that all is well and going to plan when it clearly isn't.

'Rachel from Accounts' it is then.

Ed's phone will be heating up too



Electric cars can 'explode' and the public must be warned say worried UK fire chiefs

Fire chiefs say the public must be told about the huge fire risks posed by electric vehicles, as the Government presses ahead with a ban on new petrol and diesel cars.

Damaged vehicles could burst into "explosive" flames and fires could resume days after they appeared to have been extinguished according to the National Fire Chiefs Council, the professional voice of the UK fire and rescue service.

Blazes could also release toxic fumes and even the water used to put out electric vehicle fires could become poisonous and pollute the environment.

In a dramatic statement to MPs, the NFCC called for warnings to be installed at electric vehicle charging points across the country.

Saturday, 25 January 2025

And the best is still to come



Streeting attacks Nigel Farage as ‘miserablist declinist’

Mr Streeting backed the Prime Minister, telling an audience at the Guildhall: “Let’s get stuck into 2025 with hope, optimism and confidence about Britain and its future.

“And let’s never forget how far we’ve come. People said Keir Starmer couldn’t win the Labour leadership and he did. They said he couldn’t change the Labour Party, and he did. They said he couldn’t win a general election. And he did.

“Now they say he can’t change our country, but he will. We’ve got a lot done, hell of a lot more to do. Change has only just begun. And the best is still to come.”



I wish Starmer's rabble would make more effort to be convincing. Maybe they aren't allowed to be more convincing than the Leader, which on the whole they aren't, but that's a very low bar indeed. Even if stepping out of line is a route to the backbenches, it's probably a step in the right direction for a leadership hopeful which I assume Wes is.

"Change has only just begun. And the best is still to come.”

Oh come on Wes, how many people are going to snigger at that? Most of your party, the entire mainstream media and not a few Cabinet members we may assume. Probably including you Wes, once you get home and close the front door. 

The long arm of coincidence



Miliband approves huge solar farm being built by major Labour donor


Ed Miliband has been criticised after approving an application for a huge solar farm in Lincolnshire owned by millionaire Labour donor Dale Vince.

The Energy Secretary faces scrutiny after approving Heckington Fen Solar Park on Friday, which is owned by Mr Vince’s green energy business Ecotricity.

The decision has angered local residents and councillors, who have accused Mr Miliband of pandering to Mr Vince, who donated £5m to Labour in the run-up to the general election.



Every life is a series of coincidences. Nothing happens that is not rooted in coincidence. All great changes find their cause in coincidence.

Arnold Bennett - The Card (1911)

Shouting from the rooftops



Britain can learn from Trump’s positivity, says Rachel Reeves

Britain needs to learn from Donald Trump by being more positive and showing off its strengths, Rachel Reeves has said, signalling a shift in approach to Britain’s faltering economy.

The chancellor said people should be “shouting from the rooftops” and banging the drum for the UK following her trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, where she met global investors in her latest attempt to boost the economy after new figures showed only slight growth.



It isn't only 'positivity' whatever that is, it's also competence - that's what makes 'positivity' work.  

Anyhow, it's too cold to climb on the roof and I don't have a drum, otherwise it might be worth shouting about excessive taxation, absurd immigration numbers, a bloated bureaucracy, stifling regulations, government incompetence and the monumental stupidity of Net Zero.  

Oh, and a Prime Minister and Cabinet who seem quite incapable of learning anything.

By gum, Rachel from Accounts is useless.

Friday, 24 January 2025

Trump still hasn’t spoken to Whatsit



Trump still hasn’t spoken to Starmer after inauguration


Donald Trump still has not spoken to Sir Keir Starmer four days after his inauguration.

Downing Street confirmed on Friday that the Prime Minister had not spoken to the new US president since he was sworn in on Monday.

Joe Biden, Mr Trump’s predecessor, spoke to Boris Johnson three days after the inauguration, meaning Sir Keir has now been waiting longer for an equivalent call.



Possibly Trump is surprised that Starmer is still there but has decided to wait for a more suitable spare to take his place. Of course Trump may not know this, but Labour doesn't have many suitable spares.

A lesson from Canada



Staying with Canadian politics, James Vitali has an interesting Critic piece on lessons the UK Conservative party could learn from Pierre Poilievre. Mildly depressing though, because it highlights how far adrift we are under Starmer's Labour.


What the Conservatives can learn from Pierre Poilievre

The Tories can take lessons from Poilievre’s ambition and openness

Although Reagan and Thatcher had probably already met in the early 1970s, their first recorded one-on-one conversation took place in 1975, shortly after the latter had become Conservative Party leader.

There was, Thatcher recalls, an immediate chemistry between the pair. Reagan, the former sports commentator with a reputation for political communication that had been firmly established by his “Time for Choosing” speech in the 1964 election, had “charm, sense of humour, and directness”. For some, that charm betrayed a superficiality — a lack of substance perhaps typical of someone who had built a career in Hollywood.

But “The Great Communicator”, as Reagan has come to be known, was great because of the substance of what he was communicating. “I wasn’t a great communicator”, he said in his 1989 farewell address, “but I communicated great things,” which were informed by “our experience, our wisdom, and our belief in principles that have guided us for two centuries.” “What I said”, he wrote elsewhere, “simply made sense to the [man] on the street”.


It isn't easy to see the Conservatives coming up with both a communicator and a political ethos to compare with Pierre Poilievre and his message to Canadian voters. Reform seems much closer, but the whole piece is well worth reading as a diagnosis of our UK problem.


So it is no surprise that the likes of Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick have met with Poilievre in recent months. And stylistically, his example is more intelligible to a UK audience than a Trump or a Milei.

But style, really, is of secondary importance. Poilievre is such a good communicator because of what he is actually communicating — a compelling diagnosis of Canada’s ills, and a political economy that Canadians earnestly believe will make them more prosperous.

Thursday, 23 January 2025

The Wrongest Man



Climate Depot has an interesting piece on Mark Carney and his bid to replace Justin Trudeau as leader of the Canadian Liberal Party.


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

The politicization of business and capital markets has many fathers. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, one of the most prominent and unrelenting advocates for “sustainability” in investing, is often described as such. Klaus Schwab, the now-retired chairman and founder of the World Economic Forum, also often wears that title. So does the billionaire political gadfly Michael Bloomberg; so does R. Edward Freeman, the business professor and originator of “stakeholder theory;” and so do countless others who have worked diligently to advance ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance investing), DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion), and all the other efforts to make business and investing more “socially responsible” or less unfair or…whatever.



The whole piece is well worth reading because as the article says, Mark Carney has had a major influence on the spread of woke politics into the business of investing.

Blockers



Starmer to make it tougher for ‘Nimbys’ to block major projects

Sir Keir Starmer will make it more difficult for the public to block new major infrastructure projects such as wind farms and nuclear plants through the courts.

Sir Keir said: “For too long, blockers have had the upper hand in legal challenges – using our court processes to frustrate growth.

“We’re putting an end to this challenge culture by taking on the Nimbys and a broken system that has slowed down our progress as a nation.


So the latest baddies are 'blockers' and 'Nimbys', but are they also 'far right' or are they merely old-fashioned 'deniers'? How about people who block economic growth by putting up taxes? Political parties who block political reform? People who block open debate?

Blimey I think "Sir" Keir is onto something here, we do have a problem with blockers, especially those blockers who block any attempt to get rid of the real blockers. Even people who block the honours system with dubious knighthoods.

Banned from eBay


I've watched quite a number of this chap's videos. He restores vintage cars, often British, and goes into great detail about the restoration process. I find the videos interesting, even though his expertise is way beyond mine, but this one describes how he was banned from eBay when trying to sell one of his completed projects.



Wednesday, 22 January 2025

One truth would do, Ed



Ed Miliband insists Net Zero transition is 'unstoppable'

Mr Miliband admitted last year's COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan - which he described as '198-dimensional chess' - was 'very difficult', but said there was 'a will to get an agreement' in Baku.

'Now I'm not trying to look at this through rose-tinted spectacles, because you can hold two truths in your mind at the same time,' he added.

'One that the transition is unstoppable and, secondly, it's not going nearly fast enough. I think both truths are correct. The world is moving.


Perhaps there is a slight touch of Ed style shading in there. Even a professional idiot may eventually realise that the world will go where the world goes and the UK doesn't have any say in where that might be. Meanwhile -


Ed Miliband's net zero plan could 'lead to blackouts'

Ed Miliband has been warned that his net zero crusade could put the UK at risk of blackouts after energy demands came close to exceeding supply.

The National Energy System Operator (NESO), which manages Britain's gas and electricity supply, issued an alert earlier this month after a shortfall in power across Britain

As the golden release slips away



As the official retirement age slips further and further away from young people today, we may imagine a scenario where curmudgeonly oldies still have to work, even if they only sit in an office glaring at whatever a computer screen has evolved into.

Firing off a couple of sarcastic emails, our office curmudgeon takes a note of the little clock he or she has placed in the corner of the screen showing how many dull days must pass before the golden release of official retirement.

But too soon the next scheduled meeting has to be endured. This time the meeting is about [1] followed by some work on the main project until it is time to cram into a Council Tram for the official homeward commute to a thermally efficient box known as home.

The point here is that having an older and older workforce is likely to mean more and more disgruntled workers who see no future in what they do and no compelling reason for doing it other than financial. For current oldies - maybe ours was the Golden Age.


[1] At this point, both readers will have to fill in their own plausible details of a routine meeting. I have been retired for long enough to forget what meetings were about. It has all blended into a grey morass of coffee, biscuits, lunches, forgotten hotels and endless, endless chatter about things which didn’t really matter.

One day, on a planet far, far away



Scientists track intense radio signals from space to their origin - and are shocked by what they find

For years, researchers have been looking to explain fast radio bursts, or FRBs, which are very short and very powerful blasts energy coming from deep in space. Possible explanations have included everything from black holes to alien technology.

Now, scientists have tracked one of those blasts back to its home galaxy. But that galaxy is very old and dead, as well as being strangely shaped.

Previously, researchers have only found FRBs coming from much younger galaxies. As such, it breaks our existing understanding of where they might be coming from.

“This new FRB shows us that just when you think you understand an astrophysical phenomenon, the universe turns around and surprises us,” said Northwestern’s Wen-fai Fong, a senior author on two studies reporting the new findings. “This ‘dialogue’ with the universe is what makes our field of time-domain astronomy so incredibly thrilling.”



One day we may make contact with intelligent life-forms on a planet far, far away, a planet where a form of journalism has evolved which does not bung words like "shocked" into the headline of a story about scientists being pleasantly surprised by a discovery.

Meanwhile, here on Earth, dangerous doom winds are on the way. Could be caused by our central heating boilers, but Ed Miliband would know.


Dangerous winds to hit UK this week as Met Office names storm

Storm Eowyn has been named by the Met Office ahead of strong winds across the UK on Friday and into Saturday.


Tuesday, 21 January 2025

Small World



World reacts to Trump's plan to withdraw US from Paris climate pact


Dramatic stuff - here is the "world" as defined by the article -


SIMON STIELL, U.N. CLIMATE CHANGE EXECUTIVE SECRETARY

ALI MOHAMED, CHAIR OF THE AFRICA GROUP OF NEGOTIATORS AND KENYA'S SPECIAL ENVOY FOR CLIMATE CHANGE

NEW YORK GOVERNOR KATHY HOCHUL AND NEW MEXICO GOVERNOR MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, CO-CHAIRS OF THE U.S. CLIMATE ALLIANCE

ANI DASGUPTA, PRESIDENT AND CEO OF WORLD RESOURCES INSTITUTE

LAURENCE TUBIANA, CEO OF THE EUROPEAN CLIMATE FOUNDATION AND A KEY ARCHITECT OF THE PARIS AGREEMENT

ABBY MAXMAN, PRESIDENT AND CEO OF OXFAM AMERICA

James Lindsay - Why Academia Won't Reform Anytime Soon

 

Monday, 20 January 2025

Milking Time



National Trust reveals ambitious plans to combat nature crisis

The National Trust has revealed ambitious plans to combat the nature crisis and inspire millions more to help protect the environment and cultural heritage...

To further their mission, the charity plans to fundraise more in the next decade than it has in its entire previous century of existence...

Director-general Hilary McGrady said: "For 130 years, the National Trust has responded to the crises and challenges of the time. Today, nature is declining before our eyes and climate change is threatening homes and habitats on a colossal scale.

"Meanwhile, millions of people can’t enjoy the benefits that green space and heritage bring. So we will ramp up our work to restore nature, both on our own land and beyond our boundaries.


In case you thought there might be one or two causes missing from these ambitious plans, mental health is in there too. For some reason this isn't surprising.


The trust is co-producing a new natural history series, Hamza's Hidden Wild Isles, with The Open University for BBC One and iPlayer.

The series will feature wildlife cameraman Hamza as he unveils hidden wildlife gems across the UK.

The charity hopes the series will inspire people to take action and provide some relief from the current mental health crisis.

Crawling for beginners



David Lammy changes tune on ‘funny, friendly and warm’ Trump


David Lammy has lavished praise on Donald Trump before the US president-elect’s imminent return to the White House.

The Foreign Secretary spoke of Mr Trump’s “incredible grace” and “generosity”, describing him as “very, very friendly” and “very warm”.

The comments mark a stark contrast to his past criticism of the Republican leader, who he described as a “woman-hating, neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath” in 2018.

The immovable standard and silent witness



George Santayana on truth as what he calls the immovable standard and silent witness of all our memories and assertions


The eternity of truth is inherent in it : all truths—not a few grand ones—are equally eternal. I am sorry that the word eternal should necessarily have an unction which prejudices dry minds against it, and leads fools to use it without understanding. This unction is not rhetorical, because the nature of truth is really sublime, and its name ought to mark its sublimity.

Truth is one of the realities covered in the eclectic religion of our fathers by the idea of God. Awe very properly hangs about it, since it is the immovable standard and silent witness of all our memories and assertions ; and the past and the future, which in our anxious life are so differently interesting and so differently dark, are one seamless garment for the truth, shining like the sun.



Not far removed from Baruch Spinoza’s idea of God where the only possible interaction with the immovable standard is to understand as far as we are able.

This is what we compromised with the rise of secular culture, that immovable standard. It was not improved or replaced by immovable truths so many crooks, charlatans and fools try to foist on us today. Santayana goes on –


It is not necessary to offer any evidence for this eternity of truth, because truth is not an existence that asks to be believed in, and that may be denied. It is an essence involved in positing any fact, in remembering, expecting, or asserting anything; and while no truth need be acknowledged if no existence is believed in, and none would obtain if there was no existence in fact, yet on the hypothesis that anything exists, truth has appeared, since this existence must have one character rather than another, so that only one description of it in terms of essence will be complete ; and this complete description, covering all its relations, will be the truth about it.

No one who understands what is meant by this eternal being of truth can possibly deny it ; so that no argument is required to support it, but only enough intensity of attention to express what we already believe.


George Santayana - Scepticism and Animal Faith (1923)

Sunday, 19 January 2025

Snub



Blow for Reeves as rich flee UK and she gets snub for Davos slot


A record total of millionaires have reportedly quit the UK since Labour won power over its plans to replace the ‘non-dom’ tax regime.

‘Non-doms’, whose permanent home is abroad, may only pay tax here on money earned in the UK.

The Mail on Sunday can also reveal that Ms Reeves has not got a main speaking slot at the prestigious World Economic Forum which opens tomorrow in Davos, Switzerland.

Not one member of Sir Keir Starmer’s Cabinet is included on the agenda for the five-day event.



Does this mean that nobody is interested in what Rachel from Accounts can do for growth? I hope she doesn't take it out on the rest of us and introduce more turbocharged growth schemes.

Down and out in Bath and Salisbury



Sean Walsh has a remarkably powerful TCW piece on... well you decide.


Down and out in Bath and Salisbury

I have come that they may have life and have it to the full – John 10:10.

SHOULD YOU ever find yourself in these circumstances, based on my experience, this is what is likely to happen to you if you are caught trespassing at 2am in the scullery of a hotel kitchen in Warminster: zilch.

When the night concierge decides you’re unworthy of police attention, that you’re more to be pitied than feared, that’s when you know you’ve graduated into the ranks of the irredeemable, and, possibly, the invisible.

Some context might be helpful. I ‘slept rough’ and was then hostel homeless for two years, beginning in November 2015. Don’t believe the Jack London stuff; as a lifestyle, it is sub-optimal.


The whole piece is well worth reading because it isn't about sleeping rough, but a much wider context in which sleeping rough is embedded.


Finally, I learned that you’d have to be an idiot, and at several comfortable degrees of separation from the poor, to be a socialist. The machinery of the State operates perversely when let loose on real world situations. My first Christmas was to be spent in a shelter in Bath, but it didn’t happen that way. The temperature dropped so low that a cold weather emergency protocol was triggered, and the local authority requirement – that shelter should be offered primarily to those with a ‘local attachment’ – was suspended. I was asked to leave the hostel to make room for some homeless people from Eastern Europe. I was not alone.

Deep Blob



I'm no legal bod so this is merely an outsider's observation, but since Keir Starmer appeared on the political scene, I've tended to view him via this 'equation' -


Human rights lawyer = Blob bureaucrat


In other words, our Prime Minister is Deep Blob.

Saturday, 18 January 2025

The Prime Minister is a void



William Atkinson has a useful CAPX piece on Keir Starmer's preference for rule by lawyers rather than Parliament.


Starmer’s ‘rule of lawyers’ is sidelining Parliament

  • Starmer’s repeal of Troubles legislation will allow Gerry Adams to claim compensation
  • The idea sovereignty lies in Parliament, not the courts, is anathema to Keir Starmer
  • Labour are elevating legal institutions above the decisions of politicians


Not an unfamiliar debacle, Starmer has quite a collection of debacles already, but the whole piece is well worth reading.


The Prime Minister is a void: a late middle-aged man of conventional, soft-left opinions, who thought that being our premier might be an entertaining late-stage career change. He doesn’t really understand economics and growth. He has no experience in foreign policy. But he really, really cares about human rights law.

Starmer has been an MP for under a decade, but has been studying and practicing law since the 1980s. His instinct in a dispute between Parliament and the courts is to assume that the latter is in the right. Having been wowed by the European Convention on Human Rights as a student, his view of human rights is naturally expansive – a decision best encapsulated by his appointment of Richard Hermer as Attorney General.

Hermer is a long-time friend and mentee of Starmer: the Plato to his Socrates, the Harrison to his McCartney, the Lewis to his Morse. Both were early human rights law specialists, with Hermer taking a particular interest in international law. As Yuan Yi Zhu outlines, the pair share a ‘thick’ conception of the rule of law, treating it as a wide-ranging set of liberal values that check Parliament’s authority.

The way we were


As I watched this video I occasionally thought "is that someone I knew"?


Friday, 17 January 2025

Turbocharged Turbocharging



There is a turbocharged level of turbocharging going on in government at the moment. Something to look out for during 2025.


£60 million boost for creative industries to turbocharge growth


£30 million to clean up sea travel and turbocharge coastal economies 


Prime Minister sets out blueprint to turbocharge AI