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. 

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.

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.

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 -

1.5 degrees is a global shipwreck

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...

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

 

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)

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.

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"?

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

Soft Power

Foreign Secretary launches UK Soft Power Council

The Foreign Secretary and Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport have launched the UK Soft Power Council to drive UK growth and security.

• Foreign Secretary launches Soft Power Council to help boost UK economic growth and security by bringing together experts from across culture, sport, the creative industries and geopolitics
• this comes as the Culture Secretary convenes the Creative Industries Growth Summit and announces a £60 million funding boost for creative industries

Nothing to do with wind turbines or solar power apparently, and nothing to do with the political illusion of power and democracy. Instead, it appears to be a bung and a platform for luvvies.

Embarrassing ourselves on the world stage

Sam Bidwell has a useful CAPX piece on British foreign policy and what has been revealed by the Chagos Islands debacle.


What’s the point of Britain’s foreign policy?

• With the Chagos Islands circus, Britain is embarrassing itself on the world stage
• As the 21st century progresses, the raw realities of international relations are being laid bare
• A reputation for integrity and respectability can quickly morph into a reputation for gullibility and credulity

Amidst discussions about Treasury bonds, corruption scandals and grooming gangs, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that Britain isn’t just in poor shape domestically – it’s also embarrassing itself on the world stage.

Keir Starmer’s planned Chagos Islands handover was put on ice this week, with incoming US President Donald Trump set to be given an opportunity to veto the plans. After weeks spent trying to expedite the process, by offering increasingly elaborate cash handouts, it seems that Starmer may be stumped by Trump. For all of his ‘America First’ rhetoric, it’s hard to imagine President Trump consenting to a deal which would leave a key US military base at the mercy of a Chinese ally.


The whole piece is well worth reading, particularly the two paragraphs below, which highlight Keir Starmer's acute and damaging limitations as both UK Prime Minister and as an international statesman. It is already embarrassingly clear that he lacks the pragmatic competence to succeed in either role.


Like everything else that he does, Starmer’s Chagos surrender is motivated by a sincere belief in the value of rules and processes. For the former human rights lawyer, the world really is governed by a coherent corpus of international law. Without these rules, the globe would surely descend into chaos, and so their maintenance is of the utmost importance. In the context of the Chagos Islands, that means abiding by the UN’s 2021 ruling about the ultimate sovereignty of the archipelago...

Rather than using this as an opportunity to reflect on whether or not those rules ever really mattered in the first place, Starmer’s answer is to double down. If the international rules-based order is collapsing, then Britain must become louder and prouder about its advocacy of that system. Unfortunately, there is little value in being the only player left abiding by the rules. A reputation for integrity and respectability can quickly morph into a reputation for gullibility and credulity.

As an additional point, I don't agree with the sentence - "Like everything else that he does, Starmer’s Chagos surrender is motivated by a sincere belief in the value of rules and processes." 

His limitations do not seem to result from a "sincere belief", but an inescapable aspect of what the man is. It is already clear that he is unable to see beyond rules and processes - in his world, nothing but anarchy lies beyond them. His stupidity is rooted in this.

Ursula and the NGOs

Carl Deconinck has an interesting Brussels Signal piece on influence exerted on the EU Commission by NGOs and how that influence has grown under Ursula von der Leyen.

 
NGOs gained influence under von der Leyen, while companies lost theirs

NGOs had much more contact with the European Commission under Ursula von der Leyen, compared with her predecessor Jean-Claude Juncker.

Between 2019 and 2024, there were 2,747 meetings between the European Commission and NGOs, 200 more than under Juncker’s presidency, said the German news outlet table.media.


The whole piece is worth reading as a reminder of how NGOs have embedded themselves in EU decision-making processes.


WWF received several grants from the European Commission. For example, WWF’s European Policy Office received €625,000 for a programme.

According to WWF’s own annual report, it received €1,296,249 from the European Union & Public Sector Partnership (PSP) in 2023 alone.

Transport & Environment (or T&E), which advocates for a zero-emission transport and energy system, successfully pushed the EU to end sales of new combustion engine cars and vans by 2035.

Many car industry members regard the move as a death blow to the German car industry.

Cuddle up to losers says Ed

Ed Davey urges Starmer to join new EU customs union to defend against Trump tariffs

Ed Davey will urge Sir Keir Starmer to negotiate a UK-EU customs union to “turbocharge the economy” and strengthen the UK’s hand against possible tariffs from president-elect Donald Trump.

Giving a speech in London on Thursday, the Liberal Democrat leader will say such a deal would help the UK to negotiate with Mr Trump “from a position of strength”.

Perhaps not as loopy as it sounds because Rachel from Accounts could be head of the negotiating team. That could keep her away from the UK economy until 2029. She could have an office there, make it a permanent move.

That should work

'We must make a stand': Roving team of council officers to crackdown on yob behaviour in Westminster

A roving team of officers is being deployed to tackle yobbish behaviour in central London.

Westminster council said it is “making a stand” against aggressive begging, street drinking and drug taking that can leave some residents and business owners “living in fear”.

It has employed a six-person police-style unit, which will use a network of 100 mobile CCTV cameras to identify the areas of most concern.


Diverse teams I hope, and presumably they aren't working from home.

Stuck with the Blob

Something which has become fairly obvious over the years is that developed countries such as the UK, rarely have a political government as promoted by political parties looking for votes. We don’t have a Parliament providing, on behalf of voters, pragmatic political oversight of the bureaucracy and all its associated pressure groups – the Blob as we sometimes call it.

The Blob directs political theatre, but is not entirely human and only partly based in the UK. It has impersonal aspects where situations evolve from both human and impersonal roots, from decisions, laws, markets, language, fashions, rules, transactions, aspects of human behaviour which don’t change much and aspects of reality which don’t change at all.

The Blob both responds to and influences what is published by the media, but not in the sense of applying political principles, promises or by consulting manifestos. The last general election didn’t introduce new political principles, ambitions, policies or whatever. The last general election is over, in the past, done with, buried and forgotten.

Fumbling along in a fog of complexity, it is a mistake to think we are able to change the Blob by casting one vote every five years. It is certainly a sound idea to call for change, to criticise absurdities, absurd people, absurd fashions, absurd failures and corruption. Of course it is, but like throwing pebbles from the beach into the sea, it doesn’t change anything - the tide doesn’t change, the waves don’t adjust their waving.

Not that voting is a waste of time, but it is more opinion poll than a route to change. In itself, an election it isn’t likely to change anything voters thought they were voting for. It might possibly make the work of the Blob more difficult for a while, but this isn’t likely to be a positive development and isn’t likely to be permanent. We know it too - for decades we’ve seen how it all works, or rather doesn’t work.

What we can say is that here in the UK, many things are not done well and much is done badly, especially when the Blob has a role to play. Yet it is a mistake to think this can be corrected by voting. It has rarely worked in the past and shows no signs of working in the future.

Sniffy

This is the silent war the perfume industry won't tell you about

Mysterious perfume houses you've likely never heard of supply most of the well-known brands, with the same perfumers often producing fragrances for the likes of Chloe and Yves Saint Laurent as well as the budget companies...

But in recent years, these high-end brands have been waging a silent war - against the rise of the perfume "dupe houses" trying to copy their fragrances...

Dupes are products that appear very similar to a more expensive or high-quality product...

It's not difficult to see why consumers are turning to dupes.

Plenty of high-end perfumes are in the three-figure range - with some even reaching as high as £300.


Blimey, how much perfume does the well-heeled shopper get for £300? Much less than a pint presumably. 

Sarcasm aside, it's an interesting article, because presumably high-end perfume brands are up against the spread of information as well as being undercut by "dupe houses". 

Oops - lost another one

Tulip Siddiq resigns as government minister amid Bangladesh corruption probes

Tulip Siddiq has resigned as a government minister amid a number of corruption probes in Bangladesh.

In a letter to Keir Starmer she revealed she had been cleared of breaking the ministerial code, but said her position had become a “distraction”.

She is the second minister to go in six months, after former transport secretary Louise Haigh.

Not great news because it gives "Sir" Keir Starmer another reason to hang on to Rachel from Accounts for as long as possible.

A potent and silent force

Patrick West has a timely Critic piece on the way accusations of "misinformation” are being used as a form of misdirection.


The problem with “lies and misinformation”

The charge of “misinformation” can be pure misdirection

This week, Keir Starmer joined the ranks of those shooting the messengers. He added his voice to that chorus deploring people who are in uproar about the failures that allowed the grooming gangs to go unpunished. In reply to Elon Musk’s provocations that “Starmer is complicit in the crimes” and that Jess Phillips is a “rape genocide apologist”, the Prime Minister denounced those “spreading lies and misinformation” on this matter.


The whole piece is well worth reading, particularly the two paragraphs below, from where I took the post title. There is a potent and silent force at work and it is not much of an exaggeration to claim that principled opposition to official censorship is opposition to totalitarian government,


The focus on “misinformation” epitomises a quintessentially modern malaise, one characteristic of a hyper-liberal dogmatic mindset. This is an outlook that is highly controlling, judgemental and simplistic — one that categorises and divides the world into those who are right and righteous and those who are wrong and revolting. This is the philosophy that censors and cancels, save only those who can literally afford to speak with impunity, such as J. K. Rowling or Musk himself.

This dogma, which remains a potent and silent force today despite much talk of “woke being over”, is partly an offshoot of a postmodern relativism that was hostile to those tenets of the Enlightenment: reason, doubt and open inquiry. That’s why progressive managerialism is so absolutist — why today’s liberal clerisy are unduly concerned with heretics who question iron certitudes. They are intolerant of dissent because they presume that truths are cast in stone and sacred.

Full confidence

UK politics live: Starmer backs Reeves over economy as he launches plan to make Britain ‘AI superpower’

Sir Keir Starmer said he has “full confidence” in his team when asked to guarantee Rachel Reeves would be Chancellor until the next election.

However, he declined to say whether Ms Reeves would remain Chancellor for the duration of the parliament.

Leaves a chap wondering what partial confidence would look like, or no confidence. Probably much the same as full confidence. 

Marjorie wasn't involved though

Just Stop Oil spray paint Charles Darwin’s grave at Westminster Abbey

To endorse or not to endorse, that is the question

We are all familiar with product endorsement by well-known people. We know they don’t necessarily buy, use or even value the product themselves, but are prepared to pretend otherwise via a paid endorsement.

When the UK Labour party chose Keir Starmer as leader, it wasn’t a majority expressing a collective belief that Starmer was the best possible leader. It was an endorsement, likely to be temporary and only for the duration of the current political situation whatever that may turn out to be. 

Numerous people in the public arena endorse, but do not necessarily believe a range of progressive political ideas. Profitable or merely fashionable and socially approved endorsement may come with the public role even if belief doesn’t.

As we know, celebrities commonly endorse environmental politics although this tends to be portrayed as an expression of personal belief. Yet celebrities, pundits and orthodox climate scientists do not necessarily believe what they endorse. Circumstances could change, but as things stand, they endorse because there would be some disadvantage to not endorsing.

Endorsement of ideas and political trends can be forthright, vehement and even angry, but alternatively it may be low-key, ambiguous or limited. If circumstances change endorsement may change too and if the change is negative enough, then endorsement fades away into social history.

The point to be made is that it is often useful to frame public debate in terms of endorsement rather than expressions of belief. This dispenses with the presumed depth suggested by belief and brings out the link between personal endorsement and personal advantage.

In certain prominent public debates we might also choose to frame scepticism as a principled refusal to endorse, whatever the financial, political or social advantages which must be turned down.

Greenlit Plan

Starmer’s 50-point plan for artificial intelligence revealed

Keir Starmer has greenlit a plan to use the immigration system to recruit a new wave of artificial intelligence (AI) experts and loosen up data mining regulations to help Britain lead the world in the new technology.

The recruitment of thousands of new AI experts by the government and private sector is part of a 50-point plan to transform Britain with the new technology.


How very Starmeresque, a 50-point plan. Apparently he greenlit it too, but I'm not sure if that's supposed to be good or doubleplus good.

The Danger of Digital Currencies

The danger of digital currencies must be familiar to anyone paying attention. We are part way there already, so it is difficult to imagine governments holding back from going further. 

 

War on waste

Reeves vows war on waste to save public finances as Labour critics circle

Rachel Reeves will launch a war on waste to stabilise public finances amid growing disquiet from her MPs over her handling of the economy.

In an attempt to get back on the front foot after a week of turmoil in financial markets, the Chancellor will lead a major new drive to tackle “waste and inefficiency” across the public sector which will leave “no stone unturned”.


It's the same old problem, Rachel from Accounts won't know where the waste is and won't acknowledge the major waste problems such as Net Zero, Net Zero and Net Zero. There are many others.

She has a major political problem with her war on waste too - it looks like desperation because it is.

By gum she's dreadful.

Chuckle of the day

UK should sign climate change co-operation agreement with China, says think tank

The UK should sign a formal agreement to co-operate with China on fighting climate change despite tensions in other areas, a think tank has said.

Researchers at international affairs think tank Chatham House urged ministers to deepen climate co-operation with Beijing, saying the “with us or against us” approach “belongs in the Cold War”.

In a paper due to be published next week, Chatham House said a formal deal would enable “bolder and more confident engagement” by the UK in China “and vice versa”, allowing the two countries to better share expertise.

Maybe this is why Rachel from Accounts has nipped off to China, to share her expertise in economics, energy markets and climate science. And wind.

One improvement here would be to strengthen the team by sending Ed Miliband as well. Send the whole Cabinet. Send the Labour party.

A DEI, Green New Deal Disaster

 

I feel old

Our granddaughter is with us at the moment as she often sleeps over from Friday to Saturday. We collected her from school yesterday afternoon and when we arrived back at our house she told us she had some homework to do.

I imagined spreading a few books and notebooks across the kitchen table, but Granddaughter told us she’d do her homework online on her phone, which she did. She showed me a few of the questions.

Online homework has probably been going on for some time, especially after the lockdown debacle, but it left me feeling old. I imagined what my mother might have said if I’d told her I was doing my homework on the telephone.

“Are you writing about telephones for your homework?” she might have asked. “Well there’s the phone box on the corner but you can’t do your homework in there, somebody else might want to use it.”

Oh well, times change. After looking at a few questions Granddaughter had to answer, I went back to reading my Kindle.

It isn't far enough

The chancellor's gamble with China: What price is Rachel Reeves willing to pay for closer trading ties?

The UK sticks out diplomatically and economically by refusing to impose extra tariffs on Chinese car companies. In return, Britain is hoping to boost exports of financial services in the coming years.

Given gilt yields are rising, the pound is falling and, all things considered, markets look pretty hairy back in the UK, it's quite likely Rachel Reeves's trip to China gets overshadowed by noises off.

No doubt it is quite likely that Rachel Reeves's trip to China gets overshadowed by noises off. Those noises off are a sound reason for sending her there for a while, but it isn't far enough. 

Given friendlier relations with Elon Musk, a more suitable location might have been Mars, but China will have to do for now.

Or the trajectory of our country

'The future is in our hands' scientists say, as 2024 becomes first year to pass 1.5C global warming threshold

Climate experts were anxious to point out hitting 1.5C is only temporary for now, and that swift action from leaders "can still alter the trajectory of our future climate".

Britain's gas storage levels 'concerningly low' after cold snap, says owner of British Gas

Plunging temperatures and high demand for gas-fired power stations are the main factors behind the low levels, Centrica said.

Vision

Could almost be a representation of Keir Starmer's political vision. Perhaps a little too cheery and optimistic, but it comes across as distinctly Starmeresque.

 

Educashun, Educashun, Educashun

David James has an interesting Critic piece on Education. Interesting because education is another important area where we see the problem of influential, supposedly intelligent people who cannot live in a world of multiple viewpoints.


Educashun, Educashun, Educashun

The blob is back, and it wants to dumb down the curriculum

As we begin 2025 it is hard to be anything other than pessimistic about what lies in store for schools under this Labour government. The Secretary of State for Education, Bridget Phillipson, will no doubt continue to put ideology before both pragmatism and evidence, and many children will see their education adversely affected, with no amount of time, or “lessons learned” by her successors, able to repair the damage done. Never a fan of independence, in whatever form, Phillipson has already stopped funding promised to free schools by the previous government, and it seems inevitable that responsibility for opening such schools in the future will return to local authorities. So much for freedom: the blob is already regenerating.


The whole piece is well worth reading as a reminder that there is such a thing as intelligent ignorance where clumsy ideology hacks away at an evolved culture until there is no culture left but the ideology. Beyond that there is a failing ability to adapt, which is where we are now.


In 1869 Matthew Arnold published “Culture and Anarchy”. For Arnold the “study of perfection”, or “the best which has been thought and said”, was fundamental to a society’s moral integrity: it is the safeguard against the “anarchy” of materialism, individuality and relativism. Culture unites an otherwise divided society, it elevates it to something finer than it would otherwise be. We have come a long way from the “sweetness and light”, the beauty and truth, that culture fosters, and the values it promotes. Arnold’s armies of ignorance have won, their influence spreads across every position of power that shapes the future of education today. It is a national tragedy.

Retro Winter

Temperature in our bit of Derbyshire is -3C this morning. Sunshine, blue sky, icy pavements and a thin layer of snow still lingers on the lawn and nearby house roofs. 

Maybe it won’t last, but this winter has a retro feel to it, a reminder of the proper winters we used to know. I like it, a proper winter has more character, is more atmospheric than the mild, wishy-washy winters we’ve seen over recent decades. 

Chopping logs feels more of a winter necessity than a modern indulgence. It isn’t of course, we could just turn the heat up instead, but the atmospheric aspect of a cold, icy winter is more invigorating than mildly chilly and damp.

A library without books

Steven Tucker has an interesting Mercator piece on the dumbing down of libraries. I haven't visited a library for decades, originally because they never seemed to have books I wished to read, so I enjoyed the serendipity of bookshop browsing instead. Now I read online articles and essays or Kindle books.


A library without books is like a book without pages

Just before Christmas here on Mercator, I bemoaned a new report from the UK’s National Literacy Trust, demonstrating that fewer British children now enjoyed reading for pleasure than at any point since surveys had begun. In that article, I blamed dumbed-down teaching in schools, and asinine online phenomena like BookTok.

But possibly there is another culprit: libraries. Libraries are meant to make children like books, not hate them. But, in seeking to fulfil this first laudable remit in a rather wrong-headed way, are librarians today all too often doing the precise reverse?

Taking a swipe at the wrong problem
There is a disturbing new phenomenon afoot – babies and toddlers are turning up at nurseries and schools not knowing what books are, or how to use them. Used to being dumped before web-connected tablets and iPads by lazy parents, tots are attempting to turn real books’ pages simply by “swiping” them with their fingers, or holding them upside-down, thinking their pages will automatically flip the right way up, like the clever screen-displays on e-devices.


The whole piece is well worth reading, not only because the decline of libraries may be a disaster, but also because it may not be. For lifelong avid readers it is tempting to see the trend in a wholly negative way, but I can't think how libraries would tempt me back apart from opening a decent coffee shop.


Losing the plot
The gamification of public libraries is now big business worldwide. I found a whole 2022 academic paper, “Investigating the role of gamification in public libraries’ literacy-centred youth programming”, about the subject. Here, it is shown how, in many Western libraries, special, expensively-made kids’ sections have of late been installed, where “closed off corners in the basement that once housed the children’s stacks [of books] have been replaced with state-of-the-art, multi-level exploration zones, some complete with Willie Wonka-type installations, theatrical performances, and even [giant model] dinosaurs.”

Great! But … doesn’t that just mean you’ve replaced most of the books with miniature theme-park attractions instead?

A shout from the playground

Top minister tells Tories ‘put up or shut up’ ahead of grooming gang vote

The education secretary has told Conservatives to “put up or shut up” and back Labour’s child safety bill, ahead of a Commons push for a new national inquiry into grooming gangs.

Circling the wagons again, but what a rabble they are. Let us hope the political pendulum really is swinging back and continues to swing back good and hard. 

James Carville comes clean

Interesting admission about the 2024 US Presidential Election from Democrat political consultant James Carville.

From Scylla to Charybdis

Former Bank boss Mark Carney considering running to succeed Canada’s Trudeau

Former Bank of England governor Mark Carney is considering entering the race to succeed Justin Trudeau as leader of Canada’s Liberal Party.

Mr Carney – who headed up Britain’s central bank between 2013 and 2020 – said he was mooting the move following the resignation of Mr Trudeau after nine years as prime minister amid a mounting loss of support from both within his party and across Canada.

In a statement to the Financial Times newspaper, Mr Carney said: “I’ll be considering this decision closely with my family over the coming days.”


Possibly an unfair post title, even Carney may manage to be less ghastly than the ridiculous Trudeau.

The main holdout against changing political tides

Ryan Bourne has a timely and very interesting CAPX piece on the Starmer government and what he calls America's new political vibe.


Is Britain ready for America’s new political vibe?

• Keir Starmer and others are being slammed by tech titans like Elon Musk
• The American Right views our Labour Government as representing what they are fighting against
• With Justin Trudeau a dead man walking, Keir Starmer is a bogeyman for the American Right

British politics is suddenly dominating conversation on X for all the wrong reasons. Tech titans like Elon Musk have stumbled onto the grooming-gangs scandal – a series of truly horrifying crimes that were downplayed or ignored by various authorities, in part because of fears about anti-Muslim backlash.

Musk, Bill Ackman and other Americans are lighting up X with their outrage, accusing local British politicians, the police and public authorities of throwing vulnerable girls under the bus to preserve votes or ease racial tensions. They’re slamming Keir Starmer’s record as Director of Public Prosecutions and hammering Jess Phillips, the Under-Secretary of State for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls, for recently blocking a fresh inquiry into grooming in Oldham.


The whole piece is well worth reading as Starmer and his Cabinet are entirely incapable of responding to a reshaped political mood on this scale. Indications are that they don't even understand it. 

Starmer is beginning to look like a textbook political example of the Peter principle or the latest loser in a game international musical chairs. 


Yet if SW1 think it’s just the debate over grooming gangs this vibe shift will affect, they are in for a shock. That’s because, in Starmer’s Labour, the UK now has a Government that looks like the main holdout against the changing political tides – a party operating at the tail-end of the Blairite zeitgeist. With Justin Trudeau a dead man walking in Canada, Starmer is fast becoming a bogeyman for the American Right – seen as representing exactly the sort of politics they are fighting against.

Gone but not forgotten

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stepping down as party leader after nearly 10 years in office

Justin Trudeau said Monday that he will step down as prime minister of Canada, after weeks of mounting pressure from within his ruling Liberal Party about how to deal with incoming U.S. President Donald Trump and trade tariffs he has promised.

Speaking outside his residence at Rideau Cottage, Trudeau said he had taken time over the holidays to “reflect” with his family.

“Throughout the course of my career, any success I have personally achieved has been because of their support and with their encouragement,” Trudeau said.


For Canadians, the resignation of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is good news, but voters who put him there haven't resigned, they won't abandon voting merely because they messed up badly with Trudeau.

How ironic

Britain’s biggest industry slashes jobs after record tax raid

One in four services companies are cutting jobs after the record tax raid launched in Labour’s first Budget, according to a closely watched survey.

Some 23pc of companies in the service industry – the major driving force of Britain’s economy, which includes everything from restaurants to law firms – reported a fall in their work force levels in December, according to S&P Global.


Law firms too eh? I bet they didn't see that coming - or maybe they did.