A linguistic failure

Sebastian Milbank has an interesting Critic piece on what he calls British proceduralism. 


Proceduralism is killing Britain

Process triumphs over principle and practicality in every aspect of life

Britain recently woke up to the startling revelation that Keir Starmer now knows what a woman is. How does he know? Because a court told him. According to Sir Keir “A woman is an adult female, and the court has made that absolutely clear. I actually welcome the judgment because I think it gives real clarity.” This change of heart could be read as an act of political opportunism in the face of fast-changing public attitudes, but the way the Prime Minister framed the shift was telling. It seemed to speak of a man who had outsourced his rationality and morality to the legal system, patiently waiting for “clarity” to descend from on high, rather than making his own mind up.


The whole piece is well worth reading as a useful interpretation of the managed cultural and political decline which seems to be the best we can hope for. Particularly interesting because of the implication that the problem cannot be tackled by more proceduralism, but if proceduralism is all we know...

This inability to think outside of numbers, preferring even the most synthetic sort of data over the best rational arguments, is now a defining feature of British institutional life. Every large organisation, from hospitals, to universities to government departments, is afflicted by this kind of thinking and language.

And it is precisely a linguistic failure. Despite our abysmal failure to foster STEM learning at school and university, we are even more deficient in the domain of the liberal arts. At school and increasingly at university too, those studying English, History, and Philosophy are trained to pass exams, fill out worksheets and apply pre-chewed, sub-sociological “critique” to the material they encounter. The bones of grammar, memorisation and facts are missing, and anyway lack the flesh of a wide reading of classic sources and texts. Absent these fundamentals, it is little wonder that the arts of classical logic and rhetoric have fallen into total abeyance.

An attempt to feel relevant

Duchess of Sussex has been using her HRH title privately for years

It appeared to be a contravention of an agreement made with Buckingham Palace in January 2020 that the Sussexes “will not use their titles as they are no longer working members of the Royal family”...

The late Queen was said to have told her grandson: “You work for the monarchy, the monarchy doesn’t work for you.”...

When they travel abroad, the couple are also said to request that their HRH titles be used.

One source said it was an attempt to “feel relevant”.


An attempt to feel relevant eh? UK voters have a similar problem.

Starkness Descends Starkly

UK issued stark warning or risk floods and wildfires in climate 'disaster'

The UK is being warned that not enough is being done to prepare for “tomorrow’s disaster” of floods, heatwaves, drought and wildfires, its climate advisers have warned.

Independent advisory Climate Change Committee raised fears that spending needed to protect communities and critical services such as the NHS from worsening weather extremes could be cut in the summer spending review.

In a new report released by the committee, they've warned there has been no improvement since its last assessment in 2023, and accused the new government of failing to deliver the change in approach needed.

stark warning... risk floods... climate disaster... UK is being warned... fears... spending...

Ah - spending.

Quasi-criminal spending

Alex Story has a powerful TCW piece on what he calls quasi-criminal spending being uncovered by DOGE in the US.

The bloated quangos sucking our country dry

WHILE the four-months-old US administration has caused some distraction for disturbing the current international order by endeavouring to rebalance trade, a real revolution in governance is taking place.

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) headed by Elon Musk has revealed what most of us suspected: our huge deficits are a function of government-led grift. Billions of dollars of quasi-criminal spending is being uncovered.

This explains why taxpayers are paying ever more for ever less; in the worst-case scenario we are paying ever more to feed a beast intent on destroying our civilisation.


The whole piece is well worth reading. Follow the money they say - we should and we should vote accordingly.


Here is a list of quangos published by the Adam Smith Institute.

They employ close to 400,000 people on a budget of £390billion per year, nearly 300 per cent more than our total deficit and over a third of our entire yearly £1.3trillion government spend.

Added to this richly funded, unaccountable, relatively new branch of government, we must add the partially or fully state-funded charitable sector, which is in effect the PR arm of the vitality-sapping UK quangocracy.

Nearly a third of the £100billion budget for UK charities comes from the government. Around £30billion is spent by the government on ‘charities’.

Blame game begins early for Canadians

Mark Carney issues warning about Trump after Canada election win

Mark Carney's Liberal Party has won the election in Canada - capping a stunning turnaround in fortunes fuelled by Donald Trump's annexation threats and trade war.

After polls closed, the Liberals were projected to win more of parliament's 343 seats than the Conservative Party.

However it was not immediately clear if they would win an outright majority or would need to rely on one or more smaller parties to form a government and pass legislation.

Speaking after the result, Mr Carney said: "President Trump is trying to break us so that America can own us - that will never, ever happen."

Bad news for Canadians, but the prospect of another bungling Canadian wordsmith on the world stage could offer sceptics many more examples of how things shouldn't be done. 

A lost opportunity for Canadians, possibly a disaster in the making, but not a disaster for everyone else. Prominent bunglers can be useful, such as - 

Carney already blaming Trump for his anticipated failures? Not a great start.

Coalition would be disaster says disaster

Tory-Reform coalition would be 'disaster for Britain', says Sir Keir Starmer

The prime minister said voters of the rival parties were "being conned" as he suggested there were attempts to merge the two parties going on "behind the scenes".

The prime minister was asked by Sky News political editor Beth Rigby whether he was "more worried" about Reform rather than the Conservatives ahead of the local and mayoral elections taking place across England this week.

There isn't much to be said about a notoriously mendacious and disastrous Prime Minister who speaks of voters being 'conned', political opponents going 'behind the scenes' or being a 'disaster for Britain'. 

He isn't much more coherent than Joe Biden, the phrases just plop out as unconvincing verbal blobs of nothing much. 

Marvels of Meccano

The Elegant Language of Politics

Labour warned it will 'get its head kicked in' by Reform at local elections

Labour has been warned it will "get its head kicked in" by Reform UK at the local elections. Labour peer Maurice Glasman issued the grave warning ahead of Thursday's ballots where Nigel Farage's party is expected to make major gains.

Lord Glasman, who founded the influential Blue Labour group, that he believes Labour will "get its head kicked in" by Reform. He told the Observer: "It's game over if they don't change. People are losing faith in government, in the most general way, and someone has to stop that.


Not quite the language of Disraeli and Gladstone, but today we might crudely suggest that any amount of head damage wouldn't make much difference to Labour anyway. Lord Glasman did add this strange bit of optimism for the future though -

"Labour must be a pro-worker, patriotic party, not talking gibberish about diversity."

Unfortunately, a party which is anti-worker, unpatriotic and which constantly talks gibberish about diversity has a long way to go if that's the ideal.

Sooner or later it crumbles and sinks

  

So long as a man takes an interest only in himself, in his own fortune, in his own advancement, in his own success, his interests are trivial: all that is, like himself, of little importance and of short duration. Alongside of the small boat which he steers so carefully there are thousands and millions of others of like it; none of them are worth much, and his own is not worth more. However well he may have provisioned and sailed it, it will always remain what it is, slight and fragile; in vain will he hoist his flags, decorate it, and shove ahead to get the first place; in three steps he has reached its length. However well he handles and maintains it, in a few years it leaks; sooner or later it crumbles and sinks, and with it goes all his effort. Is it reasonable to work so hard for this, and is so slight an object worth so great an effort?

Hippolyte Taine - The Modern Regime (1893)

Woodentops

Energy Secretary embroiled in new Drax greenwashing row

Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has been accused by US activists of being complicit in the pollution of a town in Mississippi by handing billions in taxpayer cash to a UK power firm that they claim is harming the health of residents.

Drax Group operates a power plant in Selby, North Yorkshire, that generates electricity by burning wood pellets. Many of these are sourced from forests in the US and shipped to the UK.

Activists from Gloster in Mississippi, where Drax runs a wood pellet factory, say pollution from its plant has caused health issues for people nearby, including heart disease, cancer and respiratory problems.


The pollution claims may or may not be sound, but powering Drax with wood pellets shipped from the US is unambiguously insane.

For sceptics, the main positive stemming from the Drax debacle is that it so clearly is insane and the Net Zero loons can't admit it. It doesn't matter why they can't admit it, that doesn't make the Drax lunacy any less obvious to others.

Another positive for sceptics is that Weird Ed is now tangled up in the Drax mess. Couldn't happen to a more deserving chap. 

Come on Ed - say something silly.

Mega Heat Burst Burst

UK weather: Brits face mega 27C heat burst in just days that's hotter than Ibiza as maps turn red

Britain is set to experience warm conditions next week as temperatures climb up to 27C, making parts of the UK hotter than Ibiza.

While the country won't face an official heatwave based on Met Office's standards, forecasters said "a very fine spell of weather" is on the way. The highest recorded April temperature was back in 1949, when Camden Square in London recorded 29.4C on April 16 - and Wednesday's expected highs of 27C will be less than 2C lower than that.


Ah - so in spite of the headline, it is not quite a 'mega 27C heat burst'. The weather is forecast to be pleasant rather than 'mega', not a heatwave and not likely to break records. It's just expected to be 'a very fine spell of weather' - which won't last. 

It would be a good idea to avoid turning the maps red too, they could burst out of mega alarming colours.  

As useful as a teapot?

Unitree G1 Humanoid Robot, currently £20,736 in the UK.

So we'll go for enforceable

BBC licence fee 'unenforceable', says culture secretary

The culture secretary has said the BBC's licence fee is "unenforceable" and insisted "no options are off the table" when the government begins a review into the corporation's current funding model later this year.

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, Lisa Nandy said there were "problems" with the annual charge, with "fewer and fewer people" paying the £174.50 fee.


It is tiresomely obvious that the 'unenforceable' narrative is almost certainly a cover for introducing an enforceable form of BBC funding. A safe bet is that those who never watch the BBC and don't currently pay the licence fee will eventually have its greasy hand in their pockets unless they emigrate.

Tedious stuff, but the Lisa Nandys of this world have to dance around these issues to pretend they haven't settled things in principle some time ago.

Must take a certain kind of blockhead resilience to go through with it though. Almost impressive, no wonder they grind down opposition.

A superior brand of urban myth

Even a brief survey of the UK political and media landscape leads to various conclusions, but there are two linked and unmissable aspects –

Imbecility - the UK has a major problem with influential stupidity. 
Intransigence – the UK has a major problem with influential blockheads.

Influential imbecility is not a few wrong moves which could be corrected, it is an intransigent shift towards what appears to be a significantly lower level of intelligence within governing classes, institutions and professions. It is not new and not restricted to the UK.

One possible route down the rabbit hole is fashionable elite conversation. However fanciful or absurd they may be, some memes seem to become particularly fashionable, rather like a superior brand of urban myth. Some myths have clearly evolved into official policy, perhaps because elite thinking must remain on a higher plane – or private jet to be more materialistic.

It is as if an important social censor has been degraded – the censor which should detect stupidity within influential social contexts. Not a surprising conclusion unfortunately, influential stupidity has always been a problem.

Yet something may have moderated influential stupidity in the past, and an aspect of that moderation could have been a sense of place, of physical belonging, an essential stake in what works and has worked in the past, socially and culturally.

A human life, I think, should be well rooted in some spot of native land, where it may get the love of tender kinship for the face of the earth, for the labours men go forth to, for the sounds and accents that haunt it, for whatever will give that early home a familiar unmistakable difference amid the future widening of knowledge: a spot where the definiteness of early memories may be inwrought with affection, and kindly acquaintance with all neighbours, even to the dogs and donkeys, may spread not by sentimental effort and reflection, but as a sweet habit of the blood.

George Eliot - Daniel Deronda (1876)


Perhaps this is it and always was. Those who would rule our lives should be well rooted in some spot of native land. Maybe an international, globalist outlook hinders a grounded viewpoint because those who could easily be elsewhere are in a sense nowhere and not suited to rule anywhere.

Bring it on

'Bring on the fight' over net zero, energy secretary Ed Miliband tells critics

Wrapping up a two-day summit on energy security in London, Mr Miliband said clean power provides "energy security, lower bills [and] the biggest economic opportunity of the 21st

Wrapping up a two-day summit on energy security in London, Mr Miliband said: "The critics need to know that if they want to fight about this, this government says 'bring it on'."

Bring it on? Strewth - whatever Weird Ed thinks he's fighting, it's rather bigger than he is and considerably more intractable than a bacon sandwich. 

It's not something he can defeat with clichés and finger-wagging either, reality doesn't pay attention to such things.

Britain's charity racket

Brian Monteith has a topical CAPX piece on what he calls Britain's charity racket.

Britain’s charity racket is taking over policy

• Today’s most influential lobbyists come in the form of not-for-profit entities
• NGOs aren't actually interested in solutions to the issues they campaign on
• Activist NGOs denude consumers of choice and businesses of their ability to make a profit

One of the most obvious causes of our country’s economic distress is rarely commented on. Yet if we just step back from the turmoil of ever-higher taxes, over-breeding regulations and now tariff turmoil, we will discover the blindingly obvious. Unelected, well-funded, self-appointed lobby groups wield enormous political power in our daily lives and exert outsized influence over government policy and decision making – yet they are accountable to no one but themselves.


Familiar to anyone paying attention, but the whole piece is well worth reading, because we in the UK don't have a Donald Trump exposing the problem.


The reputation of NGOs for impartiality is constantly validated by the media, which treats them as independent organisations which, by definition, are objective and therefore authoritative because they are not tainted by political interest.

Except NGOs have become profoundly intertwined with governments and politicians and are now vested interests themselves. Perversely, without the need to continue their fight for change their purpose would disappear. When did you hear of an NGO talking itself out of the funding and jobs that go with it? That’s why pilot studies or modest reforms are never enough for NGOs, they always demand more action.

Absolutely insane

Green rules have become ‘absolutely insane’, says Reeves

Rachel Reeves has said “absolutely insane” environmental regulation has gone too far and is now the biggest barrier to investing - even in green technology.

Speaking on a panel at the IMF’s spring meeting in Washington, the Chancellor said regulation had gone “too far in one direction”, adding that “well meaning regulations that come in for the right reasons end up stopping good things from happening.”

Ms Reeves said: “In the UK, that is particularly the case with environmental regulation.

“Environmental regulations are now the biggest barrier to investing in renewable energy in the UK. That is not the purpose of environmental regulation but they’re the things that are holding up pylons being built. They’re stopping wind farms from being built.”


No doubt Weird Ed told her that. 

Maybe it's a minor bonus if the insane green rules really are hindering us from wallowing in even more insanity, but the day may come when it feels lonely outside the asylum.

Public failed by watchdog says watchdog

Public failed by water regulators and government - as bills rise, spending watchdog says

As trust in the water industry reaches a record low, bills are rising at a rate last seen 20 years ago.

Water regulators and the government have failed to provide a trusted and resilient industry at the same time as bills rise, the state spending watchdog has said.

Public trust in the water sector has reached a record low, according to a report from the National Audit Office (NAO) on the privatised industry.

The water industry is so heavily regulated that it can be misleading to describe it as privatised. As the NAO says, this is a failure of government and regulators.

Yet something else seems to hover over this problem, the same thing that hovers over HS2, Net Zero and government projects generally. Untreated sewage spills aren't the problem, we have a colossal problem with incompetence, both political and within the whole machinery of government.

Dangerous people

A dodgy nurses Metro story by Dawn Butler


Dangerous people are pretending to be nurses - I have a plan to stop it

Now, I believe we have an amazing opportunity under a Labour Government – which I know truly cares about the safety of patients.

And we have ready-made legislation to fix this issue – my Nurses (Use of Title) Bill has been published and presented to Parliament, and is awaiting Second Reading on June 20.

But we don’t have to wait – the Government, if it so chooses, can accept my Bill now and bring it into law.



Gosh, this could multiply, so how about -

An Economist (Use of Title) Bill

A Climate Scientist (Use of Title) Bill

An Expert (Use of Claim) Bill

A Fact Check (Use of Claim) Bill

A Miliband (Use of Nonsense) Bill

Clearly wrong

Starmer: Treatment of women in trans debate was ‘clearly wrong’

The treatment of women’s rights campaigners before the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling on sex and gender was “clearly wrong”, Downing Street has said.

Sir Keir Starmer’s spokesman said some women who had spoken out in favour of recognising biological sex had not been “treated appropriately”.

The admission came as Sir Keir continued to face criticism over his changing stance on the issue.


Good grief, does the ghastly 'man' think this whining apology for an apology is a suitable response for a Prime Minister in lieu of abject, ignominious resignation?

It was clearly wrong at the time, all decent people knew it was clearly wrong and worst of all "Sir" Keir, you knew it was clearly wrong and even your horrible, spiteful, incompetent Labour party knew it was clearly wrong.

A surfeit of pork pies

Starmer serves pork pies and patriotism for St George’s Day

As a surging Reform UK threatens Labour’s post-industrial heartlands, Sir Keir Starmer has two secret weapons to show his love for England: the Melton Mowbray pork pie and Ross Kemp.

At a reception to celebrate St George’s Day, Downing Street hosted the former EastEnders actor, public sector workers, comedian Rob Beckett and sporting figures Sarah Storey and Maro Itoje.
 
Guests at the party on Tuesday evening were treated to pork pies, Lancashire Eccles cakes and Bakewell tarts, as the Prime Minister praised the value of “modern patriotism” and celebrated English culture.

Pork pies indeed, somebody is making fun of him. I wonder what “modern patriotism” is supposed to be? Something furtive involving more pork pies I expect.

Journeying home

 

Dimming

Experiments to dim the Sun will be approved within weeks

Experiments to dim sunlight to fight global warming will be given the green light by the Government within weeks.

Outdoor field trials which could include injecting aerosols into the atmosphere, or brightening clouds to reflect sunshine, are being considered by scientists as a way to prevent runaway climate change.

Aria, the Government’s advanced research and invention funding agency, has set aside £50 million for projects, which will be announced in the coming weeks.


Good grief this is stupid. A chap is bound to wonder who was responsible for dimming the UK government. Our problem isn't runaway climate change, it's runaway stupidity. Unfortunately, that tipping point was reached some time ago.

We need a prize for the first MP to suggest dimming the Sun by firing rockets full of water at it.

Brain Drain

US scientists headed for France to keep studying ‘gender and history’

US academics are crossing the Atlantic to continue their progressive gender studies, statistics suggest.

In the wake of US President Donald Trump’s clampdown on gender studies and so-called diversity, American academics are flooding the University of Marseille with applications after a “Safe Space for Science” programme was created to offer “asylum” to US researchers for three years.

Of the 298 scientists from the US who applied to the University of Marseille after Trump’s administration clamped down on “wokery”, most were specialised in gender and history.

After the Supreme Court decision, maybe the UK could take advantage of this reverse 'brain drain' too. 

Tipping Point

Most people will be familiar with this issue, but it's worth a reminder because politicians and the media still seem anxious to avoid it.

Breathing space

Free school breakfast clubs will give parents ‘breathing space’, says Starmer

Sir Keir Starmer said: “The rollout of free breakfast clubs is a truly game-changing moment for families in this country.

“They mean parents will no longer be hamstrung by rigid school hours and have the breathing space they need to beat the morning rush, attend work meetings and doctors’ appointments, or run errands. And crucially, it means better life chances for children.”

It isn't free of course, but we wouldn't expect Starmer to admit that. It's an interesting development though. By 'breathing space', Starmer means political breathing space, he doesn't care about parents. 

There is a strong sense of tinkering here, fiddling with a very old, increasingly creaky and intrusive approach to educating children. A sense that politically anxious moves such as this are merely intended to keep state education going for a little longer. 

This pushes it along, at least until the next election when we'll be treated to images of Ministers joining in, sitting with children while they eat their approved breakfast off little plastic trays.

There is more than a whiff of endgame about it.  

The plebs must pay

Harvard sues Trump over $2.2bn funding freeze

Mr Trump accused the institution of pushing what he called "political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting 'Sickness?'" in a post on Truth Social.

Harvard has seen student-led protests in recent days calling on the institution to resist interference by the federal government.

Harvard's lawsuit, filed in Boston, described the research funding freeze as "arbitrary and capricious" and violating its First Amendment rights.

Or - "Hey plebs, we don't want your standards, just your money."

Oh dear - White House spokesperson Harrison Fields has also raised the spectre of privilege.


On Monday, White House spokesperson Harrison Fields issued a defiant response to the lawsuit: "The gravy train of federal assistance to institutions like Harvard, which enrich their grossly overpaid bureaucrats with tax dollars from struggling American families is coming to an end.

"Taxpayer funds are a privilege, and Harvard fails to meet the basic conditions required to access that privilege," he wrote.

More British

Renewables rollout making UK electricity supply ‘more British’, analysis finds

The UK’s rollout of wind and solar power over the last decade has made its electricity supply “more British”, with significantly less reliance on imported gas, analysis has found.

Last year, just under half of Britain’s electricity supply was powered by foreign energy imports, said researchers at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), down from 65% in 2014.


In which case, 'more British' is being equated to less reliable, more expensive, technically incompetent and fundamentally bonkers. 

Not very flattering for Brits, but neither is this government.

Blockers

MPs and peers call for Trump to be blocked from addressing Parliament

A number of MPs and peers have called for Donald Trump to be blocked from addressing Parliament when he visits the UK.

The US president has suggested Buckingham Palace is “setting a date for September” for him to stay in Britain.

But some parliamentarians have voiced concerns that it would be “inappropriate” for him to speak in the Palace of Westminster as his predecessors Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton did.

Isn't "Sir" Keir Starmer resolutely opposed to blockers? 

No matter, there is little doubt that Donald Trump addressing Parliament would result in an acutely embarrassing level of earnest nonsense, silly theatrical frothing and screechy demonstrations from the usual suspects.

It could so easily cement a deserved perception that the UK is a silly country full of silly people. It isn't quite that bad in spite of Keir Starmer's efforts, but the usual suspects would add to that perception. The optics, as they say, would not be good.

The tip of an iceberg of trash

Fred de Fossard has a useful Critic piece on the damage done by equality law.


Equality law is bankrupting Britain

Birmingham is the tip of an iceberg of trash

The Birmingham bin strikes continue, and trade unions are threatening to extend similar strikes across the country. The Government’s response so far amounts to window dressing. Its latest intervention is to deploy the army to logistical roles to support the council manage the situation, but it has stopped short of putting uniformed soldiers on the streets to collect rubbish. That hasn’t been seen since the mid-1970s. Crisis, what crisis?

This will do little to solve the problem. As with so many of Britain’s contemporary troubles, there is a legislative root. That means, thankfully, there is also a legislative solution. In this instance it is a combination of equal pay laws, European Union jurisprudence and our favourite repeat offender, the Equality Act.


The whole piece is well worth reading, if only as a reminder of the most likely outcome - nothing constructive will be done. 


Birmingham City Council is a public body, and its bankruptcy is ultimately being administered by the country’s beleaguered taxpayers. The Equality Act is turning into a monster. It doesn’t just undermine meritocracy and equality under the law, it is now taking the taxpayer for a ride. With the public finances as strained as they are, it is time for the Prime Minister and Chancellor to act in the interests of growth and sound money instead of just talking about them.

Nonsense and lies

Farage accused of peddling 'nonsense and lies' - as he predicts 'the new Brexit'

The Reform UK leader also vowed to be Britain's equivalent of Elon Musk by cutting excess council spending if his party claims victory in next month's local elections.

Ed Miliband has accused Nigel Farage of peddling "nonsense and lies" about the government's commitment to net zero, as the Reform UK leader said the issue could become the "new Brexit".

The energy secretary said both Mr Farage's party and the Conservatives were prepared to "make up any old nonsense and lies to pursue their ideological agenda" ahead of next month's local elections.

It would seem odd to have a major political party with no imbeciles or charlatans in senior positions, or bonkers ideologues such as Weird Ed. 

The media and many voters would have to tear themselves away from the lies and nonsense and make an effort. It could be traumatic.  

In this stupid world...

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

George Eliot - Middlemarch (1871-72)

Moving on from George Eliot's observation, we have Microsoft Copilot's answer to this question  –

"what is Karl Friston's free energy principle" –

Karl Friston's Free Energy Principle is a fascinating framework that explains how living systems, like the brain, maintain order and adapt to their environment. At its core, it suggests that organisms minimize a quantity called "free energy," which is a measure of surprise or uncertainty about the world. By doing so, they can predict and respond to their surroundings more effectively.

This principle integrates ideas from neuroscience, physics, and Bayesian inference. It proposes that the brain acts as an "inference engine," constantly updating its internal models of the world based on sensory input. By minimizing the difference between its predictions and actual sensory data, the brain reduces uncertainty and maintains a stable state.

The Free Energy Principle has been applied to various fields, including understanding perception, action, learning, and even mental disorders. It's a unifying theory that offers insights into how biological systems resist disorder and adapt to their environments.


As the AI system says, it is a fascinating framework. It may be a neuroscientific framework, but in practical human terms it is not dissimilar to the George Eliot quote above or B. F. Skinner’s outlook on stimulus, response and reinforcement. No doubt Socrates took a similar view of group rhetoric.

To take just one example, we see Friston's framework in our political parties where individuals from the governing classes place great reliance on measuring surprise or uncertainty via the approval of their peers, not the approval of voters. Collective responsibility they call it, but this is misleading. Instead it is the minimising of surprise or uncertainty within a government peer group, this being the group and the group rhetoric which count.   

Traditional political divisions ensure that the approval of voters has secondary significance at best, one reason why we cannot expect political parties to provide competent political oversight of the permanent administration - their measure of competence is not ours and as things stand, it often can’t be. A global outlook deepens the division with national voters.

It may be possible to remedy this by greater feedback from voters such as the use of a referendum to approve any significant government policy. This would involve voters in those individual measures of surprise or uncertainty within the political classes. The nature of collective responsibility would then be changed. Opinion polls achieve this to some small degree, but the effect is weak compared to what could be a simple 'Yes' or 'No' in a binding referendum.

Friston’s framework also explains the position of reality-bound sceptics who find themselves outside certain measures of surprise or uncertainty when reality provides more powerful measures. In the sceptic's world, scepticism does minimise surprise or uncertainty. Believers minimise surprise or uncertainty by simply denying it. 

A practical example of this is the recent failure of radical gender politics in the UK. The sudden legal clarification may have been a surprise, but the ultimate failure of radical gender rhetoric was probably not a surprise to a large percentage of the population. Most were probably sceptics on this issue, even if the consequences of open discourse were uncertain.

To expand the example of UK political parties, it is possibly too optimistic to see Reform as a powerful reforming political party. Its elected members will adopt at least some of the measures they encounter within the general government model used to minimise surprise or uncertainty. Compromise will be driven by the need for worthwhile communication between Reform and the government machine - compromise to minimise surprise or uncertainty.

 In this stupid world...

Starmer should not worry about mistakes

Starmer facing calls to adopt Trump-style media strategy and ‘not worry about mistakes’

Labour MPs have called on the prime minister to act more like the US president, who has made surprise calls to live TV news shows and held long meetings with cabinet members on camera.

The result is that Mr Trump dominates news coverage in the US, with a growing number of senior Labour figures believing Sir Keir would do well to adopt the tactic.

Just a guess here, but it is possible that Trump dominates news coverage in the US because he is interesting, uncovering colossal levels of fraud and waste and his opponents are generally entertaining. Starmer isn't interesting and his opponents are not entertaining.

It isn't clear which of his numerous mistakes Starmer should avoid worrying about, but presumably Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner, David Lammy, Ed Miliband and Bridget Phillipson are among them. Then we have mass immigration, freebies, budget debacle, school VAT debacle, dodgy CVs. 

Oh - and 'sausages'. 

It's a good job bungling has become the new normal.

Robot vampires may be the answer

Bleeding the planet dry? Climate change could unlock new threat to the world's blood supply

Climate change might impact the supply and demand chain when it comes to blood transfusions, a new study has found.

Researchers from Red Cross Lifeblood and the University of the Sunshine Coast (UniSC) in Australia believe that blood-borne diseases as well as natural disasters are likely to disturb current patterns.

"As well as limiting the mobility of large numbers of people, these events disrupt the storage, safety, and transportation of blood which has a short shelf life," Dr Elvina Viennet, one of the researchers behind the study, said in a statement.


Are you fit only to be flung down like the corpse of a nation, its soul gone and its veins emptied of blood?

Stendhal - The Red and the Black (1830)

Easter Optimism

We're off out into Derbyshire soon. A wildly optimistic thing to do over the Easter holiday, even on a Saturday, but we're up for it. We'll go early enough to get a car park space, although getting out when we return may not be quite so easy, but we're up for it as they say.

While strolling through the limestone crags, musing on this and that, I may even come across a fragment of Starmerite, the mineral with no known uses apart from cheap gaslighting. 

Very light rain at the moment, but the coffee shop beckons and I'm sure it will stop soon. Optimism - that's the way. Off we go! 

We meet at first light

 

Two EV Headlines

Could you live with an EV? All your questions answered in our expert buying guide

We’ve gone EV myth-busting to show what it’s really like to live with an electric car. Our tests reveal the truth about charging and range worries. How reliable is the UK’s charging network on a road trip to the east coast of England? And how does our EV live up to its range claims?


The EV graveyard is cleared! Abandoned new electric cars worth £275k dumped on Nottingham road are collected - and will be sold at auction

The eight brand new electric cars pictured yesterday abandoned in Nottingham have been collected on instruction from liquidators - and will soon be sold at auction, This is Money can reveal.

The convoy of Fisker Ocean EVs, which were originally worth over £275,000 collectively, were dumped at the roadside by a local dealer seven months ago after the US Tesla rival filed for bankruptcy last summer.

A shocking betrayal

The slaying of an oak tree in the car park of a Toby Carvery is a shocking betrayal

The slaying of the oak in Enfield’s Toby Carvery car park is unforgivable. With a mighty 20ft girth and a listing on the Woodland Trust’s ancient tree inventory, it may only have been midlife, with the potential to make it to 1,000 years old.

Yesterday, in one of those apologies/not apologies usually connected with spoilt toddlers, restaurant owners Mitchells & Butlers (M&B) apologised for “the upset it has caused” but not for the actual felling.

A slaying and a shocking betrayal apparently. 

Gosh, now I even feel guilty about slaying that tiny, innocent horse chestnut sapling. It was one of many which sprout when local squirrels kindly bury conkers in our garden. 

And the tiny yew sapling which probably sprouted from a seed embedded in bird droppings. That little mite could have lived for well over 1000 years.

But while we are on the subject of shocking betrayals... 

Rewiring

Plan to divert millions of patients from waiting lists with GP service expansion

A scheme which allows family doctors to seek advice from specialists before referring patients will be expanded with the support of an £80 million funding package...

It follows an announcement in January that GPs would be offered £20 every time they consult a specialist using the scheme

Health minister Karin Smyth said: “By caring for patients closer to home, we save time and stop masses of people having to head to hospital for unnecessary appointments in the first place.

“We are rewiring the NHS so that we are doing things differently, more efficiently and delivering better outcomes for patients.


That's another undefined political term to add to the list - rewiring. Not turbocharged rewiring of course - not for the NHS. For some reason I keep thinking of pianos though, can't imagine why that is. 

It may not be long before GPs consult an AI system instead of a specialist, but experience suggests that may not equate to a saving of £20 per consultation.

Strongest Sign

Strongest sign found yet of alien life by scientists investigating distant ocean-covered planet

Scientists believe they have discovered the strongest signs yet of alien life on a distant ocean-covered planet far beyond our solar system.

A team of top experts meets to consider the implications

Useful List

Labour ministers who spent years refusing to accept biology in trans debate

The party spent years arguing the radical trans case, and opposing biological reality. In the light of today's defining Supreme Court ruling, we take a look back at the previous positions of today's top politicians.

More of a reminder really, a reminder of the standard of political oversight voters vote for and useless charlatans provide.

The Populist Revolution

 

Clarity was never the problem

Supreme Court latest: Supreme Court rules on definition of a woman - as campaigners celebrate

The Supreme Court has ruled that "woman" in UK law refers to biological sex in a significant ruling celebrated by women's groups but criticised by trans campaigners.

A UK government spokesperson says: "We have always supported the protection of single-sex spaces based on biological sex...

"This ruling brings clarity and confidence, for women and service providers such as hospitals, refuges, and sports clubs.


There has never been a problem with clarity. The issue itself has always been clear enough as a political campaign promoted by malign and cowardly politicians, media and celebrities.

Steel

Harry Phibbs has a useful CAPX piece on Nationalised steel.


Nationalised steel is the last thing Britain needs

• From Keir Starmer to Nigel Farage, our politicians have fallen for a distorted 'Keynesianism'
• The privatisation of steel was a success story
• If Net-Zero requirements were lifted, steel could still turn a profit in this country, but they won't be

Have you spotted that when there is consensus support for some bold new measure of state intervention, it proves especially costly and disastrous? Lockdown. HS2. Net Zero. It is not just a political consensus across the main parties. But also the academics and the media. Cue articles beginning, ‘Both sides of industry’. When you hear them all singing the Kumbaya, watch out for your wallet. We had another example on Saturday with the emergency session of Parliament to pass legislation enabling the ‘likely’ nationalisation of British Steel.

Steel nationalisation is a traditional sport of Labour Governments. Clement Attlee did it in 1949. Harold Wilson did it in 1967. Both times saw mismanagement, political interference, industrial decline and heavy taxpayer losses. Third time lucky?


The whole piece is well worth reading as there are a number of other interpretations of this mess. One idea is that this may be a move to discredit Net Zero as an impossible burden on UK steel-making. If so, it would also discredit Ed Miliband, a potential candidate for Keir Starmer's replacement.

My money is on traditional Labour incompetence though.

Old Paperwork

Having the roof sorted has prompted Mrs H and I to empty the attic, including masses of old paperwork accumulated by our parents. We shoved it up there after they died, thinking we'd deal with it eventually. 

Fifteen years later we're dealing with it, masses of it, bills, receipts, chequebooks, leaflets, letters, invoices, bank statements and general junk.

I even came across my father's wartime naval record in a folder with other odds and ends, something I've never seen before - that's one to keep. Plus one or two copies of Irish birth certificates from the nineteenth century.

It's pushed us into sorting through our own paperwork though. It's not going up into the attic - attics just accumulate junk.

No Comment

New Royal Ballet boss declares plus-sized dancers are the future after 'body-shaming' scandal

The new boss of The Royal Ballet has declared that plus-sized dancers are the future after a former student alleged that teachers had “body-shamed” pupils.

Iain Mackay, who was installed as the school’s artistic director last year, also said that same-sex dance partnerships should be normalised.


As I'm a very long way from being a ballet fan, I'm not entitled to make even the most oblique reference to strengthening the stage, so I won't.

Tiring Inactivity

We'll have roofers doing their stuff over the next week or so. The scaffolders began today so I've been hanging around the house all day in case something cropped up, which it didn't. As a result, I've done nothing for the entire day and I'm more tired than if I'd been out for a good long walk.

It's odd, but inactivity can be remarkably tiring, or I find it so at any rate.

Two Headlines

Report hits back at ‘disgraceful’ accusations of two-tier policing after summer riots

MPs have declared the police response to last summer's riots "entirely appropriate", dismissing accusations of disproportionate policing.

Police force accused of anti-white bias teaches officers about slavery

The police force that put a temporary block on hiring white candidates has given its officers training about the slave trade as part of efforts to become an “anti-racist” organisation.

The Respectable Disguises Team

Low-level drinkers 'have increased cancer and cardiovascular risk'

Research conducted by the Behavioural Insights Team, on behalf of the charity Alcohol Change UK, examined the drinking habits of more than 4,000 UK adults.

It found that people who consumed alcohol within the NHS guidelines had worse health than non-drinkers.

Compared to people who never consumed alcohol, rates of cardiovascular disease increased from 1% to 5%, and for cancer, it went from 1% to 4%.


As we know, the Behavioural Insights Team grew out of David Cameron's Nudge Unit. It could have been called the Respectable Disguises Team, but that would never do. The word 'Respectable' doesn't really work in this context.


On the long list of those respectable disguises under which we assert our own importance, or gratify our own love of meddling in our neighbour's affairs, a moral regard for the welfare of others figures in the foremost place, and stands deservedly as number one.

Wilkie Collins - Man and Wife (1870)

Spencer’s Puzzle

In 1857, Herbert Spencer published an essay called The Ultimate Laws of Physiology, later in the same year re-published as Transcendental Physiology. This was two years before Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, but it was Spencer who came up with the phrase survival of the fittest. 

Although he knew about heredity, in his 1857 essay Spencer reflected the science of his day by admitting that he could not begin to understand how a fertilised ovum could grow into the complexity of an adult.


The capacity possessed by an unorganized germ of unfolding into a complex adult which repeats ancestral traits in minute details, and that even when it has been placed in conditions unlike those of its ancestors, is a capacity impossible for us to understand. That a microscopic portion of seemingly structureless matter should embody an influence of such kind, that the resulting man will in fifty years after become gouty or insane, is a truth which would be incredible were it not daily illustrated.

Herbert Spencer - Transcendental Physiology (1857)


Today, Spencer’s impossible puzzle is apparently solved quite easily in general conversation by words such as ‘genes’ or an acronym such as ‘DNA’. However, going no further than this would be to base the solution on a few words, a solution which doesn’t necessarily go much deeper than knowing how to use those words in conversations.

We could go on to suggest that Spencer did at least understand how baffling heredity is, whereas someone today using the word ‘gene’ might possess no more knowledge of heredity than Spencer and possibly less.

It highlights a problem where limited use of the correct technical language in social contexts may have only a superficial connection with what we usually refer to as ‘knowledge’. Even worse, language is frequently used to evade the pursuit of knowledge in favour of fashionable ideas. The evasion can be so successful that those drawn from the real world into the world of wordsmiths cannot tell the difference. Politicians know this.

Looping back to Spencer’s frustration with his apparently impossible problem, there was a time when a general fascination with all aspects of the real world appeared to promise something of vast value. Unfortunately, we never quite grasped it as a permanent cultural gain. Today, we drift back towards that endless conflict with the unreal worlds of wordsmiths.

Blimey - I had one of those

 

Utterly nuts

Protests in 'ghost town' where £400m ferries don't fit the harbour

Locals in the coastal town of Ardrossan are protesting today, saying the situation is "completely and utterly nuts" after a series of expensive blunders which have plagued the launch of two new ferries to the Isle of Arran.

The new vessels cost quadruple their original price tag, one was delivered seven years late, the other is still being built, and both are too big to fit the main harbour for their daily journeys to and from the Isle of Arran.

Anyone paying attention has known about this mess for some time, although for some reason an account of the ludicrous green credentials of the ferries seem to be missing from the article.

Maybe the general incompetence of voters should be in there too.

The elephant in the road

Car finance firms losing "hundreds of millions” in EV depreciation want Govt support

The BVRLA says the disparity in supply and demand for electric cars is resulting in weaker-than-expected residuals, which is costing firms millions

Car finance and leasing firms have asked the Government for financial support after the huge depreciation of EV values has led to the companies losing “hundreds of millions” of pounds – which is currently being passed onto consumers in the form of higher interest rates and car financing costs.


As Richard’s car ran through the cutting — it was electrical, odourless, and almost noiseless — he perceived in front of him the elephant herd standing in the road.

Arnold Bennett - Teresa of Watling Street (1904)

Crackdown

Hundreds of barbershops targeted by police in crackdown on money laundering and modern slavery

Hundreds of barbershops have been targeted by police in a three-week crackdown on money laundering and modern slavery.

Officers visited 265 cash-intensive premises across England and Wales, including nail salons and vape shops, with 10 shops shut down and further closures expected, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said.

Not an invisible problem apparently. One of the comments -

Kelvin Michael
I'm gobsmacked. I thought all those barbers, unhygenic food shops, vape shops, car washes and nail bars in my local high street were there because of meeting retail demand. I also thought the 'cash only' signs on the windows was a protest against our increasingly cashless society. Well I never. Anyway I expect they will all close down now, let me look. No, still there.

Easy Question

So would YOU pay £75 for a meet and greet with Nicola Sturgeon?

People are being asked to pay £75 a head to attend a ‘meet and greet’ session with Nicola Sturgeon before an on-stage interview.

Special tickets are being sold which give ‘a unique opportunity to meet Nicola Sturgeon in person’ ahead of an Edinburgh event in October.

Beyond A Joke

One problem with the undignified mess that is UK democracy has been the issue we make use of but don’t make much attempt to analyse – it's a joke.

That is to say, that although the parlous state of UK democracy should be a major concern for all voters, at times it is absurd enough to become a joke. Sir Keir Starmer’s attempts to adapt himself to the role of UK Prime Minister are inept and undignified, an unhealthy amalgam of cultural decline and endless material for jokes. 

It's an awkward one - lighten the mood with a joke or stick to the serious problem as a serious problem and miss what may be an important aspect of it all - these people are merely actors.

Over to you Ed

Amount of electricity needed to power world's data centres expected to double in five years

The rise in demand, predicted to be highly concentrated around the world's tech and population hubs, will put pressure on utility companies, grid infrastructure and the planet.

It will come as racks of servers hosting the latest AI models and cloud computing services use three times more electricity than the UK each year, the agency added.

More windmills Ed?
More solar panels from China?

More domestic heat pumps?

More EV charging stations?

Have a bacon sandwich and think it over.

Vote Mendacity

It is sometimes said that outcome indicates intention.

Which is disconcerting when here in the UK we have a particularly mendacious political leadership. What did Labour voters think they were voting for if not a hefty dose of mendacity? 

Among the fluffy impossibilities and actualised spite they hoped for, perhaps they did vote for mendacity, because that’s what we have and millions would still vote for it again - today.

It’s a reminder of an uncomfortable Hippolyte Taine quote –

When power is born on the spot and conferred to-day by constituents who are to submit to it to-morrow as subordinates, they do not put the whip in the hands of one who will flog them; they demand sentiments of him in conformity with their inclinations; in any event they will not tolerate in him the opposite ones. From the beginning, this resemblance between them and him is great, and it goes on increasing from day to day because the creature is always in the hands of his creators; subject to their daily pressure, he at last becomes as they are; after a certain period they have shaped him in their image.—Thus the candidate-elect, from the start or very soon after, became a confederate with his electors.

Hippolyte Taine - The Modern Regime (1893)

Maybe this is our future

New Universal theme park set to open in UK - with promise of 'billions' of pounds for the economy

The theme park is set to be up and running by 2031 and will be the UK's most popular tourist attraction, Universal hopes.

Speaking to Wilfred Frost on Sky News Breakfast, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said the deal was "huge"...

Welcoming the timing of the announcement, Ms Nandy added: "This deal comes off the back of one of the most tumultuous few weeks in global markets that I think anyone can remember within living memory.

The problem we have is political chancers who deliberately misremember things well within living memory. Within months for example.

Yet maybe this is our future and they don't want to tell us - a vast theme park with millions of energy efficient chalets for the staff.

Tooteer and Edbangah

Henry Getley has an entertaining TCW piece on what he calls...

The lost tribe of Westminster

A MAN has been arrested for ‘recklessly endangering’ an archaic tribe by invading their secretive enclave in London. Cutting themselves off from the reality of today’s world, the Empees have lived for several centuries in a closely-guarded compound overlooking the Thames.

Anthropologists believe there are shifting alliances within the tribe, who are thought to number about 650, but they are generally divided into two main castes. However, there is little real difference between either group. The tribe’s current chief is believed to be known as Tooteer and their high priest is called Edbangah, who leads them in worship of wind and sun gods.

The VCR Helpdesk

 

Dignity

Dignity is what drives me, Starmer says in Commons grilling on welfare cuts

Sir Keir Starmer suggested ministerial language on welfare reform has sometimes been misguided and insisted “dignity” is what drives his politics as he defended Government plans to slash the benefits bill.


Dignity? Of course it is "Sir" Keir, but did you buy the trousers you are wearing today, trousers suited to your stature?

“It has been well said, without dignity there can be no stature,” Charlie assured him.

Earl Derr Biggers - The Black Camel (1929)

Banners

New report shows it’s largely officials and organizations demanding books be banned - not parents

A new report reveals the vast majority of those demanding book bans are organizations or officials — not individual parents.

Seventy-two percent of demands to censor books in schools have come from organizations that include elected officials, board members and administrators, according to the American Library Association.

Parents only accounted for 16 percent of book ban demands, while individual library users made up five percent.

Mr Potter - the last lone man

Probably no one in the Five Towns takes a conscious pride in the antiquity of the potter’s craft, nor in its unique and intimate relation to human life, alike civilised and uncivilised. Man hardened clay into a bowl before he spun flax and made a garment, and the last lone man will want an earthen vessel after he has abandoned his ruined house for a cave, and his woven rags for an animal’s skin. This supremacy of the most ancient of crafts is in the secret nature of things, and cannot be explained.

Arnold Bennett - Anna of the Five Towns (1902)

Starmer ‘ignored’

Starmer ‘ignored’ calls to investigate MP accused of bullying

Sir Keir Starmer has been accused of ignoring repeated calls to investigate a Labour MP accused of bullying and harassment.

When he was still leader of the opposition, Sir Keir was warned in writing that Dan Norris had been accused of bullying and harassment in June last year. Mr Norris would go on to win Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg’s seat at the general election.

We could shorten that headline and make it into a much more general way of banging out media stories, because Starmer is good at ignoring. The basic headline would be -

Starmer ‘ignored’ calls to investigate

Then add whatever he has been ignoring lately. Almost anything topical will do, from the incompetence of Rachel from Accounts to Ed Miliband's deficiencies to the activities of the social media police.

The digital afterlife

 

The situation gradually developing

The situation gradually developing was something of a dilemma to a man better acquainted with ideas than facts, with the trimming of words than with the shaping of events.

John Galsworthy – Fraternity (1909)

Starmer promises 'bold changes' to rules over electric cars in wake of Trump's tariffs

The prime minister confirms a 2030 ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars but announces changes to regulations to help firms transition.

Sir Keir said: "I am determined to back British brilliance.

"Now more than ever UK businesses and working people need a government that steps up, not stands aside.

"That means action, not words."

Deprived

Lurching back to the previous post, this is what Wikipedia says about Bridget Phillipson.

She grew up in a deprived part of Washington, in a council house with no upstairs heating.

What a coincidence! I grew up in a council house with no upstairs heating, but we had an open coal fire downstairs. Oddly enough, this is where the coincidence fizzles out, because we never considered ourselves to be deprived.

Deprived of what? We had no fridge, freezer, phone etc, but we had a roof over our heads and never at any time do I remember feeling deprived. We had a wireless in a wooden case, would Bridget count that as posh?

Of course the real deprivation of modern times is the lack of rational, principled politicians providing hard-nosed government oversight.

Unfortunately, we got her

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

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

Opinion 1

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

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

"This bill will take those freedoms away."

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

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


Opinion 2

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

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

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

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

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

Other options must be kept open

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

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

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

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


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

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


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

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

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

Defunct EPA Museum

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

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

The video embedded in the linked page is worth watching.

The Final Tea Party

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Mad Hatters are having their final tea party.

The clues are in the questions

Westminster council offers staff chance to take ‘privilege’ quiz

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

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

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


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

I frequently travel by private jet +100

I am given free tickets to expensive shows +50

I travel in an armoured limousine +100

I feel oppressed by privilege tests -10

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

I have dandruff -10

I work for Westminster Council -1000

Missing Highs

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

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

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

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


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

The stupidification

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


The stupidification of Scottish schools

Scottish education is being dumbed down in the name of diversity

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

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

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


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


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

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

Buckle

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

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

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


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

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