It's worse than we thought

Compulsory water meters proposed and warning bills to rise by 30% - landmark report into 'broken' water industry released

• Single integrated water regulators - a single water regulator in England and a single water regulator in Wales. In England, this would replace Ofwat, the Drinking Water Inspectorate and water-environment related functions from the Environment Agency and Natural England. In Wales, Ofwat's economic responsibilities would be integrated into Natural Resources Wales...

• Eight new regional water system planning authorities in England and one national authority in Wales to be responsible for water investment plans reflecting local priorities and streamlining the planning processes...

• Greater consumer protection - this includes upgrading the consumer body Consumer Council for Water, into an Ombudsman for Water to give stronger protection to customers and a clearer route to resolving complaints. Advocacy duties are to be transferred to Citizens Advice.


This is likely to result in the same functions and the same people subsumed into a larger hierarchy. It's how these things are done. Not that reform of some kind isn't worthwhile, but here in the UK we don't have the political will to deliver it, hence the 30% increase in bills and it won't stop there.

It's not the 'broken' water industry, but the broken politics we have to be concerned about. Listen carefully and the anguished cry is almost audible already - "it's worse than we thought." 

Pinheads

Bluetongue has been detected in England. Here’s what you should know

A tiny midge, no bigger than a pinhead, is bringing UK farming to its knees. The culprit? A strain of the bluetongue virus that’s never been seen before.


Time for a routine word search...

Ah - here we are -


Climate change is making outbreaks like this more likely. Milder winters and cooler, wetter summers are ideal for midges, increasing both their numbers and their biting activity.

But strangely enough -


As UK faces third heatwave, is this 'just summer'?

2025 is already shaping up to be an extraordinary year for weather records in parts of the UK.

Spring 2025 was the UK's warmest and sunniest on record. Hot on its heels, June became the warmest month on record for England. And now, we're already experiencing the third heatwave of the year—and it's not even mid-July.

Slow to catch on

UK consumer sentiment suffers first big fall in nearly 3 years, Deloitte says

LONDON (Reuters) -British consumer sentiment had a marked fall for the first time in nearly three years last month, reflecting increased worries about job security, a Deloitte survey showed on Monday.

Councillor claims people being made 'poorer' due to net zero targets

Lancashire residents are being made “poorer” by “unachievable” attempts to hit net zero targets by 2050, according to the new environment cabinet member at Lancashire County Council. Reform UK’s Joshua Roberts criticised the government’s legally binding carbon reduction commitments – and also left unanswered a direct question about whether he even accepted “the science” behind climate change.

"But they're so slow at their lessons," grumbled Joan. "One repeats it and repeats it; and then, when one feels that surely now at least one has drummed it into their heads, one finds they have forgotten all that one has ever said."

Jerome K. Jerome - All Roads Lead to Calvary (1919)

Oh! what tangled bungs we weave

Middle-class families could face higher water bills to subsidise poorer households

Labour ministers will be urged to introduce a nationwide scheme that would see poorer families given huge discounts on their charges.

The recommendation on creating a national social tariff will be presented to Sir Keir Starmer in a Government-ordered review of the water industry on Monday.


This probably has more to do with rebuilding Labour's traditional class structure. Could become complicated though, as some poorer families already subsidise Ed Miliband's middle-class windmill fantasies via their electricity bills.


Oh! what tangled bungs we weave

When first we practise to deceive!

Not quite Sir Walter Scott

Alarmingly Silly

My family want to live a sustainable life – but how can we trust firms are eco-friendly?

Which? research has raised the alarm about problematic environmental claims being made on a huge scale, which can result in consumers buying products that are not as sustainable as they thought. Our researchers trawled through more than 20,000 online product listings using AI software trained to find green claims.

We then delved deeper into 1,000 online product descriptions in a range of categories, including food, cleaning, electronics, clothing and personal care items, sold at popular UK retailers such as Argos, Next, Ocado and Tesco...

A Chad Valley Wooden Puzzles set (from Argos) carried the claim that because it was made of wood it was “more kind to the environment”. But without being clear what specific environmental aspects are being compared – its carbon footprint or the resources it uses, for example – or what it is kinder than (e.g. plastic toys), this could also be misleading.

Oh dear, there is eco-danger here, the danger of having to define terms instead of allowing them to float around the ecosphere where unauthorised users can take unauthorised advantage of their unsustainable silliness.

It leads a chap to wonder if there is more to be gained from curing silliness than sickness, but of course this isn't the underlying problem. It's about government controlling everything, including Chad Valley Wooden Puzzles. 

They don't really like puzzles.

You may fool all the people some of the time...

You may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can't fool all of the people all the time.

Abraham Lincoln


We live in strange times. So much is unconvincing and becoming even less convincing year on year. So much that was supposed to convince a few decades ago now doesn’t. 

Suppose we begin with UK politics which never was convincing, but politicians did at least play the role with some conviction. Not now.

Most UK MPs don’t do politics in the sense that they don’t provide voters with some attempt at political oversight of the machinery of government. They don’t repeal and enact legislation towards that end. They act out the role of politicians but don’t do it well and barely attempt the hard bit, the political oversight.

In this sense, Keir Starmer isn’t the UK Prime Minister in that he doesn’t even act out the role to any worthwhile standard. Overseas meetings, reliance on threadbare ideology and a few photo opportunities do nothing to enhance his attempts at the role. His ministers are just as poor.

We have no Chancellor of the Exchequer, no Foreign Secretary, no Home Secretary and so on. All we have is an excessive reliance on weak acting and not enough ability to flesh out the role into something worth voting for. Weak slogans, transparent evasion and dim-witted intransigence are not enough to play the role, let alone do the political oversight.

We see all of this at the moment. UK politicians appear to know well enough that they have to be more convincing, yet most don’t know how. Perhaps it’s voters too, maybe the willingness to be convinced is fading.

But illusions don’t last forever

Damian Pudner has a useful CAPX reminder of the dire state of UK fiscal sustainability.

Britain’s fiscal fantasy is over – and time is running out

• Investors are beginning to rethink Britain’s long-term fiscal sustainability
• We don’t need higher taxes. We need a better state
• Rachel Reeves' Autumn Budget will be a moment of truth

It will begin, as financial crises so often do, not with a bang, but a murmur.

A failed gilt auction. A modest rise in yields. A subtle but persistent shift in investor sentiment. No panic, no headlines – just the quiet sound of markets beginning to lose faith.

For years, Britain has indulged in a fiscal illusion. Ministers promised what they couldn’t afford. Civil servants massaged the assumptions. The Bank of England quietly underwrote it all. Cheap money, the legacy of interest rates held too low for too long, enabled bad habits. And for a while, the bond market played along.

But illusions don’t last forever. And now, the spell is breaking.

A familiar illusion but the whole piece is well worth reading as a reminder that this one is finally coming up against the real world.    

Public spending is now above 44% of GDP, the highest on peacetime record, and equivalent to around £45,000 per household. The tax burden is at a 70-year high. Productivity across public services remains stagnant at best. Reeves has ruled out increases to income tax, VAT or National Insurance. But not stealth taxes. Fiscal drag – the silent squeeze of frozen thresholds – is expected to raise £44.6bn by 2028, according to the OBR, most of it from middle earners.

Luxury he can’t afford

 

Every cloud...

Labour 'won't be able to govern' unless revolts against Keir Starmer stop, warns minister Jess Phillips

Labour will not be able to govern if the revolts against Sir Keir Starmer continue, a minister warned after he suspended four MPs over “persistent breaches of party discipline”.

Alloa and Grangemouth MP Brian Leishman, North East Hertfordshire MP Chris Hinchliff, York MP Rachael Maskell and Poole MP Neil Duncan-Jordan have been stripped of the Labour party whip after helping to organise the welfare reforms rebellion.


There are many things a chap could say about this, few of them constructive. 

Yet there is of course an entirely obvious way to stop the revolts against Keir Starmer - one which could be mildly constructive. Not something I'd bet on though - the constructive possibility.

What a shower.

Faith in our institutions

16-year-olds to be able to vote at next General Election in landmark shake-up which could backfire on Labour

Announcing the reforms, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner said: “For too long public trust in our democracy has been damaged and faith in our institutions has been allowed to decline.       

“We are taking action to break down barriers to participation that will ensure more people have the opportunity to engage in UK democracy and delivering on our manifesto commitment to give sixteen-year-olds the right to vote.   

“We cannot take our democracy for granted, and by protecting our elections from abuse and boosting participation we will strengthen the foundations of our society for the future.” 

Something we have learned again from this and previous governments is how unreliable calendar age can be as a guide to the use of accurate adult language embedded in the real world. We have known this for a long time.


Tsz-lu said to the Master, "As the prince of Wei, sir, has been waiting for you to act for him in his government, what is it your intention to take in hand first?"

"One thing of necessity," he answered—"the rectification of terms."

"That!" exclaimed Tsz-lu. "How far away you are, sir! Why such rectification?"

"What a rustic you are, Tsz-lu!" rejoined the Master. "A gentleman would be a little reserved and reticent in matters which he does not understand. If terms be incorrect, language will be incongruous; and if language be incongruous, deeds will be imperfect. So, again, when deeds are imperfect, propriety and harmony cannot prevail, and when this is the case laws relating to crime will fail in their aim; and if these last so fail, the people will not know where to set hand or foot. Hence, a man of superior mind, certain first of his terms, is fitted to speak; and being certain of what he says can proceed upon it. In the language of such a person there is nothing heedlessly irregular—and that is the sum of the matter."

The Analects of Confucius

  

Voting for the Magic Money Tree

Labour voters back doctors over five-day strike and think Wes Streeting should meet pay demands

Labour voters support junior doctors’ plans to stage a five-day walkout next week, even as public support for the strike collapses, according to a new poll.

Overall people oppose the industrial action due to start next Friday by a margin of 44 per cent to 34 per cent, pollsters More in Common found.

However, Labour voters support the strikes, with 47 per cent in favour and 35 per cent against, in a major challenge to the stance taken by the health secretary Wes Streeting who has vociferously pressed doctors’ leaders to ditch their plans.

Yet another broad hint that incompetent voters should be included in the broader social and political incompetence mix. 

To say this is not to say that one side is right and the other wrong, or that there are lines professional people such as doctors should not cross, even though there are such lines. The problem here is voters who among other shibboleths, effectively vote for an NHS which cannot be reformed in any worthwhile sense.

Labour empowering HR professionals

Len Shackleton has a useful CAPX piece on the futility of Labour trying to boost growth and empower HR professionals at the same time. 

Interesting because it reflects a remarkable absence of business acumen - or a remarkable increase in whatever the opposite of business acumen might be.


Labour won’t boost growth by empowering HR professionals

• Labour's Employment Rights Bill punishes both employers and workers
• A well-functioning labour market is one which adapts rapidly to change
• Tying up employers in red tape will do nothing to promote economic prosperity

The Government came into office hoping that by boosting economic growth it could maintain and expand welfare provision and pursue its many other objectives without excessive levels of taxation. It has not so far been successful; indeed, GDP appears to have fallen in the last two months.

The UK’s poor growth performance in recent years has many causes, but one important factor has been the way in which our labour market has been increasingly hampered by regulations and mandates imposed by successive administrations of both major parties.

The whole piece is well worth reading as yet more confirmation that Keir Starmer's focus on growth was dishonest from the beginning. 


An increasingly scelerotic [sic] labour market will particularly penalise new labour market entrants, who will struggle to find suitable work; expect higher youth unemployment and inactivity. But we will all suffer as faster economic growth, which could in principle ameliorate our desperate fiscal position, becomes a lost hope.

Politics – a casual activity

 

There are some senior politicians who seem to saunter through the corridors of power like Valentine in the Wilkie Collins quote below - without quite knowing their own motives.

They are confident within a secure carapace of easy mendacity, comfortable and unlikely to suffer unduly from disasters they casually initiate or just as casually promote because that’s the easier path to take.

 

It was a common predicament with him not to know his own motives, generally from not inquiring into them. There are men who run breathlessly—men who walk cautiously—and men who saunter easily through the journey of life. Valentine belonged to the latter class; and, like the rest of his order, often strayed down a new turning, without being able to realize at the time what purpose it was which first took him that way. Our destinies shape the future for us out of strange materials.

Wilkie Collins - Hide and Seek (1854)

Must annoy those who contribute

BBC stars handed bumper pay rises for podcasts

Laura Kuenssberg and Nick Robinson pocketed some of the BBC’s biggest pay rises last year thanks to podcasting and other BBC sidelines.

Robinson’s annual salary was £410,000-£414,999, making him the corporation’s highest-paid journalist.

The rise from £345,000-£349,999 in the previous financial year was thanks to his weekly hosting of The Today Podcast, plus his interviews with party leaders during the general election. This comes on top of his main role hosting Radio 4’s Today programme.


It can be useful to describe BBC journalists as instructors rather than journalists. From this perspective they instruct viewers on what to notice and what to ignore, how to think about those things they notice and how to discuss them socially.

He allotted a salary from his own funds to the two instructors, a salary twice as large as their meagre official salary, and one day he said to some one who expressed surprise, "The two prime functionaries of the state are the nurse and the schoolmaster."

Victor Hugo - Les Misérables (1862)

The Howell Effect

Drought declared in the Midlands - as people are urged to 'use water wisely'

Drought has been declared in the West and East Midlands, with dry weather continuing to "impact water resources across England".

The Environment Agency said the National Drought Group (NDG) had stepped up its operational response and "asks people to play their part in managing the drought and use water wisely".


It's been raining for hours in our corner of Derbyshire. Not that one wet day will fill the reservoirs, but it's an entertaining reminder of Denis Howell's role as Minister for Drought in 1976 and the heavy rainfall which occurred a few days after his appointment.

A shriek in the supermarket

A shrieking child in the supermarket - familiar enough to all so there is no point paying much attention to it, but it does raise the issue of how long it can take to come down from an emotional outburst.

Worth pondering because there are adults who also take too long to come down from an emotional outburst even though they don’t fill a supermarket with unappeasable shrieks. At a quieter level though – that may be just what they do and it may go on for much longer than the shrieking child.

If we go off at a tangent to this problem of not letting go, then we come across another familiar type of behaviour. We come across people who can’t let go of a weak argument, dubious standpoint, misplaced loyalty or even a factual inaccuracy. It can be emotionally disturbing to let go in such cases. There are no shrieks in the supermarket, but it can seem undignified.

Yet if enough members of the same social class share the same dubious standpoint, the same loyalties and even the same factual inaccuracy, then no dignity is lost by holding onto it. Being wrong can be the dignified standpoint. Even a pompous idiot can be dignified in these circumstances. There is such a thing as dignified idiocy, as Dickens frequently highlighted.


Mr Podsnap, as a representative man, is not alone in caring very particularly for his own dignity, if not for that of his acquaintances, and therefore in angrily supporting the acquaintances who have taken out his Permit, lest, in their being lessened, he should be.

Charles Dickens - Our Mutual Friend (1864–1865)

Oh dear

OPEC bans media outlets accused of advocating transition to “a net-zero economy”

The Oil-price outlet is reporting that OPEC has refused accreditation for Reuters, Bloomberg, the New York Times, the Financial Times, and the Wall Street Journal for its meeting in Vienna, which is taking place this week.

“We believe that transparency and a free press serve readers, markets, and the public interest, and we object to this restriction on coverage,” Bloomberg quoted a Reuters spokesman as saying, adding that it had been given no explanation by OPEC for the decision to refuse it accreditation.

"We believe that transparency and a free press..." 

As long as it allows the one-sided advocacy of expensively fashionable politics our social class supports.

Lord Ridley v the 'Experts'

 

Under threat

‘Extreme’ heat and rainfall is becoming the new normal in the UK, says Met Office

The Met Office has warned that extremes of heat and rainfall are becoming the normal as the climate continues to warm in the UK.

The latest state of the UK climate report, published in the Royal Meteorological Society’s International Journal of Climatology, shows the impact of human-caused global warming on the UK’s weather, seas, people and wildlife...

The Energy Secretary called the findings “a stark warning” to take action on climate and nature.

“Our British way of life is under threat,” Mr Miliband told the PA news agency.


No it's not a stark warning, nobody thinks it is a stark warning, or even a warning. Only a few loons believe that. 

As for "the new normal", it seems to be a constant stream of low grade official propaganda, but this particular blob of drivel comes across to this observer as transparent distraction politics. 

“Our British way of life,” began fading away some time ago under the influence of a range of pressures, including persistent government incompetence, overspending, mendacity, fashionable ideology, ignorance and neglect. One of those pressures on “our British way of life” comes in the shape of Edward Samuel Miliband, but there are many others.

It's desperate stuff though, trying to distract voters from the unlovely mess by pointing a flaky finger at what on the whole is better weather plus a few extremes we've always had to deal with, even if dealing with them via arm-waving has become the new normal.

Two Tier Fairness

Tax 'fairness' comment is latest hint from government increases could be on way at next budget

Speaking to Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander was asked if Sir Keir Starmer and the rest of the cabinet had discussed hiking taxes in the wake of the government's failed welfare reforms, which were shot down by their own MPs...

Ms Alexander said she wouldn't comment directly on taxes and the budget at this point, adding: "So, the chancellor will set her budget. I'm not going to sit in a TV studio today and speculate on what the contents of that budget might be.

"When it comes to taxation, fairness is going to be our guiding principle."


Labour to spend millions on electric car handouts

Labour will unveil £700 million of taxpayer-funded subsidies to encourage the public to buy more electric vehicles (EVs).

Heidi Alexander, the Transport Secretary, will this week announce grants for drivers to help cover the cost of a new EV, as well as more cash for charging points.


To be fair, it's worth adding that two tier fairness is a key point of socialism.

Unlocking

'New beginning' for Peak District landmark after major windfall

A popular Derbyshire landmark in the heart of the county is looking forward to a 'new beginning' after scoring a huge grant. Cromford Mill's Arkwright Society has announced that the site has secured £1.3 million in "vital" funding from the National Lottery's Heritage Fund that will allow a "once-in-a-generation" project to take place.

Éilis Scott, chief executive of the Arkwright Society -

"Restoring our vacant historic industrial buildings is about unlocking new opportunities, sparking innovation, and using the stories of creativity and enterprise to inspire. Cromford Mills is for everyone, whether you work here, volunteer or visit. But keeping the mill gates open isn’t easy. Continued support is vital to conserve these buildings and ensure they remain open, welcoming and full of life - relevant for today and for generations to come.”

Whenever anything is being promoted, it's remarkable how the same words tend to be used over and over again, like an outline script where the subject can be filled in later. For example, there is a lot of 'unlocking' going on at the moment and it's not necessarily a good thing. 

Unlocking billions in private capital to tackle climate change

The UK’s International Climate Finance (ICF) mobilises billions in public and private funding for clean energy projects in developing countries.

Reeves plots

Reeves plots £1.7bn tax on businesses

Rachel Reeves is plotting a £1.7 billion tax raid in the autumn which retailers have warned will accelerate the decline of high streets.


Is this Britain's most depressing ghost town?

Nowhere sums up the decline of the British high street quite as graphically as Burslem.

Once a thriving, mega-rich market town, it is now so dominated by boarded-up buildings that there seem to be more empty storefronts than occupied ones.

Breaking the away day curse

Starmer aims to break cabinet away day curse

Sir Keir Starmer was hoping to break the curse of the cabinet away day as he summoned his ministers to Chequers for the launch of a summer "refresh" of his troubled government.

The aim: to plot a course for a recovery during Labour's second year in power after a first 12 months blighted by economic woes, rows over freebies, humiliating U-turns and rebellions.

In the past, the away day rules from the No 10 high command have included no woolly jumpers and no sandwiches. This time, the rule to ministers was: "Don't call it a reset."


Lifting the curse is simple.

An away day is far too short.

An away year would lift the curse.

Privilege denied

Donald Trump may be denied privilege of addressing parliament on UK state visit

The fact that that parliament isn't sitting for much of September could help resolve a potentially awkward issue.

Donald Trump may be denied the honour of addressing parliament on his state visit to the UK later this year, with no formal request yet submitted for him to be given that privilege.


Strewth, the transparent language they use to spin their nonsense.

Whatever privilege there is will occur if one or two of the failures, grifters, loons, charlatans, dullards, professional whiners, creeps and deranged ideologues were to learn a lasting lesson about leadership and realpolitik.

Won't happen.

Net Zero Won't Fix This

Inside London’s school closures crisis as more than 30 primaries set to shut or merge within weeks

London is one of the busiest cities in the world. A major global metropolis home to nearly nine million people, with 22.7 per cent of those people under the age of 18, according to the most recent census data. And yet, many of the city’s primary school children have only a handful of classmates.

An investigation by the Standard has found that at least 30 primary schools could shut or merge across the capital by the end of the academic year, with politicians warning that the problem “is only going to get worse” as families continue to be driven out of the city...

Last September, the Education Policy Institute predicted that there would be another drop of around 52,000 primary school-aged children in London by 2028. In Lambeth alone, there are nearly 1,000 fewer children in local primary schools compared to 10 years ago, council figures show. Over in Wandsworth, as few as eight children have been turning up to start reception in some schools last year.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, the issue has become so bad that the maternity unit at one of the capital’s biggest hospitals, the Royal Free Hospital in north London, was forced to close due to falling birth rates.

You fellows are all doomed

Heat deaths in England and Wales could surge 50-fold, study warns

It comes as areas of the UK face another heatwave, with temperatures over the next few days forecast to be above average and exceed 30C (86F) for many.

Annual heat-related deaths might climb into the tens of thousands in the coming decades, according to research by University College London (UCL) and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

They say today's baseline figure of 634 heat deaths a year could hit 10,317 in the 2050s and, in a worst-case scenario, 34,027 in the 2070s.


“Nothing can be more certain,” he continued, “if corn con­tinues to be imported from America, in a hundred years from now there won’t be a single peasant left in all France. Do you think that our land can contend with yonder one? Long before we have had time to put these new plans in practice, the foreigners will have inundated us with grain. I have read a book which tells all about it. You fellows are all doomed—”

Emile Zola - La Terre (1887)

England's worst motorway

England's worst motorway revealed as 193-miles road used by thousands every day tops the list

England's worst motorway has been revealed in a new survey which also finds that overall driver satisfaction has declined over the last year.

The M1 is officially the country's least-favourite motorway, with just 57 per cent of drivers satisfied with their journey on the road.

Perhaps the M1 was an early example of turbocharging.

Cheerleaders for the ECHR

Joseph Dinnage has a useful CAPX piece on the history of the EHCR and how it has been sold to us.


Churchill would be no cheerleader for the modern ECHR

• Our continued membership of the ECHR is based on historical lies
• The idea that Britain would slide into despotism if we left the ECHR is for the birds
• We have arrived at a constitutional crossroads – let's choose parliamentary sovereignty

We have much to thank Winston Churchill for. Not only did he save us from fascist tyranny, but evoking his memory now is always guaranteed to incense left-wingers. One thing you might never have thought of crediting Churchill for, however, is laying the foundations for the creation, and our membership of, the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

Yet according to a version of history told by those who view our membership of the ECHR positively – including Keir Starmer and his Attorney General Richard Hermer – Churchill was a huge fan, and that means we should be too. The story goes that Churchill, embodying the nation’s trauma following the Second World War, advocated for a supranational ‘Charter of Human Rights’, to be enforced by a European court, to ensure that future atrocities do not go unpunished. After the ECHR was formed in 1950, Clement Attlee ratified it into British law.

Yet as a Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) report authored by Peter Lilley points out, this amounts to a creation myth. In actuality, concerns about the body’s potential for judicial overreach were voiced from the start.

The whole piece is well worth reading as yet another example of institutional decline. 

As Dinnage says, there is no reason to think that we would slide into despotism if we left the ECHR. We might add to that and suggest that membership of the ECHR is one of the factors contributing to the slide.

Dull platitudes nobody takes seriously

Starmer pins hopes on summer ‘refresh’

Sir Keir Starmer is hoping to get his premiership back on track with a summer “refresh” after weeks of setbacks and controversies...

Labour sources said the conference would be a good moment to finish the “refresh” and that Sir Keir would give the party faithful new promises on the theme of “national renewal”.

The Prime Minister’s plan for office has been modelled on his approach to leading Labour in opposition, when he ran a three-stage process to “detoxify” the party, attack the Tories and set out an alternative plan.

Now, his process involves “rebuilding” after 14 years of the Conservatives in power, setting out a vision of “renewal” for the remainder of the Parliament, and offering voters something more in a second term.


By gum, Keir Starmer is a dreary, dreary Prime Minister. To describe him as a grey, unimaginative dullard would be far too lively and colourful. 

Sadly there seems to be no indication whatever that he will ever, under any circumstances, relinquish his iron grip on dull platitudes nobody takes seriously.

All scenarios

EU working closely to get trade deal with US, ready for all scenarios, von der Leyen says

BRUSSELS (Reuters) -The European Union is working closely with U.S. President Donald Trump's administration to reach a trade deal, but Brussels is getting ready for all scenarios, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday.

"We stick to our principles, we defend our interests, we continue to work in good faith, and we get ready for all scenarios," von der Leyen told the European Parliament.

European Parliament official: ‘EU in the dark’ on US trade requirements

The European Union still did not understand what the US wants on trade, European Parliament trade committee chair Bernd Lange told journalists.

His comments came on July 9 – the day the three-month pause on 50 per cent “reciprocal” tariffs imposed by the US on April 2 was supposed to end – and a day after Washington’s last-minute extension.

The EU’s own retaliatory measures were scheduled to “automatically” take effect on July 14 if no agreement was reached.

Misplaced Respect

More than three out of five people think Starmer does not respect them – poll

While in opposition, Sir Keir sought to make the concept of “respect” central to his pitch to voters, and research from UCL suggested this played a key role in convincing the public to back him and the Labour Party.

But a survey from More In Common and the UCL Policy Lab, published on Tuesday, suggested 63% of the public now thought the Prime Minister did not respect people like them, almost twice the 32% that thought so before the 2024 election.

And while 41% of the public thought Sir Keir did respect them before the election, that figure has fallen to 24%.


24% think Starmer respects them? Good grief.

You find no difficulty in tolerating him then? - you have a respect for a political platitudinarian as insensible as an ox to everything he can't turn into political capital. You think his monumental obtuseness suited to the dignity of the English gentleman.

George Eliot - Daniel Deronda (1876)

Oikophobia

 

Households urged

Households urged to avoid drying clothes on washing lines from Tuesday

UK households are being warned against drying clothes on washing lines from Tuesday as another heatwave hits the nation.

While the balmy summer months may seem perfect for airing your laundry outdoors, it could actually cause more harm than good if you're unlucky enough to be a hay fever sufferer. Hay fever season begins in late March and lasts until September, with different types of pollen released throughout this period.


Blimey - households urged indeed. They make up some rubbish these legacy media outfits. This time it's the dear old Daily Mirror trying to spin a story from hay fever, fine weather and hanging out the washing.

What a job. What a daft old rag... 

I wonder how many Cabinet members read the Mirror these days? 

One for the diary

Every mobile phone to receive emergency alert: When it will happen - and what it will say

Mobile phones in the UK will be sent an emergency alert as the government tests the nationwide system for the second time. Here is what you need to know.

The test is due to happen at 3pm on Sunday 7 September.

Phones will vibrate and emit a loud siren sound for roughly 10 seconds, even if they are set to silent.

Not mine matey.

Mess

Obama warned Biden aides his presidential campaign was a ‘mess’

Barack Obama warned Joe Biden’s senior staff “your campaign is a mess” a year before the 2024 presidential election, according to a new book...

Mr Obama is said to have also raised concerns over his former vice-president’s strategy seven months before the Atlanta debate.


There's a reason for the mess, it wasn't the campaign and it wasn't strategy, it was the candidate and the whole world knows it. 

And yet... 

The mind still boggles at what Team Biden thought it was doing -

Mr Biden was also urged to take part in the disastrous early debate against Mr Trump by his aides, according to a memo obtained by the book’s authors.

“The earlier you are able to debate the better, so that the American people can see you standing next to Trump and showing the strength of your leadership, compared to Trump’s weakness and chaos,” the senior advisers wrote in an April 15 memo published by Politico.

The Ugly Truth About Greece

Eleni Papadimitriou has a powerful FSB piece on the unresolved debacle that is Greek membership of the EU and the eurozone.

 
The Ugly Truth About Greece — By A Greek

Betrayed by Europe: How the EU and Germany Reduced Greece to a Colony — and Left Us to Rot

Once, I believed in the European dream. I was proud when Greece joined the European Union. I believed the EU was about solidarity, shared prosperity, and mutual respect. I believed we were equals in a family of nations.

But after everything we've endured these past 17 years, the lies, the humiliation, the exploitation, I can no longer cling to those illusions. The European dream? For Greeks, it has become a living nightmare.


The whole piece is well worth reading as an example of EU failure to live up to its own inclusive rhetoric.


Last month, I listened carefully to an economic presentation by Dr. Kosmas Marinakis and Achilleas Mantes. I wasn't surprised by what they said. Every average Greek citizen already feels it in their bones, but hearing the hard, cold numbers only confirmed what we all know: Greece is a country in decline, gutted by so-called "European solidarity" and stripped bare by the ruthless economic machine led by Germany.

Marinakis and Mantes laid it out with brutal honesty: while even the poorest countries in Eastern Europe, Romania, Hungary, Estonia, are catching up to European standards, Greece is drifting further away. Our debt remains monstrous. Our so-called "economic growth" is nothing but inflated numbers, driven by rising prices, not real progress.

I don't need economists to tell me that. I see it every time I go to the supermarket. I feel it when I fill my car with fuel. My neighbours know it when they open their electricity bills or try to pay rent. Our wages are frozen in time, but the cost of living is exploding.

We were promised prosperity under the euro. Instead, we got poverty, unemployment, and hopelessness. And the young? They flee. There are no real jobs here. Engineers serve coffee. Architects drive taxis. Graduates emigrate. The "lost generation" isn't a phrase from a research paper, it's our reality.

Critical details

AI chatbots oversimplify scientific studies and gloss over critical details — the newest models are especially guilty

Large language models (LLMs) are becoming less "intelligent" in each new version as they oversimplify and, in some cases, misrepresent important scientific and medical findings, a new study has found.

Scientists discovered that versions of ChatGPT, Llama and DeepSeek were five times more likely to oversimplify scientific findings than human experts in an analysis of 4,900 summaries of research papers.


Hmm - there is another critical detail worth adding, a different kind of detail but still critical. Governments, politicians, major bureaucracies, major charities, pundits, assorted grifters and the mainstream media also oversimplify and, in some cases, misrepresent important scientific and medical findings.

It is not easy to imagine AI systems making the situation worse than it is already.

Of course, the critical question here is one of power - the question of who controls the oversimplification and misrepresentation. 

The Dastardly Duo

Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana so useless they've already made pig's ear of new venture

I see politics' two biggest nitwits, Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, have decided to form their own party after alienating almost all of their former Labour colleagues. And how typical of this dastardly duo - they've already managed to make a pig's ear of it. Left-wing zealot Sultana, who was suspended by Labour last summer for voting against the Government in an opposition attempt to lift the two-child benefit cap, announced her intention to co-lead a new national party with Corbyn on Thursday.

But - and this is a biggie - she appears to have forgotten to tell the ex-Labour leader - leaving him utterly blindsided. No wonder he was said to be "furious and bewildered". When he finally took to X, formerly Twitter, 24 hours later to acknowledge Sultana's statement, he had little to say aside from noting her "principled decision" to leave Labour (utter tosh) and her ability to "help us build a real alternative" (what does this even mean?)

Anyone with a sense of fun must hope this is true and she really did forget to tell him. 

Maybe we'll soon discover the name of the new party, although presumably Zarah would have to tell Jeremy before she announces it.  

Starmer endorses

Starmer endorses UN’s high-tax manifesto

Labour has paved the way for higher taxes on the wealthy, alcohol and fossil fuels by signing Britain up to a new United Nations pact.

Ministers have endorsed the global agreement, which calls for greater environmental levies and “gender-responsive taxation”.

The UK’s participation represents another break with Donald Trump, who pulled the US out of the deal over concerns about its provisions on tax...

Gareth Davies, the shadow Treasury minister, accused Labour of “outsourcing tax policy to organisations that don’t reflect the priorities of the British people”.

“People want to see their taxes reduced and simplified, not increased and complicated to fund vacuous virtue signalling by global elites,” he said.


Er - yes Gareth - been going on for a long time - Tories, Labour, Lib Dem...

Starmer would endorse it, unlike Trump he's incapable of not endorsing it and no doubt Rishi Sunak would have endorsed it too. 

It's useful to look at it that way round, in terms of conditioning. From what we have available to us in the public domain, Starmer's adult life seems to have conditioned him to endorse this kind of legal and bureaucratic expansion by the UN. He won't have analysed it dispassionately because he can't.

Analysing it from the perspective of a UK Prime Minister and the interests of the people he supposedly represents is not something Starmer can do. From one perspective it's because he doesn't want to, from another perspective it's because he can't - but it's the same thing. 

Starmer is incapable of being the UK Prime Minister, he's a member of the global nomenklatura, joined the party years ago.

 

Astute

David Lammy deploys army of top diplomats to kickstart economic growth and combat impact of Trump tariffs

David Lammy has brought a team of Britain’s elite diplomats home in a bid to finally kickstart economic growth and combat the global impact of Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Senior ambassadors and high commissioners have come back to the UK to take part in a roadshow around the country to encourage businesses to export more and link up with the countries they are posted in.

It comes as the E-Commerce Trade Commission recently reported that 70,000 businesses in Britain which are ready to export are still not exporting.

If 70,000 businesses in Britain which are ready to export are still not exporting, then sooner or later a radical MP may well suggest fining them. That's how astute they are. 

Fordow Assessment

 

Blairism with a smartphone

Kristian Niemietz has a very interesting CAPX piece on the close similarities between the Starmer government's 10-year plan for the NHS and a plan from the Blair years 25 years ago.


Labour’s NHS plan is just reheated Blairism

• The Government's 10-year plan for the NHS is almost identical to a document from 25 years ago
• Keeping up with developments in healthcare policy is like watching Groundhog Day
• Revitalising old agendas for reform will never sort out the issues facing the NHS

Yesterday, the Government published its policy paper ‘Fit For The Future: 10 Year Health Plan for England‘, which announced:

[I]nvestment has to be accompanied by reform. The NHS has to be redesigned around the needs of the patient. Local hospitals cannot be run from Whitehall. There will be a new relationship between the Department of Health and the NHS […]

The principles of subsidiarity will apply. A new system of earned autonomy will devolve power from the centre to the local health service as modernisation takes hold. […]

A Modernisation Agency will be set up to spread best practice. Local NHS organisations that perform well for patients will get more freedom to run their own affairs.

Or actually, it didn’t. That quote is from ‘The NHS Plan: A plan for investment. A plan for reform‘, published almost exactly 25 years ago today, during Tony Blair’s first term.


The whole piece is well worth reading as another indication that reforming the NHS has never been on any political agenda. Tinkering yes, reform no. Politicians still rely on technology and bombastic rhetoric to supply something they can sell as progress - smartphones in this case.


There are good things in the plan, even if they are not genuinely novel. The NHS App, which was useful enough during the pandemic, has largely been lying dormant since, because there was not much that one could do with it. The 10-year plan wants to add extra functions to the app, so that it becomes a tool for conveniently choosing healthcare providers, and a source of information about them. NHS Trusts will be given greater autonomy over their budgets, and payment formulas will be changed, to strengthen the principle that the money follows the patient. When patients are strongly dissatisfied with the care they receive, it will even be possible to withhold a part of the payment from the provider. These are all sensible extensions of Blair-era reforms.

And that is, perhaps, the most generous reading of ‘Fit For The Future’: it is a revitalisation of an earlier reform agenda, combined with some evergreen topics that, within the current system, never truly get sorted out.

In the current context, this is probably as good as it gets. But it comes nowhere near justifying the Government’s bombastic rhetoric of ‘transformational change’ or a ‘break with the past’. It is Blairism with a smartphone, nothing more, nothing less.

OCD Gardening

Ed Miliband now wants Brits to put wind turbines in their gardens

The Government has unveiled its plan to almost double onshore wind across England by 2030. Ministers want to expand the country's onshore wind capacity from 14.8GW to up to 29GW by the end of the decade.

It forms part of wider Government ambitions to transition towards a clean power system by 2030 in a bid to slash the UK's reliance on foreign gas and cut bills. But the Conservatives have slammed the strategy by accusing Energy Secretary Ed Miliband of making the country's energy "unreliable and expensive" through his "obsession with climate targets"

Mr Miliband's new plan will also make it simpler for Britons to install wind turbines in their back gardens, it has been reported. Planning rules on the building of wind turbines on residential land could be relaxed once a consultation has finished.


Eddy, Eddy, quite unsteady,
How does your garden grow?
With soaring bills and crooked shills
And nutty plans all in a row.
 

Source - but not quite

Managed decline and broken promises

Ex-Labour MP Sultana says she will set up new party with Jeremy Corbyn

A former Labour MP has said that she will set up a new party with Jeremy Corbyn.

Zarah Sultana – who had the Labour whip suspended last year – said she was resigning from Sir Keir Starmer’s party and would “co-lead the founding of a new party” with the ex-Labour leader.

In a statement posted on X, Ms Sultana, who represents Coventry South, said that the project would also involve “other independent MPs, campaigners and activists across the country”.

She said that “Westminster is broken but the real crisis is deeper” and the “two-party system offers nothing but managed decline and broken promises”.


Forming political parties has become very popular, but presumably Corbyn and Sultana aim to offer something different to "managed decline and broken promises." Hmm...

It may be an unfortunately obvious comment, but the best those two could offer is mismanaged decline and broken promises. 

Or worse.

Yes, probably worse.

The reckoning has arrived

Damian Pudner has an interesting and topical CAPX piece on the continuing disaster that is the Starmer Reeves duo.


Rachel Reeves is finished, and Keir Starmer is exposed

• Labour’s economic strategy was a mirage – now it is unravelling in real time
• The idea that Reeves can now deliver a politically tolerable Autumn Budget is laughable
• The Chancellor is discovering that tone is not policy, and style is not substance

It’s not yet official, but the markets have already passed their verdict. Gilt yields surged again yesterday – with ten-year rates brushing 4.68% – as investors digested yet another fiscal U-turn and a visibly shaken Chancellor. The message could not be clearer: there is no plan, no discipline and no credibility left. The much vaunted £10 billion in fiscal ‘headroom’ has been squandered. Growth remains anaemic, and Britain’s mounting debt burden is once again in the crosshairs. Rachel Reeves may still occupy the Treasury – but politically, she is done.


The whole piece may be familiar ground but is well worth reading. In Starmer and Reeves, we see not only political failure, but also the failure of narrative politics.

A political narrative for voters to swallow isn't enough. Maybe it was in the past when the government machine was less inefficient, corrupt and self-serving, but it isn't enough now. As Pudner says, the age of cost-free politics is over, the reckoning has arrived. It has arrived for voters too. 
.

The problem is not that Reeves is uniquely incompetent. She isn’t. The problem is that Labour’s entire economic strategy was a mirage, a carefully choreographed illusion of stability that collapsed in contact with reality. Now it is unravelling in real time.

And Starmer? He cannot escape the fallout. Whether Reeves is sacked before or after the Budget, it will be under a Prime Minister who pledged not to raise taxes on ordinary people – and who now must oversee exactly that.

The age of cost-free politics is over. The reckoning has arrived. And despite all the promises, it will be Labour that delivers it.

Reeves is finished. Starmer is exposed. And both voters – and markets – are watching.

Leisurely Ousting

Sir Keir Starmer could be ousted as PM within months, two senior Labour MPs tell Sky News

Sky News' deputy political editor Sam Coates said his sources - a member of the government and a prominent politician - have "put Sir Keir Starmer on notice".

Both warned that, if Labour performs badly in next May's elections across Wales, Scotland and London, it could mark the end of his time in Downing Street.

It sounds as if they don't have anyone else and they know it. The Labour HoC majority is too large, it has too many destructive ideologues and net zero collective competence. 

Shoe Shop

I like nutty comedy and this is surely nutty comedy at its nuttiest.

Oh dear, it's "full backing" time

Rachel Reeves in tears at PMQs as Keir Starmer refuses to confirm she'll remain Chancellor after benefits cuts chaos

Rachel Reeves was seen with a tear rolling down her cheek in the Commons as the Prime Minister refused to guarantee she would remain in her job until the next election.

The Chancellor appeared visibly upset while sat next to Sir Keir Starmer as he faced a grilling over the chaos of Tuesday night’s benefits cuts vote.

Following Prime Minister’s Questions, Downing Street insisted that Ms Reeves “is going nowhere” and has Sir Keir’s "full backing".

Flagging

Controversial new council flag protocol approved across West Northamptonshire despite councillors labelling it ‘ridiculous’ and ‘divisive’

The protocol, which states only the Union, St George, St Crispin, the council’s own, armed forces and remembrance flags will be flown outside buildings, was approved at a full council meeting on June 26.

During the meeting at The Guildhall, there was heated discussion about the policy, with councillors raising concerns about not flying community flags such as the pride flag, the Windrush flag and others.

As well as those reported via the link, it's mildly entertaining to imagine the likely standard of other arguments used to promote that "heated discussion" by fans of "community flags." It sounds as if at least one Councillor found it all rather tedious -

Cllr Hastie said: “By adopting this policy we protect the integrity of our institutions and ensure that the council speaks for everyone, not just some.

“Lets be honest, if we tried to please everyone by flying every flag, eventually we are going to need a bigger roof.”

Behind the silk robes

Tom Armstrong has a fine, vituperative piece on Keir Starmer's globalist pal, Lord Hermer.

Lord Hermer: The Globalist Fanatic at the Heart of Britain’s Two-Tier Justice Scandal

I was thinking of writing a piece on how all the senior members of this grievous government are weirdos, cranks, fanatics, and halfwits who hate their own country and are doing their damnedest to destroy it. But to do each of them justice, this article would need to be five times longer than it is, so I thought I’d settle on one to use as an example. Obviously, my mind first settled on Mad Ed Miliband, but I decided that he’s too far-fetched and therefore too easy a target. And so I settled on one, just as damaging, but who until recently had kept below my radar. Ladies and Gentlemen, without further ado, I give you Richard Simon Hermer, the barmy baron battling to bash Britain back to the bone age.

There is, of course, a long tradition of arrogant government ministers exposing their ignorance and contempt for the people in spectacular fashion while thinking that they cannot possibly be wrong about anything. But fierce as the competition is, few come close to Lord Richard Hermer KC, the UK’s Attorney General, especially in terms of sheer, dangerous ideological zealotry.


The whole piece is well worth reading as an excellent example of how much well-deserved contempt Those Who Know Best have earned for themselves. 


Hermer isn't just another inexperienced technocrat parachuted into high office. He is a walking embodiment of the worst traits of Britain's legal-activist class: globalist in worldview, obsessed with supranational legal structures, hostile to British sovereignty, and utterly contemptuous of ordinary Britons who dare to challenge the system.

Behind his silk robes and courtroom credentials lies a far-left ideologue who treats his supposedly impartial office as a political pulpit to preach a doctrine of globalist subservience, anti-British hysteria, and a justice system weaponised for ideological ends.

Good Advice

 

Tiny Target

Starmer’s authority under fire as Labour MPs threaten biggest revolt yet in crunch vote on benefit reforms

Sir Keir Starmer was scrambling to limit the size of a Labour revolt over welfare reforms which was threatening to be the biggest yet of his year-long premiership.

Cabinet ministers were holding talks with potential rebels to try to persuade them to back the Government or at least abstain in a crunch Commons vote on Tuesday evening.

But dozens of Labour MPs were expected to still refuse to back the controversial shake-up of the benefits system, despite a series of concessions having already been made.


Starmer's authority under fire? Whatever his "authority" is supposed to be, it's surely a tiny target by now. Impossible to hit some might say, as it seems to have disappeared down the bureaucratic toilet some time ago.

Good grief, what a rabble they are.