To dispute ad infinitum about everything

Corbyn’s new party in chaos as co-leaders squabble over antisemitism remark

Jeremy Corbyn has hit back at Zarah Sultana after she accused him of “capitulating” over antisemitism when he was Labour leader as tensions at the top of their new left-wing party grow.

The Islington MP said it was “not really necessary” for Ms Sultana, with whom he is currently co-leading the as-yet-unnamed party, to “bring all that up”.


We know beforehand that it is possible to dispute ad infinitum about everything—and so we do not dispute.

Mikhail Lermontov - A Hero of Our Time (1840)

With depressing and unceasing predictability

Joseph Dinnage has an topical CAPX piece on the remarkably incompetent state of our UK Labour government.


Labour’s incompetence exposes their election strategy

• This Government has reached levels of unpopularity that it took the Tories all of 14 years to attain
• With depressing predictability, Labour demonstrate their ideological incoherence and political incompetence
• Labour are relying on their party seeming the least incompetent of the bunch by 2029

I don’t want to come over all Shawshank Redemption, but 412 days have passed since Labour were elected last year. A lot can happen in that time. I’m informed by Google’s inbuilt AI system that one could theoretically have run 366 marathons. A child could have been conceived with some months left over to start raising the thing. You could even have mastered intermediate-level Spanish. Yet what Labour have managed to achieve in their first year and a bit in Government eclipses even these admirable pursuits. In just over a year, Keir Starmer’s regime has reached levels of unpopularity that it took the Tories all of 14 years to attain.


The whole piece is well worth reading as a reminder of just how predictably incompetent Sir Keir Starmer's government has become. 

There is nothing whatever to suggest that Starmer or Labour are capable of turning it round either. We have reached a stage where no sane person expects anything better and deep pessimism has become the rational outlook.


With depressing and unceasing predictability, Labour demonstrate both their deep ideological incoherence and political incompetence. With its approval ratings in the gutter, Reform UK surging ahead in the polls and ‘Jezbollah’ hot on its heels, the Government is relying on one of two outcomes come 2029.

And not at all sinister

Government plans to build AI agent to help citizens with ‘life admin’

Leading firms have been invited to join civil service tech experts to start work on a prototype of a ‘helper’ that ministers hope could be rolled out to the populace

Government has proposed a state-run “AI agent” that citizens could deploy to help with day-to-day administrative tasks.

At the start of this week, government invited representatives of companies specialised in agentic artificial intelligence to “team up with in-house Whitehall experts to test this technology together”. Ministers hope that, over the next six to 12 months, firms will support the creation of a prototype agent by taking steps “to share their expertise and dedicate AI specialists to… a hybrid team” where they will work alongside civil servants.

The ultimate aim is to create a government-run tool that would be available to the public to “take on boring life admin by dealing with public services on your behalf – from filling in forms to completing applications and booking appointments”.

"Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently."

George Orwell - 1984 (1949)

Place your bets

Beach Treks

Growing older is of course a universal experience in spite of efforts to delay the process, but as an oldie, there is an oddly rewarding aspect to old age. The crumbly, wrinkly health aspect may not be rewarding, but the gradual escape from a world of worthless chatter and pointless activity does have its rewards.

Lugging loads of gear to the beach for example, I’d count that as pointless activity.

The other day found us walking behind an oldish chap lugging a load of paraphernalia to the beach. Two folding chairs in green bags, one slung on each shoulder, a bulging bag in one hand and a rolled up parasol in the other. 

Modern times I suppose, people do take an amazing amount of gear to the beach.

Something seems to be unwinding

MP spotted using ChatGPT to respond to constituents on the train

An MP has been spotted on a train using ChatGPT to respond to constituents' correspondence, the Mirror can reveal.

A fellow passenger, who previously worked in Parliament, noticed that Northampton South MP Mike Reader had his laptop open and recognised he was using a software programme called "Caseworker" which is widely used in the House of Commons by MPs and their staff...

The source said: “He was copying the entire constituent email into ChatGPT, and then asking ChatGPT to respond. I couldn’t believe it. ChatGPT to reply to constituents. How lazy is that? You can see ChatGPT giving a response starting with ‘Thank you for raising your deep concerns about the situation in Gaza’.” In the notes on Caseworker, Mr Reader allegedly wrote: "ChatGPT generated. Mike approved."


A formulaic response is a formulaic response, however an MP chooses to compile it. Anyone paying attention will be aware that in numerous comparable situations most responses from any hierarchy will be formulaic. The BBC has been doing it for decades.

An interesting aspect is that constituents may as well ask ChatGPT for the formulaic response and cut out the middleman. They could then forward the ChatGPT response to their MP and ask if the MP agrees with it. 

Hmm...

Something seems to be unwinding.

 

What were the consequences?

 

A tendency to oligarchy

Continually absent Reform UK councillor in Cornwall is asked to attend meetings

The Mayor of Newquay has written to a Reform UK councillor asking her to attend town council meetings after members raised concerns about her "continued absence". Cllr Christine Parsonage was a paper candidate elected to represent St Columb Minor at the Cornwall Council election earlier this year. She lives over 45 miles away in Torpoint.

Since the May 1 election she hasn't attended a single meeting of Newquay Town Council. Her predecessor, Independent councillor John Fitter, provided monthly updates of casework and issues affecting the St Columb Minor and Colan ward in person. Cllr Parsonage's husband, Cllr Rob Parsonage - the leader of the Reform UK group at Cornwall Council - has accused Newquay councillors of trying to score "political points".

Only a single, barely significant story and it is politics, and local media have to hunt around for stories, but there is no obvious reason why Reform won't have a wider problem with the kind of people attracted to politics. It's a systemic party problem which goes all the way to the top. 

Political parties don't work. 

Moving on from an absent Cornwall councillor, some sound people are attracted to politics, but from potholes to immigration to the UK economy, there is a glaringly obvious problem with political parties, a problem which has been obvious for a very long time.

Organization implies a tendency to oligarchy. In every organization, whether it be a political party, a professional union, or any other association of any kind, the aristocratic tendency manifests itself very clearly. As a result of organization, every party or professional union becomes divided into a minority of directors and a majority of directed.

Robert Michels, Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy (1911)

A thoroughly advertised and conspicuous mediocrity

Scrap two-child benefit cap, Kinnock tells Starmer

Lord Kinnock has urged Sir Keir Starmer to scrap the two-child benefit cap.

The Labour peer and former party leader said the policy, which restricts access to child tax credits and other benefits, was responsible for keeping hundreds of thousands of children in poverty.

Lord Kinnock’s intervention comes weeks after he called on Sir Keir to introduce a new wealth tax and suggested a 2 per cent levy on assets worth more than £10 million.


From which we may conclude that neither mediocrity has assets worth more than £10 million.


Ambition, they say, is the giant passion. But giants are placable and sleep at times. The spirit of emulation — the lust of distinction — hominum volitare per ora — digito monstrarier — in a wider, and still widening sphere — until all the world knows something about you — and so on and on — the same selfish aspiration, and at best, the same barren progress, till at last it has arrived — you are a thoroughly advertised and conspicuous mediocrity, still wishing, and often tired, in the midst of drudgery and importance and éclat, and then — on a sudden, the other thing comes — the first of the days of darkness which are many.

Sheridan Le Fanu - The Tenants of Malory (1867)

Thompsons we have known

Now Thompson, there is reason to believe, tried earnestly for some years to be a man. Alas! he began while he was a boy, and got exhausted before he arrived at maturity. He could make no further effort, and manhood is not acquired without a mighty struggle, nor maintained without untiring industry. So having fatigued himself before reaching the starting-point, Thompson Washington did not re-enter the race for manhood, but contented his simple soul with achieving a modest swinehood.

Ambrose Bierce - The Fiend's Delight (1873)

Counting Thompsons in the political sphere could present a problem, but perhaps Thompsons have always been with us and counting them is impossible. 

 

A very common disease

R. Austin Freeman was a doctor before he took up writing. 

 

To save time, I may as well say that the symptoms pointed to chronic lead-poisoning. Most people nowadays know that this is a very common disease, and a few years ago, when leaden vessels were extensively used, it was even commoner than at present.

R. Austin Freeman - From a Surgeon's Diary (1905)

The history of lead poisoning seems to have faded into the background, but I'm reminded of it whenever we see pewter plates and drinking vessels in antiques centres.

Of course we now have more severe health concerns such as a 1.5C rise in global temperatures. Plus many other invented ailments of course.

Picky

Stone Age humans were picky about which rocks they used for making tools, study finds

Early human ancestors during the Old Stone Age were more picky about the rocks they used for making tools than previously known, according to research published Friday.

Not only did these early people make tools, they had a mental picture of where suitable raw materials were located and planned ahead to use them, traveling long distances.

Interesting, but for some reason this section raised a smile.

“This suggests they’ve got a mental map of where different resources are distributed across the landscape,” said co-author Rick Potts of the Smithsonian's Human Origins Program.

Imagine a Paranthropus conversation along the same lines - "You need a mental map of where different resources are distributed across the landscape" stone chippers say to their apprentices.

Moonshine Wilt

Government will not offer bailout to UK's largest bioethanol plant

Owners Vivergo, a subsidiary of Associated British Foods, had warned that the plant would close without government support, and sources at the company have told Sky News the wind-down process is now likely to begin.

An ABF spokesperson, which also owns Primark, said the government's decision was "deeply regrettable" and it had "chosen not to support a key national asset".

Seems to be a "key national asset" in the sense that Ed Miliband is a key national asset.


Government sources said they had employed external consultants to provide advice, and pointed out that the plant had not been profitable since 2011.

Word Salads

James Gatehouse has an entertaining FSB piece on the lack of nourishment in UK political word salads. Entertaining, but also an aspect of wilful idiocy as in the previous post.

Word Salad and Politics

I’m no great fan of salad, although from time to time you do experience a good one. Anything with celery in it is a no-no as far as I’m concerned, so anything Waldorf-ian is definitely out. People who make tasty salads are in short supply, I guess.

Poor salad recipes are nevertheless much the fashion these days. Take these modern culinary classics as examples. [a Labour government will] kick-start economic growth...make Britain a clean energy superpower...take back our streets...break down barriers to opportunity...build an NHS fit for the future.

Like the limp lettuce infesting some supermarket sandwich packs these appear to have lost any of the savour that a proper chef might have brought to them. These are poor salads designed to sound good on the label, but lack any power to evoke a sense of satisfaction once eaten. For one thing, all of these word salads are at best meaningless without added context. What does it mean. Precisely. to “kick start” an economy, or for that matter to make it “grow”? Was it stopped and has it been kickstarted by now? Is energy dirty? And in what way precisely does it make me or anyone else mucky?

Well worth reading, as word salads are all the UK political menu has to offer. They are hideously expensive and indigestible salads too, but Rachel Reeves seems to think they are still too cheap. 

A kind of wilful idiocy

Sebastian Milbank has an interesting Critic piece on the failure of government by technocrat, where even reliable government statistics may fail to reflect what governments and government supporters assume. Incompetence can be baked into the system.


Things can only get worse

There is a vast epistemic divide between those who experience decline, and those who don’t

Is London a terrifying post-apocalyptic city full of “no-go areas”, patrolled by violent ethnic gangs and raving drug addicts? Or is it a vibrant multicultural success story that is infinitely safer and nicer than the bleak city of the 1980s? This, in microcosm, is the argument playing out across the West over crime, migration and public space. Are things getting better, or are they getting worse?

On the one hand, as this example amply demonstrates, we are not able to have sensible conversations because of the levels of hysteria and ideological distortion involved. On the other, we struggle to articulate realities that can’t be captured by statistics, or haven’t yet been systematically researched.


The whole piece is well worth reading as a contribution to problems we are aware of but consistently fail to articulate within the hopelessly compromised arena of public debate.

The utilitarian experiment of governing society via selective statistics and scientific management has catastrophically failed, and has rendered otherwise intelligent men and women into a kind of wilful idiocy, unable to accept the evidence of their senses unless it can be translated into data. We are all, in a sense, living in a virtual world, having lost the old tools of grammar, logic and rhetoric that gave us a mental and linguistic handle on reality at a human scale. This problem is not academic, but sharply political, as it opens up deadly rifts between the experience of the common person, and an elite rendered complacent by its faith in a social scientific worldview.

When Movies Get Science Wrong

 

Economists who are always wrong

Mani Basharzad has a permanently topical CAPX piece about economists who are always wrong.


Why do we listen to economists who are always wrong?

• 30 so-called 'top economists' have called for a wealth tax in the UK
• Left-wing economists hold free markets to an impossible standard
• Markets are not perfect, but the process of trial and error they encourage moves us closer to efficiency

On July 28, more than 30 so-called ‘top economists’ called for a wealth tax in the UK. Glance at the list of signatories and you’ll see the usual names who oppose almost any market reform: Thomas Piketty, Ha-Joon Chang and Martín Guzmán. Ironically, just over a year ago, many of them signed another letter warning against Javier Milei’s reform programme in Argentina, which they described as ‘potentially harmful’ to the Argentine people.

Fast forward to today, and historian Niall Ferguson calls Argentina’s economic turnaround a ‘man-made miracle’. Milei ended Argentina’s fiscal deficit for the first time in 123 years. Annual inflation plunged from 211.4% in 2023 to 43.5% by mid-2025. UNICEF reports that 1.7 million children have been lifted out of poverty since he took office and according to Econométrica’s EMAE, the economy grew by 8% year-on-year in April.


The piece is short and well worth reading. Apart from economists who are always wrong, it raises a wider question about academics in other fields who are always wrong too.

As we know, we have ended up with a political culture where being wrong can be politically, socially, professionally and financially advantageous. That's a formidable array of benefits. 

Credible reports

Politics latest: US State Department highlights 'significant human rights issues' in the UK

A new US State Department report identifies "significant human rights issues" in the UK, pointing to "credible reports of serious restrictions on freedom of expression" as a key example.

That's because we have a human rights lawyer as Prime Minister. Huge irony, but never mind Sir Keir, face up to the deficiencies of your former profession like a man.

No?

More puling, pusillanimous evasion it is then.

Two Visions

Vision 1

Ford Unveils its 'Next Model T Moment' with $5-Billion EV Gamble and the World's Most Affordable Electric Pickup

Ford announced a historic $5 billion investment in the US on 11 August 2025. The focus is transforming electric vehicle production and introducing a new affordable electric pickup truck.

This move, called the 'next Model T moment' by Ford, aims to reshape the auto industry. The investment centres on innovation, American manufacturing, and cutting costs for customers. Details on how Ford plans to achieve this breakthrough unfold steadily, promising wide-reaching impacts.

Vision 2

HMRC NarkBot

HMRC uses AI to spy on social media posts

HMRC has admitted for the first time that it uses artificial intelligence (AI) to spy on taxpayers’ social media posts.

The tax authority examines workers’ financial records, spending habits and tax returns to look for evidence of cheating – as well as posts on the internet.

Social media posts about a large purchase or expensive holiday could trigger a red flag if the user seems to be spending beyond their means.


Gosh, does this mean my holiday on Mars could be picked up by the all-seeing HMRC NarkBot? I had to abandon the idea of gold-plating the shed roof this year to pay for it though. My pension 'extras' don't yet stretch that far.

Not that NarkBot is likely to scour this shady little corner of the interweb, but it does suggest how lots of social media folk could have fun providing a deluge of even more wildly improbable entertainment.

No more rabbit dung for us

Wonder drugs no more: N. Korea’s health supplement market turns to foreign brands

North Korean officials prefer German company Doppelherz's magnesium, lutein, collagen, and milk thistle products

A health supplement revolution is quietly taking hold among North Korea’s elite. Disillusioned with counterfeit “medicines from Ponghwa” that people mockingly call “rabbit dung,” wealthy officials and the newly rich are abandoning domestic products for foreign-made dietary supplements they can actually trust.

The Latest £50 Billion Disaster

 

Fitted with modern conveniences

Mrs H and I have whizzed off on holiday, so blogging may be light but here is a snippet from my holiday reading. Not sure whodunit yet though - no butler has appeared so far.


The house had not been used as a farm-house for fifteen years, and was falling to ruin when he bought it in 1918. He had had it thoroughly repaired and fitted with modern conveniences—a bath-room, a telephone, and a plant for making acetylene gas to light it.

Edgar Jepson - The Murder in Romney Marsh (1929)

The Most Useless National Treasure is . . .

TCW has been conducting an entertaining competition - The Most Useless National Treasure.


TCW competition result: The Most Useless National Treasure is . . .

WE ASKED you to nominate the Most Useless National Treasure, and we gave you possibilities in the form of Angela Rippon and Sir Grayson Perry.

In response you sent in a range of suggestions from the ranks of the rich and pointless, all of them rating high for lack of merit and/or off-switch levels of ability to irritate.

In a hard field from which to pick a winner, we turned to the Chocolate Teapot Scale, which measures not just prominence and talent to annoy, but takes into account general failure to give an answer to the question: Daddy, what is that man for?

This works against candidates with real talents or achievements.

It's not easy to disagree with any of the suggestions, but read the whole piece as a reminder of how many Useless National Treasures we have. There is a worthy winner though.

He should sit this one out

Trump ally says UK 'would have lost WW2 with Starmer as leader'

Sir Keir Starmer has been brutally savaged by Mike Huckabee, Donald Trump's handpicked Ambassador to Israel, who took to social media to claim the UK "would have lost" World War 2 had the Labour leader been Prime Minister. And the former Governor and US Presidential candidate also suggested Sir Keir "should sit this one out" on Gaza, after UK Government criticism of the Israeli government's plan to take control of Gaza City.


By gum, I do like the blunt diplomacy of Team Trump. 

There are a few more issues where the UK would benefit from "Sir" Keir retreating to the stands. He could take his ghastly Cabinet "colleagues" with him as a bonus move.

The automated MP

Tom Jones has an interesting CAPX piece on the AI automation of a backbench MP's work.


We’ve automated our first MP. Who’s next?

• That our MPs can be automated away speaks to the devaluation of the role
• Mindless busywork for constituents is diverting legislators from their purpose
• We need MPs who can tackle our national decline – or AI may do a better job

When you think of the jobs most likely to be automated away, which do you think of?

Those most at threat are those that are repetitive and rule-based, require minimal social or emotional intelligence – and don’t rely heavily on creativity or complex judgement. Customer service work is often being quoted as at threat, as are routine manual jobs like fast food fry-slingers, routine cognitive jobs like data clerks and entry-level white collar jobs like paralegals.

Perhaps, then, it should come as little surprise that backbench MP is one of the first jobs to be automated away. If the singularity starts by deleting the lowest-value processes first, the redundant political function seems a logical place to start. Many were chatbots already.

Worth reading as an angle on what MPs actually do as opposed to what they should do and the way AI may focus attention on the issue. For some MPs this may not be a change they can handle, for others it could be.

Places that defy explanation

Places On Earth That Scientists Still Don’t Fully Understand

For all our satellites, sonar, and scientific breakthroughs, Earth still has a few spots that leave even the experts a bit flummoxed. These are the places that defy explanation, bend logic, or just won’t give up all their secrets, no matter how many studies are thrown at them. Whether it’s a strange patch of ocean or a mysterious hole in the ground, here are 10 places on our own planet that science still hasn’t totally figured out. Maybe we never will, and that’s kind of crazy to think about!


Let us add one more place to the clickbait - surely this weird structure should be number 11.

 

Electric Boat

 

UN report finds UN reports are not widely read

UN report finds — UN reports are not widely read

A United Nations report seeking ways to improve efficiency and cut costs has revealed: U.N. reports are not widely read.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres briefed countries on Friday on the report, produced by his UN80 reform that focused on how U.N. staff implement thousands of mandates given to them by bodies like the General Assembly or Security Council.

He said last year that the U.N. system supported 27,000 meetings involving 240 bodies, and the U.N. secretariat produced 1,100 reports, a 20% increase since 1990.


An outsider is bound to suspect that UN reports are not compiled to be widely read. The U.N. secretariat doesn't necessarily expect anyone at all to read those 1,100 reports once they have been issued. The function of a bureaucracy is to produce reports, not necessarily reports which are widely read, or even read at all.

Even if they haven't been read, those U.N. reports are available to be referred to in the future, to preload debates should the need arise. 

Nothing to do with athletics

HMRC staff caught holding 'nonsense' 'Guilt of Being British' event during work hours

Staff at HM Revenue and Customs have been slated for holding a seminar on the "Guilt of Being British" during working hours.

The hour-long session, run by "HMRC Race Network" from 11am to midday on Tuesday, was titled "Guilt of Being British: Listening Circle".

It was advertised as "a powerful, interactive, and reflective listening circle exploring the emotional complexity of being South Asian and British" which would cover topics including "the emotional weight of colonial history".


Once upon a time, something called the "HMRC Race Network" could have been an athletics club to encourage a few chair-polishers to get up off their ample backsides for a spot of after hours competitive running.

Today, the notion of an HMRC athletics club would not be the first assumption. Far more likely would be an assumption about some foolish progressive nonsense designed to humiliate anyone subversive enough to think for themselves on matters social and political.

As anyone paying attention knows, and as Orwell described so graphically in 1984, it's a totalitarian tactic, the use of forced nonsense as a way to humiliate and subdue populations. It works on any scale, from lonely Winston Smith to the humiliated saps attending "HMRC Race Network" sessions.

And nobody is surprised

Lisa Nandy: I won’t watch new Gregg Wallace MasterChef series

Lisa Nandy has said she will not watch the new series of MasterChef because she was “absolutely appalled” by the conduct of sacked presenters Gregg Wallace and John Torode.

The Culture Secretary said she “certainly won’t be watching this series” and believed many members of the public would feel the same.

Ah - the Culture Secretary has a TV licence, watches pap and nobody is surprised.

Less than 40 hours

 

What larks

'Stupid and Sneaky!': London Restaurant Slammed for Adding Hidden £1.23 Carbon Charge to Diners' Bills

Diners at a London restaurant have been left fuming after discovering a stealthy charge on their bills.

A new, undisclosed fee, purportedly for carbon offsetting, has sparked outrage, with customers branding the move as both 'stupid and sneaky'.


By gum, this is fun, could even wake up a few believers when such entertaining games come to light. 

Was Ed Miliband gagging because he'd just seen a carbon charge added to his bacon sarnie? 

Could be, could be.

 

Scams, Pap and Clickbait

I received a scam text and a scam email this morning, so nothing unusual from our digital world.

To my mind the main digital world headache isn’t so much the scams, but what seems like an increasing morass of pap and clickbait infesting the media instead of material which might possibly be worth a bit of attention. For example, political pap inserted into mainstream news creates a kind of pap fog where features of Keir Starmer’s long reign…

…hang on - er - he hasn’t been PM for that long has he?

Correction indicated, but that’s the issue with political pap, it becomes more difficult to look back on brighter days. Partly because they weren’t much brighter and partly because of pap fog obscuring the perspective.

But Starmer’s long, long reign must surely end eventually…

Impact

From Wikipedia -

Destruction under the Mongol Empire

The Mongol conquests resulted in widespread and well-documented death and destruction throughout Eurasia, as the Mongol army invaded hundreds of cities and killed millions of people.


But jump to the final paragraph and -

Environmental impact

According to a study by the Carnegie Institution for Science's Department of Global Energy, the annihilation of so many human beings and cities under Genghis Khan may have scrubbed as much as 700 million tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere by allowing forests to regrow on previously populated and cultivated land.

The planet-wide city

Jorge Álvarez has an interesting LBV piece on those who have imagined the merger of all the world’s major cities into one planet-wide city.


Ecumenopolis, the Future Merger of All the World’s Great Cities into One

Coruscant, the capital of the Republic in the Star Wars films, is an overwhelming planet-wide city, completely urbanized and crisscrossed by millions of flying vehicles. It’s a concept previously used by Isaac Asimov with Trantor, the imperial capital in his famous Foundation literary saga, as well as by other writers and artists in numerous novels, comics, and video games. The idea of global-scale conurbation was named ecumenopolis in 1967 by a Greek architect named Constantinos Doxiadis, who predicted an initial phase involving the merger of London, Paris, Amsterdam, and the Rhine and Ruhr river basins.

In truth, Doxiadis was not the first to imagine planet-sized cities. Strictly speaking—although from a poetic rather than a scientific standpoint—that honor should go to the inimitable Thomas Lake Harris, who included a similar proposal in his verses. Lake, born in England in 1823 but emigrated to New York as a child, was a devout Baptist Calvinist who leaned toward universalism (a philosophical doctrine asserting the existence of a universal, objective, and eternal truth that governs everything), which led him to found the peculiar Spiritualist Community of Mountain Cove.


The whole piece is well worth reading as a reminder of the kind of ideas which may float through any gathering of globally influential people, or those who aspire to be globally influential. 

It's one of many airy concepts which may be unworkable and probably bonkers but interesting enough to attract the attention of globalist sentiment with too little practical experience.


It is also appropriate to clarify another concept, that of the global city, which differs from that of ecumenopolis in that it acts as a key player in the world economy—not only because of wealth generation but also because of large pockets of poverty—culturally and politically, without needing to spread over the entire planetary surface. The term was coined in her eponymous work by the Dutch sociologist Saskia Sassen (recipient of the 2013 Prince of Asturias Award for Social Sciences), who explicitly distinguishes it from the megalopolis or megacity (one or more united metropolitan areas—another definition speaks of urban agglomerations, i.e., zones of continuous growth—with more than ten million inhabitants and/or a population density exceeding two thousand people per square kilometer).

The danger of being rich in China

A Ken Cao video on the perils of being too successful as an entrepreneur in China.

From Freedom's Whispers

Zhang Yingyue has a powerful FSB piece on growing up in Maoist China and how the BBC and VOA, once the voice of freedom have lost that voice in pursuit of yet another empty totalitarian ideology.

From Freedom's Whispers to Tyrant’s Tools: How the BBC and VOA Lost Their Soul

"The freedom to speak means nothing if you only whisper what you’re told to say."

When I was a teenage girl growing up in the iron grip of Maoist China during the Cultural Revolution, I dreamed of the outside world and risked everything to listen to its voices. While classmates denounced their parents and teachers under red banners and revolutionary slogans, I stayed up into the night, crouched beside a battered shortwave radio, tuning it inch by inch until the static gave way to a foreign miracle: “This is the Voice of America.” Or: “This is London. The BBC World Service.”

To be caught listening to such broadcasts was dangerous. Not merely “frowned upon,” but life-ruining dangerous. A neighbour’s son had disappeared after being overheard repeating a joke he’d heard on the BBC. My father and mother, both CPP members and a senior civil servant in the security department and a university lecturer respectively, were denounced as counterrevolutionaries and sent to labour camps. And yet, I listened. Terrified and in secret, but I listened to those calm, reasoned, and often warm voices—my lifeline to the world beyond claustrophobic, hysterical Beijing.


The whole piece is well worth reading as warning that nothing is forever, including the freedoms we once thought were permanent.

The tragedy is not just what the BBC and VOA have become but what they’ve left behind. In silencing dissent, they have silenced curiosity. In enforcing conformity, they’ve extinguished courage. In replacing inquiry with ideology, they’ve traded journalism for propaganda. To the editors, producers, and journalists within those institutions who still remember what free speech actually means: speak up. Or if you can’t, walk away. The machinery you serve no longer deserves the loyalty of free minds.

To readers across the world, especially in places still fighting for the freedoms the West once championed: don’t be fooled. The loudest voices are not always the bravest. Sometimes, the real dissidents are the ones being deplatformed, not those on the front page.

And to my younger self, crouched beside a radio in the dead of night: I’m sorry. The voices we trusted changed. But the truths they once whispered, that freedom is fragile, that speech matters, that tyranny wears many masks, are still true. Even if you have to say them alone.

Suppose we turn it round

UK has got ‘fat’ on decades of women’s unpaid labour – Jess Phillips

Jess Phillips says that the UK has grown "fat" on the unpaid labour of women, a practice she deems "fundamentally sexist".

The minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls argued that the nation has depended on women’s charitable contributions for decades.

That had led to a reluctance from the government to provide services itself, she said.


Suppose we turn it round. There is paid labour we could do without, both men and women. Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves, David Lammy, Bridget Phillipson Ed Miliband and Jess Phillips for example. There are considerable collective advantages to coping without their labour.

Suppose we turn it round a little further and change it into a can of worms simply because it's so easy to turn Labour ideology into cans of worms.


NHS maintained 93% of planned care during resident doctors’ strikes

The NHS maintained care for an estimated 10,000 more patients during the latest doctors’ strike compared with last year’s industrial action.

Early data shows that 93% of planned operations, tests and procedures went ahead during the five-day walkout across England.

Of course you are going to disappoint people

Reeves: Of course you are going to disappoint people as Chancellor

Rachel Reeves admits Labour has “disappointed” people while in government.

The politician said she understood that being Chancellor meant making unpopular decisions.

She told an audience at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival that Labour had got the balance right between tax, spending and borrowing.

But she said that balancing the books meant making tough decisions, even if the are unpopular.

It seems unlikely that the word 'disappoint' is strong enough, but she hasn't disappointed everyone.


Ms Reeves pointed to Labour’s £200 million investment in carbon capture in the north east of Scotland, which she said was welcomed by the industry.


Presumably that 'investment' comes from the Arrangement for Renewable Subsidy Expansion.

Expert issues chilling warning

 

Exact date 'alien probe' could strike Earth revealed as expert issues chilling warning

A Harvard scientist has issued a chilling warning about a mysterious interstellar object hurtling through our solar system, and says it could spell disaster for Earth.

Professor Avi Loeb, who is well-known for pushing bold and often polarizing theories about extraterrestrial life, has been tracking the object, named 3I/ATLAS, since it was first spotted on July 1.

If the object is an alien craft, Loeb warned it could be carrying a probe or even a weapon. He predicted that such an intercept vehicle would reach Earth between November 21 and December 5, 2025.

The timeline is based on calculations that 3I/ATLAS will pass behind the sun from Earth's perspective this October, a time he ominously suggested could be used to prepare the attack.

It's worth adding that experts are supposed to issue chilling warnings or they wouldn't be experts of the calibre required by the media.

Does Harvard offer courses on chilling warnings tailored to media requirements? It should do because demand is high.

‘Fair pay’ is a dangerous fiction

Charles Amos has a useful CAPX reminder that doctors and nurses are demanding higher pay in their own interests, not ours.


‘Fair pay’ is a dangerous fiction

• Doctors and nurses should be honest about their true motive for demanding higher pay
• ‘Fair pay’ across the whole economy would result in both huge labour shortages and unemployment
• Upholding freedom of contract forms the fundamental basis for widespread prosperity

Nurses have now decided to follow the example of resident doctors, and reject the Government’s latest pay offer. The Royal College of Nursing announced this week that 91% of its members voted against accepting a 3.6% pay rise. Resident doctors were offered a 5.4% pay increase but went on strike for a 29% pay increase to ensure ‘full pay restoration’ to 2009 levels.

Both unions are demanding that their members receive ‘fair pay’. Yet as Friedrich Hayek once argued, the only meaningful sense in which we can even debate whether any wage is ‘just’ is by asking if it has been agreed in a free market without deception, fraud or violence. ‘Fair pay’ doesn’t exist; thus, the pleas of doctors and nurses can be rejected outright at the bar of justice.

These medical professionals ought to be honest about their true motive: they want higher pay because it is in their self-interest. Fine, but once this is acknowledged, it’s entirely proper that taxpayers defend their self-interest too and resist their pay increases.

The whole piece is well worth reading as yet another reminder of the misleading way in which the media commonly present these disputes. They give too much credence to the 'fair pay' claim and its many variants and nowhere near enough to human behaviour, and the ancient motive of self-interest.

It is surely reasonable for Wes Streeting to defend taxpayer interests against the claims of medical professionals, our interests against theirs. Unfortunately for Wes, this isn't how it will be presented in the media, hard-nosed realism isn't popular enough for that.

Resident doctors and nurses are ultimately campaigning for their own self-interest – not any empty notions of ‘fair pay’ – and there is nothing wrong with that per se. However, Wes Streeting ought to reject their demands to protect the public’s interests from ever higher taxes and more borrowing. Crucially, resident doctors and nurses must all have their contracts renegotiated, with their right to strike stripped from them, to make sure they can’t hold the taxpayer to ransom once again. Nothing short of that will do.

I never thought I would hear that

‘I never thought I’d see a Labour PM more hated than Thatcher’: Sunderland local’s staggering claim

Keir Starmer is “more hated than Maggie Thatcher in Sunderland”, a local caulker burner has claimed on GB News.

Since his landslide election victory last year, the Labour Prime Minister has faced a tumultuous time in office, and now Gary McDonald has joined the chorus of growing dissatisfaction...

“I never thought in a place like Sunderland a Labour Prime Minister would be more hated than Maggie Thatcher.”

He continued: “I never thought I would hear that in my town. Sunderland is so Labour but he is more disliked than Maggie Thatcher ever was.

The quality of the observation

'There's a lot of knife crime in London,' admits police minister after crackdown on muggers targeting pupils

Police minister Dame Diana Johnson admitted on Friday that “there is a lot of knife crime in London”.

She was highlighting a series of initiatives in knife crime hotspots across the country to reduce the number of offences.

Asked to list the seven key areas, she told LBC Radio: “We have got the Metropolitan Police obviously because there is a lot of knife crime in London.”


But it is in matters beyond the limits of mere rule that the skill of the analyst is evinced. He makes, in silence, a host of observations and inferences. So, perhaps, do his companions; and the difference in the extent of the information obtained, lies not so much in the validity of the inference as in the quality of the observation. The necessary knowledge is that of what to observe.

Edgar Allan Poe - The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841)

Modern cars which won't last