Flight of slogans spotted over Gatwick

Reeves: Gatwick second runway shows Government ‘backing builders, not blockers’

Gatwick Airport’s £2.2 billion second runway plan could create thousands of jobs and help “kickstart the economy”, Chancellor Rachel Reeves said.

Ms Reeves said: “This Government promised to kickstart the economy – and we are.

UK taxes to rise steadily to combat mounting public spending pressures – KPMG

“While the economy showed resilience at the start of the year, the second half looks more uncertain,” Yael Selfin, KPMG UK’s chief economist, said.

“Elevated tax burdens, weaker global trade and cautious consumers are likely to keep growth subdued into 2026.”

The Chancellor is facing a “tough balancing act” with “mounting pressures on health and defence spending, combined with weaker growth”, she said.

Oh dear, Rachel from Accounts is still being trundled out to say things nobody believes or listens to. Sometimes she wears a hard hat to pose with people who actually do things she probably doesn't understand. A better understanding of publicity might help with that.

The world is changing, becoming more informed. Political folk need to wake up, take a look at themselves and listen to the slogans they are required to repeat. As do voters unfortunately.

 

Plant

As we know, at the moment there is a good deal of media chatter about possible replacements for Sir Keir Starmer as UK Prime Minister. A number of people have been suggested, such as Angela Rayner and Andy Burnham, but it is worth considering other possibilities.

For example, suppose Keir Starmer were to be replaced as UK Prime Minister by a geranium. A nice healthy geranium in a pot made by a British craft potter would have a number of advantages.

No more wooden lies.
No more wooden evasions.
No more wooden rhetoric.

The point to be made is that a geranium is the ‘do nothing’ option we should consider before embarking on any project and politically a geranium Prime Minister would deliver just that. Imagine a geranium presiding over a Cabinet meeting. The geranium –

Pays no attention to Ed Miliband’s next loony scheme.
Pays no attention to Rachel from Accounts scrabbling after taxes.
Pays no attention to any moans, madness and wrangling at all.

A win!

Happiness is...

Sir Ed Davey brands Elon Musk a criminal and calls for his arrest for 'allowing online harm to children'

Sir Ed, speaking from the Lib Dem conference in Bournemouth, said Mr Musk could be prosecuted under the Online Safety Act, under which social media companies have a legal duty to protect children from harmful content and their directors are liable for criminal prosecution for breaching it.

 

Had I followed my pleasure and chosen what I plainly have a decided talent for: police spy, I should have been much happier than I afterwards became.

Søren Kierkegaard - Journals (1843)

It's not serious politics

Nigel Farage not a patriot, Ed Davey says as Lib Dem conference begins

The Liberal Democrat leader launched the broadside against the head of Reform UK as he opened the first day of his party’s conference by setting out his own stall on migration and “British values”...

Asked by the PA news agency what he considered to be British values, the Lib Dem chief described “the vast majority of people who’ve got decent values, respect for the rule of law, tolerance, who love our country like the Liberal Democrats do”.

“They want to see a party that is true to British values but will change our country,” Sir Ed said.

Presumably, assuming it means anything at all, this claim means that British values will be changed by Ed Davey and the Lib Dems. 

In his way, "Sir" Ed Davey is even weirder than "Sir" Keir Starmer, being at least as inclined to direct his message at simpletons. Lib Dems can't think of themselves as simpletons and most probably aren't apart from the Lib Dem problem they have, so why does Ed favour simpleton rhetoric?   

“They want to see a party that is true to British values but will change our country,” Sir Ed says. Surely a substantial number of Lib Dems find this kind of guff embarrassing, so why does he do it? It's not serious politics and neither is this.

 

 

Surely not constipation though

Cyril Connolly on things which stimulate or calm the mind, rev up the 'Flight of Ideas' or rev it down to a kind of calm tick-over.

Thought can be made to take certain liberties by artificial stimulation of the brain. The cortex is a machine for thinking. It can be revved up, slowed down, choked, fed various types of fuel according to the thought it is required to produce. When the mixture is too rich, as in the small hours, the engine pinks, whence ‘Flight of Ideas’.

Thus tea, coffee, alcohol stimulate.

So do heights, wet days, south-west gales, hotel bedrooms in Paris and windows looking over harbours. Also snow, frost, electric bells outside cinemas at night, sex-life and fever.

Cigars, tisanes, long draughts of water or fruit-juice have a clearing, calming effect. They rev down the motor and overcome stoppages. So also do sitting still, relaxing climates, luxury, constipation, music, sun-bathing, hang-overs, listening to fountains, waves and waterfalls.

Palinurus (Cyril Connolly) – The Unquiet Grave (1944)

 

Lots of possibilities crowd my mind. Misty autumn mornings, coffee shops, hospitals, silent streets, stars on a clear night, fog, wet days, parquet floors, old films, old photographs, old wood, quiet valleys, the sea, deserted beaches, the call of a curlew, the Roman road between Newhaven and Buxton and many more. 

To dwell on the possibilities, even that is stimulating.

No - not frenzied

Andy Burnham fuels Keir Starmer challenge rumours as poll shows Labour support at lowest EVER

The latest sign of manoeuvres against Sir Keir came as a poll put Labour on its lowest ever support of just 16 per cent. The Find Out Now research found Reform was way ahead on 34 per cent backing - although the firm has consistently detected bigger advantages for Nigel Farage's party than other pollsters.

Mr Burnham has been the subject of frenzied interest amid the extraordinary meltdown at the heart of Downing Street.

Not so much 'frenzied' as a kind of dull resignation that someone has to replace Starmer but he or she isn't likely to be anyone significantly more capable because Labour doesn't have anyone significantly more capable but does have quite a few who could be significantly worse, implausible as that seems now.

No - not frenzied.

Short break

This is an automatic post because I'll be off early today for a minor outpatient op. Not much blogging going on till later. 

A born amateur

Corbyn accused of running ‘sexist boys’ club’ by co-leader of new left-wing party

Jeremy Corbyn is seeking legal advice after Zarah Sultana sent an “unauthorised email” from Your Party’s account inviting its supporters to become paid members.

As the left-wing MP accused Your Party of being run as a “sexist boys’ club”, Mr Corbyn called on his backers to ignore Ms Sultana’s email.

In a statement signed off by the party’s five male MPs, ignoring Ms Sultana, he said anyone who signed up should immediately cancel direct debits and that “legal advice is being taken”.


He of course was an amateur — a born amateur. He worked so hard, and did so little, and nothing he ever did would hold together for long.

D.H. Lawrence - England, My England (1922)

Death by quango

William Yarwood has a familiar but very interesting Critic piece about the severe nature of the UK quango problem.


Death by quango

If Keir Starmer wants change, he should deconstruct the quango state

Phase two of Keir Starmer’s government and his so-called “Plan for Change” is now in full swing after his first big cabinet reshuffle last week. But let’s be honest, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter.

Now I’m not being glib for the sake of it, and I could make the case that it doesn’t matter because of the mediocrity of the ministers shuffled around, but the truth runs a lot deeper than that. It doesn’t matter who Starmer places in which position because the politicians themselves aren’t really in charge...

Unlike how the public imagines the machinery of government to work, the real power is not in Downing Street or Whitehall, but in the vast quango state that has grown unchecked for decades. A shadow state which politicians of all parties have either consciously or unconsciously created and allowed to fester.


We know we have a severe UK quango problem, but the whole piece is well worth reading as a reminder of how severe it is. If we can't even bring an absurd policy such as Net Zero into national debates then we aren't likely to achieve anything else worthwhile. That we can't isn't solely down to Ed Miliband. 

Until that reform is undertaken, it doesn’t matter who Starmer or indeed any future prime minister puts in his or her cabinet. The real government of Britain is elsewhere, buried deep in a sprawling, bloated and unaccountable quango state. And until that shadow government is confronted head on by our politicians no reshuffle, no manifesto pledge and no grand plan for change will matter.

What a charming picture

Burnham allies talk up Rayner return

  

Allies of Andy Burnham believe Angela Rayner could make a political comeback if he replaces Sir Keir Starmer as Labour leader.

MPs think that the former deputy prime minister could provide the Mayor of Manchester with support from inside the Parliamentary Labour Party ahead of his comeback to the Commons.


Don’t we make our world? Isn’t that our blessed, our betrayed responsibility?

Walter de la Mare - The Riddle and Other Stories (1923)

Charles Dickens Sandwich

Uninteresting 1B 2025

Scientists identify a mystery color in one of Jackson Pollock's paintings

Scientists have identified the origins of the blue color in one of Jackson Pollock’s paintings with a little help from chemistry

 

“Number 1A, 1948,” showcases Pollock's classic style: paint has been dripped and splattered across the canvas, creating a vivid, multicolored work. Pollock even gave the piece a personal touch, adding his handprints near the top

The Rules of Planet Starmer

It may be worth summarising, as far as possible, the rules-based system of planet Starmer. 

To begin with we have –

Rulers
Rules
The Ruled

There are of course many gradations of rules plus rules about the application of rules, institutions competent to rule on rule application together with rules about who applies which rules and rules about the ruling circumstances of rule application within the overarching rules of rule application. Rules ruling the hierarchy of rules begin with international rules and the rules ruling the application of these rules when the national rules of rule conflict resolution have to be applied according to local application rules and rules about the appropriate application of such rules, rule resolution rules and rule appeal rules. Rules concerning the application of rules to rules concerning the application of other rules must of course take note of the rules whereby the rules of applicability rule particular circumstances and if those circumstances arose via appropriate rules.

And deny everything anyway.

White coat clickbait

At least 1,147 died from climate-driven heat in UK this summer, scientists find

The UK saw its hottest summer on record this year, with experts saying extreme heat incidents were made more likely and intense by human-induced global warming.

A study led by researchers at Imperial College London, released on Wednesday, used modelling, historical mortality records and peer-reviewed methods to provide early estimates of fatalities this summer.

The team found climate change, caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation, increased temperatures by an average of 2.2C, but by as much as 3.6C between June and August.

As one of the comments points out, this brand of 'science' has degenerated into clickbait. 

We could ask what was on the 1,147 death certificates but we won't, white coat clickbait isn't worth it.

I feel that the process was gone through

Trump to go easy on embattled Starmer during state visit

Speaking on Monday, Sir Keir said that he felt “angry” and “let down” by Lord Mandelson, insisting he would not have made the appointment had he known what he knows now.

He said: “I am angry. I don’t particularly think anger helps here, but I feel let down. I feel that the process was gone through and now information has come to light, which, had I known it at the time, I wouldn’t have appointed him.

We can't call it revealing because we already know, but when Starmer says I feel that the process was gone through, it suggests yet again that this is all that matters to him, all he can see. He's process-driven.

In which case, we may as well assume that Mandelson's record of two resignations for politically problematic behaviour wasn't part of the process - so on planet Starmer it didn't happen.

It's quite difficult to understand the man without an underlying assumption that there is something weird about planet Starmer. Apart from Sir Keir Starmer, it seems to be uninhabited.

But we knew that.

The digital language police

Rhys Laverty has an entertaining Critic piece on how WhatsApp changed the word “turkey” to “Türkiye” when he meant the bird and not the country. 


Resist the language police!

Why are my words being censored by WhatsApp?

Given my severe phobia of birds, and farm birds in particular, I am the last person who should be writing about turkeys. But hey ho, cometh the hour and all that.

This week, whilst typing on WhatsApp Web on my laptop, rattling off what I though was a mildly amusing joke about Jamie Oliver’s war on turkey twizzlers some years ago, I found myself censored — yes, dear reader, censored I tell you. Before my very eyes, the word “turkey” was rendered “Türkiye”. I hadn’t even written it with a capital letter; I was mid-sentence. Cue some furious backspacing and de-umlautification.

A familiar trend but the piece is well worth reading as a reminder of what is a political and social trend, not merely a static feature of digital 'assistance'.

If you notice any of this, if you mispronounce a name, or if you fail to observe the quietly revised spelling of anointed words, even in the sanctum sanctorum of your own mind, you are exposed to both the world and yourself as Entirely The Wrong Sort. You are not Respectable. You have missed the latest episode of The News Agents. Gary Lineker is very disappointed in you. The interference of WhatsApp is particularly egregious because it intrudes upon my private communications. It is a Foucaldian policing of private desire, a life submitted to the progressive digital panopticon. It is multiculturalism working as intended.

The Piper at the Gates of Dawn Goes Missing

Chapter 7 was often missing from later editions of Kenneth Grahame's children's book - The Wind in the Willows. Too strange perhaps - unlike the idea of a toad driving motor cars. As for the idea of a mendacious and unreliable toad becoming Prime Minister - preposterous.

It is a strange chapter though, mystical and somewhat pagan, placed there in the middle of the book and not at all essential to the story.

 

Wi-Fi and a 'serious moment of peril'

I set up a new Wi-Fi router this morning. Even for an hour or so while the Wi-Fi was down, it became noticeable how much we use it and how many gadgets we have connected. Ten gadgets in total, not counting granddaughter's phone which has to be connected next time she comes.

A new Wi-Fi router hasn't made the news any more encouraging though - I spotted that almost immediately after logging onto the interweb. 

For example, the media still waffle on as if Keir Starmer merely has to pull his socks up to turn things around. As if another eight months of his mendacious bungling could be some kind of learning curve for Starmer and the horribly useless Cabinet blockers he picks with such unerring accuracy.

Keir Starmer issued 8-month warning as PM faces 'serious moment of peril'

The Prime Minister has been given an eight-month warning to turn the government around or else Labour could face a "serious moment of peril". The stark time limit has been issued by a number of Labour MPs and trade union leaders following the departure of two senior party figures. Sir Keir Starmer's 'phase two' of government kicked off with a major reshuffle following the sudden resignation of Angela Rayner, and then Lord Peter Mandelson.

But ask the person in the water first

‘Man overboard’ is offensive term, says Royal Yachting Association

The phrase “man overboard” is an offensive term that should be avoided, the Royal Yachting Association (RYA) has said.

The national governing body for sailing, which was founded in 1875, has suggested that it should instead be replaced with “person in water” in an inclusive language guide.

It is one of a number of recommendations issued by the RYA to use language that “honours and values” women and non-binary people within the sport and recreational activity.

It could be more appropriate to ask "what are your pronouns?" before risking a more proactive attempt to describe the situation to others.

The village idiot walks in Leicester Square

I've never been a fan of cities, they just keep growing as if nobody knows how big is too big, as if the growth that becomes a city isn't entirely human but impersonal, indifferent. There is something odd, artificial and not entirely sane about them.  

Happiness lies in the fulfilment of the spirit through the body. Thus humanity has already evolved from an animal life to one more civilised. There can be no complete return to nature, to nudism, desert-islandry: city life is the subtlest ingredient in the human climate. But we have gone wrong over the size of our cities and over the kind of life we lead in them; in the past the clods were the peasants, now the brute mass of ignorance is urban. The village idiot walks in Leicester Square. 

To live according to nature we should pass a considerable time in cities, for they are the glory of human nature, but they should never contain more than two hundred thousand inhabitants; It is our artificial enslavement to the large city, too sprawling to leave, too enormous for human dignity, which is responsible for half our sickness and misery. Slums may well be breeding-grounds of crime, but middle-class suburbs are incubators of apathy and delirium. No city should be too large for a man to walk out of in a morning.

Palinurus (Cyril Connolly) – The Unquiet Grave (1944)

Dodge

Carl Deconinck has an entertaining Brussels Signal piece on an emissions tax dodge by the Dutch government. 

Apparently the dodge is designed to offset inevitable financial damage done by EU obligations to cut emissions by 55 per cent by 2030, not because the obligations are deranged.


Netherlands to end ‘perverse’ carbon emission tax

The Dutch caretaker government is preparing to dismantle its controversial carbon emissions tax on major industrial companies, using a legal workaround to avoid a European fine.

According to the newspaper De Telegraaf today, the 2026 budget documents include €650 million in subsidies to fully offset the tax’s financial impact, leaving it in place on paper but stripping it of any real effect...

According to De Telegraaf’s sources, Brussels rules prevent the government from abolishing the levy altogether, a step that could trigger a €1.2 billion fine. Instead, the carbon charge will remain in theory, but with the rate lowered to such an extent — combined with the €650 million in subsidies — that it will no longer bite in practice.

Andy Plans a Reset Reset

Burnham prepares to challenge Starmer for leadership

Andy Burnham is laying the groundwork for a leadership bid amid growing speculation that Sir Keir Starmer will not last in post until the next election.

The Mayor of Greater Manchester has launched a new campaign group calling on Downing Street to introduce wealth taxes, nationalise utility companies and end the two-child benefit cap.

He is expected to explicitly criticise Sir Keir at Labour’s annual party conference later this month, calling for a “reset” to help Labour win the next election.


Presumably Andy Burnham isn't keen on the Keir Starmer reset so he plans to reset it. Unfortunately this appears to be something like the traditional advice for fixing a computer glitch -

Have you tried switching it off then back on again?

In this case, Burnham would switch off any possibility of economic recovery as the first step, neatly blending his reset reset policy with Ed Miliband's similar attempts to reset the electricity supply...

...they don't know what they are doing do they? Never did. 

Beyond power and personal advancement it's a void.

The mighty volume of the world

Examining the world in order to find consolation is very much like looking carefully over the pages of a great book in order to find our own name, if not in the text, at least in a laudatory note: whether we find what we want or not, our preoccupation has hindered us from a true knowledge of the contents. But an attention fixed on the main theme or various matter of the book would deliver us from that slavish subjection to our own self-importance. And I had the mighty volume of the world before me. Nay, I had the struggling action of a myriad lives around me, each single life as dear to itself as mine to me. Was there no escape here from this stupidity of a murmuring self-occupation?

George Eliot - Impressions of Theophrastus Such (1879)


We now have that mighty volume of the world before us, it’s the internet. In George Eliot’s day it was books, libraries, experience, an enquiring mind and the time and resources to nurture that enquiring mind.

Was there no escape here from this stupidity of a murmuring self-occupation?

Some escape and some don’t and the division isn’t new. Nobody has to join the internet, they can play with it instead, entertain themselves, imagine they are what they are not. Yet perhaps the division is much sharper and far less likely to be a matter of social class than it was in George Eliot‘s day. 

The division has become more familiar too - we constantly see the stupidity of a murmuring self-occupation portrayed in the shallow media as a Good Thing. We see it in celebrity culture, politics, fashionable science, sport and the arts.

Just be yourself

You are who you want to be

Own who you are

 
We have always seen this type of invitation to indulge in the stupidity of a murmuring self-occupation, but now we have dropped the murmuring in favour of something much louder and far more visible. It all goes to make the division deeper. 

Yet having that mighty volume of the world before us does appear to have raised a previously unknown problem for Those Who Know Best. They don’t know best and too many of us know they don’t.

Political judgement

Two scandals and two allies gone in two weeks - serious questions remain about Starmer's political judgement

This is not the first time Lord Mandelson has resigned in disgrace. So why did Starmer let him back in?..

He looked almost as green as the green benches on Wednesday as he insisted he had full confidence in his ambassador, despite warnings from Mandelson himself that more embarrassing material was about to emerge.


Serious questions? Oh come on - those questions were answered ages ago - Starmer has the political judgement of an earwig

Empty Chamber

 

A complete waste of time

Met Office Warns of Unpredictable Weather Patterns as Climate Change Intensifies

The Met Office has issued multiple warnings in recent months as the UK’s weather becomes increasingly unpredictable. In line with findings from sources like Daily Record, a growing number of extreme weather events have been recorded. From heatwaves to heavy rainfall, the shifts in weather patterns are noticeable.


Met Office’s new supercomputer will provide more accurate weather forecasts

Charlie Ewan, chief data and information officer at the Met Office, said the computer had to be massive to deal with 200 to 300 terabytes of data per day.

He told Metro: ‘The next decade could transformational for weather forecasting, and this phase allows us to plan and look ahead to the next generation of more accurately and timely weather predictions.’


Methods for predicting the future: 

1) read horoscopes, tea leaves, tarot cards, or crystal balls . . . collectively known as "nutty methods;" 

2) put well-researched facts into sophisticated computer . . . commonly referred to as "a complete waste of time."

Scott Adams

Oh dear, how sad

Peter Mandelson sacked as ambassador to the US

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has dismissed Peter Mandelson from his role as UK ambassador to the US following the discovery of more leaked emails revealing his close ties with Jeffrey Epstein.

The Foreign Office, in a statement, said the emails "show that the depth and extent of Peter Mandelson's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein is materially different from that known at the time of his appointment".

It continued: "In particular Peter Mandelson’s suggestion that Jeffrey Epstein’s first conviction was wrongful and should be challenged is new information."

Oh dear, how sad, never mind. 

The downside is that we may now anticipate another unsuitable appointment - there are many possibilities.

Blog Stats

Blog stats for this little blog have been weird for a while with far more hits per post than are likely to be real, especially from areas of the world where lots of AI training is going on such as the US. Not so much Europe for some reason. It leads a chap to wonder though.

Suppose I just make stuff up for a blog post, even more so than mainstream media usually do. Do AI systems train themselves on fiction and spoofs even if for humans, it is entirely obvious fiction? 

For example –


Sebastian Pants, the recently elected Labour MP for Fecklees and Low Maudlin has put forward a plan to introduce a Mindfulness and Serenity Agency under the Department of Health and Social Care. The idea has met with a lukewarm reception so far, but Mr Pants is not discouraged.

Sebastian Pants MP originally came to the attention of the media when he first arrived in the House of Commons in a suit made entirely from recycled yogurt pots collected by schools in his constituency. After careful cleaning and not a few rejections, the pots were processed into fibres for the recycled cloth used to make Mr Pants' suit, although he no longer wears it for “sustainability reasons.”

Although Mr Pants is understandably reticent about it, Harold Pants the inventor is an ancestor of his. During the 1930s, Harold Pants invented the Pants Gyrocopter, a kind of single person autogyro intended to be the mass transport of the air.

Unfortunately, while being piloted by local daredevil Bill Looms, the prototype Pants Gyrocopter was lost somewhere out at sea off the coast of Scarborough. This in spite of Harold passing on vital last minute steering advice through a powerful electric megaphone when Bill Looms was already over the sea.

Sadly, only the prototype Pants Gyrocopter was ever built and Harold Pants was last caught sight of boarding a ship bound for Argentina, accompanied by a woman who closely resembled Mrs Annie Looms.

Sebastian Pants, or Seb as he prefers to be known, says that Harold intended to invest what remained for the Pants Gyrocopter investment funds in a turkey farm. Harold’s intention being to repay any losses incurred. Sadly, Harold was never heard of again.

Not fit for purpose

EPCs are not fit for purpose with an industry insider warning of bogus surveys

Carbon emissions from homes with high 'EPC ratings' have been proven to be little different from poorly insultated properties, a new study has found.

The study compared estimates of CO2 emissions from 1,038 homes based on their Energy Performance Certificate rating with measurements derived from actual meter readings from these same homes.

The meter readings in the study showed minimal variations in emissions between properties of very different EPC ratings.


It's jaw-dropping stuff when a box-ticking game actually turns out to be a box-ticking game. Fraud and fakery in the CO2 emissions game as well apparently. 

Whatever next? Ed Miliband turns out to be an absurdly intransigent and ludicrously destructive ideologue? 

Cripes! 

The Fakest People In The Media

Andrew Gold interviews Mike Graham on some of the weird and dubious media characters he has encountered. An hour long, but consistently interesting and entertaining.

 

Emily the Voice

Being a London MP could 'count against' Thornberry in deputy leadership race, says Baroness Harman

Dame Emily, who has been the MP for Islington South and Finsbury since 2005, confirmed she will stand for the deputy leadership in a social media post on Tuesday.

The chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee vowed to be "a voice for the membership, unions, PLP, and our constituents - not just nod along" if she is elected deputy Labour leader on 25 October.


Hmm - a chap might assume that having the grace, charm and appeal of a serial nosebleed ought to count against Dame Emily, but this is Labour, so no degree of ghastliness is entirely off the table.

The order of her "voice for..." is interesting too -

Membership

Unions

PLP

Constituents

Easy Question

Mad science or a radical revolution - could refreezing the Arctic actually work?

A new report has reopened the controversy over so-called geoengineering.

Plans to save ice in the polar regions and "repair" the climate using technology are a "flawed" distraction from the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gases, according to a new scientific assessment.

But Professor Martin Siegert, a glaciologist at the University of Exeter, who led the new assessment, told Sky News that using technology to fix the problem was a "false promise".

The question is trivially easy for anyone paying attention - it's mad science...

Correction - it's bent science, but we knew that too.

It's almost as if Blob media is edging painfully, step by grudging step towards a view that politically favoured scientists are not universally trustworthy. Even worse, climate sceptics may have been right for decades. My word that must sting, so go slowly chaps, it eases the pain.

The Unquiet Grave

The English language is like a broad river on whose banks a few patient anglers are sitting, while, higher up , the stream is being polluted by a string of refuse-barges tipping out the muck of Fleet Street and the B.B.C.

Palinurus (Cyril Connolly) – The Unquiet Grave (1944)

The pollution we never dealt with. 

In any public arena, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer uses polluted political language to avoid the embarrassment of conveying any meaning whatever to his dwindling band of listeners. 

Starmer has nothing to teach us, nothing to teach anyone, but polluted language allows him to stagger on with dead speech after dead speech. He wouldn't even be worth meeting and surely that's something to dwell on.

 

  

No one over thirty-five is worth meeting who has not something to teach us, - something more than we could learn by ourselves, from a book.

Palinurus (Cyril Connolly) – The Unquiet Grave (1944)

Two Headlines

North Korea builds grain centers to tighten control over food distribution

"The system looks comprehensive on paper, but practical problems could emerge, such as electricity shortages, lack of technical personnel and logistical deficiencies," a source told Daily NK


Malnutrition spreads across North Korea as food prices surge over 50 percent

As food prices continue climbing, the regime has attempted to intervene through price caps and market restrictions, but these measures have proven largely ineffective

Inside a British micro apartment

Another interesting video from Big Clive.

Must have been climate change

Fossils show pair of baby pterosaurs ‘died in violent storm’

The cause of death of two young pterosaurs that had baffled researchers has been revealed by paleontologists in Germany in what they have described as “a post-mortem 150 million years in the making”.

Analysis of the well-preserved fossils of the hatchlings, found in the lagoonal deposits that make up the Solnhofen Limestones of southern Germany, revealed both the flying reptiles sustained similar injuries immediately prior to their deaths – broken wings.

The team, from the University of Leicester’s Centre for Palaeobiology and Biosphere Evolution, said the discovery is powerful evidence of ancient tropical storms and how they shaped the fossil record.

Fortunately, 150 million years later, Ed Miliband is busy tackling the global climate issue.

Unfortunately, today those baby pterosaurs would have to navigate the perils of wind turbines. What would the RSPB make of that?

The Great Cultural Studies Hoax

A video uploaded six years ago, but it's worth revisiting this issue as a reminder that it hasn't faded away. 

 

It's easy to sneer

Paul Sutton has an entertaining FSB piece on the downfall of Raynetta.


THE FALL OF A POLITICAL GIANT

Can I just say how appalled I am by the crowing over Dame Angela Rayner's downfall? It's motivated simply by spite and snobbery, plus disgraceful sexism on the 'Moldovan trans/hooker' chic, which she so stylishly immortalised.

It's easy to sneer, yet millions of working-class girls might have been inspired to leave school with one NVQ and up the duff - to resurface as property millionaires, from juggling trust funds and ‘expenses’.

In fact, Rayner is something of a polymath.

Short but well worth reading.

Could have been worse

 

Gravy Wrestling

This is how Starmer's Cabinet appointments should be decided - gravy wrestling for all those aspiring to be passengers on the increasingly non-mythical gravy train. 


'I competed in Gravy Wrestling Championships to escape 9-to-5 job and now have gravy addiction'

An NHS worker who competed in the World Gravy Wrestling Championships as an “escape” from his nine-to-five job has said he now has a “gravy addiction” and has the sauce with almost every meal.

Darren Machen, 45, said he had always dreamed of becoming a wrestler, and while at college in 1997 he staged a jelly wrestling match with his friends. After university, Darren fell into an NHS procurement job and later started comfort eating chocolate biscuits and crisps while doing little exercise until he reached 16st (102kg) in 2024.

However, he decided this year to compete in the World Gravy Wrestling Championships held in Rossendale, hoping the excitement would serve as an escape from his nine-to-five office job. Competing as The Yorkshire Pudding, Darren wore a T-shirt with a picture of the favourite Sunday roast accompaniment on it, along with a rugby scrum cap, Y-front pants and a cape.

A descent into madness

James Price has an interesting Critic piece on the madness of the political left in Britain


The British left has descended into madness

Whilst the national media focus on Reform, the left is seeing its own foment

In some countries, election days are occasions for fanfares. Americans have “I voted” stickers and Australians have their sausage sizzles — hot dogs handed out from barbecues. In Britain, on the other hand, it’s the subtle touches that denote polling day. Village halls or leisure centres, stubby pens, dogs tied up outside those neutral black and white “POLLING STATION” signs — and, more recently, shouts of “Allahu Akhbar!”

This was the scene in Leeds last year, when Mr, now Councillor, Mothin Ali won the ward of Harehills and Gipton for the Green Party. This novel twist on drab acceptance speeches did not go unnoticed, though Cllr Ali has been swift to decry those who did notice as “Islamophobic” in one of his first utterances as a public figure.


The whole piece is well worth reading as another reminder of how deranged the British left has become. The obvious danger is that lunatic political activism has become mainstream in Britain and shows no sign of abating. As we know, this is not the cosy eccentricity of a dotty aunt, being far more sinister than that.


The difference between left and right in Britain, is that beyond the bluster, there is little that Reform and the Conservatives disagree on. Reform have the energy and zeal, the Tories have the intellectual hinterland and the scars on their back from fighting the Blob. Together, they could make a powerful electoral and political coalition which could save Britain.

The left, on the other hand, will always find ways to fall out with one another. The well-represented but braindead liberal democrats, the left of the Labour Party, the Your Party (or perhaps “Your Parties” by the time this comes out) and now the Greens have confirmed that they will fall down under the weight of their own contradictions.

With their enemies this mad, bad and dangerous, the right could seal a glorious comeback for the country — provided it doesn’t repeat the suicidal factionalism of the Left.

Hold the Popcorn

Angela Rayner steps down over stamp duty row

• Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner has left her government job after an investigation into her tax affairs over her purchase of an £800,000 flat in Hove, East Sussex.
• Ms Rayner referred herself to the independent adviser on ministerial standards Sir Laurie Magnus over the issue earlier this week.
• She admitted to wrongly listing the flat as her primary residence, which resulted in a lower stamp duty payment, and said she was working with lawyers and HMRC to resolve the matter.

Good oh - maybe now she'll tell us what she thinks of Starmer and the Cabinet, although the primary residence claim was rather blatant. 

Maybe she'll just sink into the obscurity they all deserve, so no point stocking up with popcorn just yet.

Place your bets

In his CAPX piece, William Atkinson raises the question most of us must have asked ourselves.


Will Angela Rayner fall victim to her own class war?

• If Starmer strikes Rayner down, he could make her more powerful than he could possibly imagine
• The Deputy Prime Minister has long been the Tory bête noire – Aneurin Bevan in a power suit
• Many political commentators have been blind to the reality of Angela Rayner

For many of my fellow Conservatives – all five of us – Angela Rayner’s ongoing tax travails have brought a deep sense of satisfaction. Since her election as Labour’s Deputy Leader five years ago, Rayner has been the Tory bête noire – the class enemy writ large, Aneurin Bevan in a power suit, who happily and openly branded her political enemies scum while her colleagues ummed and erred.

Yet there has always been a competing tendency within Tory world – a fascination. For reasons perhaps best left to the comfortable quiet of the therapist’s office, there are many Conservatives who look at Rayner and wonder why she isn’t one of us. Even without her enthusiasm for right-to-buy, her life story could be a triumph of Thatcherite aspiration. To go from leaving school at 16 while pregnant and without qualifications to becoming Britain’s Deputy Prime Minister is no mean feat. For the Tory Anarchist, there is a natural charm about a politician who likes a fag, a drink and a third home.

In the final paragraph, Atkinson tells us where his money is -


Last night, I made a bet with a pair of fellow politicos – that, within a year and a half, Rayner would be Britain’s Prime Minister. Perhaps I am being too bullish about Big Ange. Perhaps my brief career spent largely covering Tory leadership collapses and putsches has blinded me to the reality of Rayner, Starmer and Labour’s positions. Or perhaps, whatever Magnus rules, Rayner will march on.

Fareham leads the way

'Not an optional extra': Councillors want climate change protected in devolution

Councillors in Fareham have said protecting the environment is “not an optional extra” when it comes to devolution.

It comes as opposition Liberal Democrats at the borough council successfully tabled a motion asking the council leader to write to ministers on climate change.

Councillor Chrissie Bainbridge (Lib Dem, Portchester Castle) said: “This isn’t about politics – it’s about protecting our environment, safeguarding public health, and securing our children’s future.

“Fareham has shown real leadership. Now we need the government to listen.


Fareham Councillors must buckle down and do their bit towards adjusting the global climate in a benign direction. Nobody anywhere on Earth must be disadvantaged by bad weather - beat that for egalitarian posturing.

Yet what the blue blazes does a chap say about such limitless ambition? Fareham must be a strange place indeed where political folk see the constraints of reality as optional extras. 

Not that we're unfamiliar with the approach. 

But I’m not satisfied

Chancellor Rachel Reeves admits economy 'is not working well enough' as she reveals Budget date

In a video posted on social media on Wednesday, Ms Reeves said: “Britain’s economy isn’t broken. But I know it’s not working well enough for working people.

“Bills are high. Getting ahead feels tougher. You put more in, get less out. That has to change.

“We’ve got huge potential - world-leading brands, dynamic industries, brilliant universities, and a skilled workforce. We’re a global hub for trade.

“Fixing the foundations has been my mission this past year... But I’m not satisfied. There’s more to do.”


I bet she isn't satisfied, but it isn’t easy to say anything new about this situation, because in a sense her incompetence has fallen below an invisible floor. Our Chancellor's  inability to perform the role is clearly beyond even modest correction.

We have a political party and a leadership which effectively blagged its way to power on the back of a very unpopular government with the aid of inadequately alert voters. We may refer to the party manifesto, vested interests, an inflexible public sector and so on, but the problem to be analysed here is too simple for that – Rachel Reeves shouldn’t be there.

As many know but too many don't, political oversight of government requires a pragmatic acceptance of what works and what doesn't. A pragmatic outlook should take precedence over ideology and political posturing, but it doesn't and therein lies the overall simplicity of the problem.

An analogy might be hospital bed-blockers. We have office-blockers in a number of key ministerial positions, Prime Minister, Chancellor, Foreign Secretary, Education Secretary and so on. They can't perform the role competently and there is a shortage of those who can.

Rachel Reeves isn't alone in her disappointment.

Unbalanced

Graham Linehan arrest: Met Police chief says officers 'in impossible position and should not be policing culture war debates'

Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has said his officers should not be "policing toxic culture wars debates" as he responded to his force's arrest of Father Ted writer Graham Linehan over anti-trans posts.

It comes hours after health secretary Wes Streeting told Sky News the government needs to look at whether police are "getting the balance right".

Yes Wes, it is a a matter of getting the balance right, but your party, the way it frames every political debate, its core political outlook is unbalanced. 

Anyone who isn't unbalanced knows all this and is aware of how essential free speech is as the only way to preserve what has been called the 'market-place of ideas.' 

It the core problem, unbalanced political actors and their usefully unbalanced idiots. If you become Prime Minister Wes, and we know you have your eye on the role, then your Labour Party will still be unbalanced.

Jaguar Car Evolution

Interesting video. To my eye it suggests that Jaguar car individualism began to fade after 1957. It's a matter of taste, all gone now though.

 

Booby Prize

Former UN climate chief urges Australia to set ‘prosperity’ target of cutting emissions by 75% by 2035 – ‘Would increase the country’s chance of winning rights to host Cop31 in 2026’

The intervention by Christiana Figueres, an architect of the 2015 Paris agreement when she was the executive secretary of the UN framework convention on climate change, comes before discussions about Australia’s commitment, due to be announced next month...

Figueres said setting a target of a 75% or more reduction would be “not a burden”, but instead be “Australia’s ticket into the prosperity of the future”. She suggested the ambitious goal would increase Australia’s chance to win the rights to host a major UN climate summit in Adelaide in November 2026.


You are playing with people’s lives, as fanatics always do.

George Gissing - The Nether World (1889)

Phase two

Starmer to hold first cabinet meeting since No 10 shakeup - as he declares start of 'phase two'

 

Reeves undermined

Reeves undermined as Starmer poaches her Treasury deputy in No 10 reshuffle

Sir Keir Starmer has hired a string of experienced economists for senior No 10 positions in a move that threatens to undermine Rachel Reeves.

Darren Jones, the former chief secretary to the Treasury, has been moved to a new role as Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, focused on delivery of the Government’s policy agenda.


Reeves undermined by Starmer eh? He'll have to dig a deep mine to do that.

He'll be digging upwards though, there is that.

We would build the United States of Europe

Jerome K. Jerome on idealism circulating among political idealists after the Russian Revolution and especially the Great War.


This time, we were out to play the knight; to save the smaller peoples; to rescue our once "sweet enemy," fair France. Russia was the disturbing thought. It somewhat discounted the knight-errant idea, riding stirrup to stirrup beside that barbarian horseman. But there were possibilities about Russia. Idealism lay hid within that sleeping brain. It would be a holy war for the Kingdom of the Peoples. With Germany freed from the monster of blood and iron that was crushing out her soul, with Russia awakened to life, we would build the United States of Europe. Even his voice was changed. Joan could almost fancy it was some excited schoolboy that was talking.

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

106 years later...  

Boredom as a phone antidote

There's a personal aspect to this video - it's all about a problem I don't have but I see it in others, particularly younger folk. 

Maybe that's because I'm an oldie, I'm not addicted to my phone, I'm familiar with quiet moments, with putting the book aside to allow my thoughts to drift, with gazing out of the window...