When Christmas card lists become shorter

I've just discovered that a relative by marriage died earlier this year. We hadn't seen each other for years and he never mastered email, although we did exchange Christmas cards. It's that time of life I suppose, where the Christmas card list seems to become a little shorter each year.

I've always assumed that the tradition of sending cards would go out of fashion, but card shops still seem to flourish and supermarkets still stock them.

My father had a simple approach after Mum died - he didn't bother with cards at all.

Actors vote

Actors vote for industrial action over AI concerns

Equity members voted overwhelmingly to refuse digital scanning in a move which could have big implications for the UK film and TV industry.

Actors have voted overwhelmingly to refuse digital scanning on set in a bid to secure adequate AI protections.

Equity - the UK's largest acting union - announced the results of an indicative industrial action ballot on Thursday.

Ah but how do we know they are real actors and not AI avatars protesting about their careers being blocked by human actors? Anyhow, Max Headroom has this to say -

Always 30 years away

UK step closer to 'limitless' energy after AI breakthrough

Britain has taken a major leap towards harnessing limitless clean energy after scientists unveiled an AI tool that slashes the time needed to model complex nuclear fusion reactions from days to mere seconds. Researchers at the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) have developed GyroSwin, a groundbreaking artificial intelligence model that simulates turbulent plasma behaviour up to 1,000 times faster than traditional methods - and at a fraction of the cost...

Fusion has long been dismissed as "always 30 years away", but recent milestones - including record energy outputs at facilities like JET in Oxfordshire - have renewed optimism.


Hmm - 'targeted for the 2040s' may not be 30 years away but sceptics are likely to stick with scepticism for now. Unlike fusion power, scepticism works.

The age of un-natural selection

Andy Myers has a serious/entertaining FSB piece on the future of human evolution. Well worth reading and while reading it is useful to remember a few of the strange people pretending to be UK political leaders, celebrity 'experts' or media 'personalities'.  


The Domestication of Humanity

How AI and technology are quietly rewriting evolution

We bred wolves into pugs. At some point, someone looked at a majestic predator and thought, “What if it had a snub nose, a wheeze, and couldn’t survive a gentle breeze?” Fast-forward a few generations and voilà—a creature designed purely to delight, not to endure.

And now, having reshaped the animal kingdom in our image, we turn the lens inward. What happens when we begin to breed ourselves—not with scissors and genes only, but with the quiet, persistent selection pressures of convenience, code, and comfort?

Welcome to the age of un-natural selection.

Premium content

Free TV licences for benefits claimants under Labour plans

The prospect of the potential handout comes as Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, faces criticism for failing to get more Britons off benefits and into work, with spending on benefits on course to hit £378bn by 2029-30.

Elsewhere in the consultation report, which comes at a time of crisis for the broadcaster, it was suggested the corporation could raise money with a “top-up subscription service” offering premium content, including repeats on iPlayer.


Anyone with even a few molecules of scepticism in their constitution is bound to wonder if 'premium content' includes Panorama. 

It probably won't include 'BBC Parliament' though. The average daily viewing time for that programme as logged by Barb for July was three seconds. Even BBC Scotland managed ten seconds.

Check Every Word

Another Fine Mess

Another fine example of the lunatic complexities of UK taxation. Maybe Rachel from Accounts will spend it wisely. Ho Ho Ho.

Morrisons on brink of £17m bill after losing court battle over rotisserie chickens

Morrisons could be hit with a £17m bill after losing a lengthy legal battle over its rotisserie chickens. The UK supermarket chain has been fighting a 13-year dispute in court to prevent value added tax (VAT) from being added to the chickens. However, the UK High Court ruled on Thursday that the product should be subject to the charge of 20%, as it falls under the category of hot food.

Morrisons argued that its rotisserie chickens should be exempt from VAT because the product is typically eaten cold or reheated later in the day. But, the ruling on December 11 said that the supermarket chain sold the items in packaging for hot food with a label which reads: "Caution: Hot Product".

A chap is bound to wonder

A chap is bound to wonder which randomised double-blind trial with a placebo control this advice was based on. 

Well okay - a chap inclined to be sarcastic might rhetorically wonder -

Super flu: Get jab to protect grandparents, urges London chief nurse

Londoners were urged to get the flu jab to protect grandparents from catching the virus during the Christmas period.

The plea came from London’s Chief Nurse Karen Bonner who warned that the super flu was still sweeping throught [sic] the capital.

The downhill push continues

There is little sign of the EU learning anything worth learning - this downhill move seems certain to cause yet more loss, pain and friction. 

From Blackout News - AI translation of the original German.

EU plans its own corporate taxes to cover increased spending

The EU Commission is directing its course towards new corporate taxes to cover rising expenses. The step follows because several states are rejecting higher contributions. In addition, Brussels is striving for more EU own resources and is relying on structural reforms in the financial framework. Defence financing is also coming into focus as geopolitical risks increase. In addition, the Commission is planning stronger group levies in order to broaden the revenue base and reduce dependence on national budgets

Corporate taxes at the core of the EU's new financial strategy

The Commission defines large companies as the central source of future revenue. New corporate taxes are intended to enable more reliable financing and close the gap created by the rejection of additional contributions. In addition, other instruments are coming into focus: higher costs in emissions trading, stricter CO₂ offsetting and stronger corporate levies. These measures are intended to stabilise the financial framework without placing a greater burden on national budgets. However, representatives of energy-intensive industries warn of considerable risks and point to a weak construction economy. Companies speak of rising corporate levies, which are hardly sustainable in a recession.

The Hobbyist

 

Do We Need Government?

A couple of months ago, Tom Armstrong wrote a very interesting FSB piece on government and whether we still need it. As Armstrong says, it's a question which is rarely asked. 

A rarely asked question perhaps, but not that rare. It has probably crossed the minds of many people concerned about the strikingly ineffectual yet repressive nature of recent UK governments. During the covid debacle for example.

Do We Need Government?

For most of human history, political power was a matter of geography. The Crown or Parliament in Westminster was, to all intents and purposes, remote to the majority of the people. Decisions handed down from London might take weeks to arrive in Yorkshire, Cornwall, or the Highlands, and still longer to make their effects felt. Government was not simply remote in spirit, but remote in fact.

So is it not strange that in an age when a message can travel the globe in less than a second, we still cling to a centuries-old model of centralised power? Why, in an era of instant communication, decentralised finance, instant communication and artificial intelligence, do we persist in allowing a handful of ministers - career politicians – and an army of arrogant mandarins in Whitehall to run the lives of seventy million people, often in ways the vast majority of those millions disapprove of?

So here I ask a question hardly never asked: Do we still need “government” as we know it? Is the centralised State, with democracy heavily qualified by the inaccurate word ‘representative’, its archaic practices, bloated bureaucracy and self-perpetuating ‘elite’ anything more than an anachronism, a hangover from horse-and-carriage times? And could we, the people, using modern technology, do a better job without it?

The whole piece is well worth reading, not because anything is likely to be done in this direction, but because the question is fascinatingly useful as a way to skirt well-worn paths. An idea to drop into conversations at Christmas perhaps.


So, do we still need government? Not in the form we inherited from the days when a journey from London to York consumed a week. Not in the form that treats free citizens as subjects, and a handful of politicians as monarchs in all but name. We need rules, yes. We need order, yes. But we do not need rulers. We do not need a permanent, parasitic class of officials to run our lives. The tools of liberty are already in our hands: digital platforms, decentralised systems, AI safeguards. The only missing ingredient is courage. Courage to say: the age of government is over. The age of citizen rule has begun.

And here we are

Woman becomes first person in the UK to win legal battle using AI law firm

A woman has become the first person in the UK to win a legal battle using an AI "law firm."

The healthcare worker, who had a stellar performance record, felt helpless when bosses placed her on a Performance Improvement Plan. Unable to afford a solicitor, she turned to Grapple Law – the UK’s only legal practice for individuals fully operated by bots. In just a few weeks, her case was resolved and she won £30,000 – without a tribunal or human lawyer in sight.


In the 1960s my father worked in what is now called IT when computers were huge machines tended by engineers permanently on site. Decades ago he predicted that computers would one day do the work of lawyers.

And here we are.

My, how times have changed....

 

It's the carnival of mediocrity and ineptitude again

Greens plan to punish male members who correct women

Men who correct women could face disciplinary action under plans being considered by the Green Party.

Party bosses are considering a proposal to broaden the Greens’ definition of misogyny to the point that “any disagreement” between the sexes could lead to the man facing a sanction.

The revelation is included in an internal 53-page report on legal and reputational risk to the party, which has been leaked to the Telegraph.

"I may be guilty in my own eyes...I like being guilty in my own eyes...Kraft, forgive me for talking nonsense. Tell me, surely you don't belong to that circle? That's what I wanted to ask."

"They are no sillier than other people and no wiser; they are mad like every one else..."

"Why, is every one mad?" I asked, turning towards him with involuntary curiosity.

"All the best people are mad nowadays; it's the carnival of mediocrity and ineptitude and nothing else...But it's not worth talking about."

Fyodor Dostoevsky - A Raw Youth (1875)

Green Spat Spending

Green's splash out '£190,000 on legal battles' as leaked dossier exposes huge internal trans row

The Green Party has been spending huge sums of money on legal battles and disciplinary investigations, as a leaked 53-page dossier has exposed deep internal divisions over transgender ideology.

The confidential report was compiled by the party's own legal advisers and warns of significant legal and financial dangers facing leader Zack Polanski's movement.


Surely a spot of hypnotherapy would be much Greener and more sustainable than spending all that Green money on legal wrangles.

Keir should stand up to 'unreliable ally' says unreliable Ed

Keir Starmer should stand up to 'unreliable ally' Donald Trump, Ed Davey says

Sir Keir Starmer should be prepared to have a Love Actually moment and stand up to Donald Trump, the leader of the Liberal Democrats has suggested.

Sir Ed Davey said the Prime Minister should take a more robust stance against the US president who has proven himself to be a “totally unreliable” ally.

Strange chaps, Ed and Keir. Ed Davey seems to have no intention of ever venturing beyond the politics of stunts and playground rhetoric. It's jet skis and falling off paddle boards every time with Ed, but maybe the real puzzle is that people vote for him. 

Or maybe it isn't a puzzle. Perhaps Lib Dem voters are ahead of the game and already know that political leaders are actors and merely part of the show, not people anyone should take seriously. 

Ed delivers that quite well, the 'don't take me seriously folks' act.

Even Wronger Growth

Revealed: Economy shrank 0.1% in October amid budget leaks chaos

The latest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) figures, released on Friday morning, show that the economy unexpectedly contracted in the month leading up to Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ November budget.

That period saw a flurry of leaks over potential tax cuts being eyed up by the Chancellor.

Ms Reeves has admitted the leaks were "very damaging".

The GDP figure for October falls below the 0.1% growth that analysts had been expecting.


Time to run the figures through the Reeves-Starmer Adjusteramer™

When certainty requires ignorance

Alex Story has a fine Critic piece on the deliberate promotion of ahistorical politics by the UK Labour party as a way to evade responsibility for past damage caused by its totalitarian ideology.


Taking down the past

The ahistoricism of Labour’s leaders is worse than ignorant. It is deliberate

As Goldfinger observed: “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action”. It is a good observational rule, not least to judge our political rulers by what they do rather than what they say.

Early in October 2024, Keir Starmer removed the portraits of Queen Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh from 10 Downing Street. Both were painted in the late sixteenth century, a handful of years after the defeat of Spain’s Philip II and his Great Armada.

Both were old hat. After all, fighting for England’s religious and cultural survival is rather reactionary and potentially “far right” now that hoisting your country’s flag on a pole in your own country could earn you a police visit.


The whole piece is quite short and well worth reading, if only because Labour Party ignorance is so easily dismissed as stupidity rather than a cover for yet another dose of totalitarian failure.


Knowledge, truth and their pursuit require cautious discernment and love of the subject; their absence demands revolution. We are faced by the latter, while yearning for the former. Being ahistorical means never taking responsibility for the devastation your ideology and its many permutations have left and will leave behind. Such certainty requires ignorance. It is a totalitarian shield, enabling politicians to bray mendacious and accusatory slogans without shame and to which to acknowledge popular sentiments to “turn the clocks back” is anti-progressive and anathema.

Our Greatest Shortcoming

 

The Wrong Growth

'A generation's future is at risk': PwC warns on youth unemployment

Jake Finney, an economist at PwC, said: ‘The UK youth jobs market has deteriorated sharply, the steepest decline in the G7.

'Young people account for over half the rise in unemployment since mid-2022, despite making up under a fifth of the working-age population. Young workers have inevitably felt the squeeze.

‘They are concentrated in entry -level roles, leaving them more exposed than colleagues with longer tenure.’

It is not easy to say something new about a UK Prime Minister and his Chancellor of the Exchequer who slithered into their wholly undeserved roles loudly promoting economic growth as their primary economic goal before stifling with policies obviously inimical to growth. 

'Stupid' doesn't work as a complete description even though it is stupid. It has been clear from the Tony Blair years that UK governments do not see their role as being wholly defined by UK interests and the interests of UK voters. For them, that's history book stuff.

Soft skills

Defra agency seeks software to help improve ‘communication and soft skills’ of farm inspectors

Animal and Plant Health Agency, whose responsibilities include monitoring wellbeing of livestock and ensuring standards are met, is interested in software that could help prepare for encounters with angry farmers

The government body responsible for regulating and enforcing animal welfare laws has unveiled plans to invest in software that could help frontline inspectors improve their people skills.

An outsider is bound to wonder why the public sector is so fond of referring to its staff as 'frontline'. It's not likely that anyone believes it, although Defra inspectors probably believe it when confronted with angry farmers. Even so, the farmers are 'frontline' if anyone is.

The same outsider is also bound to wonder if anyone is seeking software to help improve Keir Starmer's people skills. He's frontline too - for now.

David Cameron sounds alarm

David Cameron sounds alarm over British brain drain

Former Prime Minister Lord David Cameron has expressed concern about the exodus of British entrepreneurs and talent, warning that the UK government needs to set aside ‘other goals’ and prioritise business growth.


We don't need no stinkin' talent.
 

Weak and decaying

'Weak' and 'decaying': Donald Trump gives withering verdict on European allies

The US president gave his bruising assessment of Europe's leadership, criticising them for immigration and failing to end the war in Ukraine.

Donald Trump's bruising assessment of Europe as "weak" and "decaying" is a bitter blow to nations already reeling from the release of his national security strategy.


Oh dear, 'a bitter blow' suggests they didn't know what has been obvious for years, Europe is weak and decaying. An aspect of it is that European elites won't admit and get to grips with it, but the first step is acquiring the moral strength to admit it. Won't happen though.


Life was a dark, insoluble mystery, but whatever it was, strength and weakness were its two constituents. Strength would win--weakness lose.

Theodore Dreiser - The Financier (1912)

Mr Starmer the Steward

As Keir Starme grinds through his temporary stint of pretending to be UK Prime Minister, it must seem to him as if he is involved in the operations of Something Globally Important, even though he isn’t important enough for that - it operates him. 

The satisfaction of being Prime Minister today cannot reach the same level of satisfaction of a Gladstone or a Disraeli as they played the Great Game.

Today, Keir Starmer’s role is more akin to a senior servant’s position over a century ago, such as head steward managing the estate of a Great House towards the end of the nineteenth century. 

He has his own desk by the fireplace in the steward's office, a good quality coat passed on to him by the previous lord of the manor and the use of a horse from the stables.

Mr Starmer the Steward is his position. He rides around the estate on his horse, tells peasants why their rents have gone up, why their fences can’t be mended this year and why they can’t collect any more wood from the estate because the trees are to be felled. Times are hard for the Great House.

What the head steward doesn’t tell the peasants is that the best days of the Great House ended years ago and the place is to be sold and turned into an international hotel and leisure facility. 

But the peasants have suspected this for a long time.

It's TTTTK

Now PM joins TikTok ahead of China trip - despite platform being barred from government devices

Keir Starmer has joined TikTok as he prepares for a crucial trip to China - despite the site still being restricted on government devices.

The PM has launched an account on the fast-growing social media platform with a video of himself and wife Victoria in Downing Street.

It shows Sir Keir awkwardly urging people to 'follow me' as he goes out of the famous black door to turn on the Christmas lights.

Sir Keir 'awkwardly urging people'? He does everything awkwardly... as far as we know.

On a more serious note, China does seem to be the Establishment's government model. Not in detail but in terms of a determined focus on comprehensive control by a more formally defined upper echelon.

Labour Together... except Keir

Labour group asks members who they would back in leadership challenge

The think tank that ran Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership campaign is canvassing party members on candidates to replace him, in yet another sign of trouble for the beleaguered prime minister.

Labour Together, a think tank previously run by Sir Keir’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, asked activists this weekend for their opinions on Labour leadership contenders amid growing concern over the direction of the government and devastating approval ratings...

Alongside Sir Keir, eight Labour politicians were named, including cabinet ministers Wes Streeting, Shabana Mahmood, Bridget Phillipson, Ed Miliband and Darren Jones.

Also listed were former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham and deputy Labour leader Lucy Powell.

Makes grim reading, dredging a worthwhile leader up out of that lot seems unlikely. Yet maybe there are one or two who think Labour has something to prove because Keir Starmer doesn't appear to accept even that. 

Oh well, at least it should be entertaining.

Yellow Lines

 

Source

Silly

A problem with the UK Net Zero policy is that the whole policy is silly. There are many other words, but one of the apt words for Net Zero is 'silly'. AI says this about the word ‘silly’.

Silly is primarily an adjective used to indicate a lack of common sense, awareness, or judgment. It can describe actions, ideas, or behavior that are considered foolish, weak-minded, nonsense, or trivial in nature .

In summary, silly is a versatile English word used to describe foolishness, triviality, childishness, or playful behavior, with a long historical evolution from meanings of happiness and innocence to modern-day uses in everyday speech .


The silliness of Net Zero leaves sceptics with the tedious problem of having to go further than the obvious scientific, technical and economic deficiencies of the whole policy. Because it is an official UK government policy with its own senior cabinet minister it is necessary to reiterate the practical futilities over and over again, year after year. That's the silliness being silly.

Yet Net Zero is still silly, bone deep, down to the marrow silly.

Looping back to various meanings of the word ‘silly’, the policy lacks common sense, awareness and judgment. It exhibits ideas, and behaviour which are foolish, weak-minded, nonsense and trivial in nature. Net Zero is silly, but we can’t leave it at that.

The Great Green Grab

Tom Armstrong has a good, solid FSB piece on what he calls The Great Green Grab.

The Great Green Grab: How £28 Billion of Your Money is Being Spent on a Fairy Tale

A lesson in lunacy: Picture the scene. It is a grey December morning in 2025, and the energy regulator Ofgem has just delivered the nation its latest Christmas present: permission for the electricity and gas companies to spend £28 billion of our money upgrading gas pipes and power pylons over the next five years. The press release is thick, of course, with the usual cant; “future-proofing,” “resilient,” “net zero by 2030”. The accompanying photographs show smiling ministers, wearing wholly unnecessary hard hats, standing in front of turbines the size of Big Ben. The average voter, already paying some of the highest electricity bills in the world, is supposed to cheer.

Do not cheer. What has just been announced is one of the largest acts of state sanctioned larceny in British history, dressed up as salvation. And it rests, from first brick to last, on a fantasy we are invited to accept without question: that the climate ‘emergency’ is so pressing that we must bankrupt ourselves to appease it. Suppose, just for a moment, that the emergency is a mirage – and it certainly is – and compound of hysterical computer models, grant-hungry academics, and politicians in search of a noble purpose and good jobs when they retire or get kicked out. From that vantage point, the £28 billion looks less like an investment and more like the greatest confidence trick ever played on a developed nation.

The whole piece covers familiar ground but is well worth reading. Sooner or later the lunacy has to be nailed as lunacy even if those responsible slink off into another lucrative scam. As they probably will.

One day, perhaps sooner than the modellers think, the public will ask the question that should have been asked years ago: if the climate is truly in peril, why are we the only ones prepared to freeze in the dark to save it? When that day comes, the £28 billion will stand as a monument not to foresight, but to one of the most expensive outbreaks of collective delusion in our island story.

Until then, keep an eye on your direct debits. They are about to go up again. And rebel.

I miss her

Starmer: Rayner will return to cabinet – I miss her

In a wide-ranging interview, Sir Keir also insisted that he had no intention of stepping aside before the next election.

He said: “When I took over the Labour Party, everyone said to me, ‘you’re not going to be able to change the party’. We ignored that and carried on.

“Then they said to me, ‘you’re not going to be able to win an election’. We got a landslide Labour victory. Now, 17 months into a five-year Labour term, they say ‘you’re not able to change the country’.

“Every time we’ve been in this position, we’ve defied them. And that’s what I intend to do.”

Team Starmer must think it's safer to have Seaside Ange on the inside rather than the outside, especially as she is seen as a fan of trade unions and Unite is threatening disaffiliation from the Labour Party. 

Apart from this we seem to have the maniacally intransigent twaddle Starmer usually emits during interviews. There is no point in sifting through it for some kind of worthwhile meaning, he doesn't shape his twaddle like that.

It leaves a question hanging in the political air though - who shapes Starmer's twaddle? Why would the man wish to come across as more than a little bonkers, so much so that it tends to obscure the Fabian backdrop? Perhaps because he really is bonkers.

Police Cars

 

Adrenaline Crumble

Tower of London closed after protesters damage Crown Jewels display

Four protesters have been arrested after custard and apple crumble was thrown at a display case containing the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London.

Take Back Power, which describes itself as a new non-violent civil resistance group, claimed it was behind the act as it called for a citizen-led assembly that has the power to tax the rich.

Footage shared by the group showed one demonstrator removing the large foil tray of crumble from a bag and then slamming it against the glass protecting the Imperial State Crown.


There isn't much point trying to make sense of what these 'demonstrators' say as it is almost certain to be nonsense, but maybe what they do is a clue to an adrenaline hit they are seeking. 

There does seem to be an increasing trend towards engineering situations which generate a surge of adrenaline and this is certainly one of those. Crumble and custard are merely props. 

In a wider sense it's not uncommon either, we see similar behaviour in all kinds of social situations at many different levels. One explanation for habitual lateness is that some people get an adrenaline hit from rushing around while still failing to get to work or a meeting on time.

The crumble and custard stunt is perhaps nothing more than a reminder that some need a bigger adrenaline hit than others. In this case, a day in court should provide another one.

Riven with irrationality

Tony Blair ‘planning major intervention’ over Labour’s future

Sir Tony Blair’s think tank is said to be pulling together a policy plan to “save the Labour party” amid frustrations over Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership.

The former prime minister is reportedly looking carefully at a number of candidates for leadership campaigns as reports in The Times suggest he is dissatisfied by the direction of Sir Keir’s government.

Sources said November’s Budget had “killed any idea this is a Blairite or New Labour-like government”, adding Sir Tony had all but “given up” on attempting to influence Starmer over recent months.


So Tony Blair expects to have his clammy hand on the Labour tiller but Starmer isn't responding. Not a huge surprise, but it is interesting if Blair has all but “given up” on attempting to influence Starmer over recent months. It reinforces something we've seen for quite a while - Starmer is absurdly intransigent.

Also interesting is that Blair has chosen to point out what sane folk have always known, the supposed basis of Ed Miliband's energy policy is "riven with irrationality". It's worse than that, but it's a start.

Sir Tony said in a TBI report: “People know that the current state of debate over climate change is riven with irrationality … any strategy based on either ‘phasing out’ fossil fuels in the short term or limiting consumption is a strategy doomed to fail.”

Silly games

Revealed: Streeting’s pact with Rayner to gain keys to No 10

Wes Streeting’s allies are pressing Angela Rayner to sign up to a “joint ticket” for the Labour leadership, The Telegraph can reveal...

A source close to Ms Rayner said: “There is no vacancy and there is no pact.

“Amidst all the stirring and silly games, Angela is focused on representing her constituents and ensuring that this Government delivers. Angela is made of tough stuff and she will not be played like a pawn.”

We know those silly games will have been fermenting away for a while now, it's an inevitable outcome of the situation. A useless, charmless and unpopular prime minister with no leadership skills and a poisoned chalice as the glittering prize for the schemer who replaces him.

Oh well, it's grey and drizzly here in our corner of Derbyshire. Seems about right.

Labour’s chaos again

Steven Mulholland has a very interesting CAPX piece on the way UK Labour party chaos is disrupting the building industry, particularly in relation to plant hire.


Labour’s chaos is holding back Britain’s builders

• The Government's infrastructure ambitions are drifting further from reality
• Construction activity has seen its steepest fall since the pandemic
• Labour have left builders guessing on tax, skills policy and investment rules

Today’s S&P UK construction data should set alarm bells ringing in Number 10.

Construction activity across housing, commercial and civil engineering has seen its steepest fall since the pandemic, with new orders nosediving and employment declining for eleven consecutive months.

This is not a natural cooling of the market. It is the predictable consequence of a policy environment that has become more expensive, more uncertain and harder for businesses to navigate. Instead of giving firms the stability to invest, recent decisions have weakened confidence across the construction supply chain at exactly the moment Britain needs it to be firing on all cylinders.

The whole piece is well worth reading as yet another example of severe problems with a lack of relevant experience within government decision-making circles. Or, as so often seems to be the case, a complete absence of relevant experience.

This combination of rising costs and tax uncertainty has created a perfect storm. When firms cannot predict future liabilities or trust the stability of the policy environment, they pause. And that hesitation is exactly what the S&P construction data captures: falling output, shrinking order books and a sharp drop in optimism – now at its lowest point since 2022.

1 in 4 Canadians are now Bureaucrats

I haven't checked the numbers quoted here, but a country which saddles itself with Mark Carney as Prime Minister after a spell of Justin Trudeau's posturing may well be headed in the basket case direction. 

Twaddle(1.0) Revised to Twaddle(1.1)

Major study on catastrophic cost of climate change retracted - but revised figures remain alarming

The study originally predicted that climate change would trigger a decrease in global income of 19 per cent by 2050. Revised analysis now puts the figure at 17 per cent.

Authors of the study also found that there was a 99 per cent chance that by midcentury it would cost more to fix damage from climate change than it would to build resilience. However, the new analysis, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, lowered that figure to 91 per cent.


Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves seem to be well on track to reduce UK incomes by 19 per cent much earlier than 2050. A substantial UK overshoot seems more likely by 2050, or would that be a substantial undershoot?

Keeping it simple

Desperate 'Rural Red' Labour MPs vow to 'get Reeves out before Christmas'

Fraud And Liberal Myths

Christopher F. Rufo has an interesting City Journal piece on the Minnesota welfare fraud story, showing how high the media bar can be for anyone attempting to expose welfare fraud and those who allow it to happen. Worth reading.


The Somali Fraud Story Busts Liberal Myths

Mass immigration, antiracism, and the welfare state lead inexorably to fraud.

There is a moment when every news story either achieves lift-off or tumbles back to the earth. Having covered a few that drove national headlines, I’ve discovered there is no universal formula for which ones hit the stratosphere, and which do not.

Our recent story detailing Minnesota’s Somali fraud rings has been one of the lucky ones, achieving liftoff in record time. City Journal reporter Ryan Thorpe and I summarized a decade of Somali fraud schemes that stole billions of taxpayer dollars, some of which ended up with Al-Shabaab terrorists back in Somalia. These were sophisticated criminal enterprises that exploited Minnesota’s generous welfare state, deployed accusations of racism to deter scrutiny, and looted the public treasury until local prosecutors did the hard work to bring them down.

Your Party is a far left farce

Ben Sixsmith has an entertaining Critic piece on the farce that is Your Party.


Your Party is a far left farce

Radical socialists are a compelling argument against their own ideas

Well, thank God Your Party is not our party.

I should eat some humble pie. “It is easy to write off Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana’s political party,” I wrote in August. I should have stopped there. For all my musings about how Corbyn “upended British politics once and … has the power to do it again”, it has become very, very easy to write off the party now officially called Your Party.

Comically so.


The whole piece is well worth reading as we need some entertainment to worm its way into UK politics, even if it is only provided by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana. As Ben Sixsmith says, radical socialists are a compelling argument against their own ideas. 

We could go further and strike a more sombre note though - radical socialists are a compelling argument that far too many voters are absurdly gullible.


“We need to nationalise the entire economy,” Sultana was saying in interviews. Well, of course! Who wouldn’t want to give the people who have built an organisation as functional as Your Party massive amounts of power? It makes all the sound good sense of investing in Enron in November 2001.

These people are the most compelling argument for libertarianism. I would not go that far myself, perhaps, but the hubris of people who think that they could organise an economy when they could not even organise a football match on a field next to a ball factory makes it tempting.

Lineker says

Lineker says BBC has 'tied itself up in knots' over impartiality rules

Asked whether he sympathised with the BBC over its handling of the Trump saga, Lineker told the London Standard: “The BBC is still the most trusted and respected media organisation on the planet.

“I don’t know what led them to do what they did. They didn’t even need to. I suspect it was just some kind of error. I can’t imagine anyone thinking, ‘If we put that there it makes him look worse.’”


Members of the jury, this is not a complex case, it may be summed up via two comparatively simple lines of evidence.

You have heard the defence prove without a shadow of doubt that the prosecution evidence was fabricated and the defendant Mr Donald Trump did not say the words the prosecution alleges he said. This falsified evidence is the whole basis of prosecution case, without that it falls to the ground.

You, members of the jury may think this conclusive and the defendant has no case to answer. However, the prosecution has received a late claim by Mr Gary Lineker, a former footballer and for may years a sporting celebrity employed by the prosecution to give his opinions on football matches.

This additional prosecution evidence is that Mr Lineker does not like Mr Trump.

Therefore members of the jury, it is clear that you must weigh the balance of evidence. On the one hand the incontrovertible evidence that the prosecution case rests on falsified evidence, on the other hand the equally incontrovertible evidence that Mr Gary Lineker does not like Mr Trump the defendant.

Members of the jury, it is for you to weigh that evidence

Starmer and his "chaotic world"

Britain must not shrink back from ‘chaotic world’, says Starmer

Britain must not shrink back from a “chaotic world”, Sir Keir Starmer has said as he underlined his commitment to internationalism.

In his annual Guildhall speech on foreign policy, the Prime Minister accused opposition politicians of offering a “corrosive, inward-looking attitude” on international affairs.

Taking aim at those who advocate leaving the European Convention on Human Rights or Nato, he said they offered “grievance rather than hope” and “a declinist vision of a lesser Britain”.


Oh come on man, have a go at making sense for once, it isn't that difficult. If we don't shrink back from that "chaotic world" are we supposed to join in? Would staying out of the international chaos count as a “corrosive, inward-looking attitude” on international affairs?

Oh and doesn't your party base its entire political philosophy around “grievance rather than hope”? Hasn't it pursued this outlook from its inglorious Fabian beginnings?

As for “a declinist vision of a lesser Britain” - that's your personal political philosophy isn't it Sir Keir? That's your globalist, Trotskyite outlook on view again.

Misconduct in a Public Office

Interesting video by barrister Steven Barrett. He mansplains, as he puts it, the crime of misconduct in a public office.

COP17

Claire Lemaire has a useful Brussels Signal piece on COP17. 

EU wants money from ‘oil-rich countries’ for biodiversity ahead of COP17

The European Union is aiming for “financial commitments from oil-rich countries” to support global biodiversity efforts ahead of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP17), scheduled in Armenia in 2026...

Analysts say the EU’s push reflects recognition that relying solely on traditional donors will not meet the targets of the Global Biodiversity Framework.

COP17 in Armenia will test the international community’s ability to bridge political divides and unlock finance from unconventional sources.


Of course this is not the other COP17 to be held in 2026 in Ulaanbaatar the capital city of Mongolia, although coincidentally they want money as well.

COP17, set for 2026 during the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists (IYRP) — declared by the United Nations General Assembly and championed by Mongolia — will build on efforts to promote the sustainable management, restoration and conservation of rangelands.