What we need is prevention

After Berlin blackout - Kemfert calls for emergency power obligation for new buildings

The Berlin power outage affected around 45,000 households in winter. Claudia Kemfert, energy economist and head of the Energy, Transport, Environment Department at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin), draws a clear conclusion from this: emergency power should become mandatory for new buildings. From their point of view, it is not so much the networks that fail as the preparation for an emergency. That is why she is calling for binding rules to cushion defaults in the future.

Kemfert says clearly: "What we need is prevention". Germany often only reacts when damage is visible, and that is exactly what gives crises too much space. In addition, the blackout shows that crisis routines are rarely practiced. This increases the risk that a local outage will spread quickly.


Ed Milivolt is likely to be paying attention to this wizard eco-argument - "it is not so much the networks that fail as the preparation for an emergency."

Sounds as if solar panels, a heat pump and a standby generator or a big battery could eventually become the minimum level of equipment for new buildings in Germany. Presumably further afield too - all new houses perhaps.

"What we need is prevention." Something like that, yes.

A failure of ambition

Damien Phillips has an interesting Centre Write piece on the failures of independent UK space programmes, why the ESA is not a solution and why it matters. Well worth reading.


Could Britain still become a space empire?

In 1971, the United Kingdom became the third-ever nation to put a satellite into space using one of its own rockets. The success of Prospero, and the Black Arrow rocket programme which put it into orbit, seemed to place Britain at the cutting edge of the last and greatest scientific and industrial frontier.

But, even if you’ve never heard of Prospero before, you know how this story ends. The UK has never since put another satellite in space under its own power, preferring the cheaper short-term expedient of depending on foreign third-party launchers.

We can already count the cost of this failure of ambition, and it’s only going to get steeper. In 2023, the space sector was already worth $630 billion globally; by 2035, that value is forecast to increase to $1.8 trillion, a rise significantly larger than in proportion to the global GDP.

Retirement Do

 

Whenever he is photographed shaking the hand of another leader, Keir Starmer always manages to look like a deputy office manager shaking the hand of the CEO at his lacklustre retirement presentation. 

Reliable

Starmer's China trip provides exquisite optics for the 'world's most reliable superpower'

Let's be frank, in China the UK is not seen as a particularly big or important player

The optics of the British prime minister being here, revamping this relationship, at exactly the moment that Donald Trump is seriously disrupting traditional transatlantic partnerships, is exquisite for the Chinese.

Indeed, under President Xi, China has long nurtured the narrative that it is, in fact, the world's most reliable superpower, that countries should look to it, and not the US, for stable global leadership.


Reliable in some ways of course -

Xi's military purge claims biggest victim as he removes China's top general amid Taiwan uncertainty

President Xi has achieved total control of China's armed forces after removing a top general over alleged 'violations of discipline and law'.

Zhang Youxia is the latest high-ranking figure subjected to Xi Jinping's long-running purge of military officials.

Drivelism

The drivelisation of our culture is an interesting aspect but too complex for a single blog post, especially when we take in drivelist politics, drivelist bureaucracy and the general trend of global drivelism.

Suppose we give it a go though and take a moment to reflect on the possibility that the BBC could more accurately have been named BDC, the British Drivelcasting Corporation. Similarly in 1955, ITV could have been IDV, Independent Drivelvision.

So many words and phrases have drivelised, thus contributing to the political rise of Drivelism and Drivelist ideas and policies. We now have drivelised words and terms such as democracy, voting, racist, human rights, welfare, economy, xenophobia, far-right, left-wing, socialism, socialist, liberal, green, environmentalist, carbon, fairness, equality, carbon, climate, sustainable, fascist, extreme, expert, science, clean, recycle, responsible, gender, catastrophic, holistic, community, pledge, promise, bombshell, jaw-dropping, risk, survey, study, unprecedented, fight, critical, literally and many more.

We also have drivelised words such as ‘decimate’, ‘fact’ and ‘proof’ where historically interesting or useful meanings have been drivelised into vague and almost worthless possibilities.

Or we have two common related phrases which are not strictly drivelised because they seem to have evolved within Drivelism for strictly Drivelist purposes. These are the phrases ‘the science says’ and ‘science says’.

It’s literally unprecedented.

A Boil upon the face of society

Always something in the nature of a Boil upon the face of society, Mr. Honeythunder expanded into an inflammatory Wen in Minor Canon Corner. Though it was not literally true, as was facetiously charged against him by public unbelievers, that he called aloud to his fellow-creatures: “Curse your souls and bodies, come here and be blessed!” still his philanthropy was of that gunpowderous sort that the difference between it and animosity was hard to determine.

Charles Dickens – The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1870)


Strangely enough there is still a curious lack of difference between malice and the loudly intransigent  virtue-signalling of Mr. Honeythunder. Accept the saintly virtue of the climate narrative or be cursed forever is the kind of thing we have to endure today.

We don’t know what happened to Mr. Honeythunder because Dickens died before the novel was finished, but no doubt he would have encountered Nemesis towards the end of the novel. Doesn’t end like that today.

A more 'sophisticated' relationship

Xi Jinping tells Starmer he prefers Labour governments as 'kowtowing' PM pitches for trade in China

Keir Starmer made his pitch to 'vital' China today as Xi Jinping suggested the Communist state prefers Labour governments.

The PM held two hours of talks with the autocratic president in Beijing in the early hours of this morning, insisting he wants a more 'sophisticated' relationship.

 

How to eat toast

 

Two Headlines

PM lands in Beijing after China trip will make UK richer and safer

Sir Keir Starmer has landed in China for a controversial three-day visit, which he has claimed will make the UK safer and richer – despite stark concerns over the threat the country poses to Britain’s national security.


England’s most deprived areas to get worse by next election, report for No 10 finds

Exclusive: the 613 most deprived areas will see higher crime rates and worse unemployment under current funding schemes, report says

What is evil?

 

What then is good? The knowledge of things. What is evil? The lack of knowledge of things.

Seneca - Epistulae morales ad Lucilium c. 65 AD

Today this could be taken as an ancient comment on censorship and free speech. Dwell on it for too long though - so many hares start running.  

Suppose we take just one big, slow and increasingly arthritic hare which is barely able to run anywhere. Net Zero is obvious nonsense and telling us otherwise, trying to suppress knowledge of its weaknesses is what? 

Evil? Why not?

Inconvenient Failures

Kevin Killough has a useful Just the News reminder of Al Gore's film "An Inconvenient Truth" and the catalogue of failed predictions mainstream media and activist politicians prefer to forget. 

Well worth reading, as here in the UK we are still stuck with Ed Miliband.

 
Al Gore’s ‘Inconvenient Truth’ turns 20, and critics say biggest disaster is its failed predictions

Twenty years ago "An Inconvenient Truth" received a standing ovation at the Sundance Film Festival. Though it was full of predictions that never came to pass, it was a key catalyst of the climate activist movement...

Predictions of cataclysm stemming from climate change regularly get reported in the media, but there’s little reporting when the predictions fail. In 2022, NBC News was one of many outlets reporting that California and the American West were in the midst of a “megadrought,” which was the worst the region had seen in over 1,000 years.

Earlier this month, NBC reported that California is drought free for the first time in 25 years. The article makes no mention of the previously predicted “megadrought,” nor does it mention climate change.

The Gruesome Twosome

Miliband and Jørgensen: Clean energy is Europe’s only route to security and prosperity

Ed Miliband is the U.K. energy secretary and Dan Jørgensen is the EU commissioner for energy.

The world has entered an era of greater uncertainty and instability than at any other point in either of our lifetimes, and energy is now central to this volatile age we find ourselves in.

In recent years, both Britain and Europe have paid a heavy price for our exposure to the roller coaster of international fossil fuel markets. Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine in 2022 sent global gas prices soaring — driving up bills for families and businesses across the continent and leading to the worst cost-of-living crisis our countries have faced in a generation.


This is one of the problems with Keir Starmer's shaky grip on No. 10, Ed Miliband could replace him and his grip on reality is even shakier.

A certain class of dishonesty

Is humanity doomed? Doomsday Clock will be updated tomorrow to determine our fate

Is humanity doomed? We're about to find out – as scientists prepare to update the Doomsday Clock tomorrow.

The new time for the symbolic timepiece, which ticks closer to midnight as we approach annihilation, will be revealed at 15:00 GMT on 27 January.

Since last year, the clock has sat at 89 seconds to midnight – the latest time in its 78–year history.

However, ahead of tomorrow's grand reveal, experts have predicted the Doomsday Clock will move even closer to midnight.


A certain class of dishonesty, dishonesty magnificent in its proportions, and climbing into high places, has become at the same time so rampant and so splendid that there seems to be reason for fearing that men and women will be taught to feel that dishonesty, if it can become splendid, will cease to be abominable.

Anthony Trollope - The Way We Live Now (1875)

Labour rebels accuse Starmer of stitch-up

Labour rebels accuse Starmer of stitch-up over Andy Burnham: Latest

Labour rebels have accused Sir Keir Starmer and his allies of a “stitch-up” after Andy Burnham was blocked from running as an MP in the upcoming Gorton and Denoton by-election.

A letter circulated among backbenchers called for the National Executive Committee to “reevaluate” their decision, and said that losing the seat in a contest with Reform UK would be “unimaginable”.

A revealing aspect of the Starmer/Burnham debacle is the underlying rationale which claims that Burnham is a better actor than Starmer. He's more likeable too claims the covert narrative, better at delivering the lines, less wooden, more able to inject conviction into the usual flaccid nonsense and evasion he'd have to emit.

Not so much a more capable Prime Minister than Starmer, providing more competent political oversight of the government machine. This is tacitly assumed to be sort of, perhaps, kind of important to some picky punters, but far more important is that Burnham is seen as a more capable actor.

That's it.

Plan B peeps out of the swamp

 

It's the way he tells 'em

  

Andy Burnham opens door to Commons return and will seek to stand in by-election

In his letter to the NEC, which he shared on social media, Mr Burnham said the decision had been "difficult" but insisted he would support the work of the government "not undermine it" and that he had "passed on this assurance to the Prime Minister".


So Andy Burnham will "not undermine" the government and has "passed on this assurance to the Prime Minister". 

Strewth that's a grim joke, but it's the way he tells 'em.

 

His robust pride prevented him from experiencing any discouragement, but he was always irritated, and in that state of exaltation, at the same time factitious and natural, which is characteristic of comedians.

Gustave Flaubert - Sentimental Education (1869)

Harvesting water from the Martian atmosphere

 

Moisture in Mars atmosphere could provide water for future human inhabitants, research finds

Moisture extracted from the atmosphere of Mars could provide a valuable alternative water supply if humans are ever to inhabit the red planet, a study has found.

However, the research from a Strathclyde University academic found that ice located beneath the surface of Mars would provide the most viable long-term solution.

I'll never know, but it is interesting to speculate on the kind of people who would consider living there permanently if Martian settlements are ever established.

We may assume that settlers would inevitably take human nature with them, which isn't a good start, but the pressures of survival would exert certain restraints. Yet if those pressures ever relax then the usual problems may come back too.

The triviality of life

Argentina envoy asks French lawmakers to cover “Falklands” label on map during hearing

Argentina’s ambassador to France, Ian Sielecki, halted the start of a hearing at France’s National Assembly and refused to speak while a map behind him displayed the Falklands/Malvinas as UK territory. Proceedings resumed only after a staff member covered the islands with a sticky note.

The exchange took place before the Assembly’s Foreign Affairs Committee after Sielecki noticed the map included the label “R-U” (United Kingdom) next to the archipelago. “As a representative of the Argentine state, I cannot speak freely in front of that map,” he said, arguing that doing so would amount to “legitimising” a situation he described as a breach of Argentina’s sovereignty and of international law.


It was not death that he feared, but the triviality of life. He had the awe of the eternal upon him, and he saw mortal things as through an inverted spy-glass, small and distant against the vast deserts of eternity …

John Buchan - The Blanket of the Dark (1931)

On the eve of war

We're off into Derbyshire this morning, but it won't be like this.

Abject failures fail abjectly

MPs slam 'abject failure' over insulation scheme

Tens of thousands of homeowners are facing “unaffordable bills” to repair defects caused by a failed government energy efficiency scheme, MPs have warned.

A report from the Pubic Accounts Committee finds that the “abject failure” of the government-backed Energy Company Obligation (ECO) programme to install insulation in homes has left some facing costs of over £230,000.

The Commons spending watchdog warns that the government has not given real assurance that it will deliver on its promise that no one affected will have to pay to resolve the issue, pointing to cases where the cost of repair far exceeds the £20,000 cap.


Fortunately Andy Burnham may even now be rushing forward to replace abject failure Keir Starmer now that abject failure Andrew Gwynne MP has apparently decided to clear off - or 'stand down' as the euphemism has it.

Labour MP 'standing down' could clear way for Andy Burnham's Commons return

Andrew Gwynne, who was sacked as a minister and suspended from the Labour Party last year over offensive messages in a WhatsApp group, is now said to be standing down, which would trigger a by-election in Greater Manchester.

On the surface of things

There is much to be said for staying on the surface of things when it comes to human behaviour mingled with social and political issues of the day. It can be better to stay with what we see instead of being drawn towards the intangible world of ideologies, thoughts, motives and covert scheming.

For example the UK Net Zero policy is clearly an absurdly impractical and expensive policy which cannot possibly achieve its claimed objectives. The wind doesn't always blow, the sun doesn't always shine. Pushing on with it is foolish - easy to see.

 
So that’s it, we stay on the surface of things, Net Zero is foolish and those who approve of it are fools. In other words, UK Energy Minister Ed Miliband is a fool preaching to fools and Keir Starmer is a fool for appointing him.

What about covert scheming? We might say Ed Miliband knows he is preaching foolishness to fools and this is how he retains his political popularity. It is to Ed’s political advantage to be a prominent leader of fools, preaching to their echo chamber.

Within the echo chamber, Ed Miliband is popular and it’s a big echo chamber with obvious political attractions. Yet the Net Zero echo chamber is a chamber of fools, including Ed. He’s in there. A senior Cabinet Minister preaches undignified foolishness to charlatans and fools instead of paying more attention to the surface of things.

That’s on the surface too – it’s undignified.

Boats

 

Heaven forbid

AI will not bring headcount reductions, HMRC chief predicts

Giving evidence to MPs, the tax agency’s head has claimed that the adoption of new technology will ‘augment our agent experience and improve outcomes’ but will not slash overall numbers

HM Revenue and Customs permanent secretary John-Paul Marks has told MPs that he does not expect increased use of artificial intelligence to lead to headcount reductions at the department over the coming years...

He told MPs that he expects HMRC to be “broadly the same size in 2030 as we are today”, with AI increasingly deployed to assist the work of officials rather than to replace them, while some staff will be retrained.

Sounds as if there are no significant simplifications of the tax system in the pipeline either. 

But we knew that.

Not the brightest candle on the cake

The far-Left Corbynite ready to turn the biggest union against Starmer

Even before being elected general secretary of Unison, Britain’s biggest public sector trade union, Andrea Egan was known for being a scourge of fat-cat bosses. Not just at Bolton Council, where she is a social worker and union rep, but at Unison itself, where her campaign video last year railed against the £181,000 salary of the incumbent, Christina McAnea...

She formally takes office today (Thursday, Jan 22), having vowed to hold Labour’s “feet to the fire” over public sector pay – although just how much of a mandate she really has is another matter. Only 7 per cent of Unison’s 1.4 million members took part in the vote that got her to power, meaning that her militant approach has the direct endorsement of just four per cent...

Councillors across the political spectrum in Bolton describe Egan as approachable and down to earth, despite a somewhat “formidable” reputation. “She’s very vociferous in her politics but she doesn’t make it personal or unpleasant,” says one Conservative on the authority, run by a minority Labour administration...

However, another Bolton councillor, who had been involved in negotiations with Egan over staffing issues, says she can be stubborn...

“Egan is likeable and prepared to listen, but she never struck me as the brightest candle on the cake – I’m amazed she’s now running a union at national level.”

Keir Starmer must be looking forward to the challenge. Sounds as if it's going to be "front line services" battling against low pay and underfunding on behalf of our deprived communities again.

All very Labour.

 

Keir's Spiritual Home

Exclusive-Britain, China to revive 'golden era' business dialogue during Starmer visit, sources say

BEIJING, Jan 21 (Reuters) - Britain and China will aim to revive a "golden era" business dialogue when Prime Minister Keir Starmer visits Beijing next week, three sources familiar with the initiative said, with top company executives from both sides invited to participate.


No the post title isn't intended to be sarcastic. For many globally-minded European politicians and senior bureaucrats, China does appear to be regarded as an important model. A furtive faith in monopolistic politics hasn't disappeared.

As Starmer keeps reminding anyone who pays attention to these things.

It's goats and ox carts again

Minister says UK would be 'crazy' not to look at EU customs union despite Reeves ruling it out

Labour's push for closer EU ties descended further into chaos today as a minister insisted the UK would be 'crazy' not to look at a customs union.

Trade Secretary Peter Kyle said Britain had to consider where the 'best opportunities' were for the economy in the longer term.


Slovak PM condemns ‘stifling’ EU competitiveness in scathing letter to von der Leyen

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has sent a sharply worded open letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, criticising the European Union’s approach to climate policy and high energy prices...

Fico warns that key global players no longer take the EU seriously, partly due to “nonsensical climate goals” and other policies that he said harm economic strength.

A goat yoked to pull an ox cart

North Korea's Kim Jong Un dismisses vice premier, comparing him to 'a goat yoked to pull an ox cart'

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has dismissed a vice premier over a factory modernisation project in a rare public rebuke ahead of a ruling party congress, state media has reported.

Mr Kim blamed Yang Sung Ho, a vice premier in charge of the machine-building industry, for causing what he called "unnecessary man-made confusion" during works to modernise the Ryongsong Machine Complex in the northeast of the country, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said on Tuesday.


That's an interesting metaphor.

 

More Hole Than Donut?

 

Serious economic challenges

China's population declines for a fourth straight year amid record low birthrates

China's population has shrunk for the fourth straight year as birthrates hit a record low, national data shows.

Xiujian Peng, senior research fellow at the Centre of Policy Studies at Victoria University, said adjusting work expectations could help couples balance family life and have the energy to have more children.

She said allowing both men and women to work from home, and guaranteeing a woman's job after giving birth would help.

"Ensuring job security and preventing workplace discrimination against women who give birth can reduce the career costs of motherhood and encourage higher fertility," Dr Peng said.

However, she said these policies would not be enough to reverse the decline.

"These policies may stop the further decline of births or slightly increase the births number, but they can not change China's population decline trend," she said.

"Even if China's government could reverse the fertility decline immediately and increase its total fertility rate to a replacement level of 2.1, it will still take around 70 years for China's population to increase again.

"But many countries' experience in east Asia and Europe has told us there is no quick fix for a low fertility rate, so we will see China's total population will continue to decline in this century."

She added that in the long term, the population decline could lead to serious economic challenges for China.

And invading Taiwan won't make the slightest difference. Immigration isn't a solution either.

Carry on scheming

Robert Jenrick 'told Kemi Badenoch to kick Liz Truss out' of the Conservatives

The Reform defector claims the Conservatives are "never going to change", but admits he made mistakes as a Tory minister.

Robert Jenrick claims he told Kemi Badenoch to kick former prime minister Liz Truss out of the Conservative Party because of her "cackhanded" mini budget.


There may be some Tories who hope Nigel Farage has accepted one defection too many with Robert Jenrick.

There may be some Reform members who wish Nigel Farage had allowed Jenrick to carry on scheming within the Tory party.

Are you sitting comfortably?

 

Source

A Stunt Idea

While consuming my modest pensioner's breakfast this morning, I came up with this upbeat publicity idea for Sir Keir Starmer -  

In view of his remarkable popularity plunge, he could rally his supporters by organising lunch in the grounds of Chequers for all UK voter who still think he’s doing a good job as Prime Minister.

He would have a lunch marquee erected in case of rain and arrange a dramatic Ed Davey type stunt where he arrives by helicopter once all the loyal voters have passed through security and assembled outside the marquee. 

Some care would be required here because Sir Keir wouldn’t want the draught from the helicopter blades to blow the marquee away - it wouldn’t be a particularly big one.

Excessively burdensome

The EU’s universal pension is on its deathbed

The EU is no stranger to one-size-fits-all regulation, from restricting Ireland’s ability to raise interest rates and avoid financial meltdown to absurd regulations on the shape of fruit and vegetables, which lasted 15 years before the “return of the curvy cucumber”.

Yet few policies have been as disastrous as its idea for an EU-wide pension, the Pan-European Personal Pension Product (PEPP).

Four years after it was created, just 10,000 people have signed up from a working population of almost 260 million.

Despite its noble aim of boosting retirement planning among a sceptical population, the EU itself even described it as “excessively burdensome”.

It's the bureaucratic balancing act the EU has never achieved, staying clear of that zone where chair-polishers render life so excessively burdensome that economies flounder, systems crumble and funding falters. 

Even if we put aside the ingrained problems of bureaucracy, the EU still has major problems over an ageing population and pension provision. Not specific to the EU, but it's one of those huge, steadily evolving problems the EU is poorly equipped to tackle at an EU level.

    

Europe is mired in an ageing crisis: by 2030, a quarter of EU citizens will be over 65 after decades of falling birth rates and rising life expectancy. Two thirds of workers have zero pension savings, adding a potential old age poverty epidemic to the unprecedented strain already facing health and social care services.


A related problem is that EU bureaucrats never seem to give up on dud ideas, never willing to learn from experience, change direction and move on. It's another of those obvious yet serious weaknesses EU enthusiasts tend to avoid.


Despite the extremely disappointing take-up figures, however, the EU is not giving up.

In November, it proposed a series of changes, including removing the advice requirement and 1pc fee cap from Basic PEPPs. A tailored PEPP, offering the more complex and potentially more lucrative investment options some savers seek, would also be available and the requirement to offer membership in multiple countries will also be scrapped.

The intention is also to make the product more suitable to workplaces in the hope that take-up is bolstered by auto-enrolment.

It won't work.

Or there is the digital approach

North Korea demands neighbors spy on neighbors in surveillance push

Authorities are offering rewards and threatening punishments to normalize citizen surveillance and reporting of "anti-socialist lifestyles"

According to a source in North Pyongan province, regional branches of the Socialist Women’s Union of Korea (SWUK) held year-end review sessions starting Dec. 20. The meetings evaluated how well members followed directives from above, including participation in political study sessions and compliance with neighborhood watch protocols.

Officials repeatedly instructed attendees to “keenly watch for behavior that goes against socialist lifestyles.”

“They kept emphasizing that we must raise each other’s awareness and immediately report non-socialist behavior so the enemies’ schemes don’t take root in people’s lives,” the source said.

Grim of course, but there is a flavour of old school totalitarian measures about this. It's a long way from facial recognition or China's social credit system.

And yet...

The UK pandemic debacle was merely one reminder that it is possible to encourage natural informers to indulge themselves when confected virtue is on offer. It's as well to be politically vigilant.

Which of course we aren't.

The wrong electricity in the line

Elon Musk’s XAI datacenter generating extra electricity illegally, regulator rules

A US regulator ruled on Thursday that Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company had acted illegally by using dozens of methane gas turbines to power huge datacenters in Tennessee.

xAI has been fighting for a year and a half over truck-sized gas turbines the company had parked near its Colossus 1 and 2 facilities, arguing to local authorities that the electricity-generating turbines were exempt from requirements for air quality permits.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) declared on Thursday that the generators were not exempt. In its ruling, the agency revised the policies around gas turbines, saying that operating the machines still requires air permits even if they are used on a portable or temporary basis, as had been the case.

There is a strong flavour of "Get Musk" about this, especially as it's the EPA sniffing out the wrong electricity in the line.

Chopped Off

Scientists Warn Sun Could Vaporise Earth—Why This Matters to Life as We Know

TTE

Miliband’s wife set to lose battle to stop new £5m flats

Ed Miliband’s wife and the actor Benedict Cumberbatch are set to fail in their attempt to prevent a new residential development from being built close to their north London homes...

Other residents highlighted the inclusion of external heat pumps, warning that they could generate persistent noise. One neighbour, Ruth Liebling, said the equipment would cause “constant noise pollution to nearby properties”.

Last year, Miliband’s own department said research it commissioned found that noise complaints from heat pumps were not common and that heat pumps were largely thought to be quiet.


It's not that we should make the mistake of assuming this was Ed Miliband's protest, but perhaps it still allows us to refer to him as TTE, or Two Tier Ed. 

Yet maybe Mad Ed is still preferable. That's modern political life - so many appropriate names but politically 'Mr Miliband' just doesn't hit the mark.

UK Snow Bomb Warning Horror

UK snow bomb hitting sooner than expected in Beast from the East warning

The next bout of snowfall in the UK is set to arrive sooner than expected, with flurries predicted to start as early as next week. A significant snowfall, dubbed a ' snow bomb', has been forecast for Wednesday, 21st January by a leading forecaster from British Weather Services.

I wonder when snow bombs were invented? For example, did Charles Dickens know anything of snow bombs as he wrote A Christmas Carol? Apparently not.

On consulting Google Ngram Viewer, we discover without even the faintest flicker of surprise that references to snow bombs became more common as heavy snowfalls became less prevalent.

Search for lost mind called off

Sacked Robert Jenrick was 'consumed by personal ambition' and has 'actually lost his mind'

Former Tory colleagues of Robert Jenrick tonight blasted his defection to Reform and said he appeared to have ‘lost his mind’.

Conservatives in Westminster and Mr Jenrick’s Newark constituency – who were left stunned by Tory leader Kemi Badenoch’s decision to sack him - expressed their disappointment at his secret scheme to join Nigel Farage’s rival party.

Some said Mr Jenrick was ‘consumed by personal ambition’ rather than by loyalty to his former political allies.

Former colleagues say Robert Jenrick was 'consumed by personal ambition', a common political malady with which they must be intimately familiar.

Lost minds aren't uncommon either. 

Sinking, sinking...

An opportunity or a threat? How YouTube overtook the BBC

According to official ratings agency Barb, the Google-owned platform now attracts a larger audience than all of the BBC channels combined.

In December, the BBC attracted 50.8 million viewers, compared with almost 52 million who tuned into YouTube on their televisions, smartphones or laptops.

Meanwhile we're off to Tesco this morning for a spot of food shopping. Even that is more interesting than the BBC. More sustaining too.

A Headline and a Video

Petrol and diesel lorry ban considered by Labour in latest part of controversial net-zero drive

Ministers have announced that fossil fuel-powered trucks will no longer be sold and have ruled out allowing the continued use of low-carbon or synthetic fuels.

The latest eco dive means that all new heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) will have to be electric from 2040.

Sadiq can’t build any houses

Another interesting CAPX piece, this one on being a short article on London housing by Ben Hopkinson. I know almost nothing about London housing so I've nothing to add, apart from mentioning that we see lots of house building in our part of Derbyshire. 


Sadiq can’t build any houses

• Housebuilding in London is falling to levels not seen since the Second World War
• Despite ‘planning reform’ being said 520 times in Parliament, Labour's reforms haven't led to more housing
• It's time to ignore the overblown concerns of environmental charities and start building some houses

There are few things that are consistent in housing policy. The Housing Secretary has changed 10 times in the past decade. We’ve seen multiple National Planning Policy Frameworks in the past few years. Since the Housing, Town Planning, etc. Act 1909 first introduced town planning to the statute books, almost every single Parliament has passed a significant act changing how the planning system works.

Yet one thing that has remained consistent is that London has always built more than 10,000 homes each year since the Second World War. However, that too is about to change. London started just 4,170 homes in the past financial year and the consultancy Molior projects that only 4,550 homes will be completed in both 2027 and 2028.

Failing to build even 10,000 homes in a year for the first time since 1946 is a disaster. The worst thing is that 10,000 homes is such a low bar, that failing to clear it is humiliating. London housing target is 88,000 homes a year and we’re on track to build just 5% of that.

Our European neighbours recognise a mark when they see one

Eliot Wilson has a timely CAPX piece on Keir Starmer's attempts to slither into the EU on any terms the EU cares to offer - in this case via 'dynamic alignment'.


Labour’s EU sycophancy is a gift for Nigel Farage

• The Prime Minister's agreement with Brussels would give the EU the whip hand over a future government
• Keir Starmer's only negotiating tactic with the EU is to ask how high he should jump
• As Labour lock into complex talks with the EU over market access, Nigel Farage will be preparing attack lines

In his own undemonstrative and soporific way, Keir Starmer is just as obsessive about Europe as the most zealous Leave voter. So much of his conception of good governance has been shaped by the idea of being the opposite of the previous Conservative administration; accordingly, he regards a close and cordial relationship with EU member states and with the European Union collectively as a badge of success in foreign policy.

Our European neighbours, on the other hand, recognise a mark when they see one.


The whole piece is well worth reading as it contains two reminders. 

Firstly, politically Keir Starmer views the EU as an inherently superior non-national administration. In other words he views the UK as an inherently inferior national administration. 

Secondly it is a reminder of Starmer's abject political incompetence. He's not made for the Great Game and shouldn't be playing it, not against Nigel Farage on Farage's territory.


First and foremost, the EU wants to maximise its benefits from any agreement on dynamic alignment. Starmer seems to think that our European neighbours are clamouring for a deal with the UK, but it is his Government which by some margin needs this more urgently. The Commission may, therefore, be indifferent to the weapon it proposed to hand to Reform UK.

Farage must regard the coming months with relish. The Government and the European Union will be locked in complex negotiations over trade, regulation and market access – and already they have ensured that the narrative will all be about him.

On the pitch and in the room

‘Isolationism’ will not solve cost-of-living crisis, Starmer says

Speaking at the first Parliamentary Labour Party meeting of the year on Monday, the Prime Minister leader said that the cost-of-living crisis cannot be "solved by isolationism."

He said: “One thing that is crystal clear is that we are moving into a world that is very different to the one most of us grew up in.

“And in a world this volatile – you have to be on the pitch. You have to be in the room to tackle the issues working people care about.

“The cost-of-living crisis will not be solved by isolationism. You cannot deliver peace in Ukraine without being in the room.


It's a weird business having to take note of such dull, cliché-riddled rhetoric from a hopelessly isolated Prime Minister who doesn't yet realise that it is time to resign and clear off to write the memoirs nobody is likely to read.

Of course, if things are expected to become worse, then "Sir" Keir Starmer is the man to guide us towards worse, but it's still horribly undignified when a supposedly intelligent man flounders around like this.

Yet again, the word 'stupid' is on the pitch and in the room - at the same time apparently.

Rapid Recycling

Fireball erupts as London recycling centre engulfed in flames

A huge fireball erupted above a recycling centre in London on Sunday (11 January) night.

Video footage shows thick plumes of smoke billowing across the skyline, as a fiery blaze can be seen behind a row of houses in Southall.

Around 60 firefighters spent three hours tackling the blaze on Johnson Street, London Fire Brigade said. No injuries were reported and the cause of the fire is not yet known.


We've had at least two other recycling centre fires since New Year's Eve -

Nottinghamshire council misses bin collections after huge recycling site fire

Alconbury Hill recycling centre fire was accidental

Soft Touch

Not a new story of course, but one worth repeating because experience suggests that even the easiest lessons have yet to be learned.

A cage entirely of our own making

David Shipley has a very useful Critic piece on the self-imposed nature of Britain’s governing crisis. It's the weird aspect of our political problems, that they are so obvious and suitable legislative remedies are not obscure. 


The broken state of Britain

Britain’s governing crisis is not imposed from outside – it is chosen

In the UK there are signs of state failure everywhere for those with eyes to see. Dominic Cummings says that “the whole wider Whitehall system is fundamentally broken”. He isn’t alone. More than half of MPs polled think Whitehall is working “badly”, and even our machine-man Prime Minister has observed that “too many people in Whitehall are comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline”. Even the “delight” with which ministers welcomed Alaa Abd El-Fattah to Britain has been blamed on “the supremacy of the Stakeholder State” by Starmer’s former Director of Strategy, Paul Ovenden.

The British people know their state is broken. In the 2024 British Social Attitudes survey 79% of us said that our system of governing “could be improved a lot/a great deal”. In truth this is unsurprising. We live under a regime which hasn’t built a reservoir since 1992, hasn’t brought a nuclear power plant online since 1995, which struggles to complete a high speed rail link between two cities a mere 130 miles apart, in which GDP per capita has barely grown in almost 20 years, in which energy costs are ruinously high, youth unemployment is rising and which is unable to defend its own borders, or keep its citizens safe from a wave of serious crime committed by recent migrants.


The whole piece is well worth reading as a reminder that Mr Shipley is right, the mess we're in is obvious and could be remedied by appropriate acts of Parliament. As he says, our cage could be shattered with a word. 

Yet when we consider the issue in terms of a cage, we enter the murky world of human behaviour, conditioning, comfort zones and ambitious charlatans. 


Those who govern us seem unable to imagine a society which doesn’t function (or rather fails to function) pretty much like the UK today. The legal and conceptual framework we exist within is treated as though it’s geography, or weather — something to be accepted, or adapted to. The reality is that all these limitations are tools of our own making. They are tools which have long since ceased to work.

Despite this, almost our entire political and media class seem unable to imagine a world without those broken tools. And so our nation remains bound in a cage entirely of our own making, which we could shatter with a word.

Divide and Rule

As all political observers must know, the basic political strategy is to be divisive. To be political is to give allegiance to a divisive mythology where susceptible citizens are encouraged to identify with a named political standpoint and its collation of myths, legends, labels and slogans. Then stop thinking.

This is what voters expect and what they get from political parties, although the myths, legends, labels and slogans are usually presented as ideologies sheltering within a fog of extremely implausible virtues.

It all used to work after a fashion, in the days of sober newspaper accounts, TV and radio interviews, rallies, megaphones and soapbox oratory. It was always divisive though, sometimes recklessly and even tragically and grossly destructively divisive, this hasn’t changed.

The use of behavioural psychology to spin the myths isn’t new, but the hour by hour intensity of modern digital communication appears to have pushed political myth-making from reckless radicalism towards insanely divisive nonsense which resists correction through traditional political means.

The chap on the soapbox may now have to contend with unattractive, purple-haired folk screeching threats and slogans while waving ungrammatical placards. Too divisive for debate is too divisive for sanity within the political arena, as we know.

Much divisive nonsense appears to be generated via a shadowy mix of NGOs, fluid activist groups and pop-up outfits tuned to a current cause coupled with opaque funding. Even casual observation tells us that narratives promoted by many major politicians are derived from insanely divisive narratives with complex roots stretching well beyond traditional political discourse.

Whether politicians believe their deranged and divisive narratives is a problematic question, but they certainly advocate them and that’s what we observe. We don’t observe ‘beliefs’ or 'values' whatever they may be. It’s no good trying to tell UK politicians to stop listening to the sirens of divisive nonsense though. It has to stop working for them first.

The UN idea of 'investigation'

Interesting video on what the UN seems to expect from its internal 'investigators'. Not that we'd expect anything better from the UN.

 

From Sacred to Sacred

Deeply impressed with their sacred calling—for Mrs. Jackson would never have acknowledged that the Vicar’s wife held a position inferior to the Vicar’s—they argued that the whole world was God’s, and they God’s particular ministrants; so that it was their plain duty to concern themselves with the business of their fellows—and it must be confessed that they never shrank from this duty.

W. Somerset Maugham - The Hero (1901)


It is clear enough that many people with strong politically 'progressive' beliefs also regard their beliefs as sacred, and not to be questioned by outsiders. Neither do they shrink from their plain duty to concern themselves with the business of their fellows. 

It's a striking similarity which in recent decades has become too striking to be missed by even casual observation. Suppose we make some minor amendments to the above quote as an illustration.


Deeply impressed with their sacred calling—for Ms. Jackson would never have acknowledged that the Minister’s partner held a position inferior to the Minister’s—they argued that the whole world was One, and they its particular ministrants; so that it was their plain duty to concern themselves with the business of their fellows—and it must be confessed that they never shrank from this duty.

Not quite W. Somerset Maugham

Suppose we go on to try an older example -


...the perplexing mystery of the place was, Who belonged to the eighteen denominations? Because, whoever did, the labouring people did not.

Nor was it merely the stranger who noticed this, because there was a native organization in Coketown itself, whose members were to be heard of in the House of Commons every session, indignantly petitioning for acts of parliament that should make these people religious by main force.

Charles Dickens – Hard Times (1854)


Or by following the theme we could have -

...the perplexing mystery of the place was, Who belonged to the political denominations? Because, whoever did, the working people did not.

Nor was it merely the stranger who noticed this, because there was a native organization in Coketown itself, whose members were to be heard of in the House of Commons every session, indignantly petitioning for acts of parliament that should make these people politically progressive by main force.

Not quite Charles Dickens

Sharing content shock horror

Chris Gattringer has an interesting Brussels Signal piece on another example of the open advocacy of media censorship in Germany. Well worth reading within the context of the UK government's apparent wish to stamp out X.


German State PM under fire for demanding crackdown on news sites and social media

Daniel Günther, the Conservative Prime Minster of the German State of Schleswig-Holstein, has come under fire for publicly embracing censorship of critical news sites and social media...

On January 7, Günther, a prominent politician with the ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, had joined the talk show Markus Lanz on State broadcasting station ZDF, originally to talk about the danger of a US annexation of Greenland...

Günther said. “Whenever our coalition [of CDU and Social Democrats] got into difficulties, this always had to with the fact that politics is being influenced by how certain media are trying to push their own political agenda.”

Asked by the moderator who exactly he was referring to, Günther mentioned Nius, an online news portal founded in 2022 which is popular with German conservatives and right-wingers.

Günther was outraged that people in his own party were “reading such portals and sharing their content in WhatsApp groups”.

Three Faces

 

Destroying Our Sinecures

EU leader says Trump is ‘destroying world order’ after leaving ‘woke’ UN agreements

The move has been slammed by international leaders, with French President Emmanuel Macron saying the US is ‘breaking free from international rules’ and ‘gradually turning away’ from some of its allies.

‘Then there is the breakdown of values by our most important partner, the USA, which helped build this world order,’ he said.

‘It is about preventing the world from turning into a den of robbers, where the most unscrupulous take whatever they want, where regions or entire countries are treated as the property of a few great powers.’

There is much that we could say about this, but as it's Macron, anyone paying attention will detect the irony in about a millisecond, possibly less.

Strewth, after Macron bleating about 'international rules', 'the breakdown of values' and 'the world turning into a den of robbers' I need a strong coffee and dark chocolate. A very strong coffee. 

Snow

Fairly heavy overnight snow in our bit of Derbyshire but it seems to be thawing. Schools closed but main roads okay apparently. Thawed off the trees already, so not very picturesque unfortunately.

 

We may need to clear the table before
coffee on the patio this morning

Grinning into the abyss

Joseph Dinnage has an interesting CAPX piece on the way Britain trundles on in spite of having to endure ludicrous levels of political incompetence.

Britain’s leaders are grinning into the abyss

• Britain is succeeding only in how well it is faring under the weight of its own incompetence
• From migration to driving tests, our decision makers get nothing right
• We can only avert political and economic implosion for so long

‘Britain doesn’t need to become great again – it already is.’ That’s the flattering verdict of the former Polish ambassador to both the UK and USA, Piotr Wilczek, writing in the Spectator.

After the year-long gloom fest that was 2025, Wilczek’s positivity will come as a surprise to many. Descriptions of Britain as ‘one of the most astonishing places in the world’ and reminders that we are in fact ‘the sixth-largest economy on earth’ and home to some world’s best universities don’t chime with the experience of 82% of Britons who think the country is in a bad state.


The whole piece is well worth reading because the political incompetence, mendacity and chicanery are so obvious, yet predicting some kind of immanent collapse seems unwise. Daily life still goes on and the private sector held up well during the pandemic debacle in spite of the monumental mess it created.

As if things keep trundling along in spite of grossly incompetent political actors because they don't matter too much. They are merely actors, we know that, but perhaps when things become too embarrassing they are told to change the script or they are simply ignored.  

It isn't competent political oversight and serious decline is impossible to miss, but it is also slow enough to be corrected by honest, energetic and determined competence. Unfortunately we don't have that, but it could be done. Not by the major political parties though.


Zooming in with the microscope, our culture of political avoidance worsens even the smallest of issues. Take driving tests. We have a backlog of 1.1 million tests that were not taken in the 2020/21 financial year due to Covid pandemic, and around 360,000 of these have still not been booked. Last September, the average waiting time for a test was 22 weeks, but 70% of test centres reported waiting times of 24 weeks. Fixes have been suggested. Ellen Pasternack advocates rolling out Approved Driving Instructors to get through the backlog, in much the same way as volunteers were quickly trained to administer Covid vaccines. This is clearly too much like hard work for the Government, which is instead consulting on enshrining the delay into law by requiring learner drivers to wait six months before taking their test.

1% Elites Destroyed Our Cities

There is a connection here with the previous post, and the numerous international bodies sheltering ambitious, upper echelon people who have no obvious interest in or sympathy with ordinary people.

 

Bedrock

Full list as Trump announces US will leave 66 key organizations

U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that the United States would withdraw from dozens of international and United Nations entities, claiming they "operate contrary to U.S. national interests."

The decision targets 35 non-UN groups and 31 UN entities, including a crucial climate treaty and a UN body promoting gender equality and women's empowerment. Among these is the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, widely considered the "bedrock" climate treaty and parent agreement to the 2015 Paris climate deal.

Nobody paying attention is surprised. Presumably these 'key organisations' will have been identified as bureaucratic money swamps or worse and the US is no longer keen on funding them. Good, here in the UK we should do the same, but we won't. 

To take just one example, we've known for decades that the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is not worth funding, but there are many others such as the NRDC, another outfit playing the global climate game.


"The United States would be the first country to walk away from the UNFCCC," said Manish Bapna, president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Multi-hazard event

Met Office warns of 'multi-hazard' weather event this week as Storm Goretti named

Weather forecasters have issued a warning about a 'multi-hazard' event hitting the UK this week. And a new storm has also been named.

The Met Office says the current cold snap will continue before a deep area of low pressure threatens to bring further snow, strong winds and heavy rain to southern parts of the UK from Thursday night. Meteo France has named the low Storm Goretti, as the worst of the wind impacts are expected to be felt across northern France.


Infantilising everything, even the weather, isn't likely to end well. Pseudo-technical language which isn't technical and barely counts as language because it's a language-game fronting an agenda, that doesn't help either.

AI Blog Clicks

 

As some may have noticed from the left-hand panel, AI systems seem to be scanning some of my old blog posts, thereby giving a hefty boost to the apparent reader stats.

I don't know if AI systems find the posts particularly interesting as they don't leave any comments. Probably just as well.

Two Headlines

German media faces political censorship under EU-driven legislation

German newsrooms and tech companies may soon face searches and material seizures without a judicial warrant under a new draft law approved by the federal cabinet.

The news has raised alarm over an EU-driven expansion of state oversight of the media in Germany...

The draft law seeks to transpose EU rules on political advertising into German national law in what has been called a strict and intrusive form.

Legal experts warn it poses a serious threat to freedom of expression, largely because it relies on EU regulations which define “political advertising” broadly and vaguely.

Starmer prepares Brexit 'reset' bill to align UK with EU law

Sir Keir Starmer is preparing a bill which would hand ministers powers to bring the UK into alignment with EU law, as part of an attempt to reduce paperwork and boost growth in Britain.

The bill, which will be brought forward this year as part of the government’s Brexit reset, would give ministers overarching powers to bring the UK in line with EU law in certain areas, such as food standards, animal welfare and pesticide use – a process known as dynamic alignment.

It's not a high bar

Leading AI expert delays timeline for its possible destruction of humanity

A leading artificial intelligence expert has rolled back his timeline for AI doom, saying it will take longer than he initially predicted for AI systems to be able to code autonomously and thus speed their own development toward superintelligence.

Daniel Kokotajlo, a former employee of OpenAI, sparked an energetic debate in April by releasing AI 2027, a scenario that envisions unchecked AI development leading to the creation of a superintelligence, which – after outfoxing world leaders – destroys humanity.


As we've always had to cope with major acts of human destruction, it may not be a high bar for AI to achieve. 

Constant official harassment over environmental issues for example, what level of destruction is this likely to bring? Will AI make it far worse than anything the Greens can achieve alone?

 

My experience as PM

‘My experience as PM is of frustration at a whole bunch of regulations, consultations and ALBs’

After about a year and a half in the country’s top job, Keir Starmer has told a committee of MPs about the biggest operational challenges he has so far encountered

“My experience now as prime minister is of frustration that every time I go to pull a lever there are a whole bunch of regulations, consultations, arm’s-length bodies that mean that the action from pulling the lever to delivery is longer than I think it ought to be, which is among the reasons why I want to cut down on regulation, generally and within government,” he added.


Presumably the EU doesn't count as a conglomeration of "arm's-length bodies". Maybe the length of the arms makes a difference - many kilometres long in the case of the EU.

Labour’s best hope

Burnham 'is Labour’s best hope of keeping Farage out of No10'

Andy Burnham represents Labour’s best hope of keeping Nigel Farage out of No 10, Britain’s leading pollster has warned, as well as asserting that Sir Keir Starmer “doesn’t have the skill set for Downing Street”.

In a scathing assessment, Professor Sir John Curtice accused the prime minister of not having a vision for the country and said he does not believe Sir Keir can “learn to be a politician” in the new year...

To an outsider, this seems rather basic, the idea that a politician should learn to be a politician before becoming a politician. It's almost as if the other Labour politicians didn't notice that this politician has no idea how to do politics before they promoted him to Top Politician. Only then did they find out - must have been quite a surprise.   

Meanwhile we have some alternatives. For example -

Turning to Ms Rayner, who is a popular choice on the left of the party and has been tipped for a cabinet return, he raised questions over whether she could face similar problems to Sir Keir...

“Could Rayner craft a vision? And does she have the skill set for 10 Downing Street? We know Starmer doesn’t, but does she?”


Does Sir John mean this kind of craft?

 

Starmer vows to resist

Starmer vows to resist leadership challenges

Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to fight any coup launched against his leadership this year and intends to still be Prime Minister come 2027.

In an interview with the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Sir Keir argued that switching leaders would be a “gift” to Nigel Farage and was against the “national interest”...

At another point he said bringing about political “chaos” by changing leader “would gift Nigel Farage”, the Reform leader whose party has been top in opinion polls since April.


Something Keir Starmer seems unable to grasp is the placing of emphasis. As F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote nearly a century ago, emphasis moulds the confusion of life and this includes the confusion of politics.

My mind, brightened by the lights and the cheerful tumult, suddenly grasped the fact that all achievement was a placing of emphasis — a molding of the confusion of life into form.

F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Bowl (1928)


Instead of using emphasis to mould debates and narratives, Stamer adds to confusion by his reliance on dull clichés and sound bites. He never seems to know where to put the emphasis to mould an interview, debate or even a speech. As if even in his own mind he emphasises the wrong things in the wrong way.

Diminished 2

There are also suggestions that Donald Trump's action in Venezuela has diminished the international stature of the EU.

Diminished

There are suggestions that Donald Trump's action in Venezuela has diminished the international stature of UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.   

Sir Keir Starmer

 

A Green Guide to the Future

Asparagus fortune teller says 2026 will bring election and arrest of former royal

A fortune teller who predicts the future by throwing asparagus says a general election is to take place this year and a former member of the Royal Household will be arrested. Jemima Packington, 69, previously foretold the Queen's death, Brexit and Boris Johnson becoming Prime Minister. She believes this year will be packed with more political upheaval and scandal.

The mystic is the world's only "asparamancer" and says she can see into the future by tossing asparagus spears into the air and predicting the days ahead based on how they land. Jemima has now revealed her top predictions for 2026 - warning of a change in Downing Street, "dramatic" election results in the US and major flooding causing chaos in the UK.

Maybe this approach could be used for a genuinely sustainable climate prediction system. One for Ed Miliband to investigate I reckon.

 The first prediction is interesting too.

1. There will be a general election in the UK as political resignations abound.

The octopus sprawl of government

Just over a century ago, in 1922, Canadian political scientist, writer and humourist Stephen Leacock published My Discovery of England, his impressions and observations of England acquired during a visit.

The quote below illustrates how early the octopus sprawl of government had became obvious to this outsider, albeit a political scientist. In 1922 Leacock described it as This vast new system, so presumably it could be described as new in 1922. 

This vast new system, the system of leaning on the government, is spreading like a blight over England and America, and everywhere we suffer from it. Government, that in theory represents a union of effort and a saving of force, sprawls like an octopus over the land. It has become like a dead weight upon us. Wherever it touches industry it cripples it. It runs railways and makes a heavy deficit: it builds ships and loses money on them: it operates the ships and loses more money: it piles up taxes to fill the vacuum and when it has killed employment, opens a bureau of unemployment and issues a report on the depression of industry.

Stephen Leacock - My Discovery of England (1922)

Lessons learned eh?