BP legs it

SNP calls for 'decisive action' as BP reveals plan to sell North Sea operations

The firm announced on Friday its operations in the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS) would be “better positioned as part of another company”...

Responding to the news, UK Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh said: “I’m in close contact with BP and have made clear that my priority is ensuring that the workers and local community are protected during this sale process.

“The North Sea is a vital national asset and we will take a pragmatic approach, recognising that oil and gas will be part of our energy mix for years to come.

“I’m focused on doing right by the workers in the North Sea who have powered this country for generations.”


Another angle -


Tax Regime and Investment Climate

As opposed to the other major North Sea oil and gas producer Norway, Britain's tax regime on the industry in recent years has been marked by successive changes, decried by oil and gas companies for deterring investment.

"This decision is another stark reminder that confidence in the UK Continental Shelf has been badly shaken after years of policy uncertainty, punitive taxation and mixed messages about the future of the industry," said Russell Borthwick, chief of the Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce, which comprises many UK oil and gas producers.

Some Blairs are more equal than others

Tim Blair has an incisively entertaining Quadrant piece on an extremely late confession by Tony Blair -

 

"We can’t solve climate change by imposing costs on our own businesses and consumers when the rest of the world is not doing the same."

Indeed we can't. The whole piece is well worth reading.


Side Quests and Symbolic Gestures

Some Blairs are more equal than others. Tony Blair, for example, isn’t the most rapid of our clan when it comes to gaining awareness of plainly observable facts.

When he catches up, though, it’s a matter for at least some familial pride. It’s kind of like watching your child take their very first steps—except they’re eight years old and still a bit wobbly.

The other day, former British Prime Minister Blair said something that until recently was for his UK Labour Party basically unsayable. He told a British radio host that Labour should drop its obsession with climate change.

The host, seeking clarification on this evident heresy, asked if Blair was actually calling for the British government to completely abandon its green energy targets—which according to modern leftist fable will quickly lead us to a net zero holy land.

“Yes, I am,” Blair replied, gloriously, “because Britain’s emissions are under one per cent of global emissions. We can’t solve climate change by imposing costs on our own businesses and consumers when the rest of the world is not doing the same.”

Pegs and Holes

This video kicked off a train of thought where I imagined a hierarchy represented by a triangular wooden board with holes in it and wooden pegs in the holes. 

Over the years an apex peg may become loose, fall out and be lost. A new peg from a hole further down the board is placed in the vacant hole – and so on down the board. The holes endure, the pegs don't.

Can you deny grass?

Federal scientist picked by Trump fights back at being called a ‘climate denier’ – ‘How exactly do you deny a noun? Can you deny baseball? Can you deny grass? Can you deny mountains? Climate exists’

Dr. Matthew M. Wielicki, Director – United States Global Change Research Program: “How can I simultaneously ‘deny climate change’ while constantly talking about past climate changes, ice ages, warm periods, droughts, floods, and the natural variability recorded throughout Earth’s history?”

A neat way of putting it, there are lots of other examples using proper nouns.

Can you deny Ed Miliband?

Can you deny the BBC?

Can you deny the Guardian?

Guided mindfulness works and other twaddle

Meet the new energy minister who believes lower growth is “good news”

Before becoming an MP, Katie White, the new energy minister advocated for GPs to treat “climate grief” and councils to pay for “guided mindfulness works”, reveals Arthur Reynolds

Last week, I brought news of our new Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh’s crusade against cars.

Since then, things have gotten worse. Andy Burnham has made a former professional climate campaigner her number two.


It's worth making a valiant attempt to imagine suggesting that GPs should treat climate grief.

It's worth making another valiant attempt to imagine suggesting that councils should pay for guided mindfulness works.

It's worth making yet another valiant attempt to imagine appointing Katie White as Energy Secretary.

It's worth making a final valiant attempt to imagine voting for this person after having checked her "career".

Miracle

Cambridge’s diversity poster boy faces questions over ‘miracle’ 600-mile run

The Cambridge professor at the centre of a plagiarism row is facing questions over claims he has made about his athletic prowess and charity fundraising.

Prof Jason Arday says he once ran 600 miles in six days for charity, 300 miles in three days, and 30 marathons in 35 days, partly with a broken leg.

But experts in ultra-distance running have cast doubt on his claims, expressing surprise that he is not known in the ultra-distance community despite achievements that would put him among the world's top athletes.

Prof Arday also claims to have been a professional footballer and snooker player, and to have raised £5.5m for more than 70 charities.

The mess we're in

Carers should be best paid in society, not the worst, says Burnham

Carers should be the best paid people in society, not the worst, Andy Burnham has said as he set out plans for sweeping reform of the social care system.

The prime minister said that social care in England was as unfair as American healthcare as he reflected on the many people forced to whittle down their pensions and savings to care for family members due to the current system...

The prime minister - who teared up as he spoke about his father who is currently receiving care for Alzheimer’s - said it was a “major dereliction of public duty” that politicians had failed for decades to resolve the crisis in social care.


By gum, Burnham is certainly distancing himself from Starmer the uncaring automaton. Taking it too far in my view, bringing in his unfortunate father and talking about a "major dereliction of public duty”. Somewhat distasteful I reckon, but he is a politician.

We may go on to ask what a "public duty" is, but it would be unwise to expect a coherent response other than more words embedded in an economically and socially incoherent ideology.

The mess we're in runs deeper than this.

Burnham calls the Uniparty together

Burnham to hold cross-party talks on fixing crisis in adult social care

Andy Burnham will hold a cross-party meeting to discuss tackling the crisis in adult social care, as he pledged to “put everything I’ve got” into fixing the system.

Both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats accepted the Prime Minister’s invitation “to build that spirit of collaboration from the start”, however, Nigel Farage hit out at Mr Burnham for ignoring Reform UK.

Mr Burnham said governments have, for decades, failed to tackle reform of social care in England, seeing it as “too risky, too difficult, and too complicated”.

Not only has Burnham called the Uniparty together, he has defined it - as Nigel Farage points out. Farage is probably right about a plan to increase taxes too, Burnham is trying to share responsibility with the rest of the Uniparty. 


Mr Farage criticised the Prime Minister for not extending an invite to his party, which “led over 300 national opinion polls and represents thousands of councillors and millions of Britons across the country”.

He claimed it is “uniparty in action”, adding: “It’s now clear that Burnham is conspiring behind closed doors with the failed political establishment to foist further tax rises on the country.”

As trust in the Church of England collapses

Rev Fergus Butler-Gallie has a very interesting Critic piece on the corrosive effect of managerialism within the Church of England. 

Missionaries, not management consultants

As trust in the Church of England collapses, its leaders are prescribing more of the very managerialism that created the problem

The dust is only just beginning to settle from General Synod. I know it might sound preposterous to talk about the Church of England’s parliament in terms redolent of a gunfight in the Old West: gunfights in the Old West were often conducted in a friendlier spirit.

There were the usual vicious fights about sex, as bishops said one thing and then voted in a completely different way. There was an exceptionally unedifying scrap over a report into the State of Israel, which has possibly done serious harm to interfaith relationships. There was even a bit of rancour about Net Zero. A full house for 2026 Britain!

It is often said that the Church doesn’t represent the nation any more. Au contraire: this Synod showed it was the perfect mirror to the badly governed, divided and petty nation which it seeks to serve.

The whole piece is well worth reading even for long-time outsiders - the problem is severe enough to be clearly visible from the outside. 

The lack of trust in this, the institution par excellence of the nation ought to be a matter of national concern. The Church of England is in a bad state and it is increasingly clear that it cannot be trusted to appoint the leaders or engender the culture required to get itself out of that mess. That isn’t just an internal Church problem but, once again, shows that the Church’s problems are the nation’s too.

I find it difficult to really understand what happened behind the scenes

New Schuman roundabout is 'worst' possible outcome, says architect

The symbolic EU plaza has become a barren concrete lagoon, after three years of building work

  

Plan                                          Outcome

The man who redesigned the iconic Schuman roundabout, at the heart of the European quarter, has delivered a scathing verdict on the final result.

“We ended up really with the square that nobody wanted,” said Francis De Wolf, the leading Belgian architect on the project, told Euractiv...

“Now it’s too late in a way,” he said. It’s very unrealistic to imagine the canopy can still be built, he said, as it would require extensive building work to attach the foundations to the tunnels beneath the roundabout. “You’d have to break open the whole square again.”

De Wolf is baffled about how the project turned out so badly. “I’m not a politician … and I find it difficult to really understand what happened behind the scenes.”

One for Ed and Miatta

What’s behind North Korea’s coal industry push?

From miner housing to carbon neutrality, North Korea's coal strategy carries implications well beyond its borders

North Korea held the second plenary session of the ninth Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea from June 20 to 22. According to Rodong Sinmun, the party’s official newspaper, the meeting’s purpose was to review North Korea’s progress on 2026 party and state policies. These policies stem from strategic tasks set by the Ninth Party Congress and the new five year plan. The party also said it aimed to discuss and resolve pressing issues needed to put socialist construction on a stable, sustained path of development.

The second agenda item at the plenary session was titled “On Boosting the Coal Industry and Transforming Coal Mining Towns Nationwide.” North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said overcoming the coal sector’s remaining backwardness is an urgent task for the successful completion of the new five year plan.

What we need to counteract this horrific development is a determined visit to North Korea by a large delegation of UK climate protesters with their placards, soup and orange powder. This should attract Kim's attention and make him think again.

None of them would come back of course, a few people may see this as a disadvantage.


On March 15 this year, Kim visited the Chonsong Youth Coal Mine, part of the Sunchon Youth Coal Mining Complex in South Pyongan province, where he voted in Supreme People’s Assembly elections and met with miners. “For people to live, grain farming must go well,” he said. “For the state to live, coal farming must go well. Coal has been and remains the heart of our industry and the engine of our self-reliant economic development.”

Something to do with leopards and spots

Ed Miliband indicates development and climate will be at heart of UK foreign policy

Britain’s foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, is to indicate he will put the climate crisis and overseas development at the heart of UK international relations by taking up the country’s seat on the board at the World Bank.

The position, which is usually delegated to a junior minister, means Miliband will play an active role in shaping the changes to the World Bank that developing countries have called for, and ensuring the climate remains a core focus for overseas aid.

Miliband, who was energy and net zero secretary under Keir Starmer, will say: “International development is not an add-on to British foreign policy – it is central to it. By taking on the role of UK governor to the World Bank, I want to send an unambiguous signal that this government is serious about its global leadership on development and climate.”

The position is usually delegated to a junior minister? Didn't take Ed long to spot the opportunity and hop into the new role and the headlines. We may assume that he will have known about this move before accepting the role of Foreign Secretary and presumably hopes to pull Miatta Fahnbulleh's sustainability strings too, from a globalist position.

Maybe Burnham doesn't care about Ed's machinations and sees this move as a lone voice from a mysterious global outfit most voters don't understand. 

Yet in spite of his heavy focus on Manchester and repeated guff about the cost of living, Burnham is likely to be another globalist Prime Minister. No doubt we'll soon see how things pan out for Mad Ed.

The Kakistocracy

David King has a whimsical Quadrant piece on Australia as a Kakistocracy, entangled as it still is in Net Zero and the the ludicrous folly of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS).

The whole piece is well worth reading as we in the UK wonder if Miatta Fahnbulleh will turn out to be merely another servant of the UK Kakistocracy and  just as absurdly destructive as Ed Miliband.

An Ironic Blessing of ‘Atrocious Science’

While the tide finally seems to be turning in regard to realization of the futility of “Net Zero” – not only on economic grounds, but also because there is compelling scientific evidence that if accomplished it would have negligible effect on climate – there is an obstinate vocal rump who cannot, or just do not want to accept the scientific reality. Not least amongst them are our Chris Bowen and the UK’s Ed Milliband, two ministers driving policy agendas that amount to economic euthanasia.

The case against anthropogenic emissions having a material effect on climate spans observational data, theoretical analysis, and empirical (laboratory) testing ( see The Science is Settled); counter arguments appear to rely entirely on computer modeling of temperature even though model predictions have failed to match observed temperatures in both forecast and, surprisingly, hindcast. Sadly, persistence with with decarbonization/net zero policy agendas suggests that my earlier assessment that the Lucky Country is now a Kakistocracy (Green Idiocy’s Consequences) is increasingly apposite. These agendas have polluted our taxation systems, education priorities, corporate reporting obligations, research funding priorities, and more.

The 24-hour news cycle

The 24-hour news cycle is ruining politics

The relentless 24-hour news cycle and social media landscape have fundamentally altered political discourse by prioritizing quick, performative reactions over thoughtful deliberation, says Emma Revell

Of course, rolling news isn’t going anywhere. Unless politicians lose all semblance of control of their worst nannying instincts, neither is social media. And before we blame the hacks crowded on the Downing Street pavement, it’s worth remembering they’re only there because we’re watching. The doorstep circus runs on our attention. If we actually wanted politicians to think before they spoke, we might need to give them a moment in which to do it.

Some of us aren't watching though. Maybe public interest in 'the news' is dwindling and this also explains the 24-hour news cycle. 

Maybe it's big media engaged in frantic competition with social media and the smaller guys. The BBC is certainly becoming frantic in its attempts to avoid relying on a voluntary subscription model. 

Removed from the ballot paper

Klaus Bastian has an interesting Blackout News piece on political exclusion in Germany.

Exclusion from voting: Political opponents have AfD candidates removed from the ballot paper

Lower Saxony, July 2026: The exclusion of Bundestag member Martin Sichert from the election shows how political competition can be eliminated even before a vote. Reinhild Goes initially did not receive approval despite a recommendation for admission by the local election officer. The AfD district administrator candidate Stephan Bothe is also threatened with exclusion according to a recommendation of the Ministry of the Interior. On the other hand, the election committees admitted Jessica Schülke in Hanover and Robert Preuß in Gifhorn. The red-green local electoral law allows the evaluation of material from the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and political statements. Subsequently, party-political election committees decide on competing candidates. A full judicial review often only follows after the election. At the same time, UN Special Rapporteur Irene Khan criticizes such vague extremism assessments as "incompatible with international standards."

Ludwigshafen provided the blueprint for the exclusion from the election

Joachim Paul was not allowed to run in the mayoral election in Ludwigshafen in 2025. The election committee relied on material from the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. But the administrative courts did not fully examine the allegations before the vote. Instead, they referred Paul to the later election scrutiny procedure. Therefore, the election took place without the candidate of a party that was not banned.

The Politics Cartel

The word ‘Uniparty’ has been around for decades, especially in the US, but it’s a useful word here in the UK too. As any political sceptic knows, there is much to be said for viewing UK politics as a cartel which fixes the financial and political cost of being a supine voter– the Uniparty.

A few UK political parties offer only limited competition within cartel boundaries which are not explicit within their debates, manifestos or policies. Parties promote their particular political brand, but only within Uniparty boundaries and in so doing they fix the cost of being a supine voter - the cartel aspect.

This much is obvious enough, “they are all the same” is far from being an uncommon public comment at election time. Yet only a minority of voters seem to treat their frustration as being due a permanent political cartel where close party alignment is a feature, not a fault. Only a minority of voters seem to view the main political parties as one party and refer to it by a single name such as the Uniparty.

It is also clear, but clearly not clear enough, that the entire Establishment is a social and political cartel called rather vaguely the Elite, the Blob, the Swamp, the Kleptocracy or one of a number of other names. Or just the Establishment.

Unfortunately we are held back by language. The Establishment, the Uniparty, the mainstream media all have a tight grip on popular language, on how we articulate what goes on in the world of politics, how we articulate it to others and even to ourselves.

For example, within the boundaries of the Uniparty cartel, our current UK Prime Minister is described as a member of the Labour Party, which he is in a formal sense, but this means less than is usually assumed. He promotes himself and his party within constrained narratives formulated as typically Labour Party narratives, but always within Uniparty boundaries. What is not allowed is to change the way things are done in any radical way.

In other words, Andrew Burnham is the Uniparty Prime Minister from what we might call the Labour branch, but that is not what we hear from mainstream media. Neither do we usually hear it said that he represents the Establishment, the Blob, Davos, globalism, the Kleptocracy or whatever.

Powerfully useful words such as Uniparty are successfully relegated to the fringes of UK political discourse. The political cartel is successfully disguised because the main political parties do have different agendas, but within ill-defined but quite definite Uniparty and therefore Establishment boundaries.

Hence a major UK political question - where does Reform stand in all this?

 

Who pays for Manchesterism?

Shimeon Lee has a useful Critic piece on some of the ways in which Andrew Burnham's notion of “Manchesterism” is mostly about wasting other people's money. 

The whole piece is well worth reading for any UK citizen who feels unduly cheerful at the moment.


Who pays for Manchesterism?

Burnham spent nine years extracting money from Westminster, now he’ll be reaching directly into taxpayers’ pockets

Andy Burnham is now Prime Minister, and the country soon to discover what “Manchesterism” means when applied to the British state. Burnham’s nine years as mayor, alongside his earlier national record, offer a clear guide to the instincts he is likely to bring to No.10: a willingness to raise taxes, expand the state and prioritise policies that sound good but ultimately deliver poor value for money.

It is revealing that after being elected mayor in 2017, one of Burnham’s first acts was to impose a new charge on households in Greater Manchester. The new mayoral precept was initially set at £8 for the average band D property, funding the mayoral operation, including Burnham’s £110,000 salary. As so often happens with new charges, it did not remain modest for long. The charge more than doubled the following year, rising again in 2020-21, 2022-23, 2025-26 and 2026-27. By the time Burnham resigned to contest the Makerfield by-election, it had risen to £61.75, nearly eight times the original amount in less than a decade.

As residents paid more, the mayor built an increasingly elaborate network of advisers, commissioners and panels funded by taxpayers. These included a young person’s advisor paid £500 per day, a transport commissioner and an active travel commissioner each paid £650 per day, and an LGBTQ+ advisor paid £177 per day. He also established seven equality panels facilitated by “culturally appropriate organisations” which cost £392,435 a year. Taxpayers can only speculate how much larger that ecosystem could become when he takes control of Whitehall.

When 'Harder' means 'Impossible'

Angela Rayner rules out rent controls as she admits 1.5million home pledge getting harder to meet

She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “It certainly got more challenging, and we’ve seen things like construction costs go up etc, which has had a real negative impact on that.

“But I’m not dropping it. I’m just saying that it is a really difficult stretched target.”

Pressed again, she said: “Yeah, I’m going to keep the target, but it’s like me saying I’m going to run the London Marathon in under five hours.

“That would be a real challenge for me, but I’d do it… Look, I am straight talking.

As Angela accepted this thoroughly poisoned chalice we may as well assume that she doesn't expect to be the one holding it when the next general election descends on us.  

Maybe she doesn't expect Burnham to be the one dishing out ministerial jobs by then either.

  

Shameless cherry-picking

Nigel Farage is now even less popular than Starmer just before his resignation

Nigel Farage’s popularity among the public has plummeted to its lowest level in the past ten years, a new YouGov survey has found, placing him below Keir Starmer just before the PM resigned.

The pollster found just 22% have a favourable view of the Reform UK leader, while 68% are unfavourable – including 56% who say they are very unfavourable.

That 46% gap between his negative and positive rating is bigger than the 45% recorded by Starmer before he announced he was stepping down.


A chap does not have to support Farage in order to notice that this is shameless cherry-picking. The story is correct if you choose a YouGov poll and ignore polls from Deltapoll, Opinium, More in Common, Survation, Freshwater Strategy and Ipsos.

The variation in results is very large too, that would be worth mentioning, but of course data uncertainties are not what the story is about.

Easily checked too.

Worth a reminder in these milk-livered times

Our brand-new Burnham government is surely a reminder of various Shakespearian insult generators out there on the internet. 

Worth a reminder in these milk-livered times.

Thy manners are borrowed from a goat’s backside!

Thy wits are as sharp as a mashed turnip!

Thy tongue flaps more than a sailor's laundry!

Thou jarring, milk-livered hobbledehoy!

Source - but there are others

It's going to be stunts and buses all the way down

Andy Burnham says £2 bus fare cap 'will put money in people's pockets'

 

Source

Prompted by casual interest, I had a quick gander at the number of photo op images showing Burnham with a bus - there are loads of them. 

I bet he collects them.

A barefoot protest would be more convincing

Approval of new drilling in North Sea ‘would break Labour’s manifesto’

Protesters, who were dressed as firefighters in front of a banner reading ‘world on fire’, gathered in London.

 

Source

Could be wrong, but from what I see those people are wearing shoes mostly made from oil-derived products such as polyurethane, nylon and EVA.

A barefoot protest would be more convincing. Not much more convincing in summer though.

A world of difference

Several people dismissed from French ministries after positive drug tests

Several people working in French ministerial offices and the wider state administration have been removed from their positions after testing positive for drugs, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has confirmed.

The revelation comes after Lecornu ordered an unprecedented campaign of surprise and mandatory saliva tests among ministerial staff, senior civil servants and officials with access to sensitive information.

“There have been positive tests, and people have been removed from their positions,” Lecornu said, without giving a precise number or identifying those involved.

There is a world of difference as to the resulting knowledge between a cursory observation that notes only generalities and an attentive examination that considers particular details.

R. Austin Freeman - The Surprising Experiences of Mr. Shuttlebury Cobb (1927)

The Burnham regime seems to be crumbling already

Trump 'will not forget' Miliband criticism as appointment sparks anger

• Ed Miliband's appointment as Foreign Secretary under new Prime Minister Andy Burnham has caused the White House to be “deeply concerned.”
• Sources close to President Donald Trump warn he "will not forget" Miliband's past scathing criticisms, including calling him a "racist, misogynistic, self-confessed groper."
• Miliband is viewed in Washington as an "unreasonable 'nut zero' extremist" due to his climate stance and perceived blocking of North Sea oil production.

Naturally Miliband will emit some ameliorative language to downplay his inability to govern his tongue, particularly in a role where this matters. It's a poor appointment though, a posturing extremist such as Ed Miliband should have been shown the door.

It's an indication that the Burnham regime is already showing significant cracks. He does not have an abundance of pragmatic and capable people free from damaging ideologies and seems to be unaware of it. Or he lacks the political courage to do anything about it. Cracks either way.

Angela Rayner Is Back

It's a bit early to parody Angela...

Hmm - no it isn't.

A very bad, bad, bad, bad, bad call

David Dimbleby ‘appalled’ by BBC making ‘very bad call’ to cut up to 2,000 jobs

David Dimbleby has said he is “appalled” by cuts at the BBC which will result in up to 2,000 people losing their jobs.

The national broadcaster aims to make £500 million in savings over two years, with job cuts announced in April set to take place over the next three years.

Speaking to Radio Times, the former Question Time host, 87, expressed his dismay at the decision.

“Why on earth have they done that? The best analysis of politics, both national and international… I’m appalled. Very bad, bad, bad, bad, bad call,” he said.

Oh come on David, the dear old BBC is doing its best to insert its clammy corporate hand into the taxpayer's pocket - what more do you want?

Do we assume that a BBC subscription service would be a very bad, bad, bad, bad, bad call in your world? Does it hand over too much choice to the plebs - something like that?

Do we also assume that having to pay for a BBC licence merely to watch live events on paid subscription services such as Sky is not  a very bad, bad, bad, bad, bad call?

Let us proactively invest in some twaddle

As we have a brand new, fresh from the political hothouse Prime Minister and a proactive new wave of government decision-makers, we should look to the future and begin this fine Tuesday morning with some aspirational twaddle.

Preparing for the next wave of decision-makers

Across organisations, a generational shift is already under way. Generation Z, those born from the late 1990s onwards, are entering the workforce in growing numbers and bring with them distinct expectations, values and a redefinition of what leadership looks like.

By 2030, Gen Z and millennials will account for nearly 75% of the global workforce. Ambition has not diminished, it has evolved. As noted by Forbes, only a small proportion see leadership as an immediate goal, while a much larger cohort still aspires to senior roles over time, provided these roles align with wellbeing and sustainable workloads.

Research suggests that organisations that proactively invest in this next generation of leaders are already seeing benefits in greater adaptability, more inclusive cultures, and stronger alignment with purpose-driven work, as research links inclusive leadership and development investment to improved organisational adaptability, innovation, and employee engagement. The message is clear - preparing Gen Z for leadership is not a future consideration, it is an immediate strategic priority.

It was in 1915 the old world ended

In D. H. Lawrence’s 1923 novel Kangaroo, his main character Richard Lovat Somers realises that the Britain he once knew had ended in 1915 –

 

Awful years—’16, ’17, ’18, ’19—the years when the damage was done. The years when the world lost its real manhood. Not for lack of courage to face death. Plenty of superb courage to face death. But no courage in any man to face his own isolated soul, and abide by its decision. Easier to sacrifice oneself. So much easier!

It was in 1915 the old world ended. In the winter 1915-1916 the spirit of the old London collapsed; the city, in some way, perished, perished from being a heart of the world, and became a vortex of broken passions, lusts, hopes, fears, and horrors. The integrity of London collapsed, and the genuine debasement began, the unspeakable baseness of the press and the public voice, the reign of that bloated ignominy, John Bull.

No man who has really consciously lived through this can believe again absolutely in democracy. No man who has heard reiterated in thousands of tones from all the common people, during the crucial years of the war: “I believe in John Bull. Give me John Bull,” can ever believe that in any crisis a people can govern itself, or is ever fit to govern itself. During the crucial years of the war, the people chose, and chose Bottomleyism*. Bottom enough.

The well-bred, really cultured classes were on the whole passive resisters. They shirked their duty. It is the business of people who really know better to fight tooth and nail to keep up a standard, to hold control of authority. Laisser-aller is as guilty as the actual, stinking mongrelism it gives place to.

It was in mid-winter 1915 that Somers and Harriet went down to Cornwall. The spirit of the war—the spirit of collapse and of human ignominy, had not travelled so far yet. It came in advancing waves.

We hear so much of the bravery and horrors at the front. Brave the men were, all honour to them. It was at home the world was lost. We hear too little of the collapse of the proud human spirit at home, the triumph of sordid, rampant, raging meanness. “The bite of a jackal is blood-poisoning and mortification.” And at home stayed all the jackals, middle-aged, male and female jackals. And they bit us all. And blood-poisoning and mortification set in.

We should never have let the jackals loose, and patted them on the head. They were feeding on our death all the while.

 
D. H. Lawrence - Kangaroo (1923)

* A reference to Horatio Bottomley

Serious Scrumping

Hunger drives North Korean children to raid state orchards

Even farmworkers say the children deserve sympathy, not blame

Hunger is driving teenagers in Kwail county, South Hwanghae province, to sneak into state orchards this summer. They pick peaches and plums to eat on the spot or carry home. Guards increasingly look the other way rather than punish them. A source in the province described the pattern to Daily NK recently, pointing to worsening hunger among North Korean children in 2026.

Peaches and plums are now in season, the source said. In Kwail county, teenagers in groups of two or three have been slipping into orchards to eat fruit or take it home. “Orchard guards only shout to scare them off,” the source said. “They don’t chase after them to catch them.”

Kwail county is a hub of North Korea’s fruit industry, known mainly for apples but also producing pears, peaches, grapes, persimmons and apricots, according to the source. Most of the fruit grown there goes to central government officials and Pyongyang residents.

PM Possibles

While reflecting on the way Andrew Burnham was shoved into No 10, a chap is bound to wonder if Labour could have chosen anyone at all, not necessarily a politician. 

Someone acceptable to the Labour Party, well known and a party member of course. Yet presumably membership could have been sorted for a public figure who was not a politician but might be interested in a spell as UK Prime Minister.

For example, should they so choose, were Labour Party fixers able to nudge famous people such as Gary Lineker, Lenny Henry or Stephen Fry into giving it a go via a safe seat, just as Burnham did?

Just a thought while I finish my morning coffee.

Germany in decline

Germany in decline: Foreign media see the disintegration of infrastructure and industry

In July 2026, foreign media are increasingly reporting on Germany in decline. British and Spanish newspapers as well as international business media combine railway chaos, dilapidated bridges, Stuttgart 21 and the crisis at Volkswagen into a comprehensive picture. They describe an economy whose infrastructure is decaying, whose industry is losing its competitiveness and whose government is not initiating any reforms that really help. The criticism no longer concerns individual mishaps, but Germany's economic and state ability to act.

Germany in decline becomes the judgment of foreign media

The British magazine "The Spectator" published the article "Germany is quietly disintegrating" on July 6. The author refers to unpunctual trains, closed bridges and the threat of job cuts at Volkswagen. He describes the reaction of the federal government as a "shrug of the shoulders that is sold as a reform". Germany once embodied technical reliability and industrial strength. In the meantime, the question arises as to why Europe's largest economy is no longer able to repair its own bridges in time.

My impression from the outside is that Germany cannot elect political parties with enough nous and determination to do anything about decline. Surely the crisis at Volkswagen must have some political impact.

The political situation seems to similar to that in the UK, voting for worthwhile reform isn't happening. We've just been landed with a dud from Manchester as Prime Minister who even at this early stage seems to think going back to the 1970s is a good idea.

Nothing to do with me

PM Mark Carney Blames Canada Wildfires on — ‘Climate Change Is Everyone’s Responsibility’

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney dismissed the possibility that his government could be doing more to contain the out-of-control wildfires ravaging Ontario this week and sending toxic smoke down to flood much of the American Midwest and Northeast, demanding the United States do more to fight alleged “climate change.”

The comments, made during a press conference in Ontario, are Carney’s first in the aftermath of a torrent of outrage in the United States as millions of people were told not to leave their homes on Thursday to avoid becoming sick from inhaling Canadian fire smoke. Disillusion at the inaction by the Canadian government is also reportedly growing among the First Nations communities most directly affected by the fires, including some that have burned to the ground entirely and found little to no support from Ottawa.

Canada’s extensive forests have traditionally experienced regular summer fire seasons, controlled through indigenous methods such as controlled burns and the removal of dry, dead tree branches and other material that serves as kindling for large fires. In the past decade, as the Canadian government has largely abandoned forest management as a national policy, these fires have grown larger, more dangerous, and more polluting. The Canadian government has no federal emergency response agency and no national fire authority, leaving the country’s provinces on their own to respond to the fires.

What an odious chap Carney is, but he has at least confirmed what he is, a man who will never accept responsibility for anything he may righteously choose to disown. He has also confirmed that this is a major political attraction of the climate game, the adaptable righteousness.

Would Andrew Burnham accept at least some responsibility in similar circumstances? Probably not.

Bridgnorth Litter Pickers do it themselves

An entertaining little insight into the reality of everyday bureaucracy.

The Noodles of Power

Some interesting comments about the levers of power from former No 10 insiders - Burnham may find those levers have been softened to the consistency of noodles.

Will Andy Burnham spark an exodus of London’s middle classes?

Andy Burnham has had it easy, at least compared with what will hit him when he walks through the door of No 10.

“He’s going to get the shock of his life when he sees how degraded and different it is from what it was when he left,” says former deputy cabinet secretary Helen MacNamara. “People who haven’t been in government since 2016 are really clueless about how different it is. People feel powerless.”...

Yet Burnham has largely still to answer how he will pay for his radical reforms. Having broadly committed to Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s fiscal rules, he has ruled out ramping up borrowing and has shown few signs of making significant welfare savings.

So that leaves a third possible option — tax rises. “If he does follow through on some of his tax and spend rumours, we might actually see an exodus of people... the middle class essentially starting to go,” says Cleo Watson, deputy chief-of-staff to Boris Johnson when he was Prime Minister.

But we already know this - so do the Labour MPs who shoved Burnham into No 10.

Expect gibberish and gesticulation

Trump threatens Canada with tariffs for smoke blanketing the US

President Donald Trump on Friday threatened to impose additional tariffs on Canada, blaming the country for wildfire smoke that has blanketed large swaths of the United States.

“We are holding Canada responsible for the fact that they are not properly maintaining their Forests, and Brush therein, and the United States is being unnecessarily invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air, the quality of which is dangerous, and totally unacceptable,” the Republican president wrote on Truth Social Friday afternoon.

Trump added that he planned to call Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to discuss how his government intends to respond.

Trump won't get much out of Carney apart from gibberish - and maybe some gesticulation.

It was a mere basic inability to front novel situations which was somehow in the dragoman; he retreated from everything difficult in a smoke of gibberish and gesticulation.

Stephen Crane - Active Service (1899)

By gum this is horribly uninspiring - he doesn't know what to do next

 

A Litany of False Claims

Robert Bradley Jr. has a useful and interesting MasterResource piece on years of broken "clean energy" promises in the US.


False Optimism, Broken Promises of Wind and Solar Advocates

“… I also know this credit won’t go on forever. It was never meant to, and it shouldn’t…. I have expressed support in the past for a responsible, multi-year phase out of the wind tax credit. But…”

– Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), an original author of the 1992 Production Tax Credit (PTC)

Special government favor has propped up solar power since the 1970s and wind power since the early 1990s. One decade turning into the next, the (not-so) “clean energy” lobby has repeatedly made promises that their technologies are, or soon will be, competitive with electricity generated from natural gas, petroleum, or coal.

Documentation of this failure is well reported here at MasterResource and by the Institute for Energy Research. This particular post reproduces in large part a 2015 piece by the American Energy Alliance (IER), “Wind Fail: 20 Quotes for 30 Years of False Hopes.”

A Litany of False Claims

It turns out that wind promoters like Sen. Grassley and AWEA have long made claims that wind would soon be cost competitive and that the PTC would not be needed forever. Here are of some of their claims over the years:

The whole piece is well worth reading as the optimism is just as false, the promises just as broken here in the UK.


Conclusion

The American Wind Energy Association surely knew in 2015 that their claims about wind being cost competitive were untrue. Without the PTC, no one would build wind turbines. As Warren Buffet said, “On wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.”

The dirty linen is collected and shamefully hurried away

UK's Burnham will pledge to be 'unashamedly Labour' as party leader

Andy Burnham will promise to be “unashamedly Labour” when he officially becomes the party’s leader on Friday before taking over from Keir Starmer as prime minister next week.

He will say in a speech that his government will have the “courage to fix the big things that politics has neglected” and the “conviction to argue for our plans”.

The former Greater Manchester mayor, who returned to Westminster last month as Makerfield member of parliament (MP), will be confirmed as Labour leader in a special conference and then enter No 10 on Monday.


Monday morning is a strenuous but somehow a glad morning in respectable households of regular habits. The clean linen is brought out in lovely white piles from the linen cupboard and distributed over the house, and the dirty linen is collected and shamefully hurried away and catalogued in a place without honour and thrown pell-mell in baskets and despatched, and then everybody has a sweet sense of relief.

Arnold Bennett - Elsie and the Child (1924)

An idiot’s guide to promoting “public health” policies

Christopher Snowdon has a delightfully incisive Critic piece on the authoritarian games played by those tedious food moralists who insist on promoting useless "public health" policies.

An idiot’s guide to promoting “public health” policies

How to make irrational authoritarian moralism sound like urgent common sense

The Health and Care Committee has published a report calling for yet another slew of anti-obesity policies. After taking “evidence” from such experts as the orthorexic children’s entertainer Chris van Tulleken and some “youth activists” from Jamie Oliver’s front group BiteBack, it has called for a ban on fast food outlets opening near schools, a ban on all outdoor advertising of high fat, sugar or salt (HFSS) food, a ban on companies associated with such foods advertising themselves even if they are not advertising an HFSS product, and a ban on companies which “derive more than a certain proportion of sales from less healthy products from any discussions on the formation of policy on food, diet and obesity prevention.”


The whole piece is well worth reading for the way it eviscerates political delusions of grandeur.


Most parliamentarians are powerless pygmies with delusions of grandeur. Having no answers to the big problems facing the country, they indulge themselves in the displacement politics of petty prohibition. They want to be seen as heroic, so be sure to flatter them by portraying the policy you are proposing as “bold” and “brave”. When the Health Committee proposed a sugar tax in 2015, it subtitled its report “Brave and Bold Action”. Jamie Oliver urged ministers to be “big and bold”. This week’s report from the Health and Social Care Committee uses the words “bold” or “bolder” six times. The first line of the press release calls for “a new, bold approach”. The committee’s chair, Layla Moran, said: “We ask this government to be bold, not to fudge and delay food restrictions.”

The Atomic Trampoline

 

Translating BBC Newspeak

New BBC boss pushes for new 'household levy' to replace licence fee: All would have to pay

levy = tax

Director-general Matt Brittin said he was 'open to all options' to fund the broadcasting giant after it was revealed that licence fee income has dropped by more than £1billion in real terms in the last decade.

open = not open

'We need universality, we need sufficiency,' he added.

need = want

A household levy would mean everyone pays a mandatory fee to the BBC regardless of whether people watch or listen to its programmes. The charge could be levied alongside utility bills, proponents of the idea say.

fee = tax

Mr Brittin stressed the need for the BBC to reinvent itself.

reinvent = entrench

And so on - BBC Newspeak, a special survival version. 

He waxes desperate with imagination

Starmer: I’ve left Britain better than I found it

Sir Keir Starmer has claimed he is leaving Britain in a better state than when he became Prime Minister.

During his final Prime Minister’s Questions today, the outgoing Labour leader said his Government had stabilised the economy, strengthened national security and enhanced the country’s global reputation.

Since winning a landslide victory in the 2024 general election, Sir Keir’s premiership has been blighted by a series of policy about-turns and scandals.

A man who is playing a part is always ultra-anxious and he often overdoes it, because he can never quite release himself from the fear that the person to be deluded must somehow notice what he, the deceiver, so plainly sees, i.e., the deceit.

J.M.W. van der Poorten Schwartz – The Black Box Murder (1889)

Expect to be poorer

McFadden: Labour cannot ‘just write cheques’ to benefit claimants

Pat McFadden has declared that Labour must stop “simply writing a cheque” to benefit claimants...

More than eight million people are claiming Universal Credit, according to the Department for Work and Pensions, up by 830,000 in the space of a year.

Britain’s ballooning welfare bill is set to rise by £74bn in the next four years to reach £406bn by the end of the decade.

However, Sir Keir Starmer’s attempts to cut the welfare bill by £5bn last summer prompted a backbench revolt by more than 100 Labour MPs. The Prime Minister was eventually forced to climb down on the measure and introduce a number of reviews instead...

Mr McFadden has privately complained about the attitude towards welfare in Labour ranks. The publication of the Mandelson files last month revealed that he had complained to the peer: “Every meeting I have is, ‘Who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others?’”


Some have said that McFadden would like to be Chancellor, but Andrew Burnham is just the chap to do less than nothing about this problem. 

Expect to be poorer seems to be the message.

Susan Hall tries the impossible - to shame the righteous

 

I don’t care a fig one way or t’other

Andy Burnham urged to change UK’s voting system before it’s 'too late'

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey is poised to urge Andy Burnham to introduce proportional representation before the next general election, warning that failure to act could render it "too late".

Speaking at the Institute for Government on Tuesday, Sir Ed is expected to caution that Labour may find itself "powerless to do anything" to alter the voting system once the election has ended.

He will appeal directly to Mr Burnham to collaborate, asserting that if Mr Burnham is "serious about changing the way we do politics", then his "door is open" for discussions.


“Oh, I’m entirely with you there,” said Dalloway. “Nobody can condemn the utter folly and futility of such behaviour more than I do; and as for the whole agitation, well! may I be in my grave before a woman has the right to vote in England! That’s all I say.”

The solemnity of her husband’s assertion made Clarissa grave. “It’s unthinkable,” she said. “Don’t tell me you’re a suffragist?” she turned to Ridley.

“I don’t care a fig one way or t’other,” said Ambrose. “If any creature is so deluded as to think that a vote does him or her any good, let him have it. He’ll soon learn better.”

Virginia Woolf - The Voyage Out (1915)

Political weather forecast – cliché showers blundering in from the north

Burnham vows to restore Labour’s ‘broad church’ in pledge to MPs

Andy Burnham has made a pitch to Labour MPs promising a change of culture in the way their views are valued after some complained that Keir Starmer had presided over “a reign of terror”.

In a one-candidate leadership hustings to MPs over Zoom on Monday evening, The Independent understands that Mr Burnham emphasised his desire to recognise that Labour “is a broad church” with a wide range of views.

A chap is bound to be uneasy about the use of clichés such as 'broad church' though. What do Fabian disciples worship these days apart from power? Do they still worship the wolf? 

As we know, the original Fabian Society coat of arms was a wolf in sheep's clothing. An early decision to run on clichés perhaps, a decision they seem to have taken to heart, but that's another cliché.

 

 

 

The Dim Squid Disaster

Squid Are Among the Most Intelligent Ocean Creatures. Climate Change Might Shrink Their Brains

Squid are among the scholars of the deep. Distributed across all of the world’s oceans, the 375 squid species can navigate mazes, cooperatively hunt, communicate via color change, recognize individual humans, and learn from past experiences—such as remembering how to escape from an enclosure. Neuron by neuron, squid have brains about as complex as that of dogs, and along with octopuses and cuttlefish, are the most intelligent invertebrates in the world. But the squid brain is in danger.

According to a new study presented at the Society for Environmental Biology conference in Florence, Italy, in early July, as levels of oceanic carbon dioxide grow greater, the brain of at least one species of squid is growing smaller.

Despite Ed's efforts

Fossl fuels at record levels worldwide and consumption continues to rise

In 2025, humanity consumed more oil, natural gas and coal worldwide than ever before. This is shown by the Energy Institute's new Statistical Review of World Energy, which was published in London at the end of June. At the same time, global emissions rose to more than 41 billion tons of CO2 equivalents. Although the expansion of solar and wind power accelerated significantly, energy demand grew even more strongly. That is why, despite the energy transition, fossil fuels remain the foundation of global supply in energy generation.

Fossil fuels continue to determine energy production worldwide

Global energy production reached around 600.3 exajoules in 2025. Renewable energies also grew strongly, but their share of the overall system remained limited. Solar, wind, hydropower and other renewable sources together accounted for 51.6 exajoules. By comparison, Germany needs about 10 exajoules per year. Data centers alone have already consumed 2.8 exajoules worldwide.

Here in the UK there isn't much to say about this. We already know about Ed Miliband, Net Zero, political stupidity and malice.

Before Photography

 

Governing is hard

Reeves warns Burnham ‘governing is hard’ and says he must have a plan

Rachel Reeves has warned Andy Burnham he needs to have a proper plan for government when he enters Downing Street in just over a week’s time.

In what is likely to be her last interview as chancellor, she appeared to concede her hopes of staying in the role were over and told the PM-in-waiting “governing is hard in Britain”.

During an appearance on the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg programme, she said: “It is important that when Andy walks through that door, that he has a worked-through plan, because governing is hard in Britain, and lots of lots of challenges and shocks will come his way.

“What is really important is that him and his team are really clear about what they want to achieve. As those shocks come along, he needs to stay laser-focused on those things that have always motivated him, have always driven him, and are the reason why he wants to lead our great country.”

It's good that "laser-focused" is in there, we wouldn't want to lose that in the new regime. Maybe it  could be part of Burnham's plan, along with a scattering of "turbocharged" and "good for Britain" and even "five point plan".

The language is something to look forward to as Mr Burnham finds out that governing is indeed hard. The carefully casual attire may not be enough for someone who seems to be shallow, politically unimaginative and weak on detail.

But possibly laser-focused.

Britain is going bankrupt in slow motion

Daniel Herring has a useful CAPX piece on the unsustainable nature of UK debt.


Britain is going bankrupt in slow motion

• The OBR says UK debt is on course to hit 300% of GDP by 2075
• If politicians wait until 2052 to act, the spending cuts needed more than double
• Sooner or later, taxes rise, spending falls or growth accelerates – duck all three, and we face fiscal catastrophe

The OBR’s latest Fiscal Risks and Sustainability report, published this week, gives a blunt assessment of the UK’s public finances: we can’t go on like this. If nothing changes, government debt will rise to an unsustainable 300% of GDP in 50 years’ time.

How did things get so bad? Well, there’s one big demographic challenge driving that number: the UK is an ageing society, with the median age projected to rise from 40 in 2025 to 49 in 2075. An older society is expensive; as each year passes, demands on the state by retirees gets larger, while the workforce that has to pay for it all gets smaller (first in relative terms, and eventually in absolute terms as well).


A familiar problem but the whole piece is still well worth reading as a reminder that this one isn't going away if voters continue to vote for political parties with no interest in resolving it. The political fads, environmental fantasies and antiquated ideologies we are still seeing today won't do it.

But we already know that.


The OBR report highlights the challenges an ageing population poses for the UK: sooner or later, taxes rise, spending falls or growth accelerates – duck all three, and we go bankrupt. How painful the correction turns out to be remains a political choice.

The UK is sick – but far from terminal. It needs medicine now: cuts to public spending, less reliance on the state and a relentless focus on growth. Prompt action will restore a healthy economy and sound public finances. Waiting will make things much worse.

Old Style Driving

This morning Mrs H and I buzzed off to the local garden centre in the MX5.

No driving in a closed box with the air-conditioning on, but old style driving on quiet roads. Top down, windows down, elbow on the door with the breeze blowing up my shirt sleeve. As Mrs H said, this is how roads ought to be.

The Price of 5 A Day

In early July, Shimeon Lee had a useful TPA piece on a Zack Polanski claim about food prices in 2050. 

To the surprise of nobody but Green voters, the claim turns out to be worthless. Worth reading but yet again it does raise an example of the perennial issue - why is rational voting such a forlorn hope? 


A closer look at "The Price of 5 A Day?

Green Party leader Zack Polanski recently made the alarming claim that the price of fresh fruits and vegetables is set to rise 170 per cent by 2050, making them “unaffordable” for many households. This figure comes from a report by the Autonomy Institute, a progressive research organisation, and has already been used to support calls for more climate spending, a higher minimum wage, increased welfare and unprecedented interventions like price caps.

But what is actually behind the 170 per cent figure, and does it really show that fruits and vegetables are about to move beyond the reach of ordinary families? Unsurprisingly, the claim does not stand up to scrutiny. This edition of a closer look examines how this figure has been calculated and what’s wrong with it.

Not when you want just power

A quote from  Kangaroo, a 1923 novel by  D. H. Lawrence set in Australia and said to be strongly autobiographical - 

He was silent for a while.

“Now,” he said slowly. “Now I see that you don’t have only to give all your possessions to the poor. You’ve got to have no poor that can be saved just by possessions. You’ve got to put the control of all supplies into the hands of sincere, sensible men who are still men enough to know that manhood isn’t the same thing as goods. We don’t want possessions. Nobody wants possessions—more than just the immediate things: as you say yourself, one trunk for you, one for me, and one for the household goods. That’s about all. We don’t want anything else. And the world is ours—Australia or India, Coo-ee or Ardnaree, or where you like. You have got to teach people that, by withholding possessions and stopping the mere frenzy for possession which runs the world to-day. You’ve got to do that first, not last.”

“And you think Jack Callcott will do it?”

“I did think so, as he talked to me.”

“Well, then let him. Why do you want to interfere. In my opinion he’s chiefly jealous because other people run the show, and he doesn’t have a look-in. Having once been a Captain with some power, he wants the same again, and more. I’d rather trust William James to be disinterested.”

“Nay, Jack Callcott is generous by nature, and I believe he’d be disinterested.”

“In his way, he’s generous. But that isn’t the same as being disinterested, for all that. He wants to have his finger in the pie, that’s what he wants.”

“To pull out plums? That’s not true.”

“Perhaps not to pull out money plums. But to be bossy. To be a Captain once more, feeling his feet and being a boss over something.”

“Why shouldn’t he be?”

“Why not? I don’t care if he bosses all Australia and New Zealand and all the lot. But I don’t see why you should call it disinterested. Because it isn’t.”

He paused, struck.

“Am I disinterested?” he asked.

“Not”—she hesitated—“not when you want just power.”


D. H. Lawrence - Kangaroo (1923)

UC Berkeley Joins Forces With Nancy Pelosi

Lloyd Billingsley has a useful American Spectator piece on Nancy Pelosi and the modestly named Nancy Pelosi Institute for Representative Democracy (NPI).

The whole piece is well worth reading, including the linked piece Pelosi’s Favorite Stalinist.

UC Berkeley Joins Forces With Nancy Pelosi

Presenting the ‘nonpartisan’ Nancy Pelosi Institute for Representative Democracy (NPI).

Nancy Pelosi is the daughter of Thomas D’Alesandro, a Baltimore mayor and member of Congress. He passed away in 1987, the year Nancy first ran for Congress in California, representing part of San Francisco. In the Congressional Record in 2001, Rep. Pelosi praised Harry Bridges as “the most significant labor leader of the twentieth century” and “beloved by the workers of this nation.” For all but the willfully blind, he wasn’t.

As Joshua Muravchik noted in “Pelosi’s Favorite Stalinist” article, Bridges’ membership in the Communist Party had been revealed a full nine years before Pelosi’s encomium. Bridges was a Stalinist thug dedicated to the Soviet Union, a Communist dictatorship. The former Speaker also has some strange ideas about how democracy works in America.

Lloyd visits a shipwreck

 

Does AI Know You?

Many people may know about IN THE WEIGHTS already, but if not it's interesting.

If you have an online moniker such as the one you use to leave comments, the site will display a range of AI systems which know you and a very brief summary of what they know, if anything.

The move to nuclear

There is a view, which isn't new, that the Net Zero nonsense here in the UK has always been intended to soften us up for going nuclear. Not very plausible as a conspiracy notion, but quite plausible as a long series of nudges from reality which are finally registering with decision-makers. 

For example -

Great Britain plans 14 mini nuclear power plants for eight million households

Great Britain is to receive a private fleet of new mini nuclear power plants from 2034. SGE SMR UK is planning 14 reactors at three locations for this purpose. The plants are expected to supply a total of 4.2 gigawatts and supply almost eight million households. However, the project can only start once locations, operators, financing and permits have been determined.

Behind the project is SGE from Warsaw. The company belongs to the environment of the Polish entrepreneur Michał Sołowow. GE Vernova Hitachi, Samsung C&T, Laing O'Rourke, Aecon and other partners are also involved. Therefore, it is not a purely state project.

The planned reactors will use BWRX-300 technology. Each unit is expected to produce around 300 megawatts of electrical power. This will create a fleet of 4.2 gigawatts with 14 turbines. However, SGE is focusing on series production so that planning and construction run faster.

The BWRX-300 has already achieved Level 2 of the Generic Design Assessment in the UK. The auditors found no fundamental barriers to safety, security, safeguards or environmental protection. Nevertheless, each specific power plant needs further permits. Location, grid connection and emergency planning also count.

Eco-friendly flats

 

No longer fit for purpose

BBC boss says £180 TV licence fee is no longer fit for purpose

The BBC's new director-general has described the current £180 TV licence fee as "no longer fit for purpose", saying the broadcaster is being held back by a funding model that no longer reflects how people watch television.

Matt Brittin made the comments as he appeared before the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee as part of its inquiry into the future of the BBC. The former Google executive, who succeeded Tim Davie almost seven weeks ago, said the corporation needed a funding model that matched modern viewing habits while continuing to provide universal and sustainable funding.

On and on it goes, but the phrase "held back" is interesting. Held back from what? Held back from more money presumably, held back by people deciding that BBC quality isn't worth the licence fee.

Yet if the BBC is no longer fit for purpose, then we are bound to ask which purpose Mr Brittin has in mind to ensure BBC survival. We are bound to ask what Mr Brittin has to offer the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee in return for survival. That's what must be on the table, however discreetly obscured, human nature tells us it's on the table.

Is impartial reporting and analysis of government policy and activity on the table? Hardly that, to ask the question is to answer it.

Politics - it's just a game

Count Binface given major boost in upcoming clash with Nigel Farage

Defence secretary wishes Count Binface ‘good luck’ in by-election showdown with Farage

Farage vs Count Binface? Parties rule out standing against Nigel in Clacton by-election 'circus'

Count Binface speaks out as he becomes Nigel Farage's sole Clacton by-election challenger

Only Count Binface willing to take on Farage’s ‘fake and pathetic’ by-election

Who is Count Binface? Odds slashed on comedian beating Farage in Clacton

Could Farage lose his seat to Count Binface? By-election descends into farce as everyone except comedy candidate pulls out

Mass sleep deprivation event

Heatwave leaves the UK in grip of a ‘mass sleep deprivation event’

As Britain endures its third heatwave of the summer, up to two thirds of people say they are struggling to sleep during sweltering ‘tropical’ nights.

The latest spell of hot weather could bring highs of up to 35C (95F) by the end of the week and today's temperatures are set to climb above 30C (86F) in southern England.

Amber heat health alerts apply between tomorrow morning and Saturday evening covering all of southern England, East Anglia and the Midlands.

Now a poll by environmental group Greenpeace suggests the country is not only struggling to cope by day but also suffering ‘mass sleep deprivation’ from extremely warm nights.


Ah - it's Greenpeace, enthusiastic promoters of mass reason deprivation events.

Gamble as we say, not as we do

 

Labour to introduce affordability checks for gamblers

Labour is set to forge ahead with financial checks on gambling customers who suffer heavy losses, setting up a clash with bookmakers who oppose the move.

The Gambling Commission is expected to confirm proposals on Tuesday morning to introduce financial risk assessments on online gamblers who lose large sums, including those spending more than £1,000 in a single day.

Casual Viewers

A number of people we know have their house up for sale at the moment. The market seems to be pretty sluggish which makes for a certain amount of anxiety in the sellers. An issue which doesn’t help are casual buyers who might be genuine, but they don’t seem to make much effort to find out what they are viewing before they arrange to be shown round.

For example.

• Finding out that the house isn’t where they thought it was because they haven’t checked the location properly in spite of online maps and Google Street View.
• Not near enough to schools or in one case, prospective buyers thought the house was in the next town.
• Not realising that the house is on a hill, even though the road name includes the word “Hill” as a clue.
• Not realising that the house is on a main road – maps, Street View and location again.

Of course people don’t take to a house for all kinds of reasons and may not care to tell the vendors what those reasons are. Yet some purported buyers are remarkably casual, they make little effort beforehand.

Or maybe they are just nosey.

People like us

Andy Ayim has a fine Centre Write piece on the way we do not reward merit. As Ayim succinctly puts it, we pattern-match for resemblance instead.


Britain is an HR mirrortocracy

Growing up as a kid in Tottenham, I felt limitless, as though I could be anybody and everybody. I spent my formative years, as any kid does, feeding my curiosity, playing and learning in and out of the classroom. My local community centre was where I made most of my friends back then, playing or talking about football. I wanted to stand out, show off what I was good at and make my parents proud.

Along the way that changed. Over the years, through interactions with my parents, teachers, media and the local community, I slowly shrank, desperately wanting to fit in. I was becoming a restricted version of myself to get good grades at school and, later, to do well in the job I was hired for. We all have a version of that story: the trade-off between belonging and fulfilling our potential.

I have come to believe that Britain has its own version, too. Are we, as a nation, playing it small? Or being all that we can be?

We tell ourselves we are a meritocracy: a flattering myth that talent rises, that merit is rewarded, that where you start off in life does not limit where you end up. But look closely at who actually gets to lead in business and public life. We do not reward merit so much as we pattern-match for resemblance. We promote the people who look, sound and think like the people already in the room. We take shortcuts to look for people we went to school with, people we previously worked with: people like us.


The whole piece is well worth reading as we wonder what the difference will be between Keir Starmer and Andrew Burnham as UK Prime Minister.

Through the course of my job, I have asked thousands of managers the same question. Who was your favourite teacher in school? What did they do? How did they make you feel? What impact did they have on you? Almost no one replies it was the teacher’s degree or technical skills. It is always the soft skills that surface. “She believed in me.” “He inspired me. “They supported me,” and so on.