Canada is Poaching the Greatest Minds from the US

 

Circus chap mulls bid to be MP

 

Battle for key London seat erupts within hours of Keir Starmer quitting as Zack Polanski mulls bid to be MP

The looming contest in Sir Keir Starmer’s north London constituency will present a major test of Andy Burnham's leadership

Labour was preparing for a massive battle against Zack Polanski’s Green Party at a London by-election after Sir Keir Starmer announced he was quitting as an MP.

Green leader Mr Polanski is considering standing in Holborn and St Pancras to get into Parliament.

But Labour was defiant over holding onto the seat.

“They can fancy their chances all they like, but we will be fighting hard and we'll be making sure that we win,” said Cabinet Office minister Sally Jameson.

Pants

Prisons will still function under plans to turn laundries into cells – minister

Justice Secretary Alex Norris said hundreds of urgently-needed places would be created by converting storerooms and offices.

The Justice Secretary has insisted prisons will “still function properly” amid concerns over Government plans to turn laundries into cells in a bid to tackle overcrowding.

Alex Norris said “hundreds of places” would be created by converting existing spaces inside prisons into accommodation.


The Biggest Prison Building Programme Since the Victorians — But Will It Be Enough?

The government is building prisons at a pace not seen since the Victorian era. Ministers have described the ambition as delivering 14,000 additional prison places by 2031, with around 2,900 already completed. It is a significant and expensive commitment — an acknowledgment that the prison estate of England and Wales is so far below what the system requires that only a major capital investment programme can close the gap.

But the context in which this building programme sits is one of the most challenging in the recent history of English criminal justice. The previous government committed to 20,000 new prison places by the mid-2020s. By September 2024, approximately 6,500 had been delivered — less than a third of the target, years late, and 80 per cent over the original budget projection. The current programme is running against the backdrop of that failure, and the question of whether 14,000 places by 2031 is sufficient — let alone achievable — is one that penal reformers, academics, and parliamentary committees have pressed government to answer clearly.

And up pops the doublethink

'Poorer than we think!' Darren Jones warns Andy Burnham against public spending as path to wealth

Darren Jones has warned against increasing public spending as a path to making the country "great again".

The former Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister under Sir Keir Starmer said Britain is "poorer than we often think" as he said higher public spending alone would not lead to economic growth.

Mr Jones was sacked from Labour's frontbench when Andy Burnham entered No 10.

He had been talked up as a contender to lead the party, but declined to stand, saying a contest would not give the eventual winner enough time to prepare an autumn budget.

Writing for the Times, the MP for Bristol North West said: "Britain is poorer than we often think. We won’t get richer based on higher public spending alone, and we can’t tax billionaires who don’t live here.

"We shouldn't rely on public spending as a route to some romantic version of making Britain great again as we look in the rearview mirror for a great history that is no longer available to us.


And up pops the doublethink - just when it was going so well -

"We must face the future, and I know my colleagues are up to the challenge."

No doubt Darren Jones is keeping his powder dry in preparation for Burnham's defenestration before the next general election. Maybe he doesn't realise his powder is already damp and his colleagues have no balls for their muskets.

Green activists want to take Polanski down a dark road

Eliot Wilson has a grimly entertaining City AM piece on Zack Polanski and his imbecile Green Party. Entertaining because Polanski and his Greens are so silly. Grim because he constantly reminds us that a significant number of voters are deceived by abjectly silly rhetoric. 

Green activists want to take Polanski down a dark road

The Greens’ absolutism is bad for politics, and Polanski too. Those who police dogma see heretics everywhere, even at the top, writes Eliot Wilson

Zack Polanski, leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, is easy to dislike. There is something preposterous and confected about him, and it is no surprise that he has a background in acting.

He is suffocatingly earnest and demonstrates armour-plated self-belief even when pronouncing the most implausible silliness. He once explained that, as Prime Minister, he would “keep pushing for negotiation” with President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine; last November he told Sky News’s Trevor Philllips that “we should never leave the negotiating table” and that he would persuade Putin to give up Russia’s nuclear weapons.

It is not easy to imagine the former KGB colonel who has ruled Russia since the last millennium being outfoxed by a man who once taught at the National Centre for Circus Arts, but Polanski continued crossly that “you could have laughed at the point of Nelson Mandela negotiating with the ANC”.


The whole piece is well worth reading. Depressing but well worth reading - this is the world in which we are doomed to live.

Rory Sutherland, vice-chairman of Ogilvy UK, talks about “album politics”. “A kind of artificial worldview where you have to buy the entire album, as it were… in other words, it’s not just that you have left-wing opinions, you have to buy into every single opinion”.

It is not politics so much as theology, and soi-disant “progressives” are as certain as any mediaeval cleric of St Cyprian’s mantra, extra ecclesiastical nulla salus. If a political party concentrates on these deeply emotive issues on which they see voters as saved or damned, friends or enemies, wanting to force repentance rather than descending to the dust in the arena of persuasion, we should expect a bitter, moralising general election campaign. It is bad news for public discourse, bad news for any engagement or generosity of spirit.

Kemi ditches Priti in favour of Tom

Priti Patel moved out of top job as Kemi Badenoch reshuffles team

Kemi Badenoch has removed Dame Priti Patel as shadow foreign secretary as she starts a major reshuffle of her top team.

Dame Priti confirmed recent speculation that she was to lose the crucial role with a statement on Sunday night that she had been appointed international secretary responsible for coordinating with other centre right parties around the globe.

The Telegraph reported that she will replaced by former security minister and leadership contender Tom Tugendhat who is understood be favoured by Ms Badenoch because he is a strong supporter of Israel and critic of China. Mr Tugendhat was also former chair of the foreign affairs committee from 2017 to 2022.


Not a very interesting development, but I was intrigued by this photo of Kemi Badenoch and Mel Stride. Some wag seems to have inserted it as a visual indication of choices available to the Tory Party.

 

Every indignation of the age

'Furious' Prince Harry 'still expects apology' from Royal Family as he begins news life in UK

While the return of Harry to the UK raised hopes of reconciliation with his family, he is said to be still ‘spitting feathers’

Prince Harry is “just as angry” as when he left Britain six years ago and “expects an apology” from the Royal Family, friends of the Duke reportedly claim.

Harry, his wife Meghan and their two children Archie and Lilibet returned to the UK to live earlier this week.

His mind, under the influence of that insidious mildew which eventually forms on all but the few, gave itself up furiously to every indignation of the age.

F. Scott Fitzgerald – The Beautiful and Damned (1922)

Good

Iceland rejects EU vote in referendum focussed on Trump and fishing

Iceland has rejected a proposal to restart negotiations on joining the European Union.

A vote over the weekend took place more than a decade after previous talks ended. It was held in the shadow of U.S. President Donald Trump's repeated threats to control nearby Greenland, which drove some voters to favor the idea of European solidarity.

The vote will put the long-debated issue to rest more than a decade after a euroskeptic government ended EU talks.

Opponents defeated the measure by a margin of 52.8% to 47.2%, RUV reported.


Good news, maybe 52.8% realise the EU would betray them.

A highly politicized public institution

An interesting piece from Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT) on climate activist shenanigans by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) in the US. 

As is also the case here in the UK, the activist corruption of supposedly apolitical public institutions can be deep-seated.

Congress’ Questioning of the National Academies is Crucial to Restoring Faith in Science

PPT applauds the House Oversight Committee’s inquiry into a highly politicized public institution.

Federal watchdog Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT) today voiced its support for the House Oversight Committee’s letter to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) regarding its highly irregular “fast-track” review of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) decision to rescind its 2009 Endangerment Finding on CO2. PPT has previously raised concerns that NASEM’s review was the work of a politically compromised institution.

According its 1863 charter, NASEM is a resource for advising the government “whenever called upon.” However, the Trump EPA rolling back the Endangerment Finding seemed to rouse NASEM into taking the extraordinary action of initiating an in-house study without authorization from a government agency. NASEM’s review appears to have been designed not to inform the American people, but to insert itself into government policymaking, undermine the EPA, and provide ammunition for anticipated litigation.

Unsurprisingly, NASEM’s fast-track study was little better than the original finding it was meant to bolster, with just as predetermined an outcome. As PPT and others revealed, the Obama EPA and its climate activist allies engineered a rushed, unscientific, and thoroughly political power grab with the Endangerment Finding. The finding declared CO2 – a major component of all life on earth – a “greenhouse pollutant,” essentially creating the climate change industry at the expense of the U.S. economy.

Robot pays too much attention to politics

Science By Headline

The Earth is splitting apart - and scientists are seeing something happen for the first time

Scientists are always discovering something new on Earth - and this time it is the birth of new oceanic crust.

The team say they have historic evidence of this process where the seafloor spreads apart, leading to a release of magma from inside Earth that rises to the surface, it is after this and when it gets in contact with cool seawater that it then solidifies and turns into new ocean crust.

This research, published in Nature, was carried out by French scientists at an autonomous observatory near Amsterdam Island, in the southern Indian Ocean on the edge of the Australian and Antarctic plates and the the Southeast Indian Ridge is nearby too.

Alternatively we have the heading and part of the abstract from the Nature paper on which this story is based.

Anatomy of a seafloor spreading event captured by in situ seismogeodesy

Over geological time, the growth of the ocean floor involves magmatic and tectonic extension1 at mid-ocean ridges (MORs). Because seismogeodetic monitoring of these submarine plate boundaries remains challenging2,3,4,5,6,7, little is known about how these systems operate on yearly timescales. Here we report the first, to our knowledge, in situ observation of a rifting event at a MOR segment that combines hydroacoustic, direct-path ranging and bottom-pressure measurements, with repeated seafloor mapping.

On being part of the Labour team or the Labour family

Minister Miatta Fahnbulleh defends sending children to private school

Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh has defended sending her children to private school despite backing removing the VAT exemption on fees for the independent sector.

The Peckham MP stressed that the VAT move was the “right policy” for a Government as it struggles to balance the books.

Ms Fahnbulleh, who soared into the Cabinet just two years after becoming an MP, also said that sending children to private school does not preclude people from “being part of the Labour team or the Labour family”.


There is nothing wrong with sending your children to private schools, obviously not, but here of course we have yet another example the hoary old champagne socialist story. 

State education is good enough for your kids but not for mine.

Or

Absurdly high fuel bills for you, jetting off to climate conferences for me. 

It's much the same.

In our moral reviews of ourselves we practise optical delusions even upon our own self-scrutiny, and paint and mask our motives, and fill our ears with excuses and with downright lies. So inveterate is the habit of deceiving, and even in the dark we form our features by hypocrisy, and scarcely know all this.

Sheridan Le Fanu - The Wyvern Mystery (1869)

But not cowboy politics

Burnham takes aim at 'cowboy builders' with new crackdown

• Andy Burnham has unveiled new plans to tackle rogue tradespeople known as “cowboy builders” to protect consumers from unfair practices by private bailiffs.
• A government-backed register launching in September will help householders find trusted builders, while a milestone-linked payment system next week will prevent upfront costs.
• The Prime Minister stated that the measures aim to protect families from stress and financial losses while stopping dishonest builders from damaging the reputation of reliable traders.

Meanwhile, in the land of cowboy politics...

HS2, Net Zero, mass immigration, creeping mass surveillance, constant health hectoring, useless university degrees, mountains of official twaddle, worthless promises, absurd levels of taxation, waste, incompetence, endless fiddling around the edges of decline....

and the BBC.

Tea Bags and Brussels

Brussels now even regulates the disposal of used tea bags and coffee capsules

Since 12 August 2026, the new EU Packaging Regulation has been in force in all member states. Brussels is now explicitly regulating what should happen to used tea bags, coffee pods and certain coffee capsules. It is legally considered packaging and therefore falls under European requirements for disposal, recycling and labelling. The background is incorrectly separated waste, which can contaminate compost and recycling material. Disposal rules are therefore changing for consumers, while companies have to comply with other requirements. After all, Europe has major tasks to cope with – and apparently their solution begins with the moist tea bag.

Tea bags are finally getting attention from Brussels

For decades, handling a tea bag was surprisingly uncomplicated. Tea was brewed, drank and then the bag was thrown away. But this phase of largely unregulated freedom is now over. The EU explicitly assigns tea and coffee portions to packaging law. This means that even the used tea bag finally has the European legal status that it has apparently been sorely lacking so far.

Layers and layers of bizarre dysfunction

A Matter of Emphasis

Growing proportion of deaths associated with hottest days, figures suggest

There were an estimated 4,652 heat-related deaths in England and Wales in 2022, the highest figure for any year from 1988 to 2025.

A growing proportion of deaths in England and Wales are associated with days that have the hottest temperatures, new analysis suggests.

While cold weather has historically led to higher levels of mortality than conditions of extreme heat, the gap between the two is likely to have narrowed in recent years.


More numbers and two graphs follow before we come across this -


The ONS figures are modelled estimates of mortality associated with the coldest 2.5% and hottest 2.5% of days each year, not actual counts of deaths directly caused by extreme weather.


After more numbers and another graph we come across the politics with some broad hints about future funding -


Climate transition minister Katie White said: “These shocking figures represent thousands of families who have lost someone they love.

“We’re not waiting for climate change to arrive, we’re living in the middle of it, and this summer’s record-breaking heat has brought that home.

“That’s why we’re taking some of the biggest action in a generation, preparing hospitals for extreme heat, rolling out air-to-air heat pumps to cool as well as heat homes, and accelerating clean homegrown power to tackle the root causes of climate change.

“But we won’t stop there, bringing together our best minds, backing bold new ideas and pushing forward solutions that protect the people and places we love.”

The Great British meal deal

Juno Chowla-Song has an interesting CAPX piece on British supermarket meal deals. We've never bought one and don't intend to, but the whole piece is well worth reading. 

It's another example of Labour politicians attacking traditional political targets and a useful angle on the heavily touted 'cost of living crisis'.

The Great British meal deal should make you proud

• More than a third of Britons buy at least one meal deal weekly
• Suppliers became 4% more productive in the last year thanks to supermarkets' pressure
• In Britain, it takes just 10 minutes of work to earn enough to buy a meal deal – in Tokyo, it takes almost twice as long

I moved from New York to Britain and I keep getting asked when I’m going back.

Not by my family, or my friends back home, but by British people. They tell me about flat wages, looming youth unemployment and an air of decline throughout the country. But no one talks about lunch, because everyone here takes it for granted.

I used to work in retail in Manhattan, and I would bring my own sad sandwich for lunch every day. Sometimes I would splash out on a slice of pizza. After tax, a deli sandwich cost almost as much as my hourly wage. Buying that was out of the question.

John Healey has found the wrong scapegoat for the cost-of-living crisis. Squeezing supermarkets harder won’t make lunch cheaper

In a bid to quell her restless backbenchers

Kemi Badenoch tipped to reshuffle shadow cabinet in just days in bid to quell restless backbench MPs

Kemi Badenoch has been tipped to reshuffle her Shadow Cabinet in just days in a bid to quell her restless backbenchers.

MPs are due to return to Parliament for a brief stint in Westminster on September 1, which is when the Conservative leader is believed to be eyeing up an overhaul of her top team.

Claire Coutinho, the Shadow Energy Secretary who has been dubbed a rising star within the party, is expected to step down before she takes maternity leave later on in the year.

Meanwhile, Shadow Solicitor General Helen Grant, the MP for Maidstone and Malling, is also said to be bidding adieu to the Conservative frontbench.


There is a problem with making political sense of any Shadow Cabinet reshuffle, particularly this one. To my mind there are three questions to answer first –

• Does a chap try to recall who is in the current Shadow Cabinet before reading political messages into the reshuffle?
• Or does a chap admit that he can't possibly recall who is in the current Shadow Cabinet so may as well forget all that and take a gander at the new Shadow Cabinet after the reshuffle?
• Or does a chap watch a YouTube video instead?

Storm Kim

North Korea weather agency faces month-long ideological review

Some employees could face personnel penalties or forced reassignment to hard labor

North Korea’s State Hydro-Meteorological Administration is undergoing a sweeping, party-ordered ideological review this month after a string of forecasting failures worsened storm and heat wave damage across the country in 2026. The ruling Workers’ Party of Korea has ordered agency staff and workers at related institutions to hold monthlong self-criticism sessions starting in mid-August.

A source told Daily NK on Thursday that the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea recently held the State Hydro-Meteorological Administration responsible for a series of forecasting failures. The committee ordered agency departments and cells to hold general assemblies for one month and to produce strongly worded self-criticism statements, according to the source.

A cynical chap might suggest that this is the way to deal with the Met Office and its fixation with climate change propaganda, but forced reassignment to hard labor, or even hard labour may be too much for them.

Some strongly worded self-criticism statements should be easy enough though, could happen one day before the sun goes out.

When Independent does not mean independent

From the Independent -

Supreme Court lets Trump implement major mail-in voting restrictions

The Supreme Court will let Donald Trump implement a sweeping executive order for new mail-in voting rules that could significantly restrict voters’ access to ballots in high-stakes midterm elections this fall, but the legal battle is far from over.

Federal courts have repeatedly blocked the U.S. Postal Service from further implementing Trump’s executive order that sought to create a national voter registration list that would be used to decide who is eligible to cast a ballot.

The casual reader might not suspect that this debate is about the rather obvious potential for postal voting to be used for electoral fraud. 

The possibilities are obvious in the UK and even from this side of the Atlantic they are more obvious in the US. Something to guard against with procedural rigour we might think, but the Independent takes about 800 words to get even this far -

Trump — who has spent years baselessly insisting that voting by mail is ripe for fraud, and that manipulated ballots were “rigged” against him in elections he lost — is simultaneously demanding the Senate pass his SAVE America Act, which would also restrict mail-in voting and require ID to vote, among other changes.


And to finish we have this -


The Independent stands for many things, often uniquely so. It stands independent of political party allegiance, and makes its own mind up on the issues of the day. The Independent has always been committed to challenge and debate. It launched in 1986 to create a new voice and in that time has run campaigns for issues ranging from the legalisation of marijuana to the Final Say Brexit petition.