Today’s blog post will be shorter than usual.
Crowdfunder
https://www.givesendgo.com/GC14J
This is my appeal for help in paying the nearly £800 I have been ordered to pay by early/mid April 2024 following my recent free speech conviction (see earlier blog posts). So far, in the past few days, £160 has come in, from three generous donors who regularly read the blog.
Talking point
Interesting, but nothing would have the impact of 6 such missiles landing on Central London.
Tweets seen
Good grief.
Many attempts have been made to conquer that region: Alexandrine Greeks under Alexander the Great (4th Century B.C.), the troops of the British Empire (19thC A.D.), the armies of the Soviet Union (1980s), and the armies of the Western alliance (2001-2021). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan#History.
According to my use of Electoral Calculus [https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/userpoll.html], that works out as leaving the Con Party with about 42 MPs (Labour 518; LibDems 49; SNP 18; Plaid Cymru 3; Greens 2; Northern Irish seats 18).
Were that to happen, the LibDems would be the official Opposition, and the UK would be under what is already looking like being a Labour Party “elected dictatorship” for 5 years at least.
Sam Melia and Laura Towler
Their fundraiser is still increasing in value: see https://www.givesendgo.com/sammelia.
Sven Longshanks (James Allchurch) also has a crowdfunder to help him in prison, and to get him back on his feet once released (likely to be any time after May 2024, and in any event by August of this year). https://www.givesendgo.com/SupportSven. Even small amounts help (the minimum donation is a mere £4).
My own crowdfunder (to help me pay the financial impost imposed upon me by the Court at my sentencing hearing last Thursday) can be found here: https://www.givesendgo.com/GC14J.
Late music
Ian Robert Millard 
It would be more worthwhile for Vlad to nuke London. Well, if that happened we would see a reduction in its shocking crime rate. Stab City Upon The Thames would be no more. A nuclear attack is probably the only thing that will deal with the constant stabfest. Certainly the so-called ‘party of law and order’ (more like the party of British political prisoners and indulging REAL criminals) and useless Labour are unable to get it under control.
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John:
The places shown on that map are of course military targets: troop concentrations etc.
As you imply, perhaps, civilian morale and civilized services are equally important. When a country as relatively centralized as the UK loses its capital in a matter of minutes, collapse is almost inevitable.
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Although those images which supposedly represent the Afghan armed forces look impressive, the most important factors in the equation are:
A) The size of the country (nearly 2.5 times the size of the UK) and its mostly mountainous nature make it very easy to defend.
B) The religious fanaticism of its inhabitants makes them ruthless and fanatical fighters.
These two conditions applied to Spain in 1808, where the Napoleonic troops (BTW, a third of them foreigners (Germans, Poles and Italians) fought a terrible and hopeless war against the Spanish guerrillas who played a very important role in Wellington´s campaigns.
The Spanish people were easily controlled and led by the clergy who were as ignorant and fanatic as most of them. They told the people that the French were “evil heretics who deserved to be killed because that is God´s will”. Change God for Allah and you end up in the same situation.
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Claudius:
Thank you. Well-put.
In the 1970s, an architect whom a friend of mine knew went to Afghanistan on a British aid project of some kind. He was interested in the traditional architecture and, having a car, drove out of Kabul one day. He saw an interesting building, a house, a little way off the road, and went to see if he could take a closer look. Halfway there, an old man carrying a long ancient weapon of some kind exited the house and then just opened fire on the Brit, without a word having been spoken. Brit ran back to the car and drove away.
That is what you are dealing with.
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Your friend was very lucky! Bloody savages!
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I know you have not practised law for a long time; however, I cannot help to ask you the following question prompted by a chat I had this morning with my wife. As you know, she is English and follows British current affairs through GB NEWS (I am sorry about that! 😁😁😁) She told me that a lot of people do not want to go back to work in the city since they enjoy the comfort of working from home thanks to Boris lockdowns.
My question is; do you know if there is something that the employer can do? I found it unbelievable that someone could refuse to go back to work. On the other hand, a lot of work is nowadays done using a computer, therefore those who do not want to go back to the office have a valid point.
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Claudius:
I was never an employment lawyer, though in fact my very first case was at an Employment Tribunal, and I actually won it for the clients (a husband and wife sacked by a sports club). I think that I only did one other employment case in my time at the Bar (I lost that one).
BUT…I have found you this link, which seems to cover the question of Senora Claudius:
https://qlaw.co.uk/employment-law/can-my-employer-force-me-back-to-the-office/#:~:text=Whether%20employers%20can%20require%20employees,may%20be%20hard%20to%20refuse.
I saw this as well:
https://www.nationalparalegals.co.uk/articles/can-your-employer-force-you-to-work-from-home-or-the-office/
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Thank you very much for these links! How glad I am I do not need to work! BTW, the morons of SKY NEWS (lovers of Trump, Farage et al) are praising Milei as if he was a genius! The man is useless! The monthly inflation rate is almost 20%!
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Claudius:
Puts me in mind of the 1923 hyperinflation in Weimar Germany, which then slid out of control for 6-12 months. Hitler was not in power for another decade, but that year probably laid some of the groundwork…
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Indeed, Anglo Appreciator. Your contention is very well expressed and absolutely correct. It always amazes me how so many people think a geuine concern for the natural environment can only be found on the political ‘Left’. Not so. Necessary tough immigration restrictions are a Green principle for small and densely populated countries. Sadly, most ‘Green parties in Western countries can aptly be described as ‘Watermelon’ ones ie Green on the outside and Red on the inside. They spend more time worrying about PC social issues like LGBT rights and those of ethnic minorities rather than putting real environmental concerns first and they very often are in favour of virtually no immigration controls at all.
Germany has a ‘Right-wing’ Green Conservative party which was a split from their ‘Watermelon’ party, the Greens, called the ODP (Ecological Democratic Party) but sadly it is a very small one. Green issues can be espoused by ‘Right-wing’ parties and, in some ways, that is their more natural political home.
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5 years in Opposition for the Tories, you say! Ha, ha, it took them 13 years to get back into government WITH LIB DEM HELP after John Major left them with 165 MPs in 1997.
If that Electoral Calculus prediction was to come to pass, it is surely Goodnight Vienna for the Conservative Party.
If the Tories can’t turn these historically poor opinion polls around soon then it might well be wise for them to drop their fanatical opposition to Proportional Representation. I can’t see them being a viable opposition party with so few seats and there isn’t exactly an overflowing pool of very inspirational, politically astute and talented MPs ready for the hard slog of being the leader in opposition.
The next election is looking like it could be very similar to what happened in Canada in 1993 when their governing Progressive Conservative Party under Kim Cambell got crushed by stand alone First Past The Post and went from having 150 plus seats and a majority to just TWO MPs (the leader and PM lost her seat as well).
http://www.makevotesmatter.org.uk
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John:
Yes, but even if the Con Party were to espouse PR now, it is too late. Labour refuse the idea, and Labour is riding high.
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The Tories are in government and can legislate for it now. If Labour whinge about the Conservatives ‘changing the goalposts’ blah, blah, blah, the obvious ripost can be the Labour Party conference of 2023 overwhelmingly endorsed the principle of having PR for general elections but the ‘Dear Leader’ contemptuously ignored them. He isn’t noted for his love of democracy though no doubt he endorses the concept as far as his beloved Zionist state is concerned.
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John:
It would never get through the thickets of the legislative process in time for GE 2024.
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If a slight delay to the election is needed to legislate I think that could be arranged. King Charles is said to be a supporter of PR.
How ironic is it that an unelected Monarch supports real democracy yet the leader of the so-called ‘people’s party’ does not.
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Also, a precedent has already been set. The Tories passed an electoral act changing the voting system for those silly Police and Crime Commissioners and Mayoral posts from the Supplementary Vote to First Past The Post in 2022. I don’t recall Labour making a fuss about that.
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The German/New Zealand system called Mixed-Member Proportional Representation would be the easiest to legislate for as it incorporates single-member FPTP seats into an overall PR system. All you would have to do would be to halve the existing number of FPTP seats by merging two neighbouring seats into each other and then have regional electoral areas (the old EU Parliament regions would be used) for the PR party list part of the system.
Voters would have two votes to cast ie one vote for a candidate in a FPTP constituency and another vote for an party list in their electoral region. It is similar to the system used for the Scottish Parliament and the London Assembly.
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If I were your average Tory MP and wasn’t a sitting one for anything but an ultra-safe one like mine (Brentwood and Ongar with a Tory majority of 29,165 and a Tory percentage share of 68%) I would be starting to panic. Those dire opinion polls are stubbornly not budging and have been at historic lows for months on end. There were a few like they are now in 1995 but that was a full TWO YEARS before the next election took place.
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The purpose would be not just for the country to be a genuine, modern democracy but to save the Conservative Party from what looks like being a defeat so devastating its very existence as a credible opposition is in question.
No party has an inherent right to exist. The old Liberal Party after 1906 didn’t realise in time it was being supplanted and didn’t legislate for PR whilst it could. Is the Conservative Party going to make the same fatal error?
At anyrate, something drastic has to happen very soon if those dire opinion polls are going to be turned around.
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John:
Nothing much survives forever. Political parties rise and fall with changes in society. They may take time to decay, as with the CPSU (Communist Party of the Soviet Union), they may be destroyed almost overnight (like the NSDAP).
As you say, the old Liberals, as a party of government, slid to obscurity after the early 1920s, coming back to life as the “undead” LibDems after 1989. “Second time as farce”, certainly, looking at their leaders since then.
I thought that Labour might be the first of the “two main parties” to collapse. In a sense I was not totally wrong, in that what now *calls* itself “Labour” has almost nothing in common with the Labour Party as it was even under Blair-Brown, let alone the Labour party of the 1980s, 1970s, 1960s or before. Only the label remains.
The “Conservatives” now have no reason to exist, really.
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So a ‘Labour’/Israeli Likud Party 2 government with an utterly ludicrous and dangerous majority of well over 200 seats it is then.
Why don’t we just cut the ridiculous farce and pretence of being a semi-democracy at best and go back to the ‘divine rule of Kings and Queens and have King Charles III and the House of Windsor rule us directly? That at least would be more honest than unending ‘elected dictatorships’.
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John:
“200”? It could, quite seriously, be 500.
In fact, I would *prefer* that, inasmuch as the “Labour” Israel-lobby government of ? 2024-2029 would be just as unstoppable in its rush to a police state with a 200-majority as it would or will be with a 500-majority, and if the Con Party still has over 150 MPs, it can still pose as an alternative. If the Cons only have 50 MPs, they are finished; maybe a social-national party (or non-Parliamentary group) might then really start to take off.
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Then you have to consider that Starmer and company plan to rig the electorate more away from the Conservatives by giving 16 year olds the right to vote.
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John:
Labour’s votes at 16 idea might backfire if more young people turn to social-national ideas.
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