Morning music
On this day a year ago
Freak news
“Biden’s non-binary nuclear waste guru who stole a woman’s suitcase from a baggage carousel was pictured the same weekend in Minnesota attending an LGBTQ student activism conference.
Sam Brinton, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Office of Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition, was photographed wearing a black evening gown with two of the event’s coordinators.”
[Daily Mail]
The USA is even more mad than the UK.
Oh, wait a minute…next up, Eddie Izzard as an MP (?)…
The continuing storm around “Jack Monroe”, the “Bootstrap Cook”
Very hard-hitting tweets, but maybe required reading for some sadly misled people in public services, charities etc, who are still apparently unaware of the storm around “Jack Monroe”, the “Bootstrap Cook”, which gained strength in July/August 2022 and has scarcely abated.
I think that some people in executive positions at charities etc, mentally bought into the whole “Bootstrap Cook” thing many years ago, and do not want to see how it has now become a very tarnished “story”.
I myself attempted an assessment on 30 September 2022: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2022/09/30/diary-blog-30-september-2022-including-an-assessment-of-jack-monroe-aka-the-bootstrap-cook/.
Having now seen more material over the past two months, I think that that assessment was more than fair. Perhaps I was too lenient.
This is not a matter which concerns only “Jack Monroe” and the many people who are alleged to have been cheated by her. This is a matter of considerable public interest and concern.
People have to have reasonable confidence that, when they donate money to a cause, or transfer the same, in order —or partly in order— to receive goods and/or services, that they are not being lied to, bamboozled, treated as “mugs”, and cheated out of money.
One of those allegedly cheated by “Jack Monroe” is a lady (not known to me other than via her tweets) called (I believe) Heather Booth (“@frugally_minded” on Twitter), who says that she donated monies on the Patreon website to “Jack Monroe”, but received neither the goods promised nor the refund(s) later demanded.
That lady, who with her disabled husband is now in a terrible financial situation, has not only not been refunded by “Jack Monroe” but also has had to contend with online trolls since the behaviour of “Jack Monroe” has become known online. Whether “Jack Monroe” herself was involved in that, I have no idea.
Please find the details of the lady’s crowdfunder here: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/heather-booth-3?utm_term=Gde7678Nq.
As to the overall “Jack Monroe”/”Bootstrap Cook” situation, it seems to me that the responsible regulatory officers (eg for fundraising and/or trading standards) should investigate it. There may well be a need also for the police to investigate whether any offences around alleged fraud have been committed.
Other tweets seen
Looks as though some Jew Twitter-trolls from North London may be about to experience the beginning of the end…
More tweets
Now the idiots in the Westminster monkeyhouse are also sending more arms, hundreds of millions of pounds-worth more, to the Kiev regime. Both evil and stupid.
More tweets seen
How is it that some unknown Canadian hero has not yet done what is evidently necessary?
Please refer to previous comment, mutatis mutandis.
Conservative Party
Indicates, as much as any poll can, 18-24 months before a general election, that it may be that the Conservative Party will lose badly but not catastrophically.
It was only weeks ago that the Con Party was on 20%; now 30%. Labour Party has slipped back slightly, and LibDems have slightly improved, to 10%.
Of course, under a proportional representation system, that might give the LibDems 65 MPs, whereas of course, under FPTP voting, 10% gives between 0-20, maybe more MPs, depending on how many votes are concentrated wherever. UKIP got 12% of the vote in 2015 and only 1 MP (a previously-elected Con Party MP) instead of the 78 that might have been expected under a pure PR system.
Despite much noise from Farage, it is clear that, so far, Reform UK is not breaking through. That may be partly because Farage himself is a busted flush, having stabbed his own Brexit Party supporters and candidates in the back during the 2019 General Election. Also, in my view, because the new-ish “Reform UK” is playing the same sort of pseudo-“libertarian” and Brexit tune as did Brexit Party and UKIP before.
The national mood has moved. People want public services that work, not the right to try to become low-tax “entrepreneurs”. What most white British (especially English) people want, but unconsciously, is a form of social-nationalism suited to UK conditions. There is, however, no party even approximating to that.
Looking at that opinion poll, it may be that people are now seriously starting to assess Labour, which is aping most “Conservative” policies and, as someone once parodied Starmer, “we approve of workhouses but they must be run in a fairer way, and more efficiently.”
Rachel Reeves has, over the years, repeatedly said that she would be even harder on the unemployed, sick, and disabled than have been the Con Party governments. She is also a member of Labour Friends of Israel, like Starmer and all his Shadow Cabinet.
On immigration, Labour would allow in even more blacks and browns.
On free speech, Labour would be even more restrictive (hardly surprising, bearing in mind the powerfully poisonous influence of the Jewish lobby on Labour now).
All that, however, does not let Sunak and Con Party off the hook. Many previously Con voters are likely to see the present government as a shambolic mess, and therefore to abstain, or to vote LibDem. That may not result in many (or any) new LibDem MPs, but may have an effect in some Con constituencies.
Likewise, the Reform UK candidates are probably not going to become MPs but may well take votes away from Con Party in marginal constituencies.
It is clear to many that the Government is rubbish, but that the Opposition is also rubbish.
The Conservative Party has never scored as low as 30% in any general election. The closest was in 1997 (30.7%), which resulted in 165 Con MPs (in a slightly larger Commons— 659).
A few percentage points makes a big difference at this level. In 2001, the Con vote was 31.7%, and MPs elected numbered 166, just one more than in 1997, but in 2005 the 32.4% vote-share resulted in 198 Con MPs (in a 646-member House of Commons).
In 2010, David Cameron-Levita’s Con Party achieved only 36.1%, but had elected 306 MPs (out of 650).
The oddity of British elections is shown by the fact that, in 2017, Theresa May’s Con Party achieved 42.3%, yet only had elected 317 Con MPs (out of 650). The devil is very much in the detail.
In 2019, Boris Johnson’s Con Party received a 43.6% vote, not much more than in 2017, but the number of Con MPs jumped to 365.
All the same, once the percentage vote goes below about 35%, the number of MPs elected starts to plummet; below 30% would probably mean fewer than 150 Conservative Party MPs, below 25% a near wipeout.
At 30%, then, the Conservative Party is still just about in the game.
Late tweets
Ludicrously overpaid and completely stupid, uneducated, uncultured, TV drones, applauding NWO/ZOG puppets such as Jacinda Ardern.
I still await that one Canadian who will…
Late music
Ian Robert Millard 