More interesting to me than the content of the above (not uninteresting though it is) is the fact that Katie Hopkins has been allowed back onto Twitter.
I also am minded to return to Twitter, and with “blue tick”, mainly in order to promote my blog, but also in order to mock (simply by being back on Twitter) the Jew-Zionist pack that had me expelled in 2018; also, to irritate the self-promoting would-be “celebrities” etc who managed to get those blue ticks previously.
2 working weeks, and still scammer Jack Monroe hasn't made promised refunds. Looking more & more like deliberate fraud. https://t.co/oRfTEzMRwS
I would not go quite as far as that, in that I am unsure as to whether “Jack Monroe” had fraudulent intent right from the start. I concede, though, that her evident lack of interest in paying back monies taken (or even engaging with former donors) does give a rather poor impression, at the very least.
Heads should be authorised to call parents who arenβt feeding their kids into school and the government should provide a cheap weekly recipe menu to hand out to them. Jack Monroe @BootstrapCook Iβm sure could design a good one.
Her recipes have always been dire and nutritionally terrible, but I used to think she was okay until all the revelations these last few months. Dreadful and so disappointing. πͺ
Even pre-fame, Jack Monroe was a liar and a con artist. Some very interesting, if unsurprising tea being spilled over on Tattle. pic.twitter.com/5oFSH4wITa
As I sid in May 2020 :'Think of Rishi Sunak as a smiling salesman of payday loans 'Happy to help!β he says as he hands over the wads of notes. But it will not be the cheery face of Mr Sunak that you see when the time comes for repayment, but the hard countenance of the taxman.'
The Government should build council houses. And people on housing benefit should be removed from private rentals.
This will reduce the housing benefit bill long term and reduce rental prices in the private sector as it'll no longer be distorted by Government subsidies. https://t.co/bxXsFcLpdb
I have come to the conclusion that “Jack Monroe”, aka “Bootstrap Cook”, is about 1% positive for society, and 99% negative…
The more I have learned about her, her behaviour, and her whole contrived sales pitch, the less I have been inclined to be favourable to her and it.
Many people really want to “believe”, though, and prefer to shut their eyes to the facts. As of today, and despite months of increasing online and even msm disquiet around the “Jack Monroe” “brand”, 665 mugs are still remitting to her up to Β£10 a month, every month, via the website Patreon.
I agree with her on those particular points (but not on many others), though I struggle to accept that a self-describing “journalist” seems to be only semi-literate.
I may be mistaken, but I think that I read some time ago that she was a student at Durham University. Literacy seems to be dying out in the UK, as witness the product of all the “Justins” and “Emilys” scribbling for the online Daily Mail and other news outlets.
π₯ Staff were βscaredβ to go into βabrasive and controllingβ Dominic Raabβs office, the former head of the Foreign Office claimed today in an explosive intervention in the bullying rowhttps://t.co/SwkB1r4KIl
Re. the behaviour of half-Jew Raab, people should also be asking the question as to whether Raab behaves like that because he is not up to the job. It is a frequently-seen phenomenon in people who want the status of a powerful job but who are not really up to doing it.
The rise of Dominic Raab is even more baffling than Gavin Williamsonβs. Just as charmless, obnoxious and unpopular in the party and doesnβt even have Williamsonβs mastery of the dark arts. Sunak didnβt need to promote him but did, because heβs weak and has no judgement. https://t.co/zVmXrJBjpo
Blackout in Rivne after Russian missile strike at electrical power infrastructure in the city, – mayor Oleksander Tretyak https://t.co/L8ZkTEOzor#Ukraine
As I predicted, Russia will now run an “oblique war” strategy, just as the Americans have done in the past in some parts of the world. In between the first Gulf War and the second, the actual invasion of Iraq, the Americans, via both sanctions and other measures, followed by missile attacks, did what one analyst called “breaking every bone in Iraq’s body without killing it“. That meant degrading and eventually destroying the electrical power infrastructure and, inter alia, the water and sewerage systems (the latter, in Baghdad and elsewhere, relied on electricity, not gravity).
Ukraine was already a “failed state”, more or less, before this war. Now it is a facade, propped up by Western aid, arms, ammunition and military training help. Economically, it is on its knees. Now, its electricity generation and distribution systems are also being reduced.
I would not write off Russia in this war.
Explosions reported so far in Kyiv, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, Kryvyi Rih and Zhytomyr.
Air defence active in Sumy Oblast, Poltava, Rivne, Lviv.
News on the car radio this morning: there are now over 8 BILLION humans on Earth. In 1960, the figure was 3 billion. In other words, the world population is now not far from triple what it was only 62 years ago.
The detail is important, though. The rate of increase has slowed almost to a halt. Also, most of the population of the world is in a small number of countries: China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and a few others; and most of the increase in population is also in those and a few other countries.
The population of the USA has grown greatly in the past 60 years, but is now growing by only 0.1% annually. The same is true of many advanced countries. Some are not growing at all, others are growing only because of non-white immigration, but their core ethnic group is declining. Russia. Germany. UK. France.
I have previously mooted the idea that the number of human or humanoid souls rushing into incarnation (so as to experience the type of civilization we have presently while it still exists) has perhaps, arguably, come to a halt. That is, if you like, a “spiritual” explanation for the material effects noted in that newspaper report.
It is possible to lay the foundation, or the foundation of a foundation, for a later much higher level of evolution, a “super-race” if you like.
βYou carry in your blood the holy inheritance of your fathers and forefathers. You do not know those who have vanished in endless ranks into the darkness of the past. But they all live in you and walk in your blood upon the earth that consumed them in battle and toil and in which their bodies have long decayed.
Your blood is therefore something holy. In it your parents gave you not only a body, but your nature. To deny your blood is to deny yourself. No one can change it. But each decides to grow the good that one has inherited and suppress the bad. Each is also given will and courage.
You do not have only the right, but also the duty to pass your blood on to your children, for you are a member of the chain of generations that reaches from the past into eternity, and this link of the chain that you represent must do its part so that the chain is never broken.
But if your blood has traits that will make your children unhappy and burdens to the state, then you have the heroic duty to be the last. The blood is the carrier of life. You carry in it the secret of creation itself. Your blood is holy, for in it Godβs will lives.β
[SS Verlag: material for instruction of the Hitlerjugend]
BREAKING: A senior U.S. intelligence official says Russian missiles crossed into NATO member Poland, killing two people.
A Polish government spokesman did not immediately confirm the information, but said leaders were meeting on "crisis situation." https://t.co/W1hhjwa6ez
Either this incident was accidental, or the explosions are a false flag by the Zelensky regime, created to drag NATO into war with Russia. Either way, it was plainly not a deliberate attack on Poland, and thus should not trigger Article 5 of the NATO treaty.
In any case, now that states such as Poland, the Baltic states etc belong to NATO (which should never have happened), Article 5 should be abrogated. It is now nothing less than a dangerous trigger mechanism which may put all of Europe (and quite possible both the USA and Russia as well) to sword and flame.
This situation has been caused, at root, by the reckless NATO support for the Kiev regime. This is not our fight, and never has been.
[Update, 28 August 2023: it later turned out that those missiles were fired from Ukraine but, so claimed the Zelensky regime, “in error”...]
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.
It makes one shudder to think what those who fought in either of the great European wars would think of society now, though not all changes have been negative, by any means; however, the destruction (presently ongoing) of European race and culture, plotted and executed by those in political power, and who should be defending Europe, overshadows all else.
Tweets and comment about “Jack Monroe”, aka the “Bootstrap Cook”
About 6 weeks ago, I blogged about the storm around “Jack Monroe”, aka “the Bootstrap Cook”, which storm had been raging on Twitter, Facebook, Tattle and elsewhere since sometime in August of this year. It continues unabated.
There now seem to be two clear groups: the supporters of “Bootstrap Cook”, most of whom seem to be politically-correct, wilfully-blind, Guardian/Observer readers, few if any of whom are in any way “poor” or “struggling”; on the other hand, there are those (many of whom are former supporters) who are critical of “Jack Monroe, accusing her of “grifting”, near-fraud if not actual fraud, as well as lying constantly about her life, her background, her history, her financial position etc. They also make the point that many of her recipes (if they are even that, as in her “soup” made from pulverized frozen beefburgers and some stock, or her “boil an egg and spread it on buttered bread”) are either not recipes at all or, equally-often, heavily-carbohydrate offerings, short on vitamins, minerals, and even calories.
Which of those two groups am I in? I started off, several years ago, vaguely noticing the “Bootstrap Cook” as something or someone more positive than not, “helping” the struggling and those penalized by the evil machinations of Iain Dunce Duncan Smith, George Osborne etc.
Over time, I have become more and more critical, as guided by the facts that have emerged. Now, I should say that I think “Jack Monroe” is someone with many personal or mental problems but who has certainly also been taking the pathetic journalists of the UK, and many others, for a ride, and making a pretty good and not very honest living from it all.
I am not a psychiatrist, so cannot fully explain why no less than 664 very silly and/or misled people (as of today) are paying Jack Monroe/Bootstrap Cook between Β£3.50 and Β£10 per month via the Patreon website; i.e. up to Β£6,640 a month in cash (minus Patreon fees etc), which might even be taxfree as “gifts” (not sure about that; it is a long long time since I was involved in any tax law).
In addition, some other (?) exceptionally silly people also send other, one-off donations to the alleged “grifter”/”fraudster” (who, inter alia, claims that a family of 4 can feed itself well for Β£20 a week by using her recipes).
In addition, Jack Monroe has 7 books in print, and is thus receiving royalties (Β£90,000+ in the past several years), and makes money in a number of other ways.
She has crowdfunded for an action in defamation against the —admittedly not very pleasant— MP, Lee Anderson [Con, Ashfield: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Anderson_(British_politician)], and politico/journalist Martin Daubney [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Daubney], but since the announcement of that in the msm and on Twitter in May 2022, it seems that no writ has been issued nor any pre-action correspondence received (info per Lee Anderson). It has been alleged that Jack Monroe has simply taken the money donated for the threatened libel action, and spent it. Whether that is so, I have no idea, but tend to believe it, in the absence of any proof that there is going to be an action launched (and time is shortening— only 5-6 months left, at maximum).
How can @BootstrapCook refute any of it? Itβs her own words! The only shocking aspect is that @actionfrauduk havenβt followed it up, despite having concerns highlighted amidst a lack of transparency that raises questions as to whether charitable donations have been embezzled!
Wait, so @BootstrapCook , an autistic single mom worked herself out of poverty as an entrepreneur, writing books etc, earning up to 2000 pounds/mo before taxes and at the whim of her followers, and that is despiccable because… what? Because she still remembers being poor?
Maybe I do. I was summarizing the facts I read in the article. And I failed to see how those facts make her a bad person. If you are basically unemployable (recovering single mom autistic) but manage to earn money by selling your work online — sounds cool to me. What's missing?
I think in this country the Police is who you go to with fraud matters, not twitter. I believe its an excuse used to attack Jack, if you think there is fraud, report it, otherwise you just look like trolls and bullies.
I have no idea why you would want an excuse to attack Jack? You troll and bully under an alias, who knows what your motives are? Why not be clear who you are? Then maybe your motives wouldn't be suspect?
No, she posts the evidence then draws conclusions on the evidence. Feel free to counter that, but you can't dismiss it as "bullying" even if it is an opinion!
Your job now is to counter the evidence and show that Jack Monroe hasn't lied as @AwfullyMolly has claimed.
Exactly. Many of the “well-meaning” or bien-pensant pro-Jack Monroe tweeters (mostly though not all women) have invested emotional capital in “Bootstrap Cook”, and are therefore immune to logic or fact. They cannot admit that they have been and are being duped, and prefer to carry on paying Β£3.50 or Β£10 a month rather than face reality.
Armistice Day: 11am on Tuesday 11th November 1919, vast crowds in London observe the very first 2 minute silence for those killed in the Great War. The men have removed their hats out of respect for the fallen. (I originally colourised this photo for the Evening Standard in 2019) pic.twitter.com/jmuRwYv2DZ
Ukrainian troops have reclaimed dozens of landmine-littered settlements abandoned by Russian forces in southern Ukraine, officials said, the day after Moscow announced its withdrawal from the strategic capital city of Kherson province https://t.co/FGvzB25m5spic.twitter.com/7hv4k2lDxg
Note the poor literacy in that tweet from AFP, one of the largest international news agencies. Sign of the times.
β'A Ukrainian drone first flew over us, and after that their artillery started to pound us for hours and hours, nonstop…most of our unit is gone, destroyed. It was hell,' he said, adding that his unitβs commanders abandoned themβ @PjotrSauerhttps://t.co/wxdKb9GK64pic.twitter.com/RLKiT54ehy
If Putin cannot pull a rabbit out of the hat pretty soon, Russia will have some kind of “revolution” at some point not far down the line. Lost wars have had that result in Russia before. The only solution is not to lose the war…
Rate footage of Russian Su-25 attack aircraft launching rockets downwards at Ukrainian positions west of Donetsk without firing them into the air. https://t.co/dTRs2qUzqspic.twitter.com/Qrs55n5kuy
It has been revealed that former Chancellor #KwasiKwarteng's mini-Budget cost UK pensions a massive Β£75bn.
This is the most damage ever done to the UK economy by a Chancellor in the history of the nation. – Why has he not resigned as an MP? – Why has he not been arrested?
— Brexit is a terrible mistake (@Brexit_Mistake) November 8, 2022
(…or just [REDACTED] out of hand the woolly-headed idiot).
Yet just two days after the disastrous mini-budget Kwarteng spooked the markets further by saying βthere is more to comeβ¦β https://t.co/yXd6uBHOOa
A sign of things to come if the UK continues to slide down the slope into multikulti chaos?
All you need to know about this interview is that, despite being asked three times by @tnewtondunn if he wanted to apologise for the increased mortgage rates caused by his mini-budget, Kwasi Kwarteng refused. https://t.co/4Tgp8Ej5cc
Meanwhile, the pseudo-green “activists” think that punishing the British public is the way to go. I saw a clip from, I think, Sky News this morning. One Indigo Brumelow, a plainly very thick and “silver-spoon” young woman, completely hysterical.
She strikes me as mentally-afflicted in some way. I am no medic, but maybe autistic?
Potentially dangerous, like so many of the pseudo-green “activists”. Potentially terroristic. It is a question of degree only.
Actually, all the examples given by Indigo Rumbelow (floods in South Asia, hot weather in Europe etc) have occurred not only in recent decades but a hundred years and more ago.
I bet she will be pro-immigration as well. While living in the parents’ country house, or affluent suburbia (when not in a London flatshare), well away from the results of her pathetic yet damaging “activism”.
Indigo Brumelow thinks that women were “not allowed to own anything” until the Suffragettes agitated. Completely wrong, historically. She’s an ignoramus.
Will Indigo Brumelow end up in a mental hospital? She looks like a fanatical loony, and one who seems capable of any crime.
“Indigo was first arrested at Cannes Lions Advertising Festival in 2019 for gate-crashing a Facebook conference and has been held by police on at least six occasions since then.
In 2020 she began digging up the lawn in front of the Ministry for Housing Communities and Local Government and was arrested again in Parliament Square later that year when she blocked the road.“
[Daily Mail]
The newspaper also says that she is based on the Gower Peninsula, in South Wales, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. No doubt the family home. She is 28. No mention of any profession, job, or even study. In other words, as guessed, a silver-spoon trustafarian, like so many of the Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion idiots. Rote-learned repetitive ranting. No real thought at all.
Actually, she came over to me as mentally closer to 15 than 28. She evidently has some form of emotional/mental problem.
Were I Putin, I would arrange dictatorial powers for myself, then a. shoot most of the generals of the Russian Army; b. shoot many of the higher-ups in the GRU; c. bring up and train younger officers; d. find out where Zelensky is based and then fire a nuclear missile at his location.
Russia needs a gamechanger. What is now happening, and most of what has been happening from February onwards, has been a complete and embarrassing “shitshow”, causing huge property and infrastructure damage, huge harm to Ukrainian civilians and others, and to companion animals, and also resulting in 100,000 deaths and injuries to Russian officers and soldiers, let alone the devastating damage to Russia’s reputation in all ways.
Not that I opposed, or even now oppose, the invasion, but it was delayed pointlessly, for weeks, then carried out in a shockingly half-hearted, desultory, and almost detached manner. Shocking. As blogged before, this is not the army, or the equivalent of the (Soviet) army, that could and did take whole countries in days, among them Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan.
Putin seriously needs to get a grip, or give way to someone who can take firm control and achieve victory.
Afternoon music
[“Russia has no borders; it is wherever there are Russians“]
More tweets seen
NEW: UK economy shrinks by 0.2% in three months to September, in what is expected to be start of long recession. https://t.co/inFYFkkFgR
Just so I'm clear, the Boy George currently taking the high moral ground in the jungle is the same Boy George who got 15 months for handcuffing a male escort to a wall, and beating him with a metal chain.
I might be tempted to say that all the participants in that “jungle” show should be shot out of hand, but actually I do not know who or what any of them are, or why they are “celebrities”, except Boy George, Mike Tindall, and Matt Hancock (and, thinking about it, there is no reason to have Tindall shot anyway, as far as I know).
I do not think that I shall be watching I’m A Celebrity, in any case.
Interesting in several details, such as that 41% of Americans have never flown on a plane! I am also surprised to see that a third of Americanadults do not own a car.
Most telling, perhaps, is that only 62% of Americans have a household income over USD $25,000, meaning that 38% of households are struggling by on less than $25,000 a year.
When I married my first wife, a United States Federal Government employee, her own relatively modest income in 1990 was about $36,000, so an income of $25,000 in 2022, 32 years later, and for a household (that might contain two or more workers), is really what the American magazines call “hardscrabble”.
The educational levels are, as expected low, with the respondents apparently thinking that 30% of their fellow-Americans live in New York City (it’s 3%), 30% in Texas (it’s 9%) and 32% in California (it’s 12%).
An uninformed and/or ignorant population cannot support a democracy worth anything, hence the American political mess that we see unfolding, as Adlai Stevenson [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adlai_Stevenson_II] implied pretty clearly when his campaign train was in a small town during a Presidential campaign of the 1950s. A woman ran up to him, crying out, “Mr. Stevenson, you must win! Every thinking American will vote for you!“, to which Stevenson drily and prophetically replied, “Not enough, Madam; I need a majority“…
More tweets seen
What is the point of the Tories? Theyβve lost control of our borders; lost control of law and order; canβt run the NHS and are taxing us to high heaven. We routinely have no trains, tubes or ambulances. They deserve political oblivion.
I rather dread the sort of elected dictatorship that Jewish-lobby puppet Starmer might head, containing such as would-be dictator Yvette Cooper (expenses cheat, fraud, and another Labour Friends of Israel member), but Isabel Oakeshott is right— what is the point of the Conservative Party now? And look at the Cabinet! A real collection of deadheads.
The only thing that the Con Party can now say is “we are not Labour“. That might save their bacon to a (very) limited extent, but only to such a small extent.
As to that “elected dictatorship” of Labour, we shall just have to face it down any way we can.
More than a dozen police stand around aimlessly as a single Just Stop Oil idiot dangling from a gantry closes the M25. Iβm confused. The Tories have lost all claim to be the party of law and order.
Next boss Lord Wolfson wants more immigration to fill vacancies in his stores. The company is advertising jobs for Β£6.89 an hour. Maybe try paying more than the minimum wage?
They say this is how Putin moves around Moscow: blocked streets,huge speed and over a dozen of armored cars with flashing lights. pic.twitter.com/nC5dAOHmvC
True, but that was also true of the old Soviet leadership.
Alexander Dugin directly blamed Putin for the retreat from Kherson. He stated that the power in Russia is almost autocratic, but if the tsar cannot save the people, then he will face the "king of the rains fate" (a man whose stomach was ritually torn open by his fellow tribesmen) pic.twitter.com/7Nsy2cvmCM
EXCL: Senior civil servants at Ministry of Justice were offered βrespite or a route outβ of department when Dominic Raab was reappointed last month amid concerns over his behaviour. https://t.co/ju6IBcBnfQ
Just a few examples of how life in the multikulti UK is sliding towards chaos and evil. We all know in our hearts that there will be, in the end, only one way to deal with all of this, but even on a blog such as this, it cannot be expressed, by reason of the repression on free speech that now exists.
[Germany 1945: “We are fighting for the future of our children!“]
An amusing parody of the tweets of “Bootstrap Cook”, aka “Jack Monroe”.
As to the real Jack Monroe, she is waiting for the (as she calls it) “trash fire” of criticism about her alleged “grifting”, untruthful back-story and/or “frauds” to abate, so that she can carry on making a good living by putting up a facade of “helping the poor” while taking in money from donors, “patrons”, the msm, and her book royalties. The whole lot may add up to Β£100,000 a year, or more. In the absence of transparency, it is hard to know.
I am just now looking at the Patreon page of the “Bootstrap Cook”: 664 patrons paying out between Β£3.50 and Β£10 a month for what is alleged to be…nothing, or nothing much.
She only had 663 mugs paying out yesterday, so she has actually gained one new mug-patron since yesterday, despite the tide of outrage. There’s one born every minute, or at least every day, it seems…
The way people, including people surviving on small State benefits, are subsidizing the lifestyle of “Jack Monroe”, reminds me of the way some deluded elderly people used to post Β£5 notes to the late Queen whenever she let slip some nonsensical statement in the Press about how she was “feeling the pinch” and so “having to economize”. Apparently, the donors would all be sent a nice letter as if from the Queen, thanking them for their gift. Shameless. Admittedly, I suppose that the late Queen could hardly refuse the money. Awkward.
Serial war criminal John #Bolton effectively admits that the U.S. is using the 'Syrian Revolution' copybook in #Iran. He says weapons are seized from Basij militia and imported from US occupied Iraqi Kurdistan. Bolton has ties with the #MEK terrorist group, based in Albania. pic.twitter.com/ZI0xdY2naW
This is an absolute power of work, Molly. Thank you!
— π πππππππ ππππππ π¦ (@JennyLConstable) November 9, 2022
SNP insists the Conservatives can't be trusted to protect Scots families after DWP minister was blasted for suggesting maternity rights should be slashed. https://t.co/O7PamlxyYX
The “oblique warfare” now being waged by Russia against Kiev-regime electricity generation will have a huge effect if it continues. The civilian population will be cold and unable to cook food, and manufacturing of equipment and arms will be halted.
Gas supplies from Russia were cut off when the war started. The next step may be to stop all electricity generation, eg by hitting the Dnieper dam and other hydro stations, and at the same time hitting road transport by hitting fuel-storage places.
The Kiev-regime army and air force will be unable to move far or fast once their fuel runs out.
I hear that the Kiev regime is also rapidly running out of ground-to-air missiles. If the supply runs out completely, there will probably be a Russian air offensive to cripple vital infrastructure further, as happened when the Americans attacked Iraq.
It is clear that the Russian Army is having problems with recruitment, training, and discipline, but the recruitment is going ahead, and presumably the other problems are being addressed.
It may be that, next summer, there will be a massive frontal assault on Kiev, with the aim of capturing the city, and driving the Jew Zelensky and his cohorts out of the city, to Lvov or overseas.
More tweets
Current verdict of a long standing conservative commentator and research fellow of the Centre for Policy Studies. https://t.co/dCegaY3KDf
"The pantomime villain of British politics has exited stage right – leaving for a third and presumably final time, with the crowd booing."@SamCoatesSky on why Gavin Williamson's departure is about more than just the messagesπhttps://t.co/A8t4NezpaJ
As regular readers will have noticed, my assessment of “Jack Monroe” published on 30 September 2022 noted that the fans of the “Bootstrap Cook” tend to be persons not at all badly-off, who (literally) support her for general socio-political reasons; in a word, middle-class virtue-signallers just like the tweeter there, one Freya Vass, an American now lecturing in dance at the University of Kent: see https://www.kent.ac.uk/arts/people/2144/vass-rhee-freya; https://uk.linkedin.com/in/freya-vass-62280029.
The “Bootstrap Cook” has hit a rich vein of gullibility from which to profit— people who imagine that they are doing their bit to improve the world by sending money to “Jack Monroe” to support the lifestyle of the same.
Here is another recent tweet reply by the same person, Freya Vass (who sounds pretty loony):
Thanks again for reminding me that the real @BootstrapCook has a Patreon account! Every time you mention it Ima go drop Β£5 in for her. Youβre ace! I mean, an ass.
If accurate, it proves that my instinct about Liz Truss, i.e. that she was being banged by woolly-head Kwarteng, was correct (indeed, if the document is to be believed, by young researchers as well).
Even I, thought cynical as can be about the MPs in the corrupt Westminster monkeyhouse, am surprised at the actual extent of the degeneracy.
Looks as if Indian supposed “clever boy” and money-juggler, Sunak, is finding the job not very easy.
β‘οΈ UK to provide Armed Forces with 25,000 sets of extreme cold weather clothing by mid-December.
"We must continue backing the Ukrainian people in their resistance to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin's brutality," British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Nov. 9.
The UK Government cannot defend its own borders yet is determined to help defend those of a shambolic, corrupt, failed “state” that did not even exist before 1991.
I once knew a nurse who was doing a 12 hour shift (as we do) and she had forgotten her lunch, so she ate some leftovers off the patients food trolley.
She was sacked.
Gavin Williamson issues death threats to a colleague and remains an MP.
Strange. When I had to go to hospital unexpectedly from Cambridge County Court (about 15 years ago) with a minor problem, I was waiting between therapies, alone in a large area at around midday, when a porter came through with various lunch dishes for in-patients, and offered me anything I might want. I selected a fish and chips. No charge. Thanks very much. Still appreciated today.
Apropos of nothing much, when I first visited Qatar, in 2001 (before its explosive development), I returned to my pleasant hotel from a meeting, and felt hungry. Outside a room on my corridor, someone had left a room service plate outside a door, with an uneaten and unpeeled banana and orange on the plate. I took both fruits and enjoyed them in my room, but then thought “what if that was caught on camera? Might I get my hand chopped off for the sake of that bloody banana?” In fact, no (Islamic law is not quite as strict as that anyway, even in Saudi Arabia), but it gave me a few anxious minutes.
I’m A Celebrity
Watched the minute or so at the start of the show, to see whether Little Matt Hancock was featured. All the existing “celebrities” were shown in cameo. I only recognized two of them (Boy George and Mike Tindall). Maybe it’s an age thing, or a culture thing…
Though composed in 1945, that symphony seems to me to be closer to the optimism of the UK in the early 1950s, eg the 1951 Festival of Britain [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festival_of_Britain], which optimism lived side-by-side with the dullness of postwar rationing (which lasted, in part, until 1955) and the economic degradation of a country which had exhausted itself fighting an entirely unnecessary war for 6 years.
If “Bootstrap Cook” is sued, I wonder whether she will pay out actual money this time for her previous solicitor, self-promoting Israel-based Jew, “Mark Lewis Lawyer”, to act for her? Last time, when “Jack Monroe” sued Katie Hopkins (and won Β£24,000 plus very heavy costs), Lewis acted (and instructed Counsel) on the “no win no fee” basis but, in that case, Bootstrap Cook was the claimant.
Reading about “Jack Monroe” recently, in far more detail than I have in previous years, I now wonder quite seriously whether some of her activities merit the attention of the Fraud Squad or the like. Hard to say without a full investigation.
In the short term, somewhere such as Ascension Island. Or West Falkland.
The reason people are so willing to abuse @awfullymolly is because @bootstrapcook sold something very potent. Middle class self image. Didnt matter who it harmed as long as it gave her middle class followers the warm and fuzzies.
When governments behave like this, pledging huge amounts of their people's money without any mandate, the social contract is broken and people should consider themselves relieved of any moral obligation to pay the tax that is demanded from them.
Russians are moving replacements for the damaged spans of the Kerch bridge. Once they reach the final destination itβs going to be a very valuable, military target. #Kerch#Crimea#UkraineοΈpic.twitter.com/wtyQdcX5H4
So will be the Dnieper dam(s), and all other electricity-generating stations currently under the control of the Kiev regime. The following tweet is from a week or so ago:
Another video of Russian defense line under construction in Hola Prystan, Kherson region /2 pic.twitter.com/zUNEoeZUO4
— Special Kherson Cat ππΊπ¦ (@bayraktar_1love) November 7, 2022
American friends, all I ask is that you vote AGAINST the people who lied about the pandemic, masks, vaccines, and stopped us from seeing elderly people in homes when we knew βthe scienceβ didnβt match common sense.
Yβall I just canβt with this βantisemiteβ spree anymore. Someone, please explain to me how those in power can simultaneously claim victim status?
Iβm being genuine. Please explain it.
A small % of the world is Jewish and they have amazingly amassed wealth, and business control
Hallam poses as a “former organic farmer” whose “business” was apparently ruined (somehow) by “climate change”. In fact, his “farm” (smallholding) consisted of about 9.6 acres! More like a large garden. When I had lease of a country house in Cornwall 20 years ago, our gardens and other grounds were 4 acres or so (with de facto use of another 100). In the aerial photograph below, the bit my wife and I occupied was the main house and the area where the trees are:
[my one-time home, photographed in about 100 acres of North Cornwall]
Before African misgovernment ruined Kenya and the rest of British East Africa, it had railways, good ones, run properly by British people. The long-distance routes even had restaurant cars with full dinner service!
Dinner menu from the Mombasa-Nairobi express, in 1938,mentioned in my article on railways for βCompactβ, now available.. pic.twitter.com/EwgdEwXAKe
Jack Monroe is neither a qualified nutritionist or chef. Her recipes are nutritionally and calorifically deficient, novelty poverty slop for the guardian readership. She props up the Tory myth that you can feed a family for Β£20 a week – and funds her lifestyle on the back of it.
Only a middle class person could spend a brief time on benefits, and then publicly position themselves as an authority on poverty. And then, feel entitled to make a career of it. And before Jack Monroe claims she's working class, these are her words – pic.twitter.com/InkGWzmpku
I do not know enough about mental conditions to label someone who poses as all things to all men, but that seems to be “Jack Monroe”, in my opinion. Turn the kaleidoscope slightly, and you get a slightly different view. Turn it again, and again a slightly different picture appears.
Macron tries a charm offensive on #Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. #France followed Washington in imposing coercive measures on Venezuela. Do you think now they might want some winter oil? π pic.twitter.com/kqZSubhkjc
It has been said (rightly or wrongly) that another Twitter account which asks for money is also “Jack Monroe” under a pseudonym. Seems unlikely, but I just do not know.
I have no idea whether that other account is (or was— the account being now deleted) “Jack Monroe”; whether it is or was, it seems to have been an outright fraud whoever was operating it.
So yes I gave Jack Monroe money and she ripped me off. I got a one month refund from a 3rd party.
If you think the screenshots are manipulated or fake, DM me and let's have a zoom call and I'll login live on my screen and show you this shower of shit.
Yet (as of today) 663 mugs are still sending money every single month to “Jack Monroe”; maybe as much as Β£6,630 per month. In cash. Taxfree. Also, scribblers from, eg, the Irish Daily Mail, are still tweeting in support of what now looks like it might be at least akin to an outright fraud.
The only way to sort out the competing claims seems to be a civil or criminal court examination.
My own opinion why so many (not poor, indeed often affluent) persons defend the “Bootstrap Cook” is because she has become a kind of totem for a number of causes, and that effect is facilitated by the multi-headed nature of her own well-publicized identity or identities.
People often just believe what they want to believe. You only have to look at “Boris” Johnson, who (tellingly, aided and abetted by the Press, TV and radio for 20 years) was able to convince tens of millions of people that he was hugely intelligent (he’s not), hugely cultured (he’s not) and has great socio-political ideas (he has no ideas at all beyond schoolboy “bridges over oceans” and the like). A complete idiot, yet millions, even now, believe in him.
“Boris” is only one egregious example of that syndrome.
THis. This is the problem. Its not the grifting online, its the widescale acceptance of cookbooks that would make someone at risk of malnutrition ill. Truly ill. Completely uncritical acceptance of bullshit she has spouted. For a decade. @bootstrapcookhttps://t.co/M5jiWw61nv
Graphological point: note the hugely narcissistic giant loops of the first letters of the words, preceding the squashed rest of the words. Is it fanciful to say that that indicates a big front with nothing much behind it?
Discovered today the Gavin Williamson has been knighted! The world has gone mad. He's still a 5th former who has assertiveness issues, and therefore resorts to being rude and aggresive. He should go back to being a salesman and leave the business of government to adults.
I had to put Julia Hartley Brewer straight on some legal points years ago (on Twitter). She blocked me after trying and failing to brush me off (with what she thought was a good reply until I pointed out her errors). She’s just a “controlled opposition” radio loudmouth.
Even the largely-“controlled” Spectator has sat up and taken notice. The cartoon should be more menacing, though, to reflect the reality— invasion by economic migrants and/or criminals rather than desperate migration by “refugees”.
It will be recalled by regular readers of the blog that Derbyshire Police performed most ignominiously during the 2020-2021 “panicdemic”, bullying and harassing fell walkers and picnickers. The same force had previously behaved atrociously towards Alison Chabloz (who was at the time resident in the Peak District).
Seems that Derbyshire Police find dealing with real crime rather harder.
Β£750 compensation and a suspended sentence for attacking the victim from behind, with a hammer, and in a sustained attack which ended only when an uninvolved third party happened upon the scene.
Evidently premeditated as well, in my view, though admittedly there is a bit of wriggle-room there, on the facts as reported.
Sacked Jew criticizes Elon Musk. Elon Musk therefore cannot be too bad.
In terms of a strict logical syllogism, the above is perhaps a flawed conclusion, but I suspect at least arguable in real terms.
A pack of Zionist Jews finally managed to have me expelled from Twitter in 2018, after years of trying. I wonder whether the Twitter employees involved have now lost their jobs under the Elon Musk cull. I hope so.
Tweets seen
Just happened to see this, which was posted months ago:
70-year-old Francis Romero was in a coma in hospital. His dog was allowed to stay with him, and did not leave him day or night. After a month Francis woke up from the coma with the words:
"Where is the white angel who constantly whispered that everything would be all right?" π pic.twitter.com/oirXCC2lWE
Gentle goats are mutilated and killed for cashmere and mohair. @hmunitedkingdom promised to ban these cruelly obtained materials, but the company has gone back on its word! Urge it to stop profiting from goat abuse. #HMHorrorshttps://t.co/A2JJTms2JF
According to Twitter, a picture of a beautiful wild snow leopard in the Himalayas is “potentially sensitive content“. Mad. Twitter needs a big shake-up.
Tweets seen
Why aren't you? Why wouldn't you put the welfare of your own ethnic group first? It's because you've been brainwashed into believing it's bad.
Every other race/ethnicity puts its own group first, I put White people first and it's moral to do so. https://t.co/yltDkhjZes
Pathetic to see Hislop humiliating Gary Neville on HIGNFY last night. Like watching someone beat a dyslexic at scrabble then do a victory lap of the living room. Absolutely worthless.
And Hislop gladly takes his fat pay cheque from the same BBC that is choosing to broadcast extensive coverage from the tournament in Qatar. Difficult to call out the hypocrisy of others, when you've got your snout in the same trough.
The children of a tiny minority of the wealthy elites got to study across the EU, whilst the average working class Joe got longer NHS queues, larger class sizes, lower wages and got called racist by narcissists like you.
The Coudenhove-Kalergi Plan (conspiracy) has come out into the open over the past several years. Now, you do not have to wonder about it, you just have to look around you (especially if you live in London or another large city or town, or just watch TV dramas, soaps, ads etc).
“No civil war ever has a single cause. Itβs always a multitude of factors that lead to decline and collapse. The current US has several of what the CIA calls βthreat multipliersβ: environmental crises continue to batter the country, economic inequality is at its highest level since the founding of the country, and demographic change means that the US will be a minority white country within just over two decades. All of these factors tend to contribute to civil unrest wherever they are found in the world.”
According to Wikipedia, about half of the pre-conflict (i.e. pre-February 2022) population had already fled by the end of May 2022. It is not known either how many have fled in the past 6 months or how many now remain in the city.
It is clear that this battle will be of great importance. I find myself wondering whether Putin intends to use tactical (“battlefield”) nuclear weapons to almost destroy the city if it looks like falling to the forces of the Kiev regime. Those Western “experts” who have pronounced say “no” to that idea; Putin’s people also say no. So maybe “no” is the answer. I do feel a little uneasy about the possibility, though.
Putin has recently referenced, I believe more than once, the American slaughter of very many of the inhabitants of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (perhaps 230,000) in 1945, in the atomic-bomb attacks that pretty much levelled both cities. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki.
Does Putin really mean to destroy Kherson if necessary? We do not know.
[view of Kherson]
If Putin’s intent is to destroy one city so as to say to the Kiev regime “I have just destroyed Kherson. Surrender, or Kiev will be next” (in similar fashion as the Americans did in Japan in 1945), that would be a complete gamechanger, and might even bring in NATO on the “Ukrainian” (Kiev regime) side. In that event, the next world war might be, and probably would be, triggered.
What is inescapable is that the high-grade armament given by the USA, UK etc to the forces of the Kiev regime is having a very great effect on the battlefield. Russian forces are very definitely now on the defensive.
Russia is now, after some hesitation, targeting the electrical power and other infrastructure that keeps the Kiev “failed state” going. I expect that to both continue and intensify.
What a horrible bloody mess (as blogged previously). If only the Russian Army, its General Staff, and the GRU had been fit for purpose at the start, the invasion would probably have ended within days and with complete success, particularly had the Jew Zelensky and his cabal been eliminated by what used to be known in Soviet days as “Olympic Spetsnaz” (which may not even exist now— I do not know).
Now, huge numbers of Ukrainian civilians and their companion animals are suffering and many are dying, together with many Russians, partly because the Russians have made such a shambolic mess of all this, and partly because the West is keeping the war going by vast transfers of arms, ammunition, training, medical and other equipment, and sheer money to the Zelensky regime.
More music
[painting by Volegov]
If life gives you lemons…
I happened to see something about the “Rogue Trader”, Nick Leeson [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Leeson], who caused a big kefuffle in the mid-1990s, when caught out making unauthorized trades nominally on behalf of Baring’s Bank (which collapsed with massive debts because of him).
Turns out that, after serving over 4 years in Changi Prison, Singapore (2/3 of a nearly-7 year sentence), and having (earlier) written the bestselling Rogue Trader [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_Trader_(book)], he became commercial manager (I had thought, accountant) for an Irish football team, Galway United; then he became CEO of the same club until, some years later, having to resign by reason of the club’s financial difficulties.
I recall having read his book when it came out in 1995 or 1996.
Now, however, like a reformed bank robber advising banks on security, Leeson apparently speaks for fees at seminars, and also after-dinner. Such bookings can be very lucrative (ex-Prime Ministers etc get paid tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands). Leeson is obviously not going to be in that league, and I am unaware of what he does charge, but it might be a few thousand pounds a time, a couple of times a month. Nice work if you can get it.
After a brief year or so of being a successful stock market trader in the early 1990s, Leeson was stunningly unsuccessful, famously so, and his later time at the Irish football club was hardly crowned with success, but his 1990s notoriety now provides him with a living, perhaps a good one.
The (Jewish) journalist even refers to Jews as “the tribe“.
It occurs to me that the most repulsive MP in that report is not in fact a Jew (though married to a Jewish woman, and with children being brought up as Jewish). No, not Keir Starmer but Robert Jenrick. A complete doormat for Israel and the Jewish lobby.
More tweets
Suella Braverman like's talking tough. But it won't be enough. The British people have heard it all before > Mail on Sunday > https://t.co/QCqET8HD3a
Indeed. People wanted the migration-invasion “sorted”, as is now said, and they have had enough of big-talking on immigration from “Conservative” ministers, which big talk has led to no or no useful action. Priti Patel the least useful big talker/no action (so far).
One interesting thing about the Gavin Williamson row. I spent the back end of last week asking people what his job in Government actually is. No-one could tell me.
According to Electoral Calculus, with Reform Party getting maybe 5%, that would result in Labour 471 seats, Conservative 91, LibDem 13, Green 1, SNP 52. https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/userpoll.html.
(with “tactical voting” ticked, Con = 30 seats on the same numbers).
If Reform only get 2%, much the same result, but even were Reform (Farage’s latest vehicle) to get 10%, all that would happen would be Reform getting 1 MP, Con 100, Lab 460, LibDem 14. The FPTP voting system is hard to shift.
Indeed, even were Reform to get 15% (higher than UKIP’s result in 2015), Reform would still only get 1 MP! The big change there, though, would be a further Con collapse, to 37 MPs (Lab 521, LibDems 16).
Even on 20%, Reform would get nowhere.
To really arrive, Reform would have to get to about 25% and take votes from Lab as well as Con. As people now say, “a big ask“.
Personally, I do not believe that the Reform Party agenda of “libertarianism” mixed with some less American elements (support for NHS, opposition to more mass immigration etc) will pull in the punters.
There again, Farage stabbed his own Brexit Party supporters in the back in 2019, and (in lay terms) stole the candidates’ money as well! Who would trust him now?
A more social-national party might succeed, if credible: nationalization of strategic utilities, support for private enterprise otherwise, with taxation of large enterprises greatly increased, and support for a thoroughly reformed —but still free at point of use— health service; law and order, support for proper defence; opposition to the Zelensky regime but humanitarian aid to families and animals in Ukraine, and much closer links to Russia.
One aspect that interests me is that, as others have noticed, hardly any tweeters supporting the “Bootstrap Cook” are actually anywhere near “poor”. Many are decidedly affluent, as can be surmised from their Twitter headlines: CEO this, Director that, author, journalist, food writer on a large newspaper, and so on.
…and that may be only half or a third of her full income.
The extraordinary thing is that quite large numbers of affluent scribblers and others are absolutely vituperative in their self-appointed defence of the “Bootstrap Cook”, as in the example(s) below, in which two employees of the Irish Daily Mail, Tom Doorley (a restaurant critic) and Philip Nolan, jump on someone critical of “Jack Monroe”:
I am now even more honoured! Jack is an amazing person.
Remarkable self-awareness from the little gobshite, Philip. At least s/he admits they are spouting pure ordure (if they even know what the word means). I'm amazed at how these moral pygmies constantly trawl Twitter for references to Jack.
Well, some of the questions were harder than usual this week. I scored only 4/10, but that was still enough to beat political journalist John Rentoul, who scored 1 “and a half”. I did not know the answers to questions 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, and 10.
As in the past, Rentoul’s gaps in knowledge surprise me (he only got the answer to question 1, and also the first name of question no. 5), but (also as in the past) I commend his honesty.
Knowing a bit about telecommunications law, I confirm: this is not just a path to an orwellian dystopy, this already IS an orwellian dystopy, put into practice by huxleyan delta minuses. https://t.co/7ogTTOkmGN
Exactly! I am sick to the teeth of these "bloated", greedy, monied Establishment parasites…"preaching to the peasants" about how WE must starve, freeze, lose *our* jobs and homes…whilst THEY remain untouched! It is clearly THEIR failure..but OUR fault!
[Akademgorodok, nr. Novosibirsk, Siberia, in winter]
Gavin Williamson
“The strange case of Gavin Williamson” comes up again:
πΊ NEW: Gavin Williamson, the Cabinet Office minister, is being investigated over abusive, expletive-ridden text messages to a colleague complaining about not being invited to the Queenβs funeral and warning βthere is a price for everythingβ https://t.co/LL0iZ1s4QC
And we wonder why good people don't go into politics. When someone like Williamson can keep being promoted despite repeated failure + foul behaviour why would decent people bother?
There seems no other reason that might explain Williamson’s unmerited career progression to Cabinet minister, or his “knighthood”.
It is true to say that there are many many other incompetent and ridiculous MPs and/or ministers today (examples include Liz Truss and “Boris” Johnson). Those two could not be (?) linked to freemasonry (in the case of Truss, anyway).
Leaving freemasonry aside, the whole system is just broken.
Williamson and his continuing career (indeed, his whole career)? A puzzle.
In the last month or so, the number of mugs subsidizing the lifestyle of “Jack Monroe”, the “Bootstrap Cook” via monthly Patreon donations has fallen from over 800 to about 600, but that is still at least 600 x Β£3, i.e, Β£2,400, and some claim that (because of some donors paying out Β£10 a month or more), she may be getting Β£6,000 a month or more (plus book royalties, paid appearances etc). I have seen annual income figures of over Β£100,000 mentioned by tweeters, though I have no idea how accurate they may be.
Some of the unthinking (and almost invariably quite-comfortably-off) supporters of the “Bootstrap Cook” say “so what, she is helping the poor” (in some unspecified way).
How actually is “Bootstrap Cook” “helping the poor“? After all, we can all buy cheap pasta from places such as ASDA, then pour a bit of cheapo tomato sauce over it. Perhaps I myself should try hitting the “donate to me” “Internet cook” thing! After all, Nick Griffin did a bit! He specialized in steak, I think. I could call myself “the Neo-SS Cook” or something “triggering” of that sort…
More seriously, I fail to see how, for example, mixing a tin of sardines with a tin of peaches, adding curry powder, heating the mix, and then calling it something like (my invention) “Southend Fish Curry”, helps anyone (whether poor or rich).
I have to say that my (years ago) quite favourable view of the “Bootstrap Cook” has become less and less favourable over time.
I'd take the shrieking about our democracy being in danger more seriously if it didn't come from the people who spent 2 years relentlessly mocking the concept of "Freedumb" and who were totally comfortable stripping people of their rights for declining state-mandated injections.
The TV ads in the USA, UK etc, showing the supposedly ideal multikulti family, with black “husband” and white, usually blonde, “wife”, and the mixed-race children, are just less obvious versions of the tweet by that Jew “David Holtz”/”@NeverAgain0666”.
What is the point in strengthening the law around cruelty to animals, when the courts continue to hand down such toothless sentences? Also, is the CPS charging correctly?
Animal welfare has to be given more emphasis in this country, even if the UK is better than most other countries in this respect.
Tweets seen
The best way to see Van Gogh's "Starry Night" is to stare at the center of the spiral for 20 seconds and then look at the painting pic.twitter.com/6XkD56HbJc
Ferrari: "This is a rum state of affairs. So the PM won't go to COP27 for the environment, but the Foreign Secretary will go to Qatar for the World Cup?
"Clearly football is more important than the environment to this government."
If Rishi Sunak thinks Therese Coffey represents "Professional Government" then he's a bigger prat than I thought already. She's utterly clueless,and frankly it's insulting that someone so useless keeps getting high level appointments.
βWhat are you doing in your own life to look after the environment?β
Therese Coffey: βErmβ¦cups as it were, permanent cups that we can recycle or reuseβ¦Iβll be getting back very much being a champion for those habitsβ
The Environment Secretary, ladies & gents#BBCBreakfast
100% Lucy. The farce of politics. Get elected. Bung yer mates in post, with little or zero experience and we as the electorate, swallow the lot. Coffey embodies the worst of all worlds, in every position she's been in. A talentless lump of denial…
Ha ha! The bitch must have seen my assessment about her! Actually, that is quite likely: thousands have, since it was published over three years ago. Many MPs, ministers, members of overseas governments, read my work.
[Therese Coffey, Secretary of State for the Environment; former Secretary of State for Health; former Deputy Prime Minister]
Seriously, though, the fact that a useless and dishonest creature such as Therese Coffey can reach the level, politically, that she has, surely proves that the whole system is sick.
Twitter
If there is any truth in the news, or rumour, that Elon Musk will reverse the millions (?) of “lifetime suspensions” of Twitter tweeters (one of which was me, after a pack of Zionist Jews conspired to have me expelled in 2018), I may decide to return to Twitter, but only to promote this blog.
In reality, the “aid” being given to “Ukraine” (to the Jew Zelensky’s Zionist and dictatorial regime in Kiev) is not aid to the Ukrainian people, and is given with the intent of pressuring and eventually collapsing Russia as an independent state.
The New World Order [NWO] cabals want Russia to return to a completely supine, powerless state, as it was in the 1990s under Yeltsin, a state in which Jewish and (other) foreign exploiters can profit hugely off the suffering of the Russian people. The same, mutatis mutandis, as happened in Germany in the 1920s.
Late tweets seen
But according to the National Institutes of Health, thereβs no link between sugar and hyperactivity β and study after study has demonstrated that sugar rushes are a myth. https://t.co/zkAs5Qgi4t
The evidence was so compelling that the statistician who reviewed the paper told its authors that he had never seen such consistently negative results in statistical analysis. pic.twitter.com/OWmUxFxS8k
Youβre not alone. In '94, researchers examined about 50 children whose parents claimed they were sensitive to sugar. Each child was assigned a diet high in sugar, aspartame, or saccharin (a sweetener that contains no calories). pic.twitter.com/pvi6wgzp4X
Interesting comment both on the specific question and also, impliedly, on how popular perception of what “The Science” says (or is believed to say) can lead to a kind of mass conditioning (cf. the “Covid” “panicdemic” and several other issues).
Well, this week a clear victory over political journalist John Rentoul. I trumped his 3/10 with 7/10, albeit that I guessed a couple. I did not know the answers to questions 3, 7, and 8.
Liz Truss
64% think Liz Truss should resign.
8% think she should stay as leader.
61% think there should be a general election.@PGMcNamara exclusively reveals the results of a poll of more than 2,000 voters by Find Out Now, which was conducted after Liz Truss' press conference. pic.twitter.com/poNNWuerya
A lot of bamboozled people think that Indians such as Priti Patel or Suella Braverman want to reduce migration-invasion and/or mass immigration. I see no evidence of it beyond empty words and empty gestures.
Anybody with half a brain, or the intellectual level of Liz Truss,could see beforehand what a disaster she would be as Prime Minister. Those disgusting puppet masters, and the old fart Tory members that allowed it to happen need sectioning!
The system of selecting candidates and getting them (supposedly) “elected” as MPs, then ministers, then Prime Minister, is at fault. Anyone with real ideas has little chance; anyone opposed to the Jew-Zionist supremacist agenda/conspiracy is quickly weeded out.
The result is that the Liz Truss’s, the Theresa Coffeys, the Kwasi Kwartengs, the James Cleverlys, the “Boris”-idiots, the Theresa Mays, the David Cameron-Levitas become MPs, ministers, even Prime Minister, despite obvious lack of ability.
Surprisingly, a tiny number of tweeters are still tweeting in the Liz Truss interest, even as the vultures circle overhead:
Liz Truss never even got a third . Only a pass in her degree .
I have been unable to verify the latter comment, but it is true that Wikipedia does not mention the class of degree obtained by Liz Truss, which I somehow think it would if she had obtained a First, or even a Second.
Not that the level of degree matters hugely anyway: plenty of idiots actually get “good” degrees, especially those who, like Liz Truss, were at university since the great dumbing-down and award-inflation (i.e. since the early 1990s). However, if it is true that Truss got only a Pass degree at a time when awards were already being inflated (she graduated in 1996), then that is certainly unimpressive.
As a matter of fact, Liz Truss did not have, as tweeter @habib_jenny” claims, “20 years of financial dealing” prior to becoming an MP (an accomplishment achieved at least partly on her back). She was employed in business for only 9 years, at least 5 of which she spent at a junior or very junior level.
What about her chances of surviving as Prime Minister? Almost zero, but the fact is that to remove her by force, i.e. to compel her to go, there would have to be a change in the rules pertaining to no-confidence votes in the 1922 Committee, then a period during which MPs can send in no-confidence letters, then a vote. In theory, I suppose that that could all be accomplished within a week, if they pushed it.
The talk now seems to be that MPs would want to change the 1922 Committee rules, cutting out of the election the party’s rank-and-file members (mostly elderly, mostly comfortably-off or affluent). The membership consists of about 172,000 persons. Liz Truss was elected by about 81,000 of those who voted (about 4/5ths of the members voted).
Cutting out the ordinary members would have several results, one of which would be that MPs could install whomsoever they like, without having to think about whether that candidate might be acceptable to the rank-and-file membership. So probably someone that the MPs like and who might be (thought) acceptable to UK voters as a whole, rather than to the narrow electorate of elderly and unrepresentative Con Party members.
I imagine that, if Jeremy Hunt were to become Con Party leader, he would present (rightly or wrongly) a less threatening face to the UK voters. On the other hand, it may be that the aim is to install a non-white, as I have blogged recently, in which case it might be Sunak. There might even be a false choice presented: Sunak and another non-white (surely not loony Ayn Rand devotee and Pakistani pro-Israel fanatic, Sajid Javid?).
Any new leader of the Con Party will be perceived as having no popular mandate whatever, just as Liz Truss has no mandate. However, will that new leader want to call a general election when public “voting intention” is running as low as 19% re. Conservatives? That might mean that the only Con Party MPs that survived would be in the most heavily or hard-core non-marginal seats. That might be as few as 100. Labour might take many seats in the North, with the LibDems taking many in the South, speaking broadly.
What if Liz Truss herself were to call a general election, either out of spite or to go out in a blaze of (?) glory, rather than be booted out by her own MPs as useless after only about 6 weeks? She might just do that.
More likely, she will resign, with the promise that she will be elevated to the House of Lords later.
The next leader of the Con Party, and thus Prime Minister, might decide that general election prospects now are so hopeless for the Con Party that the situation could get no worse even if a general election were to be held at the last minute, in November or December 2024. Indeed, a lot can happen in 2 years. The Con Party might still lose the election, but not so badly, arguably. It might be left with 200 MPs, instead of 100, or 50.
Who knows what might happen to put people off Labour-label in 2023 or 2024?
It is clear that Liz Truss is toast.
I blogged, not long after she became Con Party leader and Prime Minister, that I would be surprised if she made it to Christmas, and astonished if she were still Prime Minister by Easter 2023.
Give that man a cee-gar!…
[the letter from Liz Truss to woolly-head Kwarteng has his name at foot! She is just hopelessly inept on every level, and ignorant on every topic]
Many many prominent MPs are over-estimated, not just Liz Truss. “Boris”-idiot, to give one now-obvious example, has been critically tweeted and blogged about for years— by me.
A moot point, but it is clear that the electoral system entrenches the present basically binary choice between two parties whose underlying bases are not as far apart as many imagine.
To state the very obvious, there have been a few changes since 1982. Russia in 2022 is not the Soviet Union in 1982. As the Ukraine situation has surely proven, Russia now not only has not the expansionist Marxist-Leninist ideology of the Soviet Union in 1982 (however cynically-held), but also has an Army much weakened in most respects since then. Civilian, as well as military, discipline is now weak in Russia.
Actually, that cartoon sparked a few memories. In 1982, the Trans-Siberian to Europe pipeline, the subject of the cartoon, was being constructed.
In 1982, I happened to know a recent Soviet exile in London, the 40+-year-old dumped boyfriend of a (ghastly) friend of my then girlfriend, who got work doing technical translation for a company involved in the project. It improved his lifestyle. He was able to fill up the tank of his battered old West German car (somehow acquired during his stay in Munich), instead of putting in half a gallon at a time. He was able to buy delicacies such as cheese infused with port, and specialist Lapsang Souchong tea, instead of living for days on a year-old pack of “noodles” (pasta). He was even able to find a place to live (he suddenly disappeared from view).
Forty years ago. What can one say? The massive changes brought in by the change in the 33-year cycle (from 1989) have altered more than the East-West confrontation. Socialism collapsed from 1989, and the technical changes since then have also altered society in the West, especially: Internet, social media etc. Also, the then power of the Arab/Islamic world, based on the oil/gas market and OPEC, has greatly waned, for several reasons.
Now we are in the next most significant year. What will 2055 look like? I myself will never know (while on this Earth), having been born in yet another very significant year— 1956. In other words, in 2055 I would be 99 or 100 years old, were I to live that long (unlikely).
More tweets
This crisis will cascade across government, economy, housing markets, energy, health, the judiciary and beyond. And it could trigger another global financial crash, worse than 2008. one that, like that crash, could have potentially irreversible impacts on global civilisation. /2
Systems collapse when they are unable to adapt to change. Truss is accelerating conditions of change beyond the capability of British institutions to adapt, overwhelming the overall systemβs abilities to respond. /4
Collapse doesnβt necessarily entail complete evisceration of a society, it involves breakdown of institutional complexity potentially entailing reductions in living standards/population. Trussβ agenda is accelerating the risk of such a collapse in a way that is unprecedented. /6
A global financial crash, which is now likely (and made likelier by Truss & Co.), would be worse than 2008. Private and public debt as a share of global GDP is now at record levels, approaching $300 trillion, far higher than then. Very little room to use QE to cushion crisis /8
UK energy strategy compounding economic risks. It cements dependence on most expensive sources of fossil energy, which are rapidly declining in quality – both North Sea+fracking. This will keep prices high, driving inflationary pressures. /10
Nearly half of hospital consultants are planning to leave the NHS next year. According to Dr Vishal Sharma, chair of the BMA consultants committee, the exodus means that βthe NHS is in danger of complete collapseβ. /12
Similar challenges facing judicial system. Cost of living crisis drove criminal barristers to strike over low pay. Although sub-par deal was reached, profession still in massive decline with fewer and fewer joining, and increasing numbers leaving for better jobs elsewhere. /14
The Truss Government has locked itself into this vicious cycle. As costs of running system escalates, returns are diminishing. Every response only creates greater costs and complexity β and a new layer of problems. /16
Growing incoherence inside the Government β Uturns, infighting, a disjointed Cabinet losing support of its own parliamentary party β demonstrates scale of political crisis. The Government is imploding and this is further diminishing its decision-making capacity /18
The Govt has created a national emergency with devastating consequences that will be long-lasting. And it must be recognised that this perfect storm was avoidable. And that it can be fixed β but not within the constraints of our current system. /20 https://t.co/VuUALqzN9B
Labour needs a crash course in complex systems thinking to underpin a robust plan for system transformation. Or it will fail as catastrophically as this one. /ENDS https://t.co/VuUALqiK7B
Alarming, but also very exciting. This could be the moment, not far off, when real social nationalism, on a pan-European basis, could take off, but only if there is a movement at core ready and waiting for that right and historic moment.
The UK has no social-national movement, nor even any ideologically-sound and disciplined party or tendency, however small, capable of forming the vanguard of a mass movement.
My fear is that the social-national-revolutionary moment may arrive, only to find no, or no suitable, vehicle waiting to ride it to victory.
The UK's financial woes are reverberating far beyond the countryβs borders
Now, the turmoil may change how central banks around the world choose to deal with inflation, says @johnauthers (via @opinion)
Those whose reputation has been damaged by the chaos include Prime Minister Liz Truss, Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, the Bank of England, the Conservative Party, and the nationβs asset management industry https://t.co/VswJ6W45dspic.twitter.com/lsYhOQyWCl
Look at that. A product of Oxford University and the UK’s Jew-Zionist controlled and/or heavily-influenced “democratic” selection and election process. Look at it…
Incidentally, if whatever now emerges as a “government” of this poor country wants to cut its spending, it can start by cutting off all money, arms, ammunition and other aid wasted on the Jew Zelensky and his evil and dictatorial regime in Kiev.
“A Jewish holidaymaker has told of her fury after she was confronted by a swastika in a hotel bathroom she was staying in – only to be told by staff that it was not intended to be offensive and was a ‘design feature.’“
[Daily Mail]
…and (wouldn’t you know it?) “In addition to an apology Ms White, who works as a product manager for a start-up company is now also demanding a full refund.”
[Daily Mail]
Typical of “them”, wanting both “apology” and money… Israel has done it for over 70 years: Germany has been blackmailed into both crawling to “them” and into paying endless “restitution” and “compensation”.
They made up a virus and told you it was mainly spread by people without symptoms. Then they made a βvaccineβ and told you it would reduce the spread by making sure billions of people wouldnβt have any symptoms.
And you wonder why they didnβt study transmission in the trialsβ¦
.@Instagram just BANNED our post of @bobscartoons depicting Trudeau in blackface, Biden & Johnson all with blood on their hands on a pile of corpses pointing at Russia. So here are some REAL photos of Trudeau in blackface & stats on corpses
'The only good thing is that once the Tories have gone, millions will realise the truth β that they have no friends at Westminster, and if they want to change this they must build a new party and make it win.' https://t.co/v9pdFX2Dmy via @mailplus
'THE Tory Party is like a knight dying in his armour. Looked at casually from a distance, it still appears formidable and important. Seen close to, it is obviously done for, gasping for breath inside its visor' https://t.co/v9pdFX2Dmy via @mailplus
'The Tories must surely have run out of nice old ladies in the shires by now. I suspect its membership lists mainly contain metrosexual free-market fanatics, swivel-headed drug legalisers and teenagers in think tanks.' https://t.co/v9pdFXkMAG via @mailplus
I wonder. The Conservative Party Conference 2022 looked more grey than gay. What struck me was how small was the gathering, as well as elderly. From photos I saw, at least, there were even fewer young people than in previous years.
.@alexkokcgarov . Since the 2014 putsch, Ukraine has had no proper opposition party. Its government closes down TV stations it does not like..You know how bad corruption is. Imperfect may be putting it mildly.. https://t.co/9zl0WC0tR8
Very corrupt. I once heard —from a source thought reliable— that a very odd and unpleasant man (whom I actually met a few times in London in the late 1990s, an American, and who had and I think still has small offices in both Kiev and London), would pay Ukrainian girls of 16 to walk, naked except for stiletto-heeled shoes, on his back. The individual concerned was, at the time, in his forties, and had a daughter of similar age. He was very tied up with Ukrainian government people, and perhaps still is.
Sweden has fallen. At this point, it may be better if most of it ceased to exist.
Seen it and continue to see it with my own eyes. Everywhere north of Southampton is filling up with sprawl. Fields being filled up, and villages disappearing amidst the mass of new builds. Heartbreaking.
For the last 2 decades, net legal migration has averaged 300,000 a year. Add in illegal migration and that's the equivalent of a new Birmingham every 3 years. Almost all of that has been added to England's population. This is deliberate policy by all mainstream parties.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. How many more sudden deaths before these people are held to account for what they've done?https://t.co/dgOFl2jYeD
— David Morgan π΄σ §σ ’σ ·σ ¬σ ³σ Ώ #StayFree (@david_r_morgan) October 15, 2022
75 years after Jewish troops were sent to poison wells in Arab locales, official documentation has been uncovered in Israeli military archives on the biological warfare operation "Cast Thy Bread"https://t.co/FSS5onpCna
“At least one in five working-age families in most UK constituencies β including in Liz Trussβs seat β would lose out by hundreds of pounds on average if real-terms benefit cuts go ahead, a study has found.
The scale of the impact of a below-inflation rise on already struggling households and by extension, local shops and businesses, is revealed in a study by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF). It would amount to the biggest-ever real terms cut to benefits in a single year.
The findings will increase pressure on the prime minister to stick to promises made by her predecessor, Boris Johnson, to guarantee benefits would rise next April in line with September inflation β about 10% β rather than by the rise in earnings figure of 6%. This real-terms cut would deliver around Β£5bn in savings to the Treasury.
Dozens of backbench Tory MPs are understood to be prepared to rebel over real-terms benefits cuts, while a number of cabinet ministers β including Penny Mordaunt and Robert Buckland β have also signalled their opposition.
The JRF analysis shows seven out of 10 MPs represent areas where at least 20% of households are reliant on universal credit and other means-tested benefits.These include 193 Conservative seats, including a number of key marginals where over a third of working-age families would be affected by a cut.
βPoliticians should think long and hard about the impact of withholding hundreds of pounds from thousands of families in their constituencies when the basic rate of benefits is already at its lowest in real terms for 40 years and prices are sky-high,β said Katie Schmuecker, JRFβs principal policy adviser
Families in βred wallβ seats in one-time Labour strongholds taken by the Conservatives at the last general election would be particularly badly affected by real-term benefit cuts. They include Blackpool South, where nearly half (46%) of households stand to lose out, Burnley (38%), and Redcar (33%).
The JRF analysis shows that even in the most affluent constituencies at least one in 10 households are on means-tested benefits.
[The Guardian]
Most Conservative Party MPs voting for the proposed measures will be turkeys voting for Christmas.
“A former academic at University College London must pay almost Β£50,000 in damages to a former colleague after falsely portraying her as a sex worker on social media as part of a months-long campaign of harassment.
Christopher Backhouse, a former research fellow at the department of physics and astronomy at UCL, has settled to pay Β£49,975 to Erica Smith, a physicist and a postdoctoral fellow at Indiana University in the US.
Backhouse was revealed as the perpetrator after Smith enlisted a US lawyer to subpoena Twitter and Google. Documents from the tech giants identified an IP address in London, despite great lengths by the perpetrator to cover their tracks using global proxy servers, the court heard.
Using a Norwich Pharmacal Order (NPO) against BT, a disclosure order allowing information to be obtained from third parties, Backhouse was revealed as the customer connected with the London IP address.”
[The Guardian]
“Smersh Never Sleeps”…
Therese Coffey
Deadhead MP and now, absurdly, Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Health, Therese Coffey, still attracting critical and/or incredulous tweets:
[Britain’s Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Health, Therese Coffey]
It is shaming for Britain to be represented by such as stupidly ignorant “ho” Liz Truss, ugly, nasty moneygrubbing drunk Therese Coffey, woolly-head Kwarteng, and ignorant half-caste James Cleverly.
The present Cabinet has no legitimacy.
The question is how to get rid of them.
More tweets seen
Actually, @DerbysPolice, there is a place for hate in society. Hate is a natural human emotion like love or anger. What you mean is there is no place for crime. pic.twitter.com/iT5NSKewu9
It will be recalled that Derbyshire Police (one of the worst-performing forces in the UK) was instrumental in the Jew-Zionist campaign against satirist Alison Chabloz, and its Police and Crime Commissioner at the time (removed in 2021) was a Labour Party drone, a Sikh, who was basically suborned some years ago by the malicious small pressure group called “Campaign Against Antisemitism” [“CAA”].
Derbyshire Police was also one of the worst police forces involved in illegal bullying of the public during the “panicdemic” of 2020-2021.
Talking about the police and their slide into becoming a pathetic poundland KGB, what about this, below?
Zelenskyy being nominated for a Peace Prize while simultaneously begging for Nuclear War exemplifies how nightmare-cartoonish our existence has become.
Lisa Nandy: "We can't.. get involved in individual disputes but what we can do is fight for the working people in this country"
Pathetic.
Lisa, if you refuse to support workers taking industrial action to fight against real terms pay cuts you're not fighting for working people pic.twitter.com/HGvsNpz8Dh
I genuinely don't understand why Lisa Nandy thinks she and Starmer represent working people…they don't! https://t.co/OfmXDqeEZO
— SakrRuthπ΅πΈ #TransformPolitics π¦ (@SakrRuth) October 12, 2022
“Labour” is now just a label. In fact, one of Labour’s least impressive MPs, the unpleasant self-publicist Jess Phillips, said a few years ago that it was “just a f****** rose” (a reference to its symbol).
Labour is riding high in the opinion polls now by default, the Conservative Party having all but imploded, but Labour, in itself, is every bit as rubbish as the Conservative Party.
βWithin days, over 150,000 had signed up to become hosts, offering up their spare rooms, their summer houses, their annexes. Some put themselves down for a year, others indefinitely; many signed up for six months, the minimum the Government was asking forβhttps://t.co/vdqC34GWwmpic.twitter.com/AgnRVTAlek
π΄ βThe council have said to me βYouβve got to make her homelessβ,β says Karen, clearly upset by the notion that this is one of the few options available to them.
π΄'When a hosting arrangement comes to an end, the routes currently open to guests are: find a new host, rent somewhere privately, or agree with the host to extend the stay'
“Jack Monroe”, the “Bootstrap Cook”: an assessment
I have blogged (briefly) previously a few times about the person known as “Jack Monroe” (originally Melissa Hadjicostas, half-Greek Cypriot), whose rather clever nom de plume is “Bootstrap Cook”.
The name Jack Monroe is now her official name, it having been adopted by deed poll.
In the past, I was content to be at least neutral towards “Bootstrap Cook”, in that I felt that anyone putting almost anything into the public domain that might help the millions of financially-struggling people in the UK deserved at least a chance.
Incidentally, this blog is written in the English language, and therefore does not refer to a woman (whatever her views or proclivities) as “they” or “them”.
“Ideological” criticism of “Bootstrap Cook” has come mainly from two directions. The first group would be those connected to or supportive of the “Conservative” regimes of 2010-present. They tend to say that there is no justification for the campaigning of “Bootstrap Cook” to raise State benefits etc, and that any food poverty that exists exists because the individuals subject to it cannot “budget” properly, or do not know how to cook cheap wholesome food.
An ignorant point of view (though not without a small kernel of truth, as with many basically lying narratives), which infuriates many, especially when expressed by the likes of Iain Dunce Duncan Smith, the MP who has also been a huge expenses blodger and fraudster, and who claimed vast amounts on his Parliamentary expenses (even a Β£39 hotel breakfast) while —as Secretary of State for the DWP— taking money away from people living in real poverty.
The second group who tend to criticize “Bootstrap Cook” are those who agree with much of her campaigning on benefits etc, but who say that she actually “enables” attacks on benefit recipients by reason of her claims that a family of 4 can be fed well on Β£20 a week or less.
Now, however, a third group has joined the fray, being those who claim that they and/or others have been taken for a ride by “Bootstrap Cook”, and that she is a “grifter”, or even an outright fraud, who has sold goods and services which were never delivered. These critics also claim that much of the “Bootstrap Cook” back-story is untrue, or embellished.
For example, it is said that “Bootstrap Cook” was either never in poverty herself, or was so for no more than 18 months. It is said that at least part of her financial difficulties were caused by her own (apparently past) alcohol and/or drug abuse. It is said that she makes up implausible stories about her past financial predicament, such as “having to” sell her little son’s beloved dinosaur toy to raise money (really? How much money would that raise? Β£1? Β£2? And how cruel is that, assuming the story to be true?).
It is also said that her parents are not badly-off financially, that they own buy-to-let property, and that her paternal grandfather was a millionaire. In other words, that “Bootstrap Cook” always had a financial lifeline. I have no idea whether, or to what extent, that may be, or may have been, the case.
Recently, following a storm of criticism on Twitter, “Bootstrap Cook” deleted her Twitter account, though others claim that she is merely taking a 40-hour “rest” from Twitter, and will return. Why 40 hours and not (as with Jesus Christ) 40 days, or whatever, I have no idea.
One aspect that interested me, as a former barrister, was the tendency of “Bootstrap Cook” to threaten some of her critics with legal action. A few years ago, “Bootstrap Cook” sued Katie Hopkins in libel.
Ms. Hopkins had libelled “Bootstrap Cook” entirely mistakenly as to the facts, had no defence whatever, and should have backed down and got out with minimal damage when she could have but, like many maximalisti, found sorry the hardest word, and so was hammered: Β£24,000 in damages, and very large legal costs. Ms. Hopkins had to sell her house in St. Leonard’s (the best residential district in Exeter) in order to pay those legal costs.
“Bootstrap Cook” retained as her solicitor Mark Lewis, the Zionist Jew who now lives in Israel, though he has also a professional foothold in London. His no-win no-fee cases have often been controversial.
I have to wonder how nice a person “Bootstrap Cook” is, if she is on friendly terms with someone such as Lewis.
As soon as people started suggesting, a month or two ago, that “Bootstrap Cook” was somewhere between “grifter” and fraudster, out came the Twitter threat that Mark Lewis and libel would be wheeled out (frankly, not so much of a threat— by no means have all of Lewis’s cases been brought to a successful conclusion, and when he was censured and fined by the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority about 4 years ago, his Counsel said that his fine should be reduced because his only possessions were his clothes, a mobility scooter. and a private pension worth Β£70 a week).
In fact, when “Bootstrap Cook” threatened libel action against Conservative Party MP Lee Anderson [Con, Ashfield] (in May of this year), nothing ever came of it, as far as I know:
“Food journalist and activist Jack Monroe hinted at legal action against Anderson after he commented in an interview that “She’s taking money off some of the most vulnerable people in society and making an absolute fortune on [sic] the back of people”.[36] [Wikipedia].
The Guardian says “sues“, but the Independent said “hints at suing“, and I have seen nothing on the Mark Lewis Twitter output to the effect that he ever was “instructed” (the Guardian, again) on the matter. He may have been, he may not have been. I might add that all the news reports are from 15-16 May 2022; nothing since then.
Was Anderson right, though? As I have said, I was willing to cut “Bootstrap Cook” some slack, because in recent years, the past ~15 years, the social security system has become inadequate, pay for work has also become generally inadequate, and millions are struggling both to eat and keep sheltered and warm. My view was that any useable advice was, well, useful.
I still think that (despite the fact that, to me, many of the recipes of “Bootstrap Cook” do look like a dog’s dinner, and despite the fact that many disagree with her costings etc).
More serious criticism is that she has actually been making a pretty good living out of Patreon donations, while never or rarely providing the extras offered in exchange.
When I last looked, “Bootstrap Cook” had at least 800 Patreon donors giving a minimum of Β£1 a month. Β£800 a month. In itself not bad. When you consider that the suggested minimum is Β£3 a head, the total increases to Β£2,400 a month (perhaps). I have seen a tweet where the tweeter claims, truthfully or otherwise, to have been donating Β£44 a month. Well, you see the point. “Bootstrap Cook” must have an income from Patreon alone of between Β£800 and (?) perhaps as much as Β£8,000 a month. Or more. That’s before one takes into account book sales, other donations, paid (?) TV appearances, other appearances etc. We do not know.
Not that “Bootstrap Cook” claims poverty, these days. No, she claims, as I understand it (and perhaps truthfully) a degree of “precariousness” in her life and finances, and she is certainly not alone in that. It is almost the norm in the Britain of 2022.
“Bootstrap Cook” has a number of defence mechanisms. One is to threaten defamation actions, but the more usual tactic is to claim the shield of disability, and she has about two dozen options there.
A further defence tactic is, I read, to set her fanatical fans (she apparently calls them “flying monkeys“) onto any critics, and I have certainly seen tweets where mentally-disturbed fans have come close to suggesting violence against anyone daring to utter critical words.
The problem here is that “Bootstrap Cook” has become a totem for a certain tribe of virtue-signallers. Not really “the poor” but more the sort of people who like to think that they are socially-progressive etc. Facts do not matter to those people, belonging to the “right” tribe does. cf. “Covid”, Ukraine, “Black Lives Matter” and, of course, “FBPE/Remain/Rejoin” etc.
When you consider that someone who claims to be able to feed a family of 4 for Β£20 a week might be said to be, arguably or in effect, saying that UK benefits are perfectly OK and need not be increased, is that really something positive or not?
I simply donβt understand how you can read this article, made from HER OWN TWEETS, and think Jack Monroe is anything other than a grifter https://t.co/WTCmHTdHD5
— Kelly Jackson | Itβs More Fun In Your 30s (@Kelly_Jackson88) September 19, 2022
Why on earth would any Tory politico want to silence Jack Monroe? She plays straight into their message that βthe poorβ can eat on Β£20/wk and are just too thick to budget & cook. Plus, she has made little to no impact on public policy. (Rhetorical tweet, obvs!)
Claiming you can't afford to put the hot water on, have unscrewed the lightbulbs and are using solar lights, and haven't bought shampoo for two years in order to gain internet points and cash donations, is also wrong.
Giving people "money-saving" advice that is going to cost them *more* money is wrong.
Not making an effort to make sure people understand that you've mistakenly given the wrong advice and pointing people to more accurate advice, is really, really wrong.
I have very good intentions. I *intend* to write book reviews and advice for people querying, to be supportive of other writers, especially those newly agented.
I don't actually do that, though. And because I don't, I don't expect to be held up or praised for it.
Jack Monroe wasn't hounded off of Twitter because of some anaemic roast potatoes. She's left because too many people were raising questions about her lucrative Patreon, murky charitable donations and questionable finances. Jesus, people are gullible.
As many have noted, this whole Bootstrap Cook thing is more like a creepy cult than anything. It’s as if a lot of fairly affluent or at least not poor people have decided that supporting “Bootstrap Cook” —right or wrong— validates their evenings of going out, their Netflix subscription, their holidays in Cuba or Costa Rica, their new cars, and in fact their whole comfortable existence.
In fact, it reminds me of the “indulgences” sold by the Roman Catholic Church before the Reformation.
Not that that is necessarily the fault of the “Bootstrap Cook” herself.
I've not much to say on the Jack Monroe issue except that if a government minister tries to tell someone how to survive on a box of cornflakes and a tin of sardines, they tend to get pilloried for it.
(Past caring if Jack Monroe's fans abuse me as did for 48 hours few week back).
Authentic, knowledgeable women in poverty now could offer useful, genuine insights into experience but overlooked and devalued while Monroe's more acceptable celebrity face of poverty is prioritised.
Well, if you can believe that the “royal” Mulatta is a sadly-abused “princess”, then believing that a poverty campaigner, who seems to be making “a nice little earner” out of it and naive followers, is a modern Joan of Arc, must be easy enough.
It was absolutely nothing to do with βthe far rightβ and everything to do with the revelations that sheβs lied about a lot of things and taken money off a lot of people in very shady ways.
Let's say you agree to pay the Times Β£x per month and in exchange they promise to send you a code to access their online issue – but they never send the codes. Would you see a problem there? Read the Patreon page and see if you agree the comparison.https://t.co/LUPccSWorV
No John, it appears that you donβt understand what it is. Each payment tier system means a certain amount of rewards/content in return. Jack has received money every month & has not honoured the obligations that Jack pledged. No rewards/content for TWO years.
How had she helped others? Iβm seeing a lot of upset people who have given her money over the years. Theyβre feeling ripped off. pic.twitter.com/H6Y00rtGVs
— NAAFI Girl ππ₯πβοΈππ½πππ€ (@Snowy273) September 27, 2022
There's a whole community of Jack watchers on a website called Tattle. Any updates are there. Have to say, they don't seem a right-wing crowd. Better characterised as working-class mums who seem pissed off about what they see as grifting.
Her recipes are shit and she only keeps within budget because the portions are toddler sized. Totally dishonest and unsustainable. No one uses her recipes though, because as mentioned, they're shit.
Because you need to be a parent in order to… count calories. Some of Jack Monroe's meals are less than 200 calories per portion. Her best meals are in the region of 400-500 per portion. It's not enough. You too can eat cheaply, if you starve.
Well, that’s enough. There are hundreds of other tweets in similar vein.
As blogged previously, my view is that Bootstrap Cook’s stuff may well be of interest to many, though —as already said— much of it looks to me like carbohydrate-heavy food often presented like a dog’s dinner.
I do not think that “Bootstrap Cook”set out to defraud anyone, and it may be that she has no such intention now, but it does seem that legitimate questions about her fundraising have been asked by a number of donors, but not answered by her.
If people think that they are somehow accomplishing something by subsidizing the not-uncomfortable lifestyle of that person, then that is their business, in a sense, but it is legitimate for others, arguably more clear-minded, to ask “where is the money going?“, “is any of this true?“, and “are people being tapped for money under false pretences?“.
I can also see that her fans seem to be, almost entirely, not the truly poor but more those who are not “poor” but who support her “non-binary” profile, the “gender bender” aspects, and the general “government must do more for the poor” activism aspect.
I think that it is legitimate to question, not only “where the money went” (or goes), but also, whether in reality Bootstrap Cook has actually influenced government, or large enterprises such as ASDA (it seems that one or two supermarket chains were actually paying her for advice or consultancy or something).
Poverty is a huge problem in the UK now. Anyone claiming to be expert in it must expect searching inquiry.
Is this all really just a morning TV virtue-signal writ large? After all, at the end of the day, the decisive question is what government does or fails to do.
I personally have no animus against “Bootstrap Cook”, but my view of her has certainly become far less positive over the years since I first heard of her.
I do think, also, that if you claim that a person can feed healthily on Β£5 a week, you are really playing into the hands of swine such as Dunce Duncan Smith, Esther McVey, Therese Coffey etc.
I think that anyone wanting to help “the poor” could probably do so more effectively via GoFundMe or local foodbanks than by subsidizing the lifestyle of “Bootstrap Cook”. Perhaps I am mistaken, but that is my firm view and opinion.
On a wider point, we have in the UK this msm thing whereby TV channels or shows like to have a “go-to” list. Brexit discussion? Call Farage. Free speech discussion? Call Toby Young. Poverty discussion? Call Jack Monroe. And so on.
Thus you get “activists” who are really just “famous for being famous activists”. The Caroline Criado-Perez phenomenon. A hundred thousand or a million Twitter followers but, outside Twitter etc, really unknown and without real influence.
Of course, the msm now like to feature (supposed) “experts” who are, if possible, young, female, and black. “Bootstrap Cook” is not black, but as “Meatloaf” once opined, “two out of three ain’t bad“…
Well, there it is. I prefer to concentrate on other and larger issues really, but felt that I should examine the above first, after the recent Twitter storm in a teacup.
For clarification purposes this is a live poll so results don't necessarily represent public opinion. However, the latest results are: * still 81% re bankers bonus cap * still 82% re 45% tax cut for the rich * 88% re recall of parliament * 87% re govt loss of control of economy
All that the doomed “Conservative” Party had to do, to consign Labour to the bin, was select a leader to succeed “Boris”-idiot who was even slightly competent. It failed to do so. Endex.
Here's what the UK's new electoral map would look like if tonight's YouGov poll were repeated at a general election. pic.twitter.com/HbGJQywCB2
The implications are clear: either the Con MPs get rid of Liz Truss as soon as they can, and put in someone who at least looks semi-competent, or the Con Party will be near-finished by next year. Same goes, of course, for Kwarteng, Cleverly, and Coffey.
Jack Monroe pulls apart tweets that suggest people can live off a cheap bag of pasta or oats (rightly so) but SHE reinforces this ideology with her Β£20 weekly Asda shops. They do not contain enough nutrional/calorific value for one person, never mind 2 to 3 people!
Look at ANY of the weekly shops she has posted. There is a good reason she doesn't follow it through with a FULL meal plan for the week. She states a few times that she'll post a meal plan or recipes for the week later on but they never appear. The idea that you can continually
COVID held a mirror up to society. As most of us were forced to slow down, we noticed it was not the mega rich or obscenely paid super stars that we relied on, but the dismissively termed βunskilledβ front line workers. We canβt now allow them to be forced into βworking poverty.β
Ha ha. Yes, that ghastly little bastard Schofield is one of the worst people on TV in the UK; and, yes, it is peak contemporary Britain, just like…well, there are just too many examples around…
An eloquent warning from the former British ambassador to Moscow, in 1997 'Does Nato really have a future at all? Is enlargement really no more than a substitute for policy, the thrashing about of an organisation which has lost its raison dβetre? 'https://t.co/p1MZFFPTCG
: 'Over the centuries one great power after another has threatened the stability of Europe….in 1815 and…1945.. the victors were intelligent and self-interested enough to bring the defeated as equals into the comity of European nations.' https://t.co/p1MZFFPTCG
A good example was seen the other night. A new detective drama called Karen Pirie.
Set partly a few decades ago, partly in the contemporary era, even the older setting, in St. Andrews, Scotland, decades ago, had a black character appear. In a small town in what seems to be a bleak part of Scotland (I have never been there). Then we are introduced to the two detectives now investigating the cold case. One a small Scottish woman, the other a black or half-caste…
I do not have a great deal of patience with films or TV shows. If they do not catch the interest after 15 mins, switch— OFF. I gave this one 20 mins. A bloody bore, poorly conceived and worse-acted.
This evening, I saw an old episode of Wycliffe [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wycliffe_(TV_series)]. All characters more or less credible, and what I like best about Wycliffe is that it manages to catch the atmosphere of Cornwall well, from what I recall from when I lived there. It does not rely on cliche (most of the time, at least).
Late tweets
The UK's economic woes appear to be a story of fiscal recklessness that's forced the Bank of England to stabilize crashing financial markets by buying up government bonds.
The real story is actually more complicated, and it all comes down to pensions https://t.co/H0wFKJe8IQ
But youβve now borrowed short-term money to buy volatile financial assets.
The thing that was so good about pension funds β their structural long-termism, the fact that you canβt have a run on a pension fund: Youβve ruined that! https://t.co/Q6dEeBI8Ztpic.twitter.com/qTFzhEjNYT
β‘οΈA margin call earlier this year when rates rose, which depleted the pensionsβ collateral buffer β‘οΈLiz Truss's catastrophic mini-budget led to long-term interest rates spiking 100 basis points https://t.co/8vucDdxTDQpic.twitter.com/PeAj4jmPt1
But the questions about what happened in recent days run deep, are far from relevant only to the UK and are most certainly not over https://t.co/25jsfBV8mH
The BOE may have left itself hostage to misfortune with its actions.
The risk is that it finds itself in a standoff with markets, with pressure increasing to hike borrowing costs before its next meeting, which might tip the economy over the edge https://t.co/FLzsjzcWzr
In the month since I wrote about “Jack Monroe”, the “Bootstrap Cook”, the storm around her murky financial arrangements has become fiercer yet. A few tweets:
Oh look, yet mire Jack Monroe bootstrapcook lies exposed. She's gifted donations to fund legal action and not even followed any pre-action protocol & got in touch. That money's been spent…. βοΈβοΈβοΈβοΈβοΈ https://t.co/LrXqDsDB1b
In light of Jack Monroe @BootstrapCook's latest "working class" lies, it's worth retweeting her dad's comments regarding his professional landlording, which also reveal he has no bank debt, ie mortgages. Not surprising given he inherited 3 of his millionaire dad's 12 properties. https://t.co/7BrPnLiVtA
He is sometimes described, inaccurately, as having become a “pro bono” lawyer who works for free, out of quasi-charitable motives, whereas he in fact seems to work on a “no win no fee” basis, which is not at all the same thing.
“Jack Monroe” has tweeted that she still has several/many months in which to sue the MP Lee Anderson and the politico Martin Daubney. In theory, up to a year after the alleged libel, but the relevant Practice Directions do say that the courts will still expect any claim to be made expeditiously, so not, e.g., 10 or 11 months after the alleged libel.
The courts may (probably will) penalize even a successful defamation claimant (“plaintiff”, as was) in both award and costs if the action is not brought expeditiously.
Why are you tagging bootstrapcrook? ,she is literally doing the tories work by claiming you can feed a family on 20 quid a week, she has ripped of 1000s of working class people who have been paying into her patreon and received NOTHING, people are complaining and getting refunds
Ian Robert Millard 