While you’re struggling to put toys under the tree for your kids, Zelensky will be at the White House today to collect another $47 billion of our money🤬
There are conflicts all over the world. People invading and fighting over territory. It's happening literally everywhere. Why should you care so deeply about this particular scuffle in Ukraine? What difference does it make to your family and your life? They cant tell you
Biden confused Ukraine with Iran, speaking at a press conference with Zelensky. https://t.co/0fse489XbT
— 🇷🇺❌🗑️Ukraine Latest🇺🇦 🇺🇸Odesa Live💙💛 (@UkraineDiary) December 21, 2022
One can only hope that Biden has a nurse with a syringe nearby, in case he goes completely mad.
If Scotland continues on this “fundamentally illiberal” trajectory, Simon Calvert warns it will be once again on a collision course with the courts https://t.co/hYV2TYJ3HV
Former President of the Australian Medical Association Dr Kerryn Phelps has revealed she suffered a serious vaccine injury and said the true rate is far higher than acknowledged due to threats from medical regulators. https://t.co/EVppI3nezI
At least there’s something a little transparent about Ms Raw’s crowdfunded. You can see a total, unlike Jack’s which went straight to their own personal PayPal account.
No, you & a bunch of others who aren't lawyers (or if they are that's incidental) are attacking Louise Raw for somewhat impenetrable reasons. Personally I don't think this crowdfunder has any chance of meaningful success but all that would make it is a waste of Louise Raw's time.
…and, of course, a complete cheating of those who have donated money to Louise Raw, even if they are stupid mugs. ..
But Louise Raw is a complete grifter, and this crowdfunded legal action nonsense has no purpose other than enriching her own ego.
In summary: I'm sick of all of this shite.
— (no offence to Imagine Dragons, who suck) (@country_jim) December 22, 2022
I'm glad Jack Monroe won Hero of the Year from The Grocer. Their article explains clearly the difference she made to supermarkets' low price food, with evidence-based reporting. I don't believe all the shite about her but even if it's true she HAS improved life for the poorest
There really are people with whom it is impossible to reason. “Against stupidity, even the Gods struggle in vain” [Schiller, Die Jungfrau von Orleans]. “Anna Mills”/”@AnnaM46” is clearly one of them.
I’ve been tweeting about the problems of litigation crowdfunding for some time eg the Backto60 campaign, the Someone’s Daughter project run by a career criminal, this Louise Raw crowdfunder, and various aspects of the Good Law Project’s activities
Stuchbery and Roanna Carleton-Taylor, with a “one man” “law firm” (a Pakistani solicitor in some closed-down Northern mill town), managed to raise about £12,000 from about 700 mugs.
Tommy Robinson never was sued by them (as I repeatedly predicted from the start), and the £12,000 “seems” to have vanished without trace, as far as I can see. Certainly, it was never used for the purpose the 700 “mugs” thought intended.
Incidentally, Louise Raw tweeted in support of that Stuchbery crowdfunder, and against me. What can one say? “Grifters United”?
Also incidentally, Stuchbery threatened to sue me too, a number of times. I was unworried, and blogged about how the crazy bastard was a “man of straw“, as indeed he is. He also threatened to sue (or, in his language, “clean out“) a number of others who noted in tweets Stuchbery’s constant “grifting” etc; even a number of stray Danes!
So was it a two-way split? Did the Pakistani solicitor lose out? I doubt it.
More tweets seen
Wasn’t Ukraine at the epicenter for the Steele Dossier dating back to 2016? https://t.co/lumw9FsqY4
Not US issue. Ukraine was once part of Russia… Ukraine is so corrupt it might as well be part of Russia. Those people need to control the issue because the more money we throw at Ukraine, the closer we are to WW3.
Don’t forget how “Jack Monroe” claimed that she turned up at the Grenfell Tower fire scene and was “waved through” the police cordon because, er, she once answered the telephone at an Essex fire station or call centre…
You only have to see what some of the Twitter mugs supporting such as “Jack Monroe” tweet (though some are pretty clearly fake or “sock” accounts actually run by the “Bootstrap Cook” herself), or Louise Raw, or Mike Stuchbery (etc), to understand that they do not know their **** from their elbow. Their understanding of politics, law etc is very obviously on a rudimentary level.
Late tweets
Good Law Project loses again. You have to admire the stunning consistency. Jolyon will be passing the hat around later, no doubt. It’s a huge dilemma for the gullible with more money than sense… Jolyon’s vanity project or Louise Raw’s pointless folly. pic.twitter.com/lyQ3iKtZFU
Sometimes they see a little bit more. And fantasise about a very specific kind of rescue. Totally accidental on her part, of course. I mean, who hasn’t inadvertently opened up their garden gate on Twitter now & again? pic.twitter.com/xDpzPz4Ods
Hard to know who to despise more…”Conservative” MPs who think that peanuts State benefits are more than enough to live on (so long as you iron last year’s Christmas wrapping paper) or the “Jack Monroe” type, making a living out of tweeting or writing rubbish “moneysaving” tips etc while (in her case) “grifting” a pretty good living by reason of 643 mugs each sending her £3.50-£44.00 per month via Patreon.
Incidentally, that deadhead MP, Rebecca Pow, suggests how to save a few pennies by re-using wrapping paper, but fails to say where the presents themselves come from! How do you magically create the presents, or the money with which to buy them? Or should they be small wooden animals carved out by the poverty-stricken over long evenings lit by the light of a single candle, as in the less strict Soviet labour camps?
Rebecca Pow:
“Pow received criticism for stating during the 2017 Budget debate that people in Taunton have “thousands of extra pounds in their pockets”. This was disputed by many of her constituents.[13][14]“
[Wikipedia]
“In May 2019, it was alleged that Pow had falsely claimed parliamentary expenses through means of an ‘accommodation uplift’ for her children that she was not entitled to.[19]“
[Wikipedia]
Another safe-seat MP petty fraudster and freeloader, in short.
Not going to post about Jack Monroe now, I give up. I’ve been polite, shared personal experience, screenshots, been completely open and been abused as a result.
💬 President #Putin: The US & its allies are spending considerable funds on exerting information & psychological influence on Russia. Thousands of fakes about events in Ukraine are published daily according to the same templates on Washington’s orders.
💬 President #Putin: The goal of our strategic adversaries is to weaken & divide our nation. This has been so for centuries, & there is nothing new in this now. They believe that our country poses a threat, which is why it must be diminished & divided.
The book by Sergei O. Prokofieff, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_O._Prokofieff], The Spiritual Origins of Eastern Europe and the Future Mysteries of the Holy Grail, goes deeply into questions around the relationship of Russia with Eastern, Central, and Western Europe, and the Western powers generally.
I never met the (now-deceased) author, but was very slightly acquainted with his (also now-deceased) father in the 1980s. The author’s grandfather was the famous composer, Sergei Prokofiev [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Prokofiev].
I feel like I’m totally hooked on this because I genuinely can’t believe it (I do but you know what I mean) and just feel so shocked to the core. I really liked her and thought she did a lot of good. @AwfullyMolly has set it all out very clearly! 🙁
The “Jack Monroe”/”Bootstrap Cook” storm shows no sign of abating, with more and more stories coming out about vulnerable and actually poor people (i.e. unlike “Jack Monroe”) being, in effect, fleeced.
How is it a vindictive vendetta? Molly has never tweeted her own opinion on her blog. She has shown Jack’s constant lies and narrative changing, as well as the scams. People need to see this, it’s public interest.
I'm guessing people like Dermot Macintyre, Louis Theroux, hell even Stacy Dooley must be awful figures of spite too, for daring to do long tail investigations into bad things then broadcast them? 🤣🤣🤣
Once again, yet another media appearance for a so-called "poverty campaigner" where the entire article is talking about Jack Monroe.https://t.co/CxAHcfQo7l
Same thing happened with the threat(s) by “Jack Monroe”/”Bootstrap Cook” to sue (in defamation) MP Lee Anderson and political commentator Martin Daubney. It appears that (so far— she has about 5 months or so left in which to launch an action, in principle), not only has no legal process been launched, but there has been no pre-action correspondence as mandated by the Pre-Action Protocols of the Civil Procedure Rules. Chances are that “Bootstrap Cook” never will sue those two, or anyone else.
The Katie Hopkins case was different. Ms. Hopkins had no arguable defence and was a sitting duck. “Jack Monroe” got £24,000 damages, while the claimant’s lawyers got, in effect, Ms. Hopkin’s house, that had to be sold in order to satisfy the costs order made. About £300,000.
If you're a friend of hers maybe you could send her some shower gel to stop her boiling soap?
Ha ha. Of all the products from the “Jack Monroe” fantasy factory, the “I was so poor that I had to boil down soap to make shower gel” (and/or “shampoo“) claim must be among the top few in the utterly-ludicrous stakes. It actually makes me wonder whether she makes up ever-more-fantastical stories just to see where the gullibility of her supporters stops; meaning at what point do they wake up to such lies, and/or stop donating to her (lifestyle)?
I suppose that it is just possible that she actually did boil down soap to make shower gel, mad and implausible though that would be; in my opinion, she never did.
I myself like Waitrose Sea Moss shower gel. It costs 90p for a bottle that lasts maybe 3 weeks (with me, at least; used once daily). No-one is going to tell me that buying soap, boiling it somehow, despite energy cost, and then somehow making shower gel out of it (is that even possible?) is cheaper than spending about 30p a week on proper shower gel. Also, Sea Moss from Waitrose is not even the cheapest; no doubt Aldi, Lidl, Tesco have even cheaper alternatives.
Or one could just shower with soap, as did previous generations.
Same goes, mutatis mutandis, for shampoo, except that soap would not be so good in that role.
What I find incredible is how long she has been able to keep this going. It says a lot about how poor the UK msm is that no journalist has thought to investigate her claims or to find out which (if any) are actually true. And where are the “consumer watchdog” journalists and TV talking heads? Hundreds if not thousands of people appear to have been duped or bamboozled into sending money— tens, and maybe hundreds, of thousands of pounds.
Meanwhile, millions of people are in real poverty and get nothing, or very little.
Advice from what seems to me to be a rotten cook (not that I can cook much either, admittedly) about how to make curry by opening a tin of sardines and a can of peaches, mixing the two together with curry powder and heating the mixture in a microwave, is not very helpful, in my opinion. Frankly, it sounds terrible. I would rather open the sardines, put them on a piece of toast, then eat the peaches separately later. In fact, I should prefer a plain baked potato to that mixture.
Hey @guardianlive@guardian, you may want to get a researcher onto Jack Monroe (Tattle, @AwfullyMolly) before Jan. Her recipes and ‘advice’ are much like everything else she says – lies.
Ha. In fact the “award” mentioned was an “Observer Food” award a few months ago, voted for by Observer readers, few of whom are “poor” or “struggling”. In fact, the voters are exactly the same sort of people (and quite likely the very same people) who support “Jack Monroe” vocally on Twitter. The Guardian is of course the sister paper to the Observer.
Britain must become a white northern European ethnostate (again).
It is not, fundamentally, a question of “hate” but based on the concept that only the European peoples can provide the basis for the next advance in human evolution.
Its scary. We have two hotels with them staying . They walk round in gangs or sit out side making it really uncomfortable to even walk past them. Its intimidating and dangerous and we should be being protected from these unwanted men.
At Manston there are a large number of people living in a nice new estate, terrified of going out of their homes. Swarms of migrants roam around , looking into windows and following residence down the road. They live in fear in their own country.
Will you be discussing the 700+ patreon members who haven't received anything in 2 years, but Jack Monroe has taken £3.50 – £44 pcm from each member without refunds? Missing charity money? All of the lies about her backstory? Donations to legal funds that were not refunded ?
667 “mugs” and/or dupes, as of today; thousands of pounds month after month, in cash (minus Patreon fees).
I think you need to have a look at @AwfullyMolly investigation into Jack Monroe, and maybe ask Jack about missing charity money, false claims of poverty, 2 years of unfulfilled patreon pledges and the thousands of pounds taken without refunds, and her general Walter Mitty life.
My housing association issued a safety warning to manage energy prices, which had to include explanation of what happens if you just stop paying your bills as per @bootstrapcook's advice. We have to stop validating these narcisssists. Thats a housing association having to respond
“Jack Monroe” is not a lawyer, and not a consumer law expert or anything similar. Her only known job (as far as I know anyway) was answering the telephone at a fire station or call centre, and that ended about 11 years ago. Her “Bootstrap Cook” thing is far more lucrative, it seems.
People in financial trouble need accurate advice, from trusted sources.
As of today, 667 “patrons” (mugs and/or those who are unaware of the storm now enveloping the “Bootstrap Cook”); I believe that there were over 800 earlier in the year.
As blogged earlier, only in a country where real journalism is all but dead would someone be able to do all that without facing serious questions after a while.
Still, look at “Boris”-idiot, who was able to fool much of the UK that he was a highly-intelligent, cultured, and serious, statesman, when none of those three are true (four things, if you include “statesman“). All it took was the fact that he had attended Eton and Oxford, and the expression of a few rote-learned Greek and Latin phrases. He also was “enabled” by a corrupt and stupid msm.
It will look like a deliberate plea to retain subscribers thus ensuring Patreon receipts end of October and November. We are 3 weeks post the promise to sort it out.
All the Patreon subs I am in contact with have not received anything as yet.
In terms of remedy, it's not clear how Monroe could ever be held to account. Class action is not really an option. I spoke to my lawyer – woohoo yes I have a lawyer cos I'm a big cheese 😜 and although this is clearly terrible, it's not a big enough issue to warrant class action.
In the alternative, it could be taken up by @actionfrauduk
Their websites says: "There are many words used to describe fraud: Scam, con, swindle, extortion, sham, double-cross, hoax, cheat, ploy, ruse, hoodwink, confidence trick" (Insert "Jack Monroe")
I am writing to Action Fraud for advice on "next steps" and to establish what information they need to take the matter seriously and conduct an investigation. Let's see.
(2nd) the cocky shout outs by Jack Monroe on twitter where she continues to threaten legal action in a "just you wait pal" manner. This conduct will be frowned upon if she ever gets in front of a Judge.
Incidentally, I thought that the monthly maximum that “Jack Monroe” was extracting from each of her “patrons” (mugs) on Patreon had been reduced to £10, but it turns out that £44 is still the max. Her monthly take-home pay from that source alone, for doing absolutely nothing, is therefore between £2,334.50 and £29,348, minus the Patreon fees, if any. In cash. Every month.
The Daily Mail readers’ comments are instructive. Not even 1% support the housing and feeding of the invaders.
It looks as if the present government is going to keep the State Pension “triple lock” in order to buy (as it hopes) the votes of middle-aged and “senior citizen” “Middle England”, but if the migration-invasion continues, and those here already are not removed or detained in camps, this government is toast electorally, even though Labour would be as bad.
Whichever System party is in power, within it and permeating it will be the members of the transnational cabals, implementing, increasingly openly, the Coudenhove-Kalergi Plan, or the “Great Replacement” of white people by blacks, browns, and Chinese etc. The destruction of Europe, and the destruction of Europe’s future.
📺 New to @channel5_tv Thursday 9pm – How The Other Half Live With Brian Cox
In this powerful and moving documentary, actor Brian Cox returns to his home city #Dundee to examine the wealth divide, and finds many families unable to afford basic necessities. #HowTheOtherHalfLivepic.twitter.com/dm47KSHMAx
Oh look. Jack Monroe STILL not issuing promised Patreon refunds. @PatreonSupport@Patreon surely you need to suspend this creator's account now given 2 years of proven non-delivery & deliberate obstruction to subscribers. https://t.co/0pmowiHVxq
What's happened to faux poverty internet fraudster Jack Monroe bootstrapcook? She seems to have gone awfully quiet & isn't in the media like she was until revelations started really coming out. Has she been quietly cancelled?
Notice how only the underlings are wearing facemasks. It’s a power tool that @JustinTrudeau and his minions have been abusing Canadians with. https://t.co/rizAFTyaB6
People think that they are voting “Labour” or “Conservative”, but in reality they are voting for the “Great Replacement”, for the Jewish lobby, and for the New World Order [NWO; ZOG], no matter what System party they vote for.
The MSM who thrived off terrifying people at the behest of their pals in the government, are now totally silent about this. Why? pic.twitter.com/NmVAvYsbZx
Just imagine: even as of today, after about three to four months of detail emerging about alleged fraud and near-fraud, “grifting” etc, no fewer than 666 mugs are still sending “Jack Monroe” up to £10 each, every month. (Up to) £6,660 per month in cash.
One has to wonder why.
My opinion is that not all know about what has come out over the past months, but also that many do know yet simply cannot accept that they have been played, or duped, and/or wish to “virtue-signal” (though how supporting the lifestyle of “Bootstrap Cook” actually helps the very many poor and struggling people in our society is hard to understand).
After all, there are many many “activists” and charity workers agitating against poor pay and benefits, and against “food poverty”, “fuel poverty” and, well, poverty.
Likewise, there are quite a few (real) chefs and cooks who have applied their (real) skills to making low-budget food recently, among them the most famous, such as Jamie Oliver.
None of those people ask the public to support them or their lifestyle via Patreon payments, as far as I know.
One could argue that Patreon donors are volunteers, but that assumes that they know the full facts and are not being, in a word, defrauded, or tricked.
Actually, when you look at the Bootstrap Cook situation, you realize how easy it is for the politicians etc to bamboozle the British public over matters such as the “Covid” “panicdemic”, the facemask nonsense, the “Rule of Six” etc, the “austerity” stuff, the “Ukraine” mass media war etc. Add to that “Black Lives Matter”, “trans” nonsense, “anti-racism” etc.
Jeremy Hunt as a Universal Credit claimant who is a disabled carer and listening to the Autumn Statement, I just want you to know I do NOT want to be disabled,I LOVED my job,miss my job,I do NOT want to have a disabled child, he does NOT want to be disabled, why punish us?
My @facebook account and Israellycool FB page with over 22,000 followers have been removed. I have been provided no explanation and been given an ultimatum. I assume an antisemite reported the page. If this appeal does not work, I will lose it all. pic.twitter.com/4MwynAAfDX
Ha ha. I sincerely hope so. That Israel-based bastard blogged, unprovoked, about me, several years ago.
Afternoon music
Britain needs a proper border guard force like that, not the Border Force taxi service for migrant invaders, often jeered at by people who call it —unsurprisingly— the “Border Farce“.
For someone that busts myths and exposes cover-ups your research is sadly lacking. Jack Monroe had absolutely nothing to do with any of this. It’s amazing how Chinese whispers get out of hand.
They blame everything from the mini-budget of Woollyhead Trussbanger to “Covid”, and even Putin for the slide in living standards which, for most people, has been taking place over the past 30 years, in big picture terms.
1989, the last big year of the 33-year socio-political cycle. 2022, the next one. The influx of blacks and browns etc since the 1980s. The breeding of the same, in vast numbers. Sliding standards in education (despite record numbers of worthless “degrees” etc), and all services, from State benefits to old-age sheltered housing.
This is not some kind of accident. The UK’s life is being deliberately run down, and some of the most guilty of the criminals responsible are the MPs sitting in the Westminster monkeyhouse.
Late tweets
This!!! Asking for a refund and challenging blatant lies is not "harassment" as scammer Jack Monroe bootstrapcook likes to claim. She could just issue refunds & open her finances for transparency and all the pressure would drop away. https://t.co/qZ02LbGV0K
I don’t think jack Monroe is a criminal scammer. I do think she is manipulative, passive aggressive and a liar though. I’m astounded that anyone believes a word she says anymore. Tbh it on a pathological level.
Still no refund from Jack Monroe then, just passive aggressive BS. Asking for a refund for goods not delivered is NOT harassment. Pointing out contradictions in Jack's own words is NOT a smear campaign.#JackMonroeLies#BootstrapCrookhttps://t.co/buA3mIUlQl
Is now the right time to ask what dirt Jack Monroe has on someone? Eventually the MSM picked up on her questionable behaviour but the article barely scraped the surface and now they’ve stopped comments?? What is everyone afraid of?!
Saw many tweets lambasting Waterstones for promoting the latest Jack Monroe book, Thrifty Kitchen, to be published in January 2023 at a cover price of nearly £20, but already discounted to £9.99. I wonder whether the “Bootstrap Cook” brand is now damaged beyond repair. Still, 665 mugs are still paying Jack Monroe between £3.50 and £10 a month each as an absurd act of virtue-signalling, so I imagine that she is pretty sanguine (so long as the thousands of pounds continue to roll in monthly).
“Mark Lewis Lawyer” is not much of a threat to people who, even if they have libelled someone (not always as clear-cut as many imagine) have defences such as “truth”, “honest opinion”, “publication on a matter of public interest”, and/or either absolute or qualified “privilege”.
I have assessed and written about Mark Lewis several times over the years, though not recently (in fact not since 2018 or 2019). I would dispute that any of what I have written about him is actionable, but in fact he has never even threatened me with a defamation action, no doubt because he knows that he would lose, but also because he knows that my financial circumstances (both capital and income) are now such that even any victory in court would be of little use when any damages and costs awarded could never be collected. See below for more about Lewis.
As for the “Bootstrap Cook”, her libel victory over Katie Hopkins was inevitable. It took no legal skill at all, or very little, in my view, bearing in mind that, as far as the libel itself was concerned, it had occurred because Katie Hopkins had demonstrably said something untrue about Jack Monroe (apparently mistaking her for the obscure socio-political scribbler Laurie Penny) that had caused Jack Monroe serious harm. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_v_Hopkins.
It occurs to me that the “Bootstrap Cook” may have become a little gung-ho about libel actions after her easy victory over Katie Hopkins, who not only had to pay Jack Monroe £24,000 but also to sell her house to pay the £300,000 legal costs of Jack Monroe, a goodly chunk of which went, no doubt, to “Mark Lewis Lawyer”. Probably a third or so.
Not all defamation actions are so simple, or the awards and costs so easily collected.
More seen:
I hope that she will be exposed for the fantasist and con artist she really is.
Rishi Sunak says Britain will be punished by the markets unless he whacks up taxes and slashes public spending
"Financial conditions have stabilised because people expect the government to take the decisions that will put our public finances on a sustainable trajectory"
Well, there it is: Indian “clever boy” and money-juggler, Sunak, has no arrows in his quiver, except to make everyone in Britain poorer. The real economy will dive next year.
“If they’re black its a gang. If they’re Italian its a mob. If they’re Jewish its a ‘coincidence’ and you should never talk about it.” 😂 pic.twitter.com/htQzTzhYZM
After that, read the books of David Irving and Correlli Barnett.
.@greengas62. You have a touchingly outdated idea of what the modern police are like, and you also haven’t read the article you are commenting on. You can’t put people in prison unless they have broken the law. Now read it. https://t.co/NbDEboonEn
WHAT have we done?! It will take a long time to clean up the medical misinformation mess but we must start by understanding and tackling it at the root. That according to forensic psychologist Dr Robert Hare is the psychopathic entity that is Big Pharma. We must act NOW 👊👊👊 https://t.co/7MCls2Lgzn
You narcissistic, pathetic man. You’re only bothered because you got caught. Whilst businesses collapsed, people lost jobs, couldn’t see loved ones, couldn’t attend family funerals, missed vital appointments & more,he was getting his end away.
Why would anyone take Arnold Schwarzenegger seriously? Just an Austrian bodybuilder who struck lucky in the USA and married into its political Establishment. A puppet on a stick.
Hunt, Sunak and the rest are cardboard cut-out people, empty puppets, frauds, in thrall to shadows. Let's ignore them. https://t.co/aOq1OYWLXC
Fully agree 👍 No doubt Jack Monroe would have set her flying monkeys even more aggressively if she could 🔺️ her. We saw early in the Awfully Molly era that she almost quit the investigative work due to attacks by the FMs.
Tragic. Those idiots thought that their way of life would be mainly upheld if they appeased the ANC. How wrong they were. Gave up their historically-conferred right, and what for? A comfortable life, a swimming pool, rugby, an SUV in the drive, a beer in a sports bar, golf, and no outright war.
Had they only held on for a short while, South Africa as a white European-origin country would have survived. The collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellites meant that funds and arms to the black rebels would have been cut off. Cuba, so prominent in so-called “liberation” struggles in Africa (Angola, Mozambique, South-West Africa/Namibia etc) was also cut off from Soviet funding after 1991, and had to withdraw from Africa.
The white population could have accelerated real apartheid, laagering the white populations mainly in specific parts of the country, as already planned for, and creating autonomous black zones and regions.
South Africa could have defended itself easily, with its powerful armed forces (including a navy, an airforce, as well as army); it even had atom bombs (six, which were dismantled in the mid-1990s). Other very advanced weapons too.
Water under the bridge now? Yes, but the white and the black populations continue to suffer the effects, not of white rule but of black rule.
More tweets seen
I love how meritocratic and open British radio is. Right now, you can listen to Martin Kemp's son on Capital, Johnny Ball's daughter on Radio 2 and Chris Tarrant's son on Radio X 📻
Indeed – Top Jack Monroe Tip pretend to sue a Tory MP, collect a load of cash into your personal paypal account, then never mention it again…#JackMonroeLiespic.twitter.com/AHQyy0v7rD
A black woman accused of doing a very similar thing is due in criminal court in Bristol in January 2023.
Afternoon music
I was partly brought up on, and still love, the lush music of John Barry, the popular easy-listening music of a post-1945 Western civilization now in crisis.
I like this, too:
[painting by Joyce Norwood]
Income inequality can be social inequity
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/14/chairman-greggs-millionaires-more-tax-jeremy-hunt “Ten years ago, in the epilogue of my book Bread: The Story of Greggs, I stressed the need for the astonishing increase in top earnings in Britain to be curbed. At that time this was considered a serious problem. Yet despite the best efforts of many influential public voices, this position never translated into policy.
Sadly, since then, the growing divide has become even more extreme.. The richest 10% of households now hold 43% of all the country’s wealth, according to the Office for National Statistics. The bottom 50% hold only 9%. We now have 177 billionaires in this country, up from just 29 in 2010, with a combined wealth of £653bn. The difference between very wealthy and less well-off people has become obscene.”
[Ian Gregg, in theGuardian]
More tweets
It happens here too, there are also cases of people setting up their benefits and then going back home and living off that income.
— Tottenham Conservatives (@TottenhamConse1) July 23, 2022
…and that thick creature is now a Bencher of my old Inn of Court, Lincoln’s Inn. He is welcome at the Inn, whereas (by reason of Jewish plotting) I was wrongfully and unlawfully disbarred in 2016 and so automatically expelled from Lincoln’s.
In what kind of England is a thick non-white such as Lammy more welcome than me? It’s just mad. A system like that does not deserve to survive.
So how does everyone feel, being told that we are going into a recession? whilst we workers (not the government) are funding hotels for male migrants who paid thousands to get here, throwing money at the green agenda and still funding the Ukraine war. It’s past a joke now.
And this has gone on for decades. I recall when I was a student overseas students marrying & bringing in wives & having babies. This has long been a way for better off Africans & Asians to gain a route to permanent legal settlement. They then form a bridgehead family for others.
Are you actually saying thru don’t ? My son has one working with him he gets 3 meals a day. £38 weekly clothing allowance free mobile with £10 credit weekly an he lives in the crowne plaza Heathrow oh yes abs a doctor on call
Seems that even the last bastion of Jack Monroe support – Mumsnet – has fallen. Great to see the scales lifting from the public's eyes and seeing her for what she is, a massive fraud, liar & conwoman. https://t.co/e3jipAwovtpic.twitter.com/AbbG1csWVg
I’ve been suspicious of Jack Monroe’s ‘activity’ for some time. I’ve just read your whole blog which supports some of my concerns. As I’m aware of Jack’s penchant for threatening legal action, I won’t say much more but suffice to say, your blog was a very interesting read.
Are you kidding me? You’ve got more chance of a pig flying over Manchester than Jack showing up to something that isn’t all about her. Plus, why would you want a lying, grifting fantasist supporting you? Matt Hancock has a better moral compass than her.
Yup. Threat of litigation has been Jack Monroe's MO for years. Now she's lost any credibility in that threat, she tends to block like a petulant toddler. Actually that's a disservice to toddlers as they don't scam hundreds of thousands of pounds. https://t.co/l30XnL2hwX
“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 £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 £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? £1? £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: £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 £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 £1 a month. £800 a month. In itself not bad. When you consider that the suggested minimum is £3 a head, the total increases to £2,400 a month (perhaps). I have seen a tweet where the tweeter claims, truthfully or otherwise, to have been donating £44 a month. Well, you see the point. “Bootstrap Cook” must have an income from Patreon alone of between £800 and (?) perhaps as much as £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 £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 don’t 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 | It’s 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 ‘the poor’ can eat on £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 “the far right” and everything to do with the revelations that she’s 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 £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 don’t 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? I’m seeing a lot of upset people who have given her money over the years. They’re feeling ripped off. pic.twitter.com/H6Y00rtGVs
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 £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 £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 ‘unskilled’ front line workers. We can’t now allow them to be forced into ‘working poverty.’
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 d’etre? '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 you’ve now borrowed short-term money to buy volatile financial assets.
The thing that was so good about pension funds — their structural long-termism, the fact that you can’t have a run on a pension fund: You’ve ruined that! https://t.co/Q6dEeBI8Ztpic.twitter.com/qTFzhEjNYT
➡️A margin call earlier this year when rates rose, which depleted the pensions’ collateral buffer ➡️Liz 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…. ❄️❄️❄️❄️⛄️ 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 