Whether the moratorium on strikes on Russian and Ukrainian energy facilities will be extended or not depends on Russian President Vladimir Putin's decision, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told TASS:https://t.co/wTDmR5CDsrpic.twitter.com/51f2pzmUyx
Uncontrolled development of artificial intelligence in the United States could result in tragic consequences and may turn into a catastrophe for all humanity, Chinese Ambassador to Russia Zhang Hanhui told TASS:https://t.co/YiV0QykF3bpic.twitter.com/L098ropq8I
Soft coup in the army of the Israel: mass protest of the Air Force and Navy officers of the Israel army!
Journalists and analysts from Israeli TV channels report: The letter from pilots and naval officers demanding an end to the war has caused a real storm. Refusal to serve… pic.twitter.com/p1kQE2Ucv0
[“Soft coup in the army of the Israel: mass protest of the Air Force and Navy officers of the Israel army! Journalists and analysts from Israeli TV channels report: The letter from pilots and naval officers demanding an end to the war has caused a real storm. Refusal to serve becomes a strategic threat. The dismissal of thousands of military personnel would be a grave mistake! At the same time, none of the goals of the war have been achieved yet, and everything that is happening is turning into a huge snowball, capable of developing into an avalanche.”]
NEW POST.
I’ve just returned to Britain from Hungary, where I spent a few days giving talks to students, politicians, and members of the public.
Whenever you mention Hungary among a certain group in London —think SW1 Westminster, the BBC, Financial Times, Oxbridge—people tend…
[“NEW POST. I’ve just returned to Britain from Hungary, where I spent a few days giving talks to students, politicians, and members of the public. Whenever you mention Hungary among a certain group in London —think SW1 Westminster, the BBC, Financial Times, Oxbridge—people tend to lose their minds. ‘Hungary!?’ they say, ‘you mean that rather odd country in Eastern Europe that’s very conservative and falling out with everybody in the European Union!?” I first experienced this reaction last summer when, amid the Southport atrocities, I dared to point out that the country I was visiting and which Western elites like to criticise —a very stable, a very secure, and a very peaceful Hungary—looked utterly different to the country I was returning to. Because unlike Hungary, Britain was on fire. Widespread rioting and protests after the Southport atrocity had become an unavoidable symbol of intense public concern about things that are only significant in Hungary because they are absent —mass uncontrolled immigration, broken borders, radical Islamism, Pakistani Muslim rape gangs, and the murder of children by the descendants of recent immigrants. Nonetheless, my mere suggestion that perhaps Hungary has got some things right that Britain has got badly wrong generated an incredibly hostile response from British elites, reflecting an arrogance and snobbishness that is rife among that class. Indeed, for much of the last fifteen years there’s been an assumption among elites in Britain that something has gone ‘badly wrong’ with Hungary. But based on what I witnessed and was asked at events last week, I’m here to tell you that the opposite is true. Because as far as many Hungarians are concerned, it is Britain, it is England, it is us, who got things badly wrong, who made a series of disastrous policy choices they are determined to avoid, and who are, in the words of one person I encountered, “losing our country”.”]
I certainly enjoyed my week or so in Hungary (about 24 years ago), when I stayed for about 3 days at Szeged (having driven from Turkey through Bulgaria and Romania) and then about 4 days by Lake Balaton.
Bonkers Britain just peaked with the sight of Uniparty politicians congratulating themselves after selling off our national assets to Chinese communists who ran them into the ground, leaving us on the brink of becoming the only G7 nation that cannot make its own steel while also…
“British Steel”…ha ha. 3,000 employees. In 1971, it had 200,000.
“Sometimes, when all you know is decline you become desensitised to it. The abnormal becomes normal. The extreme becomes ordinary. The once unacceptable gradually becomes acceptable” https://t.co/DU08i1nwmA
[“Out with it!” (rest of the caption regretfully redacted by reason of the repression on free speech now in force in England…)]
More than 8,000 illegal migrants have now crossed into Britain on the small boats this year, up nearly 50% on last year, including more than 650 yesterday —the largest number this year. And it’s not even summer …
BREAK: Gambling Commission has charged 15 people (including ex Tory MP Craig Williams) with offences under the Gambling Act 2005. pic.twitter.com/eXzrrADlW7
Remember Fiona Hill? She’s now sounding the alarm again: “We’re definitely on a path toward full-on state repression. There’s no question about it. I’ve thought about this for an extraordinarily long time.” When Fiona speaks, we should all listen. pic.twitter.com/Y2jnxXbd2G
Talking about the USA, but it is at least as true here in the UK…
Trump has fully turned on Zelenskyy: "He's always looking to purchase missiles. Listen, when you start a war, you gotta know you can win a war. You don't start a war against somebody that's 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles." pic.twitter.com/1hBWeyu2hg
Germany must accept fewer than 100,000 asylum seekers a year because its public services are overwhelmed by immigrants, the new chancellor has said. Still an enormous number though …
The Israeli army destroys the statue of Saint George in the town of Yaroun, southern Lebanon—a sacred religious symbol for Christians. pic.twitter.com/9iDzM0UlRT
▪️The heads of the largest European companies have begun discussing what was "unthinkable a year ago" – the import of a certain amount of Russian gas, including the conclusion of new contracts with Gazprom, according to Reuters. pic.twitter.com/DTiHQfUn8i
Russian forces struck Ukrainian army personnel and foreign mercenaries in 137 areas over the past day in the special military operation in Ukraine, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported:https://t.co/23cgsJMC84pic.twitter.com/qZmSxEmcDw
Many readers will be aware that I was put on trial in November 2023 for having supposedly published 5 “grossly offensive” items on this blog; 5 items within 5 pages (5 days’ posts). 5 blog posts out of, at the time, about 1,700. I was sentenced in March 2024.
The background of that is known to some but not all readers. I therefore offer the following blog pages as explanation (obviously, I cannot republish or link to the 5 blog posts which were determined by the Court to have been, or to have contained material, “grossly offensive“, so here are 5 others).
I should add that, while 5 blog posts were determined, in the magistrates’ court, to have contained “grossly offensive” material (in fact, in my opinion, largely innocuous comments and cartoons), the material in question was tiny in amount, about 2% of each blog post, if that. In fact, only a few sentences allegedly written by me were specifically mentioned in the judgment.
As previously mentioned on the blog, I am perforce far more diplomatic now on the blog than I was a few years ago, but how sad it is that this country that, arguably more than any other bar the USA, championed free speech for so long, should fall victim to this kind of sub-“Stasi“, poundshop KGB-ism, with the Clown Prosecution Service and police falling over themselves to placate the Israel lobby.
Labour leader Keir Flip-flop (Starmer) is the personification of the Norman Wisdom character, the clueless teaboy or whatever, who suddenly wins the lottery (or, in those 1950s days, the football pools). Starmer is about to become an “elected” dictator, despite most people despising, disliking or distrusting him.
Look, though, at what the Conservative Party now is. We are told that, if they survive the election, the leading contenders for the leadership position will probably be Kemi Badenoch (Nigerian), Priti Patel (East African Asian, and Israeli agent), James Cleverly (half-caste West Indian/British), and Suella Braverman (Mauritian Indian). All members of Conservative Friends of Israel, too.
Need one even comment?
[Update, 1 December 2024: Erratum— James Cleverly’s father was African, not (as I said, mistakenly) West Indian].
We are told, also, that the polls say that 20% of eligible voters have not even decided whether they will vote at all, and are also undecided as to which way they might cast their votes if they do vote. Do we take it that many of those will simply abstain? Will they vote simply as protest? Uncertain.
It could just be that those “undecideds” will vote, will want to vote as protest, and so will mostly vote Reform UK. Were that to happen, it really would put the cat among the pigeons.
The fact is that the Conservatives are in deep trouble anyway, that the mere existence of Reform UK has deepened that existing trouble, and that, even at a nationwide 15%-19% (as per recent polls), Reform UK, while perhaps only getting a few seats, would spell doom for the Conservative Party. Which is why the msm is now going crazy trying to demonize Farage and his latest party.
If Reform UK actually scores above 20%, then game on. If the existing ~18% is boosted by another 5 or 10 points, then UK politics will have received a meteorite hit, and will never be the same again. Were Reform UK to get 28% of the national vote, that might mean 80-90 Commons seats, and Reform UK would be the official Opposition.
That may seem impossible or crazy, and it may not happen, but the exciting thing is that it actually could happen. You cannot compare Reform UK in 2024 to Brexit Party in 2019, or UKIP in 2015.
This time, the Cons are going to go down really badly. More importantly, there is a perception this time that to vote Reform UK is not a mere protest vote, but a protest vote that really could accomplish something concrete— the utter destruction of the Conservative Party for a start.
I do not know whether Reform UK will manage to get beyond its present 15%-19% range, and/or get as high as 28%, but it just might.
Talking point
Tweets seen
🔥 “I am not your friend, nor a bride, nor a groom. I am President of the Russian Federation, 146 million people, these people have their own interests and I am obliged to protect them” – President Putin, the best President ever. pic.twitter.com/Idx2FVcKZN
— 🇷🇺Russia is not Enemy (@RussiaIsntEnemy) June 22, 2024
Britain has not had anything approaching such a statesman for a very very long time.
Not that I approve of everything Putin has done within Russia itself, and Russian society still does not have an ideology capable of consigning to the past Western finance-capitalism, the mainly Jewish (but also Russian-criminal) “bandit capitalism” of the past 30+ years, and the former harsh Marxist-Leninist ethos, out of which the “bandit capitalism” emerged.
Still, as a transitional but very significant political power-holder, Putin must be supported as far as necessary, as a bulwark against various poisonous and contending elements in the world.
Farage is on a roll and the Tories are bricking it.
Reform could be up to 25% by next week, which would leave the Tories with less seats than the LibDems… pic.twitter.com/XfxTbyLfti
The policy is working so well as a deterrent that, even in the past couple of days, about 2,000 more migrant-invaders have entered the UK via the English Channel, ferried in by the RNLI and Border Farce.
All the System parties talk about “smuggling gangs”, but the smugglers could, in principle, be dealt with easily enough by special forces undercover. Dealt with. Just dealt with. The necessity is to deter or stop the migrant-invaders themselves, to close down the “small boats” cross-Channel route, and to protect both our borders and the future of our people.
#BBCLauraK Laura Kuenssberg failed to mention Craig Williams mate of RISHI SUNAK admitted to Betting 1OO quid on the Date of the Election He is allowing him still to stand as a Candidate HOW SHOCKING pic.twitter.com/KVRqfG6Cna
Not a very impressive candidate anyway: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Williams_(British_politician). 39 years old. His only non-political job was as a director of Cardiff Bus, a municipal bus service company owned by Cardiff Council; Williams was a councillor and on the relevant Council committee at the time. What a boondoggle.
Williams has been an MP since 2015, but lost his previous seat to Labour in 2017 and was then elected for another constituency in 2019. That constituency has now been abolished, and redrawn into the new constituency of Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr.
On the previous boundaries, the area was quite solidly LibDem until 2010, when the egregious Lembit Opik managed to ruin his political career by making plainly freeloading expenses claims and by playing around with young Romanian pop singers called the Cheeky Girls: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lembit_%C3%96pik.
While one might have expected Williams to continue the run of Conservative Party successes in the now-redrawn seat, the plunging popularity of the party, combined with Williams having tried to make an illicit profit by betting on the election date while obviously having inside information, may make him unelectable. We shall see.
The new constituency is being contested by Con, Lab, LibDem, Green, Plaid Cymru and, perhaps most interestingly, Reform UK.
Obviously, I have no idea how Reform UK will perform, and it may be that the LibDems have the best chance of getting rid of Williams, but if (a big if, as they say), Reform were to take half of the otherwise Con vote, then either Reform or the LibDems might succeed.
On the wider point, had something like this betting scandal occurred in, say, 1994, or 1984, let alone 1974 or 1964, the person implicated would have been expected to step down either as candidate or, later, as MP (if re-elected). The slide in integrity and honour in British politics is palpable. The bastard seems to be intent on riding it out, and hoping to get away with it.
A reminder that my modest crowdfunder (to help pay the costs imposed on me after my free speech trial) is still running: https://www.givesendgo.com/GC14J.
Late tweets seen
#VoteReform, this is a war to save our country, we are being invaded by people who have no documents and we have no idea where they come from and what they believe in. Only Nigel Farage,Lee Anderson,Richard Tice,BenHabib and Suella Braverman are being honest with the 🇬🇧people. pic.twitter.com/HAEi6sQM8w
Ha ha! Anna Soubry, the notorious former “MP for Plymouth and Angostura” (she briefly threatened me online with a libel suit when I first tweeted that humorous description of her, many years ago, the silly creature), talks about Farage being “a gob shite“!
I can well understand why Anna Soubry has no mirrors around her, but she ought to take a good look at herself some time…
Ha. Yes, that is what is happening. A million migrant-invaders a year? Putin’s fault. Housing crisis? Putin’s fault. Nothing working properly any more in the UK? Putin’s fault.
If the “occupied” UK TV, radio, and newspapers disappeared tomorrow, the air would be cleaner.
"For the millions of people who voted for it, Brexit was always about a long-term repositioning of their country –not simply chasing short-term financial gains"https://t.co/4TVdgt1SBz
Even 8 years ago, I was saying that “Brexit is more than Brexit“. Now, I say that people voting Reform UK are doing so for reasons far beyond, far far wider, than a limited wish to have Farage and his party get a few MPs.
Israel launched a massive strike on Hezbollah positions in Lebanon, several Middle Eastern channels reported Allegedly,phosphorus shells are used pic.twitter.com/oOuvBxbovg
— S p r i n t e r F a m i l y (@SprinterFamily) June 23, 2024
— S p r i n t e r F a m i l y (@SprinterFamily) June 23, 2024
Our animal friends.
The moment ATACMS missiles of the Ukrainian Armed Forces hit the beach in Sevastopol was caught on video.
The Russian Ministry of Defense promised to take revenge for the attack on civilians. pic.twitter.com/c0UPyWI3ZE
— S p r i n t e r F a m i l y (@SprinterFamily) June 23, 2024
🇺🇸 The strike by the Ukrainian armed forces on Sevastopol is nothing more than a gesture of desperation by which Kiev tries to divert attention from its failures on the battlefield , said Scott Ritter pic.twitter.com/NhwJtlxFCM
— S p r i n t e r F a m i l y (@SprinterFamily) June 23, 2024
🇷🇺 The Ukrainian attack on Sevastopol represents a ritual crime , said Maria Zakharova.
" The Day of the Holy Trinity was not chosen by chance ," added the spokeswoman of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
— S p r i n t e r F a m i l y (@SprinterFamily) June 23, 2024
The head of Sevastopol clarified that after the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ attack on the city, four people (including two children) died, and not five, as previously reported. The total number of victims increased to 144, of which 82 were hospitalized, – RIA Novosti pic.twitter.com/taICaHmi6K
— S p r i n t e r F a m i l y (@SprinterFamily) June 23, 2024
🇩🇪 The Alternative for Germany party wants to create a faction in the European Parliament that will seek normal relations with Russia and fight against the hegemony of the European Union , writes "Spiegel".
▪️AfD needs 23 deputies from seven countries for this, and the party…
— S p r i n t e r F a m i l y (@SprinterFamily) June 23, 2024
Ilana Grichevski, an Israeli prisoner released by Hamas, praised the resistance forces:
“I feel betrayed by the government. Not a single minister had time to call and ask how I was doing. Al-Qassam treated us like human beings. This is simply a disgrace for the Netanyahu… pic.twitter.com/GsycYO8zRg
— S p r i n t e r F a m i l y (@SprinterFamily) June 23, 2024
🇵🇸 Government press office in the Gaza Strip:
Since the beginning of the war in the Gaza Strip, more than 17 thousand children have been orphaned as a result of the occupation, 3% of whom have lost both parents. pic.twitter.com/vshTjt9aSb
— S p r i n t e r F a m i l y (@SprinterFamily) June 23, 2024
[Wanda Landowska with Tolstoy in 1908 or 1909, possibly at Yasnaya Polyana but more likely at Tolstoy’s house at Kropotkinskaya in central Moscow, which I myself have visited; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanda_Landowska]
Tweets seen
CASE UPDATE: Patron Law insist I get a costs order against Mr Cantor before I apply for costs against them.
My application for costs against Mr Cantor is delayed because he is seriously unwell.
For the record, can I state what absolutely first rate chaps Patron Law’s partners… pic.twitter.com/7h1EkUq9pd
“CASE UPDATE: Patron Law insist I get a costs order against Mr Cantor before I apply for costs against them. My application for costs against Mr Cantor is delayed because he is seriously unwell. For the record, can I state what absolutely first rate chaps Patron Law’s partners are (Mark Lewis, Benjamin May and Alexander Zivancevic) for putting their former client Mr Cantor through this in his current state of health. This is them.“
"If the polls remain as they are then on July 5 Nigel Farage, not the Tories, will be able to claim that he is now the main opposition across a large swathe of Labour areas. Reform is already polling ahead of the Tories in parts of the Midlands, the North, and Wales" https://t.co/10FbF9mxSA
Most voters, most TV talking heads and newspaper scribblers etc have not yet caught up with me and a few of the more perceptive msm commentators (such as Tim Stanley) in understanding that, in Stanley’s words, “the [Conservative Party] brand is…just gone“, and that means that only a few habit-voters, mostly the very elderly, will be voting Con at GE 2024 or thereafter.
I notice that, in latest polling, the Conservative Party is down to 18% with one pollster.
That has happened before to the Cons, in 2019, and in relation to the brief rise and fall of Brexit Party, but not 3 weeks before a general election. In that year, I think that the Cons were down to 19% at one point.
Wow. Only 22 days to go & in the very latest polls the Conservatives are averaging just 21% of the vote! https://t.co/10FbF9m032
— S p r i n t e r F a m i l y (@SprinterFamily) June 12, 2024
On a secondary point, who could have imagined, in the 1980s, that Russian roads, in the provinces at that, would be better in 2024 than any roads in the UK? Shameful.
I’m staggered that the tories are predicted to get over 100 seats in parliament. Who the hell is still voting for these parasites? #panorama
The people still voting en masse for the Conservative Party will be, as previously noted, lifelong Con habit-voters now aged 75+, who are concentrated mainly in the safest seats of southern England. In those constituencies, the not-poor and the elderly are the majority.
Having said that, my prediction, right or wrong, remains closer to 50 than 100 Con seats after 4 July 2024.
Talking point
More tweets
"Since his D-Day disaster Rishi Sunak’s leadership rating has crashed to the lowest level on record–MINUS 21– not far off what I call Prince Andrew territory"https://t.co/cFBOvIBQd9
It’s the insipid smile that gets me. Trott, not gifted in the grey matter department, essentially laughing at a plan that will withdraw funds from the most vulnerable in British society; people made more vulnerable by Tory policy in the first place. #ToryManifesto#eviltorieshttps://t.co/dI9GoEmyYF
A poll conducted by Public First found that 46% of people agreed that the Tories “deserve to lose every seat” , including 24% of those who voted for the party in 2019https://t.co/JOU7uVCRQd
As already blogged, I do not “blame” Sunak for not remaining at the 1944 commemoration. After all, he is not, in any real way, “British” in the first place, despite having been born here and having attended Winchester and Oxford.
As for Sunak’s poll ratings, hard to see how they could go much lower. He’s on the way out. Everyone knows it; he knows it. Within 3 weeks, give or take a day or two, he will no longer be PM. Within a few months, he will have been all but forgotten, like Liz Truss.
You might not want to hear this.
Many people don’t.
I just spent the last week travelling between London, Helsinki and Tallinn.
I lived in London for many years but it has changed out of all recognition.
“You might not want to hear this. Many people don’t.
I just spent the last week travelling between London, Helsinki and Tallinn.
I lived in London for many years but it has changed out of all recognition. Tallinn and Helsinki have a safe feel. Homogeneous. No “diversity barriers”. After London, it was quite a shock. You can argue about whether the changes in London are for the better or not but the kids in both Helsinki and Tallinn are skateboarding and drinking milkshakes. They are not carrying around knives and terrorising or stabbing other kids. There is space and clean streets. People are friendly – even to strangers.
London felt like it was crumbling. Closed roads everywhere. A murder minutes from where I was within 6 hours of my arrival. People seemed miserable. I want the UK to do better. To be better. But they need to change things significantly and stop the transformation of the capital city into a third world city. Anyone else agree?“
Almost all people of sense agree. 90% of white (i.e. real British) people agree, and even very many of the non-whites agree. Just a tendentious 10% of the people disagree, but that includes most of the MPs, most of the fake “Lords”, and most of the treacherous msm talking heads and scribblers. Poisonous. Get rid of them, and the UK will start to improve.
I simply don’t believe voters are inspired by @Keir_Starmer. What an utterly dismal prospect for our country. Grey in every way.
Yes. Starmer is a disaster waiting to happen; not waiting as an actor or a barrister does, prior to striding onto the stage or rising up in court, but waiting like a man in a charity-shop raincoat, waiting for a bus in the drizzle of a London winter.
Laurence Fox is, politically, a sad waste of space. Pro-Israel, basically pro-Conservative but with a few quibbles around flags and monuments and the like.
Reform UK has one main use as far as I am concerned— to help kill off the Conservative Party. A secondary use is to move the “Overton Window” [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window].
“The Overton window is the range of policies politically acceptable to the mainstream population at a given time.[1] It is also known as the window of discourse.” [Wikipedia]