Morning music
On this day a year ago
From the newspapers
“Diversity” (blah, blah)…
As some comments say, the defendant will in fact be out in 10 months, and quite likely earlier. The sentence is not really the “nearly two years” of the Daily Mail‘s “reporting”.
“Recruit numbers in the UK’s armed forces fall by 30% amid warning that supporting Ukraine in Russia war makes us weaker.
The figures, which indicate Britain’s Armed forces are shrinking at a rate, have emerged after the head of the Army, General Sir Patrick Sanders, warned the country was ‘weaker’ after donating so much equipment to Ukraine.“
[Daily Mail].
That is before you factor-in the extra effect of having political nincompoops at the head of affairs, people such as Ben Wallace and, before him, Gavin Williamson: see https://ianrobertmillard.org/2019/05/02/deadhead-mps-an-occasional-series-the-gavin-williamson-story/
“While he welcomed the equipment being put to good use to end Russia’s illegal occupation of Ukraine, General Sir Patrick said it could not be denied that the UK’s combat effectiveness would be compromised.
The MOD is coming under increasing pressure to reconsider this commitment due to the conflict in Ukraine and the heightened security threat to the UK posed by Russia, Iran and China.”
[Daily Mail].
Take away Zelensky’s ricebowl.
“The UK foreign secretary has justified the supply of Challenger tanks to Ukraine, saying it was designed to bring the war to a quick conclusion and there was a moral imperative to end the war soon due to the casualties and cost.
“This war has been dragging on for a long time already. And now is the time to bring it to a conclusion,” James Cleverly told a Washington thinktank…”
[The Guardian]
Talk of “political nincompoops“… Does James Cleverly really believe that any war against Russia can be brought “to a conclusion“, let alone “a quick conclusion“, with Russia, in effect, losing?
I suppose that that sort of view, based on total ignorance, is what you get when your Foreign Secretary is a half-caste with a “degree” in “Hospitality Management”…
“A furious tenant smashed up a car he found left in his parking space, despite not using the bay himself for 12 years.
Gavin Glover, 58, has neither a car nor a driving licence, but descended into a fit of ‘parking lot rage’ when the Volkswagen Polo was parked in a space allocated to him as part of his lease on a flat.“
[Daily Mail]
There are so many idiots of that sort around, and so many people, also, who “presume too much”.
“The Harry Formerly Known as Prince”…
Tweets seen
Emily Maitlis sometimes displays very poor judgment.
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Maitlis#Allegations_of_%22lack_of_impartiality%22].
A horrible and corrupt little bastard, completely in the pocket of the Israel lobby and Jewish property speculators. As with Starmer, Jenrick is married to a Jewish lawyer, and his children are being brought up as Jewish.
Ed Balls is now irrelevant, politically, but people should remember that would-be dictator Yvette Cooper, now in the Shadow Cabinet, was one of the worst expenses cheats and freeloaders in the Westminster monkeyhouse. All that and an Israel-lobby puppet as well…
Fake refugees, in fact.
More music
More tweets
…and, once again, we see that a “Jack Monroe” fan is, again, a lady of a certain age, not (it seems) either “poor” or “struggling”, and (again) willing to tweet loudly without knowing basic facts.
Tweeter “@gillianography”, another typical “Jack Monroe” fan: not “poor“, not “struggling” (and almost certainly a reader of the Guardian), as well as, in her case, (and as she herself says) “neurodivergent nerd“, “brand strategist“, “copywriter“, and supporter of LGBTQXYZ etc.
As blogged previously, not only the “poor” and “struggling” but also the standard “working classes” of yore seem to be entirely absent from the ranks of the “Jack Monroe” supporters, as they sit reading their copies of the Guardian in, as it might be, the Waitrose cafe.
What is the point of…”Jack Monroe”?
There used to be a BBC Radio 4 series called something like What is the Point of…? Ah, here it is…seems to be still running: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01lt45k. Various things, from universities to Formula 1, were, perhaps still are, examined with a view to their utility.
I ask, “What is the point of Jack Monroe?” Not as an individual, but as a minor socio-political phenomenon.
The only “point” I can see for “Jack Monroe”, in that sense, is that nearly a decade ago, she raised the fact that many many people were facing hardship unprecedented since, arguende, the 1940s. So far so good. I was still quite favourable to her, or at least neutral, months or years ago: see https://ianrobertmillard.org/2022/09/30/diary-blog-30-september-2022-including-an-assessment-of-jack-monroe-aka-the-bootstrap-cook/.
In the well-known saying, “when the facts change, so do my opinions” [not the exact words of J.M. Keynes].
Leaving aside the “alleged” fraud and/or “grifting”, what is or has “Jack Monroe” really done to either reduce “poverty” (however defined), or to make it more bearable for “the poor” (however defined)? In my view, not much, if anything.
In my opinion, anyone can say “buy the cheapest food lines from [any supermarket]”, or (such as) “make tuna salad using canned tuna in oil, rather than buying olive oil separately” (I made that tip up myself…maybe I could be “Bootstrap Cook (2)”!).
As for the food produced by “Jack Monroe”, the less said the better, from what I have seen, though some might be acceptable. Many have said, though, that her costings are largely fictional. Again, leaving that aside, does that really help the “poor and struggling”?
Critics (including me) have made the point that to say, “I can feed a family of four for a week on £20” effectively says, by implied —if unintended— subtext, “State benefits are more than adequate“. It may be that four people could live, albeit on the most basic level, on only £20 a week, but food is of course only one expense of that hypothetical family. Heat, communications, water and electricity bills, clothing, transport. Etc.
Looking at how “Jack Monroe” has simply ignored inconvenient facts (such as her £20 shop not including items already purchased and stored), the truth is that she is just not very good at working out anything. Her various food recipes and plans are worthless, really.
As for the (non-existent) “Vimes Boots Index” of inflation, she not only has not produced it but, actually, is not capable of producing it (not with any accuracy, though she may eventually cobble something together in order to fool her hardcore Twitter fans).
Is advice such as “rinse sauce off cheap tinned pasta, replace sauce with something else, then serve” really useful? To anyone? The same goes for “take a tin of sardines, mix it up with rice, or pasta, and curry powder; heat and serve” (my abbreviated versions).
In a Britain where instant fake “celebrity” can make completely ridiculous people famous and wealthy, the “brand” of “Jack Monroe” (as supposed “single mother on State benefits, saving herself and others by clever budgeting and cooking“) gained some resonance around 2012-2013, but now that people know that she has not been “poor” for many years (and possibly never was), the “brand” is surely worthless?
I really cannot now see much point to “Jack Monroe” (the “brand”, that is), and I think that it is telling that, apart from a few idiotic journalists and (possibly) Nigella Lawson, most of the continuing fans of “Jack Monroe” seem to be people with mental problems.
More tweets
Late tweets
NWO/ZOG controls both USA and the EU. The provocative military aid to the Zelensky regime surely proves that.
Late music
Ian Robert Millard 