Tag Archives: Eton

Diary Blog, 9 May 2025

Morning music

[Hampshire]

Talking point

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/may/09/sadiq-khan-to-announce-plans-to-build-houses-on-london-green-belt

Sadiq Khan is announcing plans to build on parts of London’s green belt, in a dramatic shift in housing policy aimed at tackling “the most profound housing crisis in the capital’s history”.

In a major speech on Friday, the mayor of London is expected to say the scale of the challenge, which could need about 1m new homes built in the next decade, requires a break from longstanding taboos.

It marks the first time city hall will support the strategic release of low-quality or inaccessible green belt land near transport links in order to provide hundreds of thousands of new affordable homes.”

[Guardian]

Very sad. Apart from that, when they talk about “low-quality or inaccessible land“, what “low-quality” means in this context is simply land on the edge of built-up areas, which may not always be very scenic (but could be, with political will to improve it). “Inaccessible land” is still better than the same land being built on, and its very inaccessibility provides a haven and sanctuary for animals, birds, insects etc.

This is what happens when a country is invaded by a million migrant-invaders per year (legal or illegal)— pressure on land, transport, public services etc increases, housing becomes unaffordable, and life becomes stressed and unpleasant. Look around. The evidence is all around you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalergi_Plan

Talking point

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/may/09/more-than-a-third-of-uk-agricultural-soil-degraded-by-intensive-farming-report

European and British soils seriously degraded by intensive farming.

Experts found 60% of the EU’s agricultural soils had been degraded, with about 40% similarly damaged in the UK.

More than 60% of the EU’s agricultural soils are degraded due to intensive agriculture, with similar damage to about 40% of British soils, a report has found.”

[Guardian]

More music

Tweets seen

Disgusting pair. I hope that the sentencing judge passes a suitably condign sentence. I hope that I do not read “Sycamore Gap vandals escape prison“. This was a horrible and destructive crime, an act of evil; there was also huge economic damage to the surrounding region (I have seen figures estimating damage of up to £1M).

Just a tree? So tie them to a tree for a few weeks, or months (in winter).

I don’t care whether migrant-invaders are legal or illegal, or whether or not they break UK laws while battening upon us. I just want them all gone.

Yet another opinion poll placing Reform UK in government, potentially. According to Electoral Calculus, a Commons with 314 Reform UK MPs, 168 Labour MPs, 63 LibDems, 39 Cons, 36 SNP (etc). Reform 12 short of an absolute majority, but on the cusp of a working one.

https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/userpoll.html

[“Let’s put emotions aside for a moment. The United States .. like any sovereign nation .. has every right to reclaim its independence, pursue its national interest, and break free from parasitic entanglements that have long drained its dignity and resources. What we are witnessing today may be the first real attempt in decades by parts of the American establishment to free themselves from the stranglehold of the Zionist lobby. But here’s the irony: the very idea that America might make decisions based on its own interests has sent Israeli officials into a frenzy. Why? Because for decades, they’ve treated the U.S. not as an ally, but as a tool .. a weaponized servant to carry out their ambitions, silence their critics, and whitewash their crimes. And now, as the leash begins to loosen, their panic grows louder. Let’s be clear: This isn’t a battle between good and evil. It’s a clash between Racial superiority and religious superiority One seeking global domination through lies, manipulation, and media .. driven illusions , Blackmailing , assassination The other aiming to reassert global control through , brute force, and economic imperialism We now stand at a crossroads for America: Either the United States, through Trump, succeeds in imposing a model of sovereign imperialism based on American supremacy… Or Israel unleashes its old playbook .. media manipulation, financial pressure, political chaos .. to manufacture another storm, just as it did when JFK tried to challenge their influence and paid for it with his life.“]

It’s a mad mad mad mad world…

Americans call such behaviour a “chimp-out”, I believe.

More tweets

Interesting. Plaid is of course not truly “national” or “nationalist”, but more akin to the SNP in Scotland. Its basic premise, that Wales should be an independent state, is of course ludicrous, especially but not solely from the economic point of view.

Having said that, I can see why Welsh voters in Wales are going for Plaid (the apparent tautology is in fact not so, because a great number of voters in Wales are not Welsh, being either non-European —non-white— or English, mostly the latter; there are a few other small groups as well).

I think that Plaid is making hay because the main System parties, Lab and Con, are perceived as both hopeless and not “local” (to Wales). That was not always so (in relation to Labour) but I think it probably is so now.

As for Reform’s upsurge in Wales, it follows the rise in support for Reform in England and even in Scotland.

In Scotland, Reform is rising up, but another consequence of the drastic fall in support for both Con and Lab is that the SNP may survive, however unmeritedly, and may be able to increase its Westminster representation from its present 9 MPs (out of 57 Scottish seats) to something like 30; not quite the 56 out of 59 it had in 2015, nor even the 48 out of 59 it had in 2019, but still respectable, and a plurality of the 57 Scottish seats that now exist.

Put another way, people across the UK are binning Con and Lab, and I do not see that changing.

The YouGov poll is about the Senedd (Welsh Assembly) elections, not Westminster voting intentions, but must have relevance to the next general election.

“Diversity”…

https://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/25090957.wapping-conmans-8-5-million-scam-funded-19-supercars/

More “diversity”…

https://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/25149347.notting-hill-carnival-zombie-knife-attack-teen-convicted/

Late tweets

One of the best polling results yet for Reform.

Running that through Electoral Calculus (notionally putting LibDems at 15% and Greens at 10%): Reform 375 MPs; Labour 121; LibDems 62; SNP 38; Cons 25. A Reform government with a very large majority of 49 (working majority of about 59).

I keep seeing Labourite and Con Twitter-twits’ tweets saying “still 4 years to go“, as if the main System parties will somehow regain public trust before 2029. Are they serious?!

Late music

Diary Blog, 15 June 2023, including thoughts about Nadine Dorries and Mid-Bedfordshire

Morning music

Battles past

Statement

As regular readers will know, I am now, once again, the target of a malicious and politically-motivated attack, this time a prosecution, instigated by the so-called “Campaign Against Antisemitism”, a very small but well-funded group of fanatical Zionist Jews.

I made a statement about this previously; see https://ianrobertmillard.org/2023/05/29/diary-blog-29-may-2023/.

I now see that there have been a couple of tweets inaccurately stating that I am to be tried this month. Not so. Any trial (if one is actually held at all) will be held in November or December 2023, or possibly even in 2024. In the interim period, there will be at least one brief and purely procedural hearing.

A nuisance, of course, but since the latest malicious attempt was publicized (by the “CAA” goblins themselves, on Twitter and on their website), there has been an increase in the readership of this blog. Silver lining?

Nadine Dorries and the Mid-Bedfordshire constituency

I was considering the Nadine Dorries situation.

At present, Nadine Dorries remains MP for the constituency of Mid-Bedfordshire. She most recently, in 2019, was re-elected with nearly 60% of the vote, and had previously usually achieved over 50%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid_Bedfordshire_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2010s.

A safe Conservative Party seat, which she has represented since 2005, and which has been good to her— good salary, hugely-inflated expenses, time out to appear on I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here for a very large fee, and to write about a dozen cheap novels.

She was able to employ at least two of her three daughters on very inflated salaries (via MP expenses) and has been investigated several times by the police. On at least one occasion, the file was passed to the Crown Prosecution Service for consideration for prosecution. However, she has wriggled out of trouble every time.

Now, having announced her immediate resignation [see https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65910896], Nadine Dorries has not in fact done what is necessary, i.e. to apply, notionally, for “an office of profit under the Crown“, usually either “Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds” or “Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead”.

The delay is plainly because Nadine Dorries was, or so she claims, offered a peerage by the former Prime Minister, Johnson, which offer is now worthless. That she was offered a peerage was apparently the case; her nomination for a peerage was one of those deleted from the list, supposedly by decision of Rishi Sunak.

It seems clear to me that Nadine Dorries announced her “resignation” because she was sure of getting a well-paid sinecure as a “baroness” in the Lords— ~£350 a day without any need even to pretend to do anything for it, plus well-subsidized and palatial surroundings in which to meet people, network etc.

In theory, Nadine Dorries could hang on as MP until the next General Election, getting the salary, the expenses etc, while doing nothing. Perhaps she will.

Nadine Dorries was only too happy to jettison the loyal —and possibly stupid— voters of Mid-Bedfordshire. Unsurprising. As soon as her then-husband and father of her children developed multiple sclerosis, she (in effect) abandoned him, after 23 years of marriage: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadine_Dorries#Personal_life.

I was just comparing Nadine Dorries [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadine_Dorries] with the MP, Stephen Hastings, who held the seat from 1960 to 1983: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Hastings.

Hastings’ biography includes Sandhurst, and WW2 action with the Scots Guards, the early SAS, and the shambolic but certainly sometimes courageous SOE, later followed by 12 years with SIS/MI6.

Naturally, Hastings was born with a silver spoon compared to Nadine Dorries. No argument. Eton, Sandhurst, the expectation and inheritance of several large, or arguably even great estates. Financially, and in terms of useful connections, he had it far easier than Nadine Dorries, born into relative poverty in Liverpool.

All the same, which of the two really would be better as MP?

In fact, that sort of decline in standards has happened across the board since about 1989. Compare Jo Grimond, for example, with Jo Swinson. Both Liberal/LibDem leaders, but what a contrast! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo_Grimond; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo_Swinson.

Again, one was born into affluence, indeed into riches, and never had to struggle financially, but the point is which of the two was the more fitted to be an MP and political leader.

Incidentally, I noticed that Stephen Hastings wrote an autobiography, Drums of Memory. I have just ordered a used copy, and for the knockdown price of £1.75 plus a couple of pounds postage. Pretty good value for a hardback book in apparently almost new condition. Will look forward to reading that, assuming it actually arrives (my last purchase, Anna Karenina in Russian, has been refunded by Amazon because of some problem with distribution).

Tweets seen

Nadine Dorries is just one symptom of a completely decadent and corrupt political system in the UK.

More tweets

Money thrown at the feet of the Kiev regime. Meanwhile, in Britain, people cannot get medical treatment or decent housing, and the roads are falling to pieces.

From the newspapers

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12196013/Army-considers-scrapping-ranks-including-Guardsman-Rifleman-masculine.html

The head of the Army is considering scrapping centuries-old ranks such as Rifleman and Guardsman because they are masculine.

In an attempt to make regiments more inclusive, General Sir Patrick Sanders is poised to break hundreds of years of battlefield tradition.

Historic titles used by world-renowned Guards regiments and even his own regiment, the Rifles, could be ditched in favour of gender-neutral ranks.

[Daily Mail].

Are we actually supposed to pretend that the British Army still has some kind of useful role?

More tweets seen

If “Jack Monroe” did that, she might trigger an avalanche of similar claims, together with even more negative publicity.

Her pseudo-celebrity supporters are ebbing away. Weak waste of space Alice Beer is the latest. Jay Rayner cut “Jack Monroe” loose nearly a year ago now, and Nigella Lawson later followed suit.

None will denounce her, but will just show her the cold shoulder.

I suppose that “Jack Monroe” will try to leverage whatever she can to stay in the public eye to some extent, as with her unexplained appearance on BBC Question Time recently, and she needs that public exposure, if only to keep onside the hard core of donor-mugs who are each sending her between £3.50 and £44 a month via Patreon— 411 utter mugs as of today.

God. What a loonie. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauline_O%27Reilly.

Britain 2023, where Max Hastings looks like the most principled journalist imaginable…a measure of either how Hastings has grown since he covered the Vietnam War in the late 1960s, or of how far British public life has slid into the mire in more recent decades.

If mortgage rates continue to rise, there will be a rather British non-violent political upheaval. There must be millions of people who do not really “own their own home” as they think they do, because they have a mortgage on the property.

I have just seen a statistic which claims that nearly 28% of the UK population are homeowners without a mortgage or loan against the property, while nearly 38% are “homeowners” but with a mortgage or other loan against the property (I presume that the remaining ~34% are either renters or are too young to take title to real property).

38%. That means, in theory, 38% of the voters, too.

People may not like or trust the Labour Party or the LibDems (or others), but the Conservative Party has been in power since 2010. If mortgage rates continue to rise, there will be a backlash against the Conservative Party not seen even in 1997.

Another, and this time not very inventive “Jack Monroe” lie, that reporters and stray peasants are besieging her home. She must have lifted that from the life of van Gogh.

“Jack Monroe” is so patently fake that it defies belief, and a huge number of stupid mugs still fall for her nonsense.

Venn diagram of “Jack Monroe” mug-supporters: 1. comfortably-off Guardian-reading virtue-signalling naifs (mostly aged 55+); 2. the mentally-unwell; 3. the LGBTQXYZ crowd on Twitter.

“Jack Monroe” works on the —often-true— assumption that the public cannot check up on the veracity of her stories (mostly a pack of lies) and that most “journalists” (scribblers) are too lazy to check.

At least it is not radioactive, yet.

The Americans know that even a limited Russian nuclear strike on the US mainland would send their whole society into freefall. Many of their cities are already powder kegs ready to blow. Racial and social war is just below the surface.

Russia is winning the strategic war.

Late music