Well, this week I again managed to beat political journalist John Rentoul. I scored 6/10 as against his self-awarded five and a half. I did not know the answers to questions 3, 6, 7, and 10. I just missed the last one, thinking that it might be the cassowary [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassowary] (which can reach well over 6 feet in height). Apparently, though, that is only the third or fourth tallest bird.
— Ramesh Patel – They Would Rather You Ignore This (@Imalright_Jack) May 19, 2023
Very true. So many people are misled by that kind of “Mrs Thatcher housewife’s shopping basket” economics. One would have thought that John Rentoul would know better, or is he just (as in days of Blair) parrotting the “centrist” Labour Party line?
As a former barrister (wrongfully and unlawfully disbarred in 2016 and not in actual Bar practice since 2008), I have applied a little thought to such questions.
My view is that sentencing has become absurd in the UK. While many defendants are certainly not given sufficient —or any— time in incarceration, despite having been convicted of very unpleasant offences, including crimes of very considerable violence, there is at the same time routine over-sentencing.
Many defendants are sentenced to, say, 5 years (for whatever), when 4 or 3 would be more than adequate (and, in terms of actual punishment, about the same).
At the same time, there are quite a few people incarcerated for no good reason at all, as in the recent free speech case of “Sven Longshanks” (James Allchurch), sentenced to 2.5 years for supposedly “inciting racial hatred” (he was convicted on 10 out of 15 charges). He will be in prison, probably, until 2024. Political “crime” in our “free country” (as was).
I am not going to do an entire study of this one, but take a look at the Wikipedia entry: mixed Indian heritage; failed, at an early stage, to continue with a law degree, despite having been, in part, privately educated; seems to be a lesbian or something similar; “elected” (selected) as MP at age 23; took “several months” off from her MP duties in 2021; “celebrated” the attacks on statues of English historical figures.
Another deadhead MP.
An example of her views:
Troubling to hear Esther McVey at #PMQs refer to Travellers as a “blight on the local community” just a day after #RomaniResistanceDay.
GRT people face a huge amount of discrimination. Such hateful language, and Tory laws criminalising their way of life, only contribute to it.
— Nadia Whittome MP (@NadiaWhittomeMP) May 17, 2023
Mirabile dictu! Seems that Esther McVey has actually said something with which I can agree.
Russian Foreign Ministry: Moscow will take into account, among its plans, the West's intention to supply Ukraine with F-16 aircraft
If it turns out that the Russian air force or ground forces cannot deal with the increasing influx of sophisticated weapons systems being supplied to the Kiev regime, the end result may be that the Russian leadership will decide to destroy both the bases of those aircraft and also any nearby urban areas.
As previously blogged, it should never have come to this. The invasion should have and could have been essentially over within a week, with Kiev taken, and Zelensky’s cabal eliminated or driven into exile.
While the G7 countries in Hiroshima are introducing anti-Russian sanctions and discussing support for Ukraine, China is deepening its cooperation with Moscow, writes the German newspaper "Spiegel".
In Bakhmut, one of the last fortified areas of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was destroyed The so-called "Nest" is located on the outskirts – now completely destroyed, military correspondents report. pic.twitter.com/u7vVvqW12H
The small area still defended by Kiev-regime forces in Bakhmut/Artyomovsk is now 100 acres or so, about the same acreage as Kensington Gardens in London.
What always strikes me about the Israeli police response to any incident is how swift it is. Not one, but several, and often many, police, security agents, soldiers etc are on the scene quickly, usually in seconds, at least in the Old City of Jerusalem or in the central parts of Tel Aviv. Reminiscent of the quick reaction of the militia in Moscow in Soviet times, if there were any sort of public disorder. The Israelis must have huge numbers of police personnel.
A Syrian migrant receives his UK passport courtesy of our soft, liberal Tory government. According to the Left, he is now fully British 😤😡 pic.twitter.com/0TxtvZaYCB
In a well-known and probably (?) apocryphal saying, Lenin is supposed to have opined that “in order to destroy a nation, first destroy its currency“. I suppose that he could not have foreseen the possibility that a nation’s integrity, credibility, and soul could be destroyed by migration-invasion, an invasion not through feat of arms, but through the moral weakness and/or self-hate of the people of the invaded country itself (whipped up, as usual, by “them”, the “you know who” element). He would not have believed it possible.
I have blogged briefly about that silly “ho”, Clare Moseley, in the past. Like so many English people, perhaps especially women, who attach themselves to “anti-racist”-type causes (“refugees welcome”, anti-apartheid etc), intellect is limited, emotionalism uncontrolled, hypocrisy common, and both knowledge and experience of the subject-matter usually absent.
They usually have mental health “issues” as well. See also:
We compiled all of the evidence showing who funds @Bellingcat, what the stated agenda of their government and private-sector funders are, and what those funders get in return.
Find out what the National Endowment for Democracy is. Decide for yourself.https://t.co/8WIxP90E5d
There is nothing wrong with being “antisemitic” anyway, and in the UK it is not a crime, despite what many ignorant Twitter types often tweet.
Acting head of the DPR Denis Pushilin said that there is a special symbolism in the fact that today we are talking about the complete liberation of Artemovsk, a year ago on this day the last Ukrainian militants surrendered in Mariupol.
Since the beginning of February, 80,000 refugees have returned from Turkey to Syria, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said.
"We are engaged in the normalization of life in the areas of Syria under our control. People are returning to Syria on a voluntary basis," Akar said. pic.twitter.com/8t6T0hqPIk
The bases of the Bakhmut Group of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Kramatorsk were struck The explosions went off near the Kramatorsk airport, which has been turned into a supply hub and headquarters of the UAF pic.twitter.com/SFvAb16vD8
Looks as if “the musicians” are about to complete their performance in that area. музыканты хорошо играют…
Reportedly, Flight of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from the southwestern outskirts of Bakhmut. The desire to protect the "aircraft" is over. pic.twitter.com/pyPIqW4BMK
Lavrov: “Hopes for integration with the West did not come true. The Western track that has developed in our foreign policy has completely exhausted itself. We have entered into a full-scale confrontation with the West.”
What Russia lacks is a real ideology that goes beyond mere Great-Russian nationalism.
the release of Bakhmut means that two larger cities in the Donetsk region – Kramatorsk and Slavyansk – will be within the range of Russian artillery. With their release, the People's Republic of Donetsk will also be released. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told CNN in…
As a result of the offensive actions of Wagner's assault detachments, with the support of the artillery and aviation of the troop group "South", the liberation of the city of Artyomovsk/Bakhmut was completed
I shall blog in detail later, when the candidates have been declared. For the moment, it is possible to sketch only outlines.
Birmingham Erdington is considered a safe Labour seat, though not quite rock-solid now. The last non-Labour candidate was elected in 1936 (Conservative Party).
The lowest Labour vote since 1983 was recorded in 2010 (41.8%). However, that vote increased to 45.6% in 2015, then 58% in 2017, before slipping back a little to 50.3% in 2019. Dromey was first elected in 2010.
As for the Conservative Party vote-share, its high-water mark was back in 1931 (68.1%). It was closest to success (since the pre-WW2 era) in 1983, when Labour, with 39.8%, narrowly beat the Conservative candidate (39.2%), a majority of only 231 votes.
During the Blair era, the Conservative vote slumped well below 30%, but has recovered since: 32.6 % in 2010, 30.8% in 2015, 38.4% in 2017, and 40.1% in 2019.
In 2019, Brexit Party put up a candidate who scored 4.1%. While one cannot say that that 4.1% would otherwise have voted Con, it is more likely than not, putting the Conservatives maybe within a couple of points of Labour. However, recent opinion polling has shown that Conservative Party support, nationwide, has been sliding.
The potential level for any social-national candidate is hard to gauge, but in view of the fact that there presently exists no credible social-national party in the UK, my assessment of the likelihood even of a saved deposit for any candidate of that type is low. The BNP achieved 5.1% and a saved deposit in 2010, and achieved that, moreover, despite the existence of both UKIP (2.4%) and National Front (0.6%) candidates. Had only the BNP stood, then it is possible that its vote might have totalled over 8%, and —who knows?— even over 10%. Still modest, of course.
UKIP, not social-national but somewhat (conservative-) nationalist, achieved a creditable third place on 17.4% of the votes cast in 2015.
This is not Liberal Democrat territory. The LibDems have lost their deposit in every election since 2010 (16.2%).
I imagine that the by-election will attract a host of minor and joke candidates.
In years past, there would been little point in blogging about a by-election such as this. However, this time it is worth speculating about, and then seeing the result. The interest lies in seeing whether former Labour voters’ apathy, and/or dislike of Keir Starmer and/or Labour generally (with its pro-mass immigration stance and “Covid” obsession) can result in a great upset.
Labour is sliding fast in the affections of the voters, but so is the Conservative Party, which talks big on immigration yet not only does nothing to stop it but is actually inviting millions of Hong Kong Chinese to live here, is inviting tens of thousands of Afghans to live here, and has done absolutely nothing to prevent the cross-Channel migration-invasion.
This looks like being a straight Conservative-Labour fight. I cannot see the LibDems mounting a successful third-party bid. At the moment, I should say that Labour are still favourites, but only just. I do not rule out an upset.
[Update, 8 January 2023: In the end, Labour won easily, with 55.8% of the vote, the candidate being Paulette Hamilton, a West Indian one-time nurse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulette_Hamilton. The Conservative Party candidate got 36.3%.
The remaining 10 candidates all received under 3%, the highest being the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition [TUSC] candidate, Dave Nellist (a former Labour MP), with 2.1%.
Only 27% of eligible voters turned out (in an area that voted 63% for Leave in the Brexit Referendum), meaning that the West Indian ex-nurse who won did so on the votes of only about 15% of all potential voters. A real social-national party, if it existed, would win a seat like that].
Labour Party in the Cold War
I am reading Against the Cold War; the nature and traditions of pro-Soviet sentiment in the British Labour Party 1945-89, by one Darren G. Lilleker.
A fairly interesting book-length study (a doctoral thesis), but I have already found flaws in the bit I have read so far, such as:
“Lee, identified as Will Owen, was solely interested in financial reward. According to [Josef] Frolik he demanded free holidays and money and in return passed information of the “highest importance.,… This description of Owen seems somewhat dubious, Owen was not party to important information, and the fact that he was acquitted from a treason charge on the 9th May 1970 substantiates these doubts.”
Well, Owen was tried at the Bailey, true, but not on a charge of treason (in the strict legal sense). The charge was one of “communicating secrets” contrary to the Official Secrets Act.
A basic error like that is not one that I should expect to see in the thesis of a Ph.D. candidate, frankly. There are already noticed one or two similar errors. Also, one is acquitted of (or maybe on) a charge, not “from“. Also, it is claimed, in the thesis, that the MP John Stonehouse was engaging in homosexual behaviour (which laid him open to blackmail by Czech Intelligence, though his main motivation for spying was financial).
The money aspect, yes, but is the other true, or not? Wikipedia mentions nothing of it [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stonehouse]. There have been two books on Stonehouse published in the past year; neither (judging from reviews) mentions the “gay” allegations.
Still, I am continuing to read Lilleker’s thesis, which I am finding interesting, overall.
“Intensive care doctor tells Sajid Javid: this is why I’m refusing the Covid vaccine“
“Steve James, of King’s College Hospital, said Health Secretary didn’t seem to agree that he had immunity from being ‘antibody’ positive.”
“Mr James told the PA news agency he did not believe Covid-19 was causing “very significant problems” for young people, adding that his patients in the ICU had been “extremely overweight” with multiple other co-morbidities.“
Cummings, about whom I blogged a few times, is making himself look silly now. As to Boris-idiot, it is hard to think that he could be made to look sillier…(actually, thinking about it, the same could be said of Cummings).
I should like to believe that the British public would do better, but I do wonder…in the new multikulti “British” land, ignorance is bliss, quite often.
By 52% to 23% Britons say it was the wrong outcome to find the four people accused of criminal damage for pulling down the statue of Edward Colston not guiltyhttps://t.co/25EJ0beyLOpic.twitter.com/pRHBayiyFk
My guess? Most of the jury was composed of a mixture of blacks, other non-Europeans, and persons of a generally Labour Party bent. There was no need for a majority direction from the trial judge, so either all jurors voted for acquittal, or most did and the few preferring conviction changed their minds and went along with that.
Let’s be brutally honest… if there really was a global health pandemic, and the Australian government were genuinely ‘terrified’ about it… there wouldn’t even be any tennis tournaments going on there in the first place!
Of course, I saw through Boris Johnson long ago, about 20 years ago. Unfortunately, I am forced by Fate to be merely (at least so far) a private citizen-blogger. Frankly, and if I myself say it that shouldn’t, I would be a far better head of government than Boris Johnson. Admittedly, many people might echo my words, and with justice.
More music
Kazakhstan
I was not intending to blog about the present upheaval in Kazakhstan. It is —tempus fugit!— now 24 years since I lived there (I was there for a year), and I have already blogged about some aspects of my own time there, en passant, several times. However, a few words…
Kazakhstan, when I went there, was all but unknown to the UK public. Even educated members of the Bar whom I knew asked “where exactly is that?” when I said that I would be living there.
Despite being the 9th-largest state in the world, more than 11x the size of the whole UK, Kazakhstan was almost invisible to most British people. That is less true today, though most people still know little about it.
At one time, from the 1920s to the early 1990s, Kazakhstan’s population was 20%-45% Russian, peaking at well over 40% in the 1970s. Even when I was there (1996-97), Russians were over 30% of the population, and probably more in the then capital and largest city, Almaty, where I lived.
By reason of Stalin’s mass deportations from other areas of the Soviet Union, there were numerous other ethnic groups in Kazakhstan up until the 1990s (they are still there but in far smaller numbers): Volga Germans, Jews, Ukrainians, Crimean Tartars, Turks and Koreans (former residents of Soviet areas bordering those countries) etc. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazakhstan#Demographics.
In the 1990s, Russians started to leave, as “Kazakhization” proceeded. Jews left for Israel. Germans left for Germany. Kazakhstan is now about 65%-70% Kazakh.
Russians were the backbone of Kazakhstan as a civilized and advanced country. The Kazakhs I myself met were (mostly) very pleasant, tolerant people, but badly-led and, after all, basically non-European. Before the late 19th Century, Kazakhs were still all nomadic. Most of them still were as late as the 1930s.
Russia gave the Kazakhs everything modern, from roads and rail, and medical services, and cities, to nuclear poison and labour camps…a mixed picture…
Kazakhstan was once called, informally —and dangerously—, Kazekstan, “zek” being a slang term for a prisoner.
The Russians, in the 19thC, established a fort at a place in the foothills of the Tien Shan mountains, a place they called Verny. There was founded a small town, later called Alma-Ata (“Father of Apples” in Kazakh). When I lived there, there were still a few small apple orchards in the hills within the city limits rapidly being developed into residential and office neighbourhoods.
Alma-Ata became (I have no idea why) “Almaty”, a name both Russians and Kazakhs found odd and somehow funny (they told me).
The few at the top after 1991 effectively stole everything, something that was obvious to me when I lived there. The “elected” dictator, Nazarbaev (resigned recently), was, even in 1996, said (by Fortune magazine) to be the 5th-wealthiest individual on Earth. The oil and gas and other riches under the ground went mainly to him and then to his clan, family, friends and contacts (and to Western oil, gas, and mining companies). Nazarbaev was the first Kazakh leader (even in Soviet times) who had no descent from Genghiz Khan; he was never fully accepted by many Kazakhs.
The Soviet government had tried, in the late 1980s, to install a non-Kazakh, a Russian, as leader. Riots killed hundreds.
I am sorry to see the bloodshed in Kazakhstan, but the country needs a new start.
Look who’s talking! US forces came to the UK by invitation in 1942, but never left! There are still strategically-significant American forces in the UK, not only air force contingents and actual US air bases, but Navy and Army, as well as smaller forces such as NSA, CIA and even US Coastguard (in London, of all places! I once talked with one of their officers).
(When the USA seized the gold reserves of the defeated state of Iraq).
🔻 💬Ambassador Anatoly Antonov to @Newsweek: 1⃣. @NATO's expansion eastwards is against the common and collectively agreed principle of indivisible security in #Europe. The transatlantic bloc itself is a rudiment of the Cold War. pic.twitter.com/OGiYrGKpYm
💬 One of the most important holidays, #Christmas, has a special moral significance. It unites people with high spiritual ideals, fills our hearts with joy.
🙏 I wish everybody good health, success and happiness.
That is mainly because Europe, particularly Western Europe, is infested.
All “influencers” are a detriment to society man. Sack off all of them. Even the term “influencer” is so fucking narcissistic. World would be a much better place without them. #mollymaehttps://t.co/BLzx6Ojqxs
I have no idea who that rather unattractive airhead is, but the frightening thing is that idiots like that do actually speak for at least a significant minority of the UK population, and that fact is one reason why the secret cabals and ruling circles are not finding it too difficult to drag this country into a future which is already beginning to look like a dystopian nightmare.
I never chose it… I never chose it!
“I never had a choice” [Nietzsche, Also Sprach Zarathustra]
**Breaking News**@MaajidNawaz will no longer present his programme on @LBC.
It seems LBC are not keen on presenters having an opinion.
What I'm seeing with #Omicron. 1) Everyone will be exposed in next few weeks. 2) Almost everyone gets a mild form of common cold. Trivial hospitalization. Trivial oxygenation needed. 3) Omicron replaces Delta. 4) Omicron acts as a natural vaccine, Herd immunity. 4) End pandemic.
Whatever happens (or is said to have happened) with “Omicron”, the “panicdemic” narrative will continue to be pushed. The endgame has nothing to do with public heath, and certainly nothing to do with any supposed huge “danger” to the public, or the world. It is all to do with the next stage in the conspiracy— the microchipping of effectively the entire population of the world.
Stray thought
Looking at the film (from 1974, though the music dates from 1959), no-one in that film could have imagined that the DDR/East Germany would pass into history only 15 years (officially 16) later. Even when I spent a couple of days in the DDR in 1988, the regime seemed to be in full control, though there was to me a strange feeling about the place (I was in the seemingly almost depopulated Southwest and Southeast), a feeling that —despite all the trappings of a state— this was a kind of facade. I suppose that the feeling might be summed up as “where are all the people?”…
We imagine that a set-up like the UK will go on almost forever, and certainly not disappear or be radically changed within a few years. I’m not so sure of that.
People who live in glass houses should not throw stones, and I myself could certainly benefit from some weight loss, but truth is truth…
‘Migrants 'are staying in four-star hotel rooms at £125-a-night on the taxpayer' as Britons struggle to afford spiralling energy bills amid cost of living chaos’ https://t.co/0clDybKTN5
…and just in the past day or so I have seen one newspaper report about a working nurse forced to sleep in her car because she is “not a housing priority“, and another about an elderly Englishman who froze to death in a doorway because the local council would not help him, yet all stops are pulled out for these backward, useless untermenschen, who are invaders.
Même si Macron veut les emmerder, des manifestants anti-vax défilent à Paris.
The housing crisis in the UK is perhaps the most pressing problem the UK, certainly England has, apart from mass immigration. The two are connected, of course. It is idle to imagine that the housing crisis can be solved without stopping mass immigration, yet the System political parties all maintain that the two problems (or facts) are unconnected. In any TV discussion on housing, mass immigration is the elephant in the room, rarely if ever mentioned by the participants. This is remarkable.
The latest statistics [https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/statistics-net-migration-statistics] for immigration show that (official, “legal”) “net immigration” into the UK was 327,000 in a single year (about 700,000 came in, some left, some British people also emigrated). Even if two or three immigrants live in one house, that means that somewhere around 100,000-200,000 houses or flats would be required to house these incomers. In one year. Another 100,000-200,000 houses next year…and so on. In fact, the situation is worse than that, because the immigrants (certainly the non-Europeans) have a far higher birth rate than the British. In parts of London and elsewhere, there are already far more births to immigrant mothers than to British ones.
About 150,000 new houses are being built each year in the UK now, but the House of Lords has said that the UK “needs” (largely because of immigration and births to immigrant mothers) 300,000 more houses each year:
In other words, there is a shortfall each year of at least 100,000 dwellings, yet the System political parties will not address the main reason why British people either cannot get a house (whether to buy or rent, as prices and rents spiral) or pay through the nose to do so. The Labour Party is particularly culpable, because it both promotes mass immigration and yet cries about the “housing crisis”! No wonder its former voters are deserting it in droves.
British people are divided by the crisis: a minority are living as rentier parasites and/or are profiting (on paper) via inflated property values. The majority are paying huge amounts in mortgage payments or excessive rents, simply so as to have a roof overhead. This cannot continue.
The solution to the housing crisis in, particularly, England, is to
stop mass immigration;
repatriate as many immigrants (and offspring) as possible;
prioritize British people for all forms of housing;
build decent State housing for rental;
change planning rules in large parts of Victorian and interwar London;
found beautiful new garden cities and towns without destroying the countryside;
decentralize the UK, to prevent the South and South East being ruined.
Ian Robert Millard 