Morning music
On this day a year ago
Tweets seen
Not necessarily “forever“…
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewsbury#Recent_history.
Don’t confuse real Romanian people with Roma Gypsies, though.
…and in England, most of the well-meaning (?) virtue-signallers who gave up parts of their homes to Ukrainians (often total ingrates) have found that they now cannot easily get rid of those nuisances (few of which are either genuine “refugees” or indeed poor).
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Is that (the £8.4M) true? If so, how?
Liz Truss graduated from university in 1996. After that, she worked for Shell for not more than 4 years, until 2000. Her position was just a low-grade graduate-entry one, during which employment she also qualified as a management accountant; she left in 2000 to join Cable and Wireless, and was there for 4-5 years, but although she did eventually get appointed Economic Director, she was only at that level for a year or two at most.
Liz Truss was also Deputy Director of the Reform think-tank for a year or so (2008/2009).
After having won a House of Commons seat in 2010, Liz Truss was a backbench MP for 2 years, and gained minor preferment 2012-2014, joining Cabinet in 2016. She was, therefore, a Cabinet minister for 6 years until she became Prime Minister in 2022 for the notoriously and historically-short period of 44 disastrous days.
So from where does the £8.4M come? Surely not from her family, who though not poor were employed persons (father an academic, mother a schoolteacher); I have not heard tell of any considerable family money.
As for Truss’s long-suffering husband, he is a chartered accountant, so again, while not poor, scarcely living in great opulence amid heavy wealth.
Liz Truss cannot have begun to make more than a modest salary until about 2004, had 2-3 years out of employment (she has two children, and also took time out for reasons of political careerism etc) until 2008, and she ceased to be employed (prior to becoming an MP) in 2009 or early 2010. In other words, she probably only had ~4 years of relatively high earning.
A Cabinet minister and MP is paid a total of around £160,000 (plus expenses), but the £160K is taxed, and she was only earning that for 6 years.
The mystery or puzzle remains: if Liz Truss really does have assets of £8.4M (even if you include those of her husband) from where did the money come?
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liz_Truss#Professional_career.
Ha ha! Look at the “selection process” for MPs. They are often selected either because they know the right people and/or went to school with them, or worked with them previously in some way; or they are selected because they have paper “qualifications” which look good but in reality are not worth a hill of beans.
For example, “Oxford degree” (which these days is scarcely worth squat, and 94% of them are now either “Firsts” or “upper seconds”).
Many MPs (refer to, e.g., my “Deadhead MPs” series on the blog) also more or less invent a fake CV— fake or embellished academics, non-existent private business “successes” (e.g. companies that were set up, but which actually made no money), worthless business or other qualifications and/or “letters after the name”, such as meaningless “doctorates”, or a couple of years at the bottom level of the Bar, or even membership of bodies such as the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA), etc.
All of the above, plus an air of confidence, easily impresses provincial selection committees.
Even those MPs exposed (later, after having been selected and then “elected”) usually manage to shrug off their dishonesty. Look at Iain Dunce Duncan Smith, an egregious example. Invented or hugely embellished his education (rock-bottom poor at secondary level, and then made up a fake degree from an Italian university he never actually attended; also turned a corporate in-house course lasting 2 weeks into a “management diploma”). Then his embellishment of a very underwhelming military career. And so on.
The fact is that Liz Truss is only one of very many MPs who are, in reality, mediocre or worse, and have been right from the start.
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“The world is not without kind people” [Russian proverb].
I certainly agree with that. This ghastly mess should never have happened as it has developed. The Russian High Command and GRU should have eliminated the Jew Zelensky —and his corrupt and dictatorial coterie— before (just before) launching an all-out and swift advance, including mass paratroop landings, on Kiev. One single and massive knockout blow for the sake of mercy, to save the civilian population from attack and misery, and to achieve the main objective before the NWO/ZOG support from USA etc could be mobilized.
The human cost (in Russia as well as in Ukraine) has been terrible: see tweet below
Saint-Just said that “no-one can rule guiltlessly“, but a leader must always be aware of the hurt even the most necessary actions entail. The human cost of war is terrible.
May be true. The Western msm is concealing other Kiev-regime war crimes (eg field-execution of Russians captured in battle or otherwise).
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Radio loudmouth James O’Brien, one of the least pleasant msm drones. A rather ignorant person, posing as erudite and principled.
As blogged previously, my opinion of “Jack Monroe” has gone from mildly supportive (several years ago) to slightly critical (see my blog post of three months ago: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2022/09/30/diary-blog-30-september-2022-including-an-assessment-of-jack-monroe-aka-the-bootstrap-cook/) to very critical (now).
As for “her lawyer“, well that is or was the egregious Mark Lewis, now resident in Israel: see, e.g. https://ianrobertmillard.org/2019/01/11/update-re-mark-lewis-lawyer-questions-are-raised/.
The case in which Mark Lewis acted for “Jack Monroe”, as her solicitor (I believe that he instructed both leading and junior Counsel who appeared in court as her advocates) was a not-very-difficult defamation action against social commentator Katie Hopkins: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_v_Hopkins.
Ms. Hopkins had to sell her house to cover not the award made (only £24,000) but the c.£300,000 legal costs, being mainly those of the claimant (“plaintiff“, as was): see https://www.devonlive.com/news/property/katie-hopkins-luxury-devon-home-1526502.
I am not sure that I believe that “Bootstrap Cook” now has a lawyer, as such, but we shall see. She threatened to sue MP Lee Anderson [Con, Ashfield], and Martin Daubney, “alt-right” (?) political commentator, but that was in mid-May this year, seven months ago. In theory, “Jack Monroe” has time, until early to mid-May 2023, in which to issue proceedings, but the courts may not take kindly to issuance which is only just in time, and so far no preliminary correspondence has been received (I read), so it is unlikely that any action will now take place.
Video commentary
Frequent readers of my blog will know that I am interested in the ~33-year cycle: 1923, 1956, 1989, 2022…
The vlogger above mentions other things that have resonated with me for some time, such as how few people really understand our technology; I do not mean how to use it, but how to recreate, or even to repair it if necessary. Very very few.
Late tweets
The “Jack Monroe”/”Bootstrap Cook” fall from grace continues to stir the Twitter teacup:
Fake indeed. I heard some inside track in 2010 (well before the election which brought into being the “Con Coalition”) about planned slashing of spending by the Labour Government.
For people such as tweeter “David Townsend” (“@DavidTo60389264”), creatures such as the Swedish Autistic, Meghan Mulatta, and “Jack Monroe” are somehow fighters for the Good. What can one say?
Other late tweets seen
Christmas University Challenge
Once again, watched a heat of the pre-Christmas alumni contest, this time the School of Oriental and African Studies [SOAS], London University, against Balliol College, Oxford.
I think that I recognized only one player, the Daily Telegraph journalist/commentator, Sherelle Jacobs [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherelle_Jacobs].
As I expected, Balliol won easily but, to be frank, were no better than mediocre. As for SOAS, the oft-seen term “OMG!” is what comes to mind. One half-caste-looking youngish woman whose name I cannot now recall (she apparently specializes in “racism”…wouldn’t you know?…) actually thought that Mozart was still alive in 1976! There were several other absurdities almost as incredible from her and the other SOAS alumni. Almost unbelievable, even for a cynic (reluctant cynic) such as me.
How did I do? Better than both teams put together, to be immodestly frank.
Late music
Ian Robert Millard 