Well, this week brings another victory, though narrow, over political journalist John Rentoul. He scored 5/10, but I trumped that with 6/10. I did not know the answers to questions 1, 3, 4, and 5.
Toronto, London, Paris. See the connection? (look at the photos).
“Thought for the Day”
I was just looking at tweets mentioning me, going back years. Good to see that many of those who attacked me on Twitter for years are now missing, presumed dead. That is, missing from Twitter, with timelines either ended some time ago, or just posting automated follow/unfollow tweets. I know that several are no longer on this Earth.
i could never understand why George Osborne was personally popular among the MPs and in general because to me something about him always seemed to lack a "soul."
— Caroline is pooponbezos.bsky.social (@PoopOnBezos) July 8, 2023
Could it be because many MPs are not too different from Osborne in being soulless? As to the general public, I do not think that Osborne (a part-Jew whose brother and father are both sexually deviant) ever was popular with most British people when he was Chancellor.
Beautiful cover of fresh German Spiegel. Fake pictures used: Pope, Greta Thunberg, Donald Trump and Angela Merkel. pic.twitter.com/HBhLflcI7C
The US strongly condemns the use of cluster munitions and considers it a war crime. Stoltenberg said today that NATO does not have a unified position on this type of weapon, but the United States has a sharply negative one. A year ago, when Jen Psaki was asked to comment on… pic.twitter.com/nAliGe85AC
"We will carry out the largest internal deportation operation in American history, and we will quickly take out the bad ones," Trump said. pic.twitter.com/Eb0G3lFybu
I feel your pain – my husband has cancer, is having chemo, worked all his life, paid tax all his life & we are living on my one wage now. He is not entitled to anything. Something else for the stress bucket at this time☹️ Wising you a speedy recovery.
It is now clear that the “British” Government (which contains few real Brits) is working, and quite deliberately, against the interests of the British people.
Coudenhove-Kalergi Plan.
🚨BREAKING REPORT: Senator Rand Paul calls for and end of sending money to Ukraine and calls out Lindsey Graham for trying to start a war with Russia. https://t.co/5tnzYET0xo
Deliveries of cluster munitions are forced, there is no more ammunition in US warehouses – retired intelligence officer Scott Ritter
"By supplying Ukraine with this ammunition, we are making their military less effective than using conventional high-explosive shells." Apart from… pic.twitter.com/V0c5VymZ7a
The US is giving Ukraine cluster munitions in a "desperate gesture", claims the Russian ambassador Anatoly Antonov stated that he believes that by raising the stakes in the Ukrainian conflict, Washington is bringing humanity closer to a global conflict pic.twitter.com/POCXWlEQ0n
Footage of the destruction of armored vehicles of the counter-attacking 23rd separate mechanized brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Novodarovka area.
First, the Armed Forces drove into a minefield, after which they came under fire from the 305th artillery brigade of… pic.twitter.com/03xhnGgdwj
I was blocked by Jeremy Vine for reminding him that he was a tax dodger as evidenced in this news headline from 2015 👇 What a great role model he has been…not 👿 pic.twitter.com/wpW7m14lRm
For a brief moment, I thought that the girl in the photo was his (alleged) girlfriend. (only my little joke).
Ah, Jeremy Vine, the “Covid” “vaccine” partisan and sometime pro-police-state drone (during the “Covid” craziness), who is also pro-EU, pro-mass immigration, and a fanatical pro-cycling and anti-car troublemaker.
Still, I shall be sorry to see him go from (was BBC, now Channel 5) Eggheads (if reports are accurate). He presents that rather well.
Makes a million a year. Not bad for someone who, after an expensive private education, left Durham University with only a 2:2 in English.
I once had a girlfriend who opined that Durham University was where people study if they are from wealthy families but cannot get into Oxford or Cambridge. That was in relation to a barrister who was a friend of a couple she knew, someone with a very unusual name— something like “Mauleverer”.
In fact, I met said barrister when we attended a dinner party (not my favourite activity) in Blackheath in, I think, 1987 or thereabouts, at which that barrister was also a guest. I was a belated Bar School student at the time (though about 31). The barrister in question must have been 40-something, but in my opinion looked 50+.
The hostess was a charming blonde lady of Polish origins (but I think born in the UK), whose familiar name I forget and was something like Dushka (but not that). Her husband was a friendly chap who seemed amused by that barrister’s seemingly dog-like devotion to the hostess.
If truth be known, the barrister in question struck me as a bit of a nitwit, and I was told that the hostess later said to my girlfriend that I had given more of an impression of being a senior barrister than the said real senior barrister, despite my being ten years younger and a mere Bar student.
Well, perhaps my view was wrong, or at least superficial, because I believe that I read that the barrister in question was then or not long afterwards a silk (QC, now of course KC) and later became a commercial arbitrator and judge (I think in Hong Kong), as well as a trustee of one or two well-known institutions. So maybe he was not a nitwit, at least not entirely. Or maybe our social system rewards people from privileged backgrounds who make the right noises. Take your choice.
More tweets
The flower of Ukrainian & Russian youth are dying in trenches, with no meaningful change in territory
Tweeter “Mido” needs to know that, without the almost endless arms, ammunition, money, medical supplies, and other aid (eg food) being channeled to the Kiev regime from the West, the war would stop in a matter of weeks, perhaps even days, and what is left of the Ukrainian state and society would simply cease to function, also in weeks or days. Even state benefits and pensions in Ukraine are now being underwritten by the NWO/ZOG states.
As for troops, the Kiev regime is already pressing into service all sorts of people hitherto exempt. Kiev is running out of cannon-fodder.
Never assume that progress, or civilization, or culture, cannot just stop, or be destroyed, or that society cannot fall into decadence, backwardness, and evil. In the UK, a gradual slide is happening right now, all around us, but most people are still blind to it.
Russian army units destroyed a Ukrainian tank with an anti-tank guided missile, resulting in an immediate and huge explosion of ammunition, to burn other armored vehicles and fail the entire Ukrainian counter-attack in Bakhmut. pic.twitter.com/Y46YyNZ2MU
Officially, and after 500 days have passed since the start of the Russian-Ukrainian war, the Russian army controls 84,380 thousand square kilometers, which is equivalent to 13.97% of Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/dYhOG9HD5Y
The CIA recognized the omnipotence of China in the world order CIA director Burns said that the only force capable of challenging the current world order is China. “The Russian military operation in Ukraine is a challenge to the established world order, but the only country…
“Germany and the US will send armoured fighting vehicles to Ukraine, the White House said, in a move that will deliver a big boost to Kyiv’s offensive capabilities.”
“Joe Biden and his German counterpart Olaf Scholz have agreed to send infantry fighting vehicles to help Ukraine fight Russia, a day after France said it would supply its own armoured vehicles to Kyiv in an attempt to create a breakthrough in the 10-month war.
The joint announcement followed a phone call between Biden and Scholz and amounts to a step change in western military support for Ukraine, which has asked for up to 700 armoured vehicles to help force the Russians out.
Ukraine has repeatedly said it needs 600 to 700 infantry fighting vehicles plus 300 tanks from from the west in order to give its military a chance of breaking through the increasingly fortified Russian positions along the frontline.
Until now, however, the US and Germany have been wary of supplying Ukraine with Nato-standard armour, because they feared it would be interpreted by Russia as escalatory. But the decision to supply western armoured vehicles is significant, even if both countries stopped short of sending tanks.“
[The Guardian].
At what point does Russia decide that it has no choice but to use massive force (nuclear or conventional) to raze Kiev and Kharkov to the ground, so that the area of Ukraine east of the Dnieper (about a third to half of Ukraine) can be later rebuilt, and occupied by Russian settlers?
That may sound almost impossible but is actually similar, arguably,to what happened centuries ago when the Cossacks were formed as a group, or connected groups, around the various rivers in southern Russia and Ukraine— Don Cossacks, Zaporozhye Cossacks, Volga Cossacks, Dnieper Cossacks etc.
Whatever the possibility of the above, there is no doubt that the supply of armoured vehicles, advanced missile systems, and tanks, to the Kiev regime constitutes considerable escalation.
In fact, one need not go back too far in history to find examples of Russian forces all but razing cities to the ground, then rebuilding them and filling them with the troops and civilians of loyal satraps: see Grozny in the 1990s— https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grozny#After_the_wars.
“Afterwards, the Russians slowly entered the empty city and on 6 February raised the Russian flag in the centre. Many buildings and even whole areas of the city were systematically destroyed. A month later, it was declared safe to allow the residents to return to their homes, although demolition continued for some time. In 2003 the United Nations called Grozny the most destroyed city on earth.”
I read, re. Ukraine in 2023, that Russia has huge numbers of troops not “in theatre”, i.e. not (yet) in Ukraine. That may be because those troops are not trained enough yet, it may be because there are logistical problems in supplying them. If Russia can train them and supply them by next Spring or early Summer, then a vast offensive might be possible, to take Kharkov and even Kiev itself, though if the latter it would be a bloody battle, akin to Stalingrad in 1942-43.
In the end, Russia needs to take Kiev, Kharkov and, if possible, Odessa, along with surrounding territory. If it can do that, then it can write off Western Ukraine and its cities (chief of which is Lvov). That would mean continuing conflict with a regime which would be based on Lvov, but there would be little the Zelensky regime or its successor could do, with almost all Ukrainian cities of any size in Russian hands.
At this point, Ukraine is not a functioning state.
Those “FBPE” tweeters are nearly always absolutely stupid, and often rather unpleasant as well.
The idea that “Jack Monroe” has “worked tirelessly” on behalf of anyone other than herself is ludicrous.
I agree. Criticism and asking genuine questions is not abuse. The same things being called trolling this last week has now been addressed by the publisher and Trussell Trust. The book doesn't help poor people, it just makes middle class people feel better.
Tweeter “@codfather” is the usual “Jack Monroe” partisan: wilfully blind, a certain age (reading between the lines), reasonably affluent (ditto) and certainly not “poor”. Also, vituperative.
In fact, and as I started to understand some time ago, many of the pro-“Bootstrap Cook” tweets are actually from…”Jack Monroe” herself, pretending to be other people. So-called “sock accounts”. Not all, and I think not “@codfather”, but many others.
Jack Monroe continually claims to be the *only* voice for people living in poverty. Her ego knows no bounds. I'm staggered that she's STILL claiming to have made a significant difference to the lives of people currently experiencing hardship. Where's the evidence? #ThriftyKitchen
The sheer delusion that many “Jack Monroe” partisans seem to live in has to be read to be believed; look, for example, at the tweet belkow, from (supposedly) a “professor emeritus at Bristol [University]”:
What the professor fails to see is that “Jack Monroe” has only one achievement (two if you include persuading large numbers of msm people that her whole story is true) — making a pretty good living for herself mainly by tweeting personal trivia, and recipes which look as dire as they are deficient in nutrient.
As for “measurement of food price inflation“, the ONS has made clear that their one meeting with her (at her request) had no effect on any of their work, and was not even noted or recorded. The “Vimes Boots Index”, supposedly being “worked on” by “Jack Monroe”, does not even exist, in reality. So what is left is the commonplace observation that the cost of basic foods has risen faster than that of luxury items.
Once again, a “Jack Monroe” supporter turns out to be a “woke”, and comfortably-off virtue-signaller, in this case an academic, or retired academic.
As I have blogged before, I have so far seen not one “Jack Monroe” supporter who is under 30, is “poor”, or who has ever been in circumstances of real financial difficulty.
Interestingly, also, I see not one “Jack Monroe” supporter who is black, brown, or Chinese. As someone who wants the UK and all Europe to be European, that in a sense is not a problem for me, but is still an interesting thing to note.
My take on that is that the ethnic minorities are too down to earth (and many also with too recent an experience of actual poverty) to take “Jack Monroe”/”Bootstrap Cook” seriously. Also, many would not look twice at the kind of swill she seems to produce much of the time.
Honestly, this is one of the most shocking reversals of the truth I’ve seen in a while. Our government absolutely hates its own citizens. They despise us. And they use our taxpayers money to remind us of it in public spaces everyday. Shame on you @MinBZK. Shame on you, @MinPres.
Incredible!! As someone who cares about the planet. This is what I want to see. Not the #netzeroscam.. our environmental groups who cared about pollution and micro plastics have been hijacked by net zero fanatics pic.twitter.com/w8EoeLZW8j
The same is true in most areas. Politically too. Lenin was just one of a small number of marginalized exiles; Hitler was just an individual who was told to take a look at a tiny party, then joined it as member (possibly committee member) no.7.
Acorn—oak etc.
BREAKING: the Ontario College of Psychologists @CPOntario has demanded that I submit myself to mandatory social-media communication retraining with their experts for, among other crimes, retweeting @PierrePoilievre and criticizing @JustinTrudeau and his political allies.
It is an incredible fact that (what is left of) the print newspapers in the UK are still churning out “editorials” or “leaders” which hardly anyone reads and by which even fewer are influenced.
Ha. Back in the early 1980s, I knew a lady, a civil servant, who rented her basement flat near Central London to an actor well-known then in Australia, but obscure in the UK— Bruce Barry. I got to know him slightly.
At some point, maybe in 1984, Bruce auditioned for the part of Crocodile Dundee in the eponymous film. He told my friend, his landlady, that he had been shortlisted. The only other contender was… Paul Hogan. And the rest is history, as they say.
Bruce had spoiled his chance by going to the final meeting with the film people, at the Ritz in London, beautifully dressed (according to the lady I knew) but then enjoying “a liquid lunch“…
Bruce was fussy about food, living off wholefoods, nuts, avocado, and I think the occasional Australian steak, but drank too much. Drink and women were his downfall.
Not a bad fellow, though rather neurotic, and rather intense, in my view. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Barry_(actor). Bruce had come to London at the age of ~46 to try to break into musicals. His divorce in Australia had left his wife (or one of them) and teenage sons in the family home, apparently a palatial house with grounds going down to the waters of Sydney Harbour, while Bruce himself was left with little.
In London, his first part was the male lead in The Biograph Girl [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Biograph_Girl], a musical about Lilian Gish [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillian_Gish], which closed after (I now see from Wikipedia) 57 performances (I had thought, until today, after only a couple of weeks). Bruce had described it in hardnosed Australian fashion to my friend, the Civil Service lady, as “a bum show“, i.e. not much good.
I recall seeing Bruce on stage a couple of times, once at the Adelphi, in the Strand, where he was the second male lead in Marilyn! He played Andre de Dienes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_de_Dienes (though I cannot have been paying attention because until today I had thought he played Arthur Miller).
Bruce had very kindly given me two free tickets; I invited my mother, who lived in Surrey, and she enjoyed it. Musicals are not really my thing.
The other time I saw Bruce Barry in performance was at the Australian High Commission in London. I think that it was called An Evening with Bruce Barry, and was very good. I attended with the Civil Service lady, and met the real Australian Cultural Attache, who perhaps unsurprisingly was a very pleasant diplomatic fellow, and not a bit like “Sir Les Patterson” as portrayed by Barry Humphries [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Les_Patterson].
Bruce had a girlfriend, a tall Australian dancer who had been a member of the Bluebell Girls ensemble in Paris. One day, Bruce returned to his flat to find her in flagrante with a third party. The end of the affair.
Bruce toured a bit around England with well-known stars such as Rula Lenska and Elaine Paige. I believe that that was in Evita. One star he disliked intensely, though, was Barbara Windsor. He was, apparently, not alone in that. Several disliked her tie-ups with gangsters etc.
In the end, Bruce Barry, having not quite broken through in the way he had hoped, returned to Australia, remarried, and had parts in quite a few TV shows, including The Flying Doctors [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Flying_Doctors], where he played a landowner, I was told (I myself never saw it, though the series was shown in the UK).
The last I heard of Bruce Barry was that his second (or third) wife had divorced him, taken his home off him (as I heard it), and left him to drink and regrets.
Disgusting. And I'm talking about the craven masses who keep voting in parties and politicians who oversee such amoral cesspits formerly known as societies across the West
Don't you dare lecture me about the hypothetical dangers of political extremism as you tacitly endorse this https://t.co/bG1lK5RCNN
Said Eritreans should have been executed by firing squad in the main square of Stockholm; it would have been a deterrent to other migrant-invaders (prior to their mass deportation). Sweden is even more mad than the UK.
UK charities watchdog ‘assesses concerns’ about Campaign Against Antisemitism – https://t.co/6CaK4ug59y Commission opens ‘regulatory compliance case’ after complaints that the charity is politically partisan
Jack Monroe threatened and crowdfunded to sue Lee Anderson because he claimed she makes a fortune from the poor. Her talent agency today showed £10-£15k fees she charges for appearances etc. Tell me how what Lee Anderson said was libellous. #GriftyKitchen#ThriftyKitchen
In any case, why would “Jack Monroe” even go to the Grenfell Tower fire? She was never in the fire brigade, except as a civilian office bod answering the telephone in Essex (about 50-60 miles from Grenfell Tower) for a year or so, and years before the Grenfell Tower blaze. If she did go to Grenfell Tower (which I doubt), it could only have been as a “rubbernecker”, and the police would certainly not have “waved her through the cordon” as she claimed. She’s a fake, a total fake.
I’ve been reading @AwfullyMolly’s blog and have had my eyes well and truly opened! I feel for those who donated to Jack’s Patreon and didn’t receive anything in return, and refund requests have largely been ignored. #shameful
Someone should make a series on con-men, con-women, “grifters” etc. Hour-long episodes, each covering two or three perpetrators, a bit like the very interesting In Suspicious Circumstances presented by Edward Woodward [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Suspicious_Circumstances]. A favourite series, presently being repeated on satellite TV.
To be fair to Monroe, she does say in the book she adapts other recipes. Other recipe writers also use a similar process. The issue in this case is apparently targeting the book at less well off people and charging them for something they can get for free. pic.twitter.com/4GuXe8yZU2
At a guess, I should say that copies of Thrifty Kitchen will soon be on sale in charity shops for about 20p. At least “the poor” will then be able to read the book, should they be so misguided.
Prince Harry should be ashamed of his sorry self for that book.
Somehow he managed to go from a Prince to a whiny bitch in two years.
Men, watch how you marry. That Meghan girl got him all the way messed up in the brain.
Prince Harry, who constantly complains about the press invading his privacy, releases a book giving details about how he shagged some woman behind a pub, his drug taking, physical fights with his brother, and what his penis looks like. 🥴
Ha ha. Just thinking again about the very idea that “the poor” need to be advised (very negligently) that, if they have a can without a ring-pull, and cannot find a can-opener, that they should use a hammer (or mallet?) and large knife! “Jack Monroe” obviously thinks that “the poor” are all completely brainless, and either cannot think of that on their own, or think of how to get an opener (less than £1 in some places).
She might as well “advise” people to invest in a Swiss Army Knife (mine has a can-opener which does work, though it’s hard work). The worst “investment” is to buy her book, in my opinion.
Bluebird has issued a statement regarding “potentially risky” hacks and tips included in Jack Monroe’s latest book Thrifty Kitchen, confirming that changes are being made post-publication.
Once the book appears for 10p (at a stretch, 20p) in charity shops, which will be soon, I shall probably buy a copy just to give myself a laugh or two before I chuck it away.
That's not what she is saying. Jack Monroe has not been poor for a decade, but sells books full of ridiculous 'thrifty' (not) hacks and recipes that don't save money!! She's not authentic.
Shes admitted a lot of that is lies, eg she withdrew the prostitute story and changed it by several years. It was a fantasy she wrote for Pink News. Even accused Kris if being a client. Vile. Also withdrew the autism diagnosis story. Absolute congenital liar.
No she's from a millionaire family, her dad didn't put her out on the game as she disgustingly insinuates, nor is Kris a deadbeat dad she often libelled him – resulting in a settlement requiring her to print a retraction, which she did with an article praising him.
…and, so far, despite 3-4 months of Twitterstorm and offline criticism, her Jewish lawyer, Mark Lewis, a resident of Israel, and with whose name (by implication) she used to threaten people who called her fraudulent, has not once emerged from his kennel.
How the bloody hell does washing no frills spaghetti hoops make you a celebrity chef 🤦♀️ Jack Monroe still grifting. pic.twitter.com/V9g6GFZIjS
People bashing Jack Monroe for writing about her lived experience, sharing tips for free online, writing some books, fundraising to send 1000s of copies to foodbanks, and earning a few quid (royalties rarely make a living) clearly haven't heard of Michelle Mone.
a. much of her “lived experience” written about has been fantasy or lies; b. her “tips” are mostly worthless, or actually dangerous to health, or are obvious (eg “buy the budget range at the supermarket“); c. her royalties total around £100,000 to date; d. the monies from “fundraising to send thousands of books to foodbanks” seem partly, perhaps largely, to have been diverted into her own pocket; e. then there was the “sue Lee Anderson” crowdfunder scam; and f. the continuing Patreon scam, bringing her maybe £6,000 each month.
In addition to the above, it seems that, last year, “Jack Monroe” did a number of events, and getting, it seems, up to £15,000 each time.
Not exactly “earning a few quid“…
In any case, should a small-time robber get off just because a big-time robber down the road has committed a bigger crime?
She admitted its all a pack of lies years ago by leaking this photo, and others, but then goes back to the lie. Classic Jack. pic.twitter.com/jwNH0qYaDE
Some types of bungalow do have a room upstairs, of course. #MoralHighGround.
She tried to distance herself by the above quote by saying she was manipulated by a journalist into saying it… and then an audio recording of her actually saying it during a speech in Parliament emerged. Lots of forgetfulness.
Yep! There's a literal recording of her saying it. She went quiet after initially going off an a woe is me rant about her young naiviety and cruel journalist manipulation.
Calorific content. I care because there are genuine poor people out there who deserve a voice that is being taken by someone pretending to be poor. I care because if someone is lying they should be called out on it regardless of what they are lying about. I care because…
She keeps being held up as an activist… but what has she actually, genuinely done? There are charities that do amazing work, that deserve the profile being given to JM. I care because, if you are poor and desperate, buying a cookbook is the last thing you’re going to do.
Fine on £20 a week. Which is false, because her recipes never come to £20 a week, that’s also a lie. I care because I have morals. I care because I’ve known people to struggle. I care because even the trussel trust keep distancing themselves from jack monroe ffs.
Truth: Jack Monroe's dad was not just a firefighter, but a senior manager: https://t.co/AJVs5FR7xs Previously, he was in the armed forces and served in the Falklands. As a veteran, he would/will receive a pension for this on top of his salary.
Just looking again at the Twitter profiles of those who are the angry supporters of “Jack Monroe”: “professor emeritus” (ie retired academic), “noise consultant“, “retired HR lady“, “small businessman“, “writer“, “writer and photographer“, “part of brilliant Marketing Team“, “Pagan…therapeutic counsellor“, “#ACAB #BLM, Rape/Cop apologists blocked, TERFs blocked“, “novelist“, “High Profile hard left twitterer“, “Mother of Mayhem, Psychology student, Not Jack Monroe, Maybe“, “I’m a doctor but not working clinically” [i.e. another “grifter”], “fandom old, makes various media“, “BSc Psychology. History MA. Labour Party Member. MA Creative Non Fiction“, “Widower, autistic, stroke survivor. Tofu eating, Woke Corbynista“, “Labour & Co-operative MP for Oldham West & Royton | Chair, Co-operative Party | Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs” [n.b. if he cannot see through the “Jack Monroe” nonsense, Jim McMahon is unsuitable as MP and possible government minister], “Academic, political theorist, educationalist, former Pro-Director Education at LSE, HoD Department of Government LSE. ‘Woke Realist’ in a good way. Grandfather“, “Writing, blogging married mum of two boisterous boys..Tweets powered by Diet Coke, Earl Grey and wine“, “Educator/Writer/Student“, “Bristol based Graphic Designer. Gets giddy over lovely paper and buttons“, “*Producer|Cam|Editor *PhD #VR@ExeterDoctoral (yr 3, on hold) *Support Worker (#autism)“, “Nature, landscape, holloways, streams, printmaking. Wild swimmer & pluviophile“, “Founder & M.D of the Rabble Chorus, a lovely crowd of 350 community singers, open to all who fancy a bit of music on the side. Environmental activist, musician“, “Books. Music. Language. Science. Theology. Family. Talk. Think. Opinions my own. Pilot and PhD researcher (human factors and linguistics)“.
And so on.
Taken in a line. Just look at them. Not a steel worker, nurse, bus driver, train driver, cleaner, carpenter, plumber or the like among them. The “working class” seems to be absent.
Certainly not absent are the Guardian-readers, small business owners, suburban housewives (who prefer some other designation), well-paid freelancers, retired people (who used to be academics or working in reasonably-paid office jobs etc).
Also well-represented are various species of “Looney Tunes”.
Also absent is anyone likely to be “poor”.
As blogged previously, all her partisans are pseudo-socialists and/or “poverty tourists”, most if not all rather comfortably-off, many either retired or otherwise economically inactive (though not short of money); and quite a few with obvious mental health “issues” and/or problems with rational thinking. Also, various loony “trans” supporters.
Disturbing to see a Labour MP in there too, one Jim McMahon [Lab. and Co-op; Oldham West and Royton].
We are constantly fed an NWO/ZOG msm narrative about how “Ukraine” (the Kiev regime) is “defeating Russia”. Is it true?
What would “Ukraine defeating Russia” look like, ultimately? Presumably, in that scenario, all Russian forces would be forced to leave behind not only the pre-2022 borders of Ukraine but also the Crimea, the population of which is at least 85% Russian and only a few percent Ukrainian now (there are also Crimean Tatars and others).
So, in that scenario, Russia would have been driven back into its own unargued territory, and kept there by Ukrainian/Kiev-regime military might. Is there any logic at all to that?
Russia is, of course, famously the largest country in the world, over six and a half million square miles, so about 72 times the size of the whole of the UK, and 29 times the size of Ukraine (even including Crimea and the Donbass). A country which covers one-eighth of the landmass of the entire planet.
Russia has a population of over 144 million (147 million if Crimea is included); Ukraine had 41 million people (excluding Crimea) in 2021, before the Russian invasion or incursion, but about 20% of the population of Ukraine (I suspect the relatively affluent layer) has fled beyond Ukraine, so the real population, at present, is perhaps 30 million.
Russia has, therefore, almost five times the population of Ukraine.
Russia’s economy may not be booming, now that Western (NWO/ZOG) sanctions have hit hard, but it is still functioning. Russia is getting huge amounts from oil and gas (and mineral) sales, and has, of course, no problem with generating electricity. Russia’s domestic agriculture has actually been stimulated by the Western sanctions which prohibit import and export.
Compare that to Ukraine— it has very limited sources of fuel of all kinds, its electricity generating and distribution capacity is being smashed, possibly beyond easy repair, its industry is scarcely operational, and its agriculture is unable to export easily.
Even before the invasion/incursion of 2022, Wikipedia noted that “Ukraine is the poorest country in Europe by nominal GDP per capita.”
The only material advantage that Ukraine has is that the Kiev regime is in receipt of enormous amounts of Western aid: arms, ammunition, military transport, food, clothing, medical supplies, and money.
There is no suggestion that Ukrainian forces can either invade or destroy Russian territory or cities. There can, likewise, be no suggestion that Ukrainian forces will actually topple Putin or the existing Russian Government (unless obliquely— e.g. should a coup d’etat take place).
The most that the Ukrainian forces can do, the peak of their realistic ambition, would be to expel all Russian forces from the pre-2014 Ukrainian borders, and then dig in, in effect.
Russia’s war aims have never been openly or clearly expressed in a manner that makes any sense, but part of them would be the necessity to demilitarize Ukraine, something that is now impossible without Russian control over the bulk of the territory, including Kiev.
Under other circumstances, Russia might now be sitting on the entire eastern half of Ukraine (ie Ukraine east of the Dnieper), but “we are where we are”, in the tiresome phrase.
As I predicted would happen on the blog months ago, Russian forces have recently been trying to think outside the box by applying “oblique warfare”, targeting the electricity production and generating system deep inside Ukraine, using missiles and drones.
While the Kiev-regime forces have supposedly been downing most of the attacking missiles, the ones that are getting through have been smashing the electrical system of Ukraine to pieces. What next? Possibly the railway network.
Russia is said to be mobilizing more troops, possibly with the idea of a mass assault on Kiev next summer.
Unless a peace treaty or armistice can be agreed and executed, the war can only escalate. However, Russia can only “win” this ghastly mess of a war by taking Kiev and toppling the present Kiev regime.
Hard to see why anyone not very feeble-minded would send money to “Jack Monroe” after reading that Tattle Life exposé . Surprising, therefore, to see that no fewer than 647 utter mugs are still sending her £3.50-£44 monthly, a total of between £2,265 and £28,468, each and every month. “A nice little earner“, in the estuary argot, even if the actual total amount sent is nearer to —at a guess— maybe £6,000 or £7,000 a month rather than the maximum. Probably taxfree as well.
I have no idea whether the Essex Police, Metropolitan Police, trading standards officers, or fundraising regulators are “on the case” or not. If not, though, why not?
“The composer of Jerusalem has been effectively ‘cancelled’ by the Royal College of Music (RCM) because his views on race a century ago are unacceptably offensive to today’s woke students, The Mail on Sunday understands.“
I have also been there (in the 1980s). Just as well that Blake and I do not walk around that part of London now; we might get stabbed by some untermensch, almost certainly non-white.
I recall having a beer at the Clock House pub once, in the late 1980s.
[The Clock House pub, Peckham Rye]
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I don’t say this with any glee: it sucks to be Cassandra all the time. It’s just that I’m nearly 60 & childless, it’s been a bit of a dreadful year here, & I’ll be checked out well before the inevitable social disintegration that’s now looming can do any worse to me.
A brief list of things that the press has declared white supremist in the last two years:
Exercise Healthy food The scientific method Being on time Reading old books Using correct grammar Christianity The nuclear family Opposing the sexualization of children Self defense
Preview my column in toimorrow's The Mail on Sunday : 'Why do we stir up trouble in foreign countries but can’t even run our own?'https://t.co/elimw0DtcB via @mailplus
Peter Hitchens’ column is worth publishing in full:
“What a twisted society we have become. We stir up wars in other people’s countries and praise ourselves for doing it.
But there is no political reward for protecting our own people against crime and disorder on their streets and in their homes. It is no longer clear if anyone is governing the country at all, so busy are we putting other nations to rights.
Burglaries go unprevented, uninvestigated and unpunished, in colossal numbers. Our capital city seethes with uncontrolled knife crime and stinks of marijuana.
Christmas brings news of terrible ultra-violent crimes in supposedly peaceful suburban areas. Migrants stride boldly ashore in unknown numbers. We pay heavy taxes for pitiful services, cratered roads and a health system that is the envy of nobody.
Yet, nothing happens about all this. The surest way to gain praise in politics is to make simple-minded statements about a crisis abroad and demand that we send bombs and shells to some strife-torn state, or actually bomb it ourselves.
The idea that such things are often complicated and dangerous, and may do harm, has faded from view. When Prime Minister Anthony Eden dragged us into his disastrous attack on Egypt in 1956, the entire country was bitterly divided. And rightly so. The archives, when they were opened, showed that the adventure was based on lies, futile and doomed.
When the USA sank up to its waist in the bloody mud of Vietnam in the 1960s, the whole world was at odds. Once again, now that the truth is revealed, we know that thousands of brave men died, and many more thousands of innocent civilians were killed, because of a mistake.
But since the Blair revolution of 1997, pious, allegedly virtuous foreign crusades have come back into fashion. Criticising them gets you into trouble. There is only one permitted view. Few go back to find out how things actually went.
The Kosovo episode, for instance, did not bring paradise to that part of the world. Nor did the Iraq invasion. I know most people now pretend to have been against it at the time but as one who actually was against it at the time, I can assure you that they are mistaken. It had wide support. The same goes for the daft adventures in Afghanistan and Libya.
In fact, the last three did so much harm that it will never be measured. Together they began the era of mass migration from the Middle East and Africa to Western Europe. This is probably the biggest event in human history since the First World War, and perhaps bigger.
How can we do all this stamping about in foreign countries when we are so bad at governing our own and also not very strong? Our country doesn’t work properly. You can’t even see a doctor. The police are equally invisible. Our Army is as tiny as our debts are huge. Our grandest new warship, the aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales, has broken down. Even when it works, we have to borrow aircraft from the Americans to fly off it.
None of this will be properly discussed at the rapidly approaching General Election and nobody will stand in that poll who prefers reforming Britain to foreign policy fantasy abroad. Why do we put up with it?“
My rhetorical answer to Hitchens’ rhetorical question? This:
“The British/English people do not rebel against all of the above, not yet anyway, because they are bombarded with propaganda brainwashing 24/7, because few have either the independence of thought, or the (real) education, to stand against the tide, and because the “plebs” think that all that matters, or that the main matter of importance, is whether the “England” sports teams (which are now largely black or brown anyway) win some meaningless game, match, or tournament somewhere or other in the world.”
That, and because those in political life, those of great wealth, those in the mainstream media, who should all be protecting the people, are exactly those who, from malice, evil, or just sheer inability and lack of basic competence (as with “Boris”-idiot, Liz Truss, Woollyhead Trussbanger —Kwasi Kwarteng— etc), are encouraging migration-invasion of this country, are letting standards and services slide, and are preventing —by ever more repressive laws— even obviously justified criticism from being made. They are, in effect, signed up to the Coudenhove-Kalergi Plan.”
[the odd link immediately above now seems to be the only one for the interesting Western Spring article].
Incidentally, I see that the Daily Mail/Mail on Sunday is now, yet again, refusing to allow its readers to comment on Hitchens’ column, no doubt afraid that the readers will leave comments hostile to mass immigration, migration-invasion, “intervention” in foreign wars or countries, or even (could it be?) comments hostile to the Zelensky Jew-Zionist regime in Kiev…
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From bison to pine martens to white storks, it's been a landmark year for species reintroductions in Britain. As we come to the end of 2022, it's amazing to know their footprints are amongst ours in the snow.
Ian Robert Millard 