I was going to publish a separate piece about the upcoming by-election, but have decided that that would not be merited.
Chester, as a settlement, has a history going back to 79 AD, when it was established as a Roman fortress: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester.
The City of Chester constituency also has a very old history, going back to the times of Henry VIII. In modern times, meaning 19th/20th centuries, it has mostly been a Conservative/Unionist seat, though electing Labour Party candidates in 1997, 2001, 2005, 2015, 2017, and 2019. Two Labour MPs in that time, with a Conservative in the years 2010-2015: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Chester_(UK_Parliament_constituency).
The by-election will be held on 1 December 2022, 8 days from today, and is the first by-election in the constituency since 1956.
The MP from 2015 to 2022 had to resign by reason of sexual scandal.
The candidates declared are: Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat; also, Reform UK, Green, Freedom Alliance, UKIP, Rejoin EU, and the inevitable Monster Raving Loony.
This is likely to be a straight fight between Lab and Con, looking at previous elections. The LibDems have in the past scored as high as 21.9% (in 2005); since 2010 they have always received less than 10% of the vote (6.8% in 2019), and have never managed better than 3rd place (even in 2005).
Labour, nationwide, is clearly on a roll at present, if only by default. The latest YouGov poll (on 17 November 2022) of (UK-wide) voting intention put Labour on 48%, Conservative 25%, LibDem 10%, and both Green and Reform UK on 5%.
Despite the scandal attaching to the former MP, I cannot see that affecting the result. As a matter of fact, both Con and Lab are putting up female candidates, though that may be co-incidental.
There seems little to prevent Labour winning this by-election, and winning it easily. Not only is the present Con government extremely unpopular, but Labour has, after all, won in this constituency the past three times, and held it for 20 out of the past 25 years.
I cannot see the LibDems getting far here, even as some kind of unfocussed protest vote. As for Reform UK, the only other contender of interest, they may or may not save their deposit. I could see them, just about, getting 5%; I cannot see them getting 10% or more, especially now that Brexit is not so popular, having been badly mishandled over the past 6 years.
The main interest in the contest will be in the percentage(s) of the vote received by the two main contenders.
Our elites (or rather, parasites) are trying to hoover up our assets and freedoms under the smokescreen of bogus virtue. Don’t be fooled by them. It’s a gigantic con-trick.pic.twitter.com/cmajYqnfqf
66 doctors, scientists and clinical practitioners have written to the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to call for a stop to Covid vaccination of pregnant women over serious safety concerns. https://t.co/5fs9s82hYv
Jack Monroe got dafter in her preposterous stories over years because it earns her a good living, Working class people in generational poverty are usually determined battlers they would never let their kids performatively starve and they don't feed them 'pig swill' concoctions.
.@paulmaccio . Moscow is one of the great cities of the world, full of history and pleasant surprises, and the true frontier between Asia and Europe. Most in the west will never see it, but would be amazed if they could. https://t.co/6mROULZ5Zi
Perhaps ask Jack Monroe why she refuses to return money to @frugally_minded even given the desperate situation this lady now finds herself in. You need to urgently review the decision to promote her. Her Company struck off for financial irregularities, and you are supporting her?
The above tweet was about the “@GuardianLive” tweet featuring “Jack Monroe” as booked to appear on a podcast event in early 2023, which tweet has now been deleted. Now we hear that that podcast itself has been axed.
Seems that “Jack Monroe” is, as predicted, becoming “mad, bad, and dangerous to know“…
Even so, the 667 “mugs” on Patreon are, as of today, still giving her their monthly donations for doing absolutely nothing except maintaining her lifestyle, e.g. buying herself luxury goods. Somewhere between c.£2,300 a month and (at maximum) £40,000 a month. In reality, probably about £6,000, at an educated guess. In cash (minus Patreon fees), and every single month. All that and she still poses as a “champion of the poor“! Hard to believe that so many people are so very gullible; yet they have been told now for three or four months that they are just wasting their money.
As said previously on the blog, I myself have no objection to Scotland declaring faux-“independence”, but those voting for it must accept lower living standards, and an end to UK subsidy.
As the tweeter says, just look at them! Can they really bring Scotland a new dawn? I think not.
As for Nicola Sturgeon, she is a ghastly little would-be dictator with no interesting ideas (that I have seen).
The flotsam and jetsam of the world is assisted to come here, destroying our society, and is kept in comfort (most of them), while British people suffer. Not only mad, but also evil. [Coudenhove-Kalergi Plan].
Whatever the relevance of that, can anyone look at those uninspiring people and imagine that they will be able to usher in a new age of prosperity and enlightenment in Scotland?
In any case, it seems that Scotland is still split about 50-50 on “Independence”, with possibly more wanting to retain the Union.
However, even if there were a small majority for “Independence”, would that be valid, really? To drag the other, say 45%, into an unwanted break with England and the other regions or countries? After over 300 years?
I don't know why Jack Monroe doesn't just process the promised refund and make this problem go away. It's looking like she's now deliberately keeping it, you know, THEFT. https://t.co/0pPmUW4fiM
Of course, the absurd playground taunts of the two sides in the present conflict (“you are the ‘Nazi'”; “no, you are the ‘Nazi’“) are just silly.
Actually, the German Army in WW2, despite the pitiless nature of that war in the East, behaved well, mostly, in Ukraine, certainly better than the Red Army. Most atrocities were committed either by the Red Army (or by the forces travelling alongside them— the NKVD and, latterly, Smersh), or by Ukrainian auxiliaries under overall German command, or by Ukrainian civilians who just wanted to eliminate Jews, and who acted without either order or permission.
I have blogged in the past a few times about how I met, in or about 1995, the then Ukrainian Ambassador to London, H.E. Ambassador Komissarenko [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serhiy_Komisarenko], a biochemist by training, who went with me and his Scientific Attache in the ambassadorial limousine to Porton Down, Wiltshire [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porton_Down], to meet a scientific team based there. He later headed a major such laboratory in Ukraine, I think not far from Kiev.
@UniKent@ItsFreyaVass Hi University of Kent, are you ok with your staff conducting themselves this way on social media? Pretty off-putting to potential students I would have thought. pic.twitter.com/PkQimqHMvJ
🇳🇱 KLM is starting its first try-out with Digital passports & ‘biometric boarding’ (facial recognition) in February under the pretext that it will help shorten the queues at Schiphol.
Just like we thought, the chaos was created on purpose to introduce the ‘solution’: digital ID.
The “Covid” hysteria, “lockdowns”, “working from home” in the barely functioning NHS, maladministration, and then the huge and unwanted influx of non-white migrant-invaders and other immigrants over the past many years.
I feel like I’m totally hooked on this because I genuinely can’t believe it (I do but you know what I mean) and just feel so shocked to the core. I really liked her and thought she did a lot of good. @AwfullyMolly has set it all out very clearly! 🙁
The “Jack Monroe”/”Bootstrap Cook” storm shows no sign of abating, with more and more stories coming out about vulnerable and actually poor people (i.e. unlike “Jack Monroe”) being, in effect, fleeced.
How is it a vindictive vendetta? Molly has never tweeted her own opinion on her blog. She has shown Jack’s constant lies and narrative changing, as well as the scams. People need to see this, it’s public interest.
I'm guessing people like Dermot Macintyre, Louis Theroux, hell even Stacy Dooley must be awful figures of spite too, for daring to do long tail investigations into bad things then broadcast them? 🤣🤣🤣
Once again, yet another media appearance for a so-called "poverty campaigner" where the entire article is talking about Jack Monroe.https://t.co/CxAHcfQo7l
Same thing happened with the threat(s) by “Jack Monroe”/”Bootstrap Cook” to sue (in defamation) MP Lee Anderson and political commentator Martin Daubney. It appears that (so far— she has about 5 months or so left in which to launch an action, in principle), not only has no legal process been launched, but there has been no pre-action correspondence as mandated by the Pre-Action Protocols of the Civil Procedure Rules. Chances are that “Bootstrap Cook” never will sue those two, or anyone else.
The Katie Hopkins case was different. Ms. Hopkins had no arguable defence and was a sitting duck. “Jack Monroe” got £24,000 damages, while the claimant’s lawyers got, in effect, Ms. Hopkin’s house, that had to be sold in order to satisfy the costs order made. About £300,000.
If you're a friend of hers maybe you could send her some shower gel to stop her boiling soap?
Ha ha. Of all the products from the “Jack Monroe” fantasy factory, the “I was so poor that I had to boil down soap to make shower gel” (and/or “shampoo“) claim must be among the top few in the utterly-ludicrous stakes. It actually makes me wonder whether she makes up ever-more-fantastical stories just to see where the gullibility of her supporters stops; meaning at what point do they wake up to such lies, and/or stop donating to her (lifestyle)?
I suppose that it is just possible that she actually did boil down soap to make shower gel, mad and implausible though that would be; in my opinion, she never did.
I myself like Waitrose Sea Moss shower gel. It costs 90p for a bottle that lasts maybe 3 weeks (with me, at least; used once daily). No-one is going to tell me that buying soap, boiling it somehow, despite energy cost, and then somehow making shower gel out of it (is that even possible?) is cheaper than spending about 30p a week on proper shower gel. Also, Sea Moss from Waitrose is not even the cheapest; no doubt Aldi, Lidl, Tesco have even cheaper alternatives.
Or one could just shower with soap, as did previous generations.
Same goes, mutatis mutandis, for shampoo, except that soap would not be so good in that role.
What I find incredible is how long she has been able to keep this going. It says a lot about how poor the UK msm is that no journalist has thought to investigate her claims or to find out which (if any) are actually true. And where are the “consumer watchdog” journalists and TV talking heads? Hundreds if not thousands of people appear to have been duped or bamboozled into sending money— tens, and maybe hundreds, of thousands of pounds.
Meanwhile, millions of people are in real poverty and get nothing, or very little.
Advice from what seems to me to be a rotten cook (not that I can cook much either, admittedly) about how to make curry by opening a tin of sardines and a can of peaches, mixing the two together with curry powder and heating the mixture in a microwave, is not very helpful, in my opinion. Frankly, it sounds terrible. I would rather open the sardines, put them on a piece of toast, then eat the peaches separately later. In fact, I should prefer a plain baked potato to that mixture.
Hey @guardianlive@guardian, you may want to get a researcher onto Jack Monroe (Tattle, @AwfullyMolly) before Jan. Her recipes and ‘advice’ are much like everything else she says – lies.
Ha. In fact the “award” mentioned was an “Observer Food” award a few months ago, voted for by Observer readers, few of whom are “poor” or “struggling”. In fact, the voters are exactly the same sort of people (and quite likely the very same people) who support “Jack Monroe” vocally on Twitter. The Guardian is of course the sister paper to the Observer.
Britain must become a white northern European ethnostate (again).
It is not, fundamentally, a question of “hate” but based on the concept that only the European peoples can provide the basis for the next advance in human evolution.
Its scary. We have two hotels with them staying . They walk round in gangs or sit out side making it really uncomfortable to even walk past them. Its intimidating and dangerous and we should be being protected from these unwanted men.
At Manston there are a large number of people living in a nice new estate, terrified of going out of their homes. Swarms of migrants roam around , looking into windows and following residence down the road. They live in fear in their own country.
Will you be discussing the 700+ patreon members who haven't received anything in 2 years, but Jack Monroe has taken £3.50 – £44 pcm from each member without refunds? Missing charity money? All of the lies about her backstory? Donations to legal funds that were not refunded ?
667 “mugs” and/or dupes, as of today; thousands of pounds month after month, in cash (minus Patreon fees).
I think you need to have a look at @AwfullyMolly investigation into Jack Monroe, and maybe ask Jack about missing charity money, false claims of poverty, 2 years of unfulfilled patreon pledges and the thousands of pounds taken without refunds, and her general Walter Mitty life.
My housing association issued a safety warning to manage energy prices, which had to include explanation of what happens if you just stop paying your bills as per @bootstrapcook's advice. We have to stop validating these narcisssists. Thats a housing association having to respond
“Jack Monroe” is not a lawyer, and not a consumer law expert or anything similar. Her only known job (as far as I know anyway) was answering the telephone at a fire station or call centre, and that ended about 11 years ago. Her “Bootstrap Cook” thing is far more lucrative, it seems.
People in financial trouble need accurate advice, from trusted sources.
As of today, 667 “patrons” (mugs and/or those who are unaware of the storm now enveloping the “Bootstrap Cook”); I believe that there were over 800 earlier in the year.
As blogged earlier, only in a country where real journalism is all but dead would someone be able to do all that without facing serious questions after a while.
Still, look at “Boris”-idiot, who was able to fool much of the UK that he was a highly-intelligent, cultured, and serious, statesman, when none of those three are true (four things, if you include “statesman“). All it took was the fact that he had attended Eton and Oxford, and the expression of a few rote-learned Greek and Latin phrases. He also was “enabled” by a corrupt and stupid msm.
It will look like a deliberate plea to retain subscribers thus ensuring Patreon receipts end of October and November. We are 3 weeks post the promise to sort it out.
All the Patreon subs I am in contact with have not received anything as yet.
In terms of remedy, it's not clear how Monroe could ever be held to account. Class action is not really an option. I spoke to my lawyer – woohoo yes I have a lawyer cos I'm a big cheese 😜 and although this is clearly terrible, it's not a big enough issue to warrant class action.
In the alternative, it could be taken up by @actionfrauduk
Their websites says: "There are many words used to describe fraud: Scam, con, swindle, extortion, sham, double-cross, hoax, cheat, ploy, ruse, hoodwink, confidence trick" (Insert "Jack Monroe")
I am writing to Action Fraud for advice on "next steps" and to establish what information they need to take the matter seriously and conduct an investigation. Let's see.
(2nd) the cocky shout outs by Jack Monroe on twitter where she continues to threaten legal action in a "just you wait pal" manner. This conduct will be frowned upon if she ever gets in front of a Judge.
Incidentally, I thought that the monthly maximum that “Jack Monroe” was extracting from each of her “patrons” (mugs) on Patreon had been reduced to £10, but it turns out that £44 is still the max. Her monthly take-home pay from that source alone, for doing absolutely nothing, is therefore between £2,334.50 and £29,348, minus the Patreon fees, if any. In cash. Every month.
Accepted Patreon contributions from hundreds of people for the better part of 2 years without providing any of the advertised benefits. Crowdfunded for charity but spent months refusing to confirm amounts raised or charities helped. Crowdfunded for a lawsuit that never happened
Sold articles about her child wearing too small clothes and being raised in an unheated home and asking for more food when she has a supportive and relatively wealthy family who could and would have provided the basic help needed so the child didn't have to live like that.
Sold several books of recipes of dubious quality to reinforce the claim that people can feed themselves and their families with minimal funds if only they follow her example, despite the recipes being severely nutritionally deficient and in some cases flat-out unworkable.
Gave false information to the public about the availability of fuel vouchers from food banks, claiming to have set up the process herself, resulting in food banks having to deal with increased contact from confused and desperate people asking for a service they don't provide.
Basically she's a grifter who has gained a significant amount of money and public profile off the back of not actually delivering much of what she's ever promised, and that's been compounded by her refusal to engage honestly with criticism or fair requests for information.
Why don't you refund people who are asking Jack ? Genuine question…why are you actively avoiding giving people what they are repeatedly asking you for ? Why do you think you are entitled to other people's money ?
Maybe she's taking a well earned break from here to devote time instead refunding her patreons who have received diddly squat for 2 years…or pigs might fly
For anyone who needs to read them. @FundrRegulator Code of Practice for fundraising. Rules on transparency, use of funds, documentation of data, complaints procedures & engaging politely with the public: https://t.co/f3s2UtG7qL Jack Monroe fails on so many of these.
The maycliffe Hotel in torquay is now housing migrants. The live in caretakers with 3 young children have been put out in the street. This has to stop.
I was in tescos yesterday and one of the Somalian immigrants was in front of me buying a pack of sandwiches ,the cashier told him that would be £3 and he opened his wallet and I have never seen so many £50 notes.
Well, journalism is not a “profession”, as such, just an “occupation”, but I agree otherwise.
Jack Monroe deleting her Twitter account again. Getting too hot in here is it? Bring on all the sympathy posts that are too blind or dumb to acknowledge her grift.
Thank you very much for the support, it is really appreciated. I was having a very bad night last night and shouldn’t have commented on JM’s post but I was so frustrated I couldn’t help it. Then she shared the pm and I got angry x
I fully agree. You were 100% right to reply, to be angry, and to share the full DM rather than the part Jack Monroe did to try and paint you in a bad light. You have all sane people's support I'm sure x
When Jack Monroe inherits her share of the Hadjicostas property empire, will she still pretend to be poor? Will she let the properties of for free because she honestly, definitely, 100% cares about poor people and certainly doesn't just want to monetise their poverty?
He has a point. Major utilities (water, electricity, gas etc) and railways should, in general, be under public control. Oil companies might be more difficult, but had Britain, from the 1970s onward, done what Norway did, and used North Sea oil and gas for national purposes, we would all be better off now.
I have said here before, it’s a very small step from the smart suits, the expense account & the Company BMW to a cardboard box under an arch at the back of Kings Cross. I’ve seen that happen .
If Jack Monroe was stupid enough to initiate action, I'm sure plenty of us would happily crowdfund defence, force revelation of all her financial affairs & more, and in doing so finish off what tatters of a reputation she has left.
As far as I myself am concerned, I blog as accurately as I can about people, if individuals are mentioned. My material is true in the sense of accurate, and/or is covered by one or another of the several defences to libel known to law; besides which, I am extremely impecunious these days, have only the smallest income, do not own a house (even mortgaged) and so am, in effect, as good as unsueable.
I can guarantee that anyone launching an action against me will lose out: probably the action would fail anyway, and even if it did not, the claimant would end up with massive and completely irrecoverable costs.
I write whatever I like, but take care to be both accurate and fair.
On Twitter, every Tom, Dick, and Harry is an “expert” on the law, and especially defamation law; few really are.
Lots of people have reported to Action Fraud, Essex Trading Standards, Fundraising Regulator & more. I believe from feedback from one of the key proponents in breaking this story that investigation is underway.
At the last time I looked a while ago she had around 700 Patreons. Even on the lowest tier that’s brining in 2k a month. She hasn’t sent any of the rewards out for years. But still collecting the 2k. If people cancel their membership they lose the right to complain.
The brainwashing taking place in UK schools (mainly but not entirely in State-run schools) is indeed appalling. It has been going on for several decades, but has been intensifying. At the same time, standards of real education and knowledge have been falling.
While some people compare the situation in the UK to the Weimar Republic, that unpleasant and decadent time in German history lasted for only 14 years (1919 to 1933), whereas the UK version has been happening for a far longer period, at least 30 years, and arguably over 50 years.
Not that I like Churchill’s effect on British history (in particular, the crazy war against the German Reich, which destroyed the British Empire and all other European empires, and created the mess the world is in today), but he is undeniably a major historical figure, and I should not like to see the statue in question removed.
It’s ok to dislike people and even groups of people.
Why is that the only genocide that matters? I wasn’t taught much world history in public school, I’ve learned about a lot of the horrors since and still have so much more to learn. I don’t understand why so many other genocides are hardly spoken about.
— HallsInTheKid 🇺🇦🇮🇱🇵🇸🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈🇺🇸🇷🇺🇨🇳 (@HallsInTheKid) November 20, 2022
Jews always talk about “members of their family“, or even “relatives” supposedly being killed during WW2. Even leaving aside the main assertion, since when are people who (supposedly) died about 80 years ago called “relatives” of quite young people now living?
As for the young or other people now living being (pretending to be) hugely upset by the (presumed) deaths of people whom they never knew anyway, it really is so much bs. Non-Jews, especially white European people, don’t usually (in fact hardly ever) do that.
I must investigate having my old Twitter account returned (complete with new blue tick), both to promote my blog and to mightily p*** off (((the usual suspects))), who put in years of effort making faked complaints to get me expelled in 2018.
Not so good this week: 4/10, the same as political journalist John Rentoul. I did not know the answers to questions 1, 5, 7, 8. 9, and 10 (though in the back of my mind I sort-of “knew” 9 and 10).
Tweets seen
Ha, its real
The "World Government Summit 2022" literally asks "Are you ready for a new world order" and youtube is like "this official and VERIFIED video is a conspiracy" pic.twitter.com/s3uvWCNsjj
“Man is a make-believe animal – he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.” William Hazlitt, Notes of a Journey through France and Italy, 1824
Interesting. Is the actually quite laughable Sunak/Con propaganda, blaming Russia and Putin for Britain’s past ~15 years of economic mismanagement, working? Or is it that only 6% blame Sunak’s government because it is a. new, and b. seen as irrelevant?
Either way, it does not translate into Con votes, not on its own. I see that 29% either blamed others than the ones shown, or did not know who to blame, and that fewer than 6% anyway blame any sort of “Labour”. Unsurprising, when Labour has not been in government since early 2010.
Also, turns out that Liz Truss is proving a useful scapegoat for Sunak, with 21% of those asked blaming her, and (presumably) Kwasi Kwarteng (aka Woollyhead Trussbanger), for the present difficulties.
Very much a bad one. Proven false backstory, unaccounted for crowdfunding, illegally opaque with charity fundraising, leading pile ons to anyone questioning her. All evidence & receipts here: https://t.co/5hWJLdkDGA
What is amazing is how many tweeters are still apparently supportive of the “Bootstrap Cook”. From what I have seen, many appear to be virtue-signalling and/or dim women (not a few with mental health problems), and possibly eccentric older men. Few if any under 30, and most well over 50. Few, if any, “poor” or “struggling”. Most are apparently rather comfortably-off.
As of today, 667 “patrons” are wasting their money (up to £10 a month, every month) on “Jack Monroe” via the Patreon website, so she is receiving up to £6,670 per month in cash (minus any Patreon fees) from that source alone.
Of course, only the “Bootstrap Cook” knows how much her income is. If the 667 Patreon donors are all giving only £3.50 a month, then the monthly total reduces to £2,334.50, minus Patreon fees, if any. At least £2,000 in cash, anyway, every month.
Not a fortune, but “a nice little earner” all the same, as people are said to say. Especially when one considers that added to that are any other income sources, such as book royalties (she has 7 books in print, including a new one coming out in January 2023), any appearance fees or other msm payments, and any other and smaller payments such as Child Benefit (about £95 a month for one child).
I have long ago ceased to expect sense from most people, but the “let’s give money to ‘Jack Monroe’” thing is egregious even so, especially when many of those giving almost certainly have less money than her.
[replace the word “tax” with “Jack Monroe Patreon donation“]
This utter fool said nothing against the legislation to place everyone under house arrest without any justification or against the proposal to make our freedoms conditional on medical procedures. But now here he is to warn us about the Public Order Bill. https://t.co/p4I6wYZ1Yb
I wondered how long it would be before assertions of either physical illness or mental collapse would be wheeled out. Together with allegations that those on Twitter who are asking, inter alia, “where did the money go?“, are “bullying” her, or engaging in abuse and/or “harassment”.
There may be some truth in her above tweets (about her being stressed etc), but what strikes me is how there is still no addressing of the main allegations many have made against her: Patreon donors who were in many or most cases neither supplied with anything promised, nor with refunds requested; misuse of donations for various purposes given to her, including the “libel case” crowdfunder (supposedly to be used for an action against Conservative Party MP Lee Anderson and/or political commentator Martin Daubney).
If (and she does still have, in extremis, 5 months or so left in which to bring a claim) there is no claim brought against Lee Anderson, and if the monies raised for the legal costs are not (as I read was promised) in that event given to charity, the “Bootstrap Cook” might find herself in real trouble. A black woman in Bristol is awaiting possible Crown Court trial on allegations that she, said black woman, crowdfunded for a legal action or actions but then just kept those monies for her own use.
I notice that, after only 3 comments from readers, the Daily Mail closed down further comment.
I have to say that, as far as I am concerned, those who donate to the woman thinking that they, the donors, are somehow engaging in activism against the present government and/or “poverty” generally, have a screw or two loose somewhere. All that they are doing is supporting the lifestyle of someone who firstly is really not “poor”, not by any realistic standard, but who also has a father —living in the same town— who apparently owns quite a number of buy-to-let properties. Presumably, the “Bootstrap Cook” has very considerable inheritance expectations somewhere down the line.
Still, as said previously, the behaviour of many people is often almost unfathomable.
Late tweets seen
Sunak thrilled to meet the only other adult male alive who’s the same height as him. https://t.co/mHAlZF85U6
Following in the footsteps of “Boris”-idiot as faux-“war statesman”. I noticed, at that huge table, the scruffy Jewish woman who is presently the UK Ambassador to Ukraine.
The police are often almost useless these days. Completely signed up to the “anti-racist”, “anti-sexist”, “LGBTQXYZ” agenda, and not infrequently in the pocket of the Jewish lobby.
The Daily Mail readers’ comments are instructive. Not even 1% support the housing and feeding of the invaders.
It looks as if the present government is going to keep the State Pension “triple lock” in order to buy (as it hopes) the votes of middle-aged and “senior citizen” “Middle England”, but if the migration-invasion continues, and those here already are not removed or detained in camps, this government is toast electorally, even though Labour would be as bad.
Whichever System party is in power, within it and permeating it will be the members of the transnational cabals, implementing, increasingly openly, the Coudenhove-Kalergi Plan, or the “Great Replacement” of white people by blacks, browns, and Chinese etc. The destruction of Europe, and the destruction of Europe’s future.
📺 New to @channel5_tv Thursday 9pm – How The Other Half Live With Brian Cox
In this powerful and moving documentary, actor Brian Cox returns to his home city #Dundee to examine the wealth divide, and finds many families unable to afford basic necessities. #HowTheOtherHalfLivepic.twitter.com/dm47KSHMAx
Oh look. Jack Monroe STILL not issuing promised Patreon refunds. @PatreonSupport@Patreon surely you need to suspend this creator's account now given 2 years of proven non-delivery & deliberate obstruction to subscribers. https://t.co/0pmowiHVxq
What's happened to faux poverty internet fraudster Jack Monroe bootstrapcook? She seems to have gone awfully quiet & isn't in the media like she was until revelations started really coming out. Has she been quietly cancelled?
Notice how only the underlings are wearing facemasks. It’s a power tool that @JustinTrudeau and his minions have been abusing Canadians with. https://t.co/rizAFTyaB6
People think that they are voting “Labour” or “Conservative”, but in reality they are voting for the “Great Replacement”, for the Jewish lobby, and for the New World Order [NWO; ZOG], no matter what System party they vote for.
The MSM who thrived off terrifying people at the behest of their pals in the government, are now totally silent about this. Why? pic.twitter.com/NmVAvYsbZx
Just imagine: even as of today, after about three to four months of detail emerging about alleged fraud and near-fraud, “grifting” etc, no fewer than 666 mugs are still sending “Jack Monroe” up to £10 each, every month. (Up to) £6,660 per month in cash.
One has to wonder why.
My opinion is that not all know about what has come out over the past months, but also that many do know yet simply cannot accept that they have been played, or duped, and/or wish to “virtue-signal” (though how supporting the lifestyle of “Bootstrap Cook” actually helps the very many poor and struggling people in our society is hard to understand).
After all, there are many many “activists” and charity workers agitating against poor pay and benefits, and against “food poverty”, “fuel poverty” and, well, poverty.
Likewise, there are quite a few (real) chefs and cooks who have applied their (real) skills to making low-budget food recently, among them the most famous, such as Jamie Oliver.
None of those people ask the public to support them or their lifestyle via Patreon payments, as far as I know.
One could argue that Patreon donors are volunteers, but that assumes that they know the full facts and are not being, in a word, defrauded, or tricked.
Actually, when you look at the Bootstrap Cook situation, you realize how easy it is for the politicians etc to bamboozle the British public over matters such as the “Covid” “panicdemic”, the facemask nonsense, the “Rule of Six” etc, the “austerity” stuff, the “Ukraine” mass media war etc. Add to that “Black Lives Matter”, “trans” nonsense, “anti-racism” etc.
Jeremy Hunt as a Universal Credit claimant who is a disabled carer and listening to the Autumn Statement, I just want you to know I do NOT want to be disabled,I LOVED my job,miss my job,I do NOT want to have a disabled child, he does NOT want to be disabled, why punish us?
My @facebook account and Israellycool FB page with over 22,000 followers have been removed. I have been provided no explanation and been given an ultimatum. I assume an antisemite reported the page. If this appeal does not work, I will lose it all. pic.twitter.com/4MwynAAfDX
Ha ha. I sincerely hope so. That Israel-based bastard blogged, unprovoked, about me, several years ago.
Afternoon music
Britain needs a proper border guard force like that, not the Border Force taxi service for migrant invaders, often jeered at by people who call it —unsurprisingly— the “Border Farce“.
For someone that busts myths and exposes cover-ups your research is sadly lacking. Jack Monroe had absolutely nothing to do with any of this. It’s amazing how Chinese whispers get out of hand.
They blame everything from the mini-budget of Woollyhead Trussbanger to “Covid”, and even Putin for the slide in living standards which, for most people, has been taking place over the past 30 years, in big picture terms.
1989, the last big year of the 33-year socio-political cycle. 2022, the next one. The influx of blacks and browns etc since the 1980s. The breeding of the same, in vast numbers. Sliding standards in education (despite record numbers of worthless “degrees” etc), and all services, from State benefits to old-age sheltered housing.
This is not some kind of accident. The UK’s life is being deliberately run down, and some of the most guilty of the criminals responsible are the MPs sitting in the Westminster monkeyhouse.
Late tweets
This!!! Asking for a refund and challenging blatant lies is not "harassment" as scammer Jack Monroe bootstrapcook likes to claim. She could just issue refunds & open her finances for transparency and all the pressure would drop away. https://t.co/qZ02LbGV0K
I don’t think jack Monroe is a criminal scammer. I do think she is manipulative, passive aggressive and a liar though. I’m astounded that anyone believes a word she says anymore. Tbh it on a pathological level.
Still no refund from Jack Monroe then, just passive aggressive BS. Asking for a refund for goods not delivered is NOT harassment. Pointing out contradictions in Jack's own words is NOT a smear campaign.#JackMonroeLies#BootstrapCrookhttps://t.co/buA3mIUlQl
Is now the right time to ask what dirt Jack Monroe has on someone? Eventually the MSM picked up on her questionable behaviour but the article barely scraped the surface and now they’ve stopped comments?? What is everyone afraid of?!
Just a few examples of how life in the multikulti UK is sliding towards chaos and evil. We all know in our hearts that there will be, in the end, only one way to deal with all of this, but even on a blog such as this, it cannot be expressed, by reason of the repression on free speech that now exists.
[Germany 1945: “We are fighting for the future of our children!“]
An amusing parody of the tweets of “Bootstrap Cook”, aka “Jack Monroe”.
As to the real Jack Monroe, she is waiting for the (as she calls it) “trash fire” of criticism about her alleged “grifting”, untruthful back-story and/or “frauds” to abate, so that she can carry on making a good living by putting up a facade of “helping the poor” while taking in money from donors, “patrons”, the msm, and her book royalties. The whole lot may add up to £100,000 a year, or more. In the absence of transparency, it is hard to know.
I am just now looking at the Patreon page of the “Bootstrap Cook”: 664 patrons paying out between £3.50 and £10 a month for what is alleged to be…nothing, or nothing much.
She only had 663 mugs paying out yesterday, so she has actually gained one new mug-patron since yesterday, despite the tide of outrage. There’s one born every minute, or at least every day, it seems…
The way people, including people surviving on small State benefits, are subsidizing the lifestyle of “Jack Monroe”, reminds me of the way some deluded elderly people used to post £5 notes to the late Queen whenever she let slip some nonsensical statement in the Press about how she was “feeling the pinch” and so “having to economize”. Apparently, the donors would all be sent a nice letter as if from the Queen, thanking them for their gift. Shameless. Admittedly, I suppose that the late Queen could hardly refuse the money. Awkward.
Serial war criminal John #Bolton effectively admits that the U.S. is using the 'Syrian Revolution' copybook in #Iran. He says weapons are seized from Basij militia and imported from US occupied Iraqi Kurdistan. Bolton has ties with the #MEK terrorist group, based in Albania. pic.twitter.com/ZI0xdY2naW
SNP insists the Conservatives can't be trusted to protect Scots families after DWP minister was blasted for suggesting maternity rights should be slashed. https://t.co/O7PamlxyYX
The “oblique warfare” now being waged by Russia against Kiev-regime electricity generation will have a huge effect if it continues. The civilian population will be cold and unable to cook food, and manufacturing of equipment and arms will be halted.
Gas supplies from Russia were cut off when the war started. The next step may be to stop all electricity generation, eg by hitting the Dnieper dam and other hydro stations, and at the same time hitting road transport by hitting fuel-storage places.
The Kiev-regime army and air force will be unable to move far or fast once their fuel runs out.
I hear that the Kiev regime is also rapidly running out of ground-to-air missiles. If the supply runs out completely, there will probably be a Russian air offensive to cripple vital infrastructure further, as happened when the Americans attacked Iraq.
It is clear that the Russian Army is having problems with recruitment, training, and discipline, but the recruitment is going ahead, and presumably the other problems are being addressed.
It may be that, next summer, there will be a massive frontal assault on Kiev, with the aim of capturing the city, and driving the Jew Zelensky and his cohorts out of the city, to Lvov or overseas.
More tweets
Current verdict of a long standing conservative commentator and research fellow of the Centre for Policy Studies. https://t.co/dCegaY3KDf
"The pantomime villain of British politics has exited stage right – leaving for a third and presumably final time, with the crowd booing."@SamCoatesSky on why Gavin Williamson's departure is about more than just the messages👇https://t.co/A8t4NezpaJ
As regular readers will have noticed, my assessment of “Jack Monroe” published on 30 September 2022 noted that the fans of the “Bootstrap Cook” tend to be persons not at all badly-off, who (literally) support her for general socio-political reasons; in a word, middle-class virtue-signallers just like the tweeter there, one Freya Vass, an American now lecturing in dance at the University of Kent: see https://www.kent.ac.uk/arts/people/2144/vass-rhee-freya; https://uk.linkedin.com/in/freya-vass-62280029.
The “Bootstrap Cook” has hit a rich vein of gullibility from which to profit— people who imagine that they are doing their bit to improve the world by sending money to “Jack Monroe” to support the lifestyle of the same.
Here is another recent tweet reply by the same person, Freya Vass (who sounds pretty loony):
Thanks again for reminding me that the real @BootstrapCook has a Patreon account! Every time you mention it Ima go drop £5 in for her. You’re ace! I mean, an ass.
If accurate, it proves that my instinct about Liz Truss, i.e. that she was being banged by woolly-head Kwarteng, was correct (indeed, if the document is to be believed, by young researchers as well).
Even I, thought cynical as can be about the MPs in the corrupt Westminster monkeyhouse, am surprised at the actual extent of the degeneracy.
Looks as if Indian supposed “clever boy” and money-juggler, Sunak, is finding the job not very easy.
⚡️ UK to provide Armed Forces with 25,000 sets of extreme cold weather clothing by mid-December.
"We must continue backing the Ukrainian people in their resistance to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin's brutality," British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Nov. 9.
The UK Government cannot defend its own borders yet is determined to help defend those of a shambolic, corrupt, failed “state” that did not even exist before 1991.
I once knew a nurse who was doing a 12 hour shift (as we do) and she had forgotten her lunch, so she ate some leftovers off the patients food trolley.
She was sacked.
Gavin Williamson issues death threats to a colleague and remains an MP.
Strange. When I had to go to hospital unexpectedly from Cambridge County Court (about 15 years ago) with a minor problem, I was waiting between therapies, alone in a large area at around midday, when a porter came through with various lunch dishes for in-patients, and offered me anything I might want. I selected a fish and chips. No charge. Thanks very much. Still appreciated today.
Apropos of nothing much, when I first visited Qatar, in 2001 (before its explosive development), I returned to my pleasant hotel from a meeting, and felt hungry. Outside a room on my corridor, someone had left a room service plate outside a door, with an uneaten and unpeeled banana and orange on the plate. I took both fruits and enjoyed them in my room, but then thought “what if that was caught on camera? Might I get my hand chopped off for the sake of that bloody banana?” In fact, no (Islamic law is not quite as strict as that anyway, even in Saudi Arabia), but it gave me a few anxious minutes.
I’m A Celebrity
Watched the minute or so at the start of the show, to see whether Little Matt Hancock was featured. All the existing “celebrities” were shown in cameo. I only recognized two of them (Boy George and Mike Tindall). Maybe it’s an age thing, or a culture thing…
[Lenin, Krupskaya, and others, in Lenin’s requisitioned or expropriated Rolls-Royce]
I wonder whether there will be an even bigger parade than usual in Moscow today, the 105th anniversary of the October Revolution of 1917 (in reality, the Bolshevik seizure of power from the Provisional Government headed by Kerensky). The Julian calendar was in use at the time.
The war in Ukraine is now going badly. I expect attacks on Kiev-regime infrastructure behind the front lines to continue and to intensify
It may be that the main dam on the Dnieper (a major Stalin-era project of the 1930s, rebuilt in the late 1940s after having been blown up by retreating Soviet forces in 1941) will be destroyed again.
If the Russian forces were to try to destroy the dam today, they would probably use a tactical nuclear weapon. The last photograph shows clearly how massive is the structure.
In the words of Jack Monroe, "You're fucked, sunshine". Still, I'm sure her fans will do all the mental gymnastics to defend her and call the timeline "libel" and that's all she really needs, isn't it, to keep the machine going. It can take years to leave a cult, I suppose. https://t.co/YnsprZOXSb
This exactly – her 'talent' is selling a story to the gullible and vulnerable and she's made a huge amount of money from pleading poor and threatening anyone who challenges her
The fact that msm “journalist”-scribblers have almost all swallowed the “Jack Monroe” “legend” whole, completely uncritically, and without bothering to dig a bit to see whether some or all of it might be untrue, says a lot about the state of the UK mass media today.
I was very much in favour of the “Bootstrap Cook” at first, years ago, but less so later, and now think that she has many serious questions to answer.
The fact that so many mainstream journalistic and “media folk” idiots seem to be actually emotionally invested in supporting her on Twitter makes me even more suspicious (I think that that the mugs who are actually still donating money to her monthly are probably a different set of mugs, for the most part; some seem to be real poor people, living on small State benefits, judging by those who have been saying on Twitter etc that “Jack Monroe” has not supplied the goods that she said she would supply).
I have no idea whether “Jack Monroe” (her name was changed by deed poll from the original Melissa Hadjicostas, she being half Greek-Cypriot) makes £3,000 a month, £8,000 or —as some on Twitter etc claim— about £16,000 a month, but her Patreon donation page alone (at exact time of writing today) shows 663 “patrons”, down from well over 800 a few months ago but still impressive. The lowest level of support is £3.50 per month.
663 x £3.50 = £2,320.50. Not a bad “little earner”, even at that level, to use the estuarine Essex argot.
The highest shown level of support (it was £44 per month until recently!) is now £10 per month. 663 x £10 = £6,630 per month.
It seems reasonable to conclude, therefore, that “Jack Monroe” is getting between £2,320 and £6,630 in cash, monthly, from Patreon alone (minus whatever fees or commissions are charged by the website).
Taxfree too, unless I am mistaken as to whether such donations are counted by HMRC as gifts or not.
The “Bootstrap Cook” also makes money from personal appearances, speaking engagements, TV appearances and, of course, book royalties from her 7 books, most if not all of which are still in print. From what I have read, at least £90,000 (in toto) in royalties over the past several years, and still rolling in.
One could say, “well, so what? She has the right to make money“, but if there are questions around the veracity of what she has said about her own life-story, if there are questions around her asking for money constantly, if there are questions about where monies have disappeared (if indeed they have) and if some of those monies were given by members of the public to be sent to charities, then the questions demand an answer.
For example, in May 2022, Jack Monroe was supposed to be intending to sue both Lee Anderson MP and the “controlled opposition” politico, Martin Daubney, in defamation. Monies were crowdfunded for that purpose, but so far (six months later) no writ has been issued, as far as I know. In fact, none of the usual pre-trial and pre-issue correspondence has occurred, as Lee Anderson said only last week.
I begin to wonder whether the Fraud Squad or similar should take an interest in all this. At least that might straighten out the facts.
More tweets
Q: Describe Twitter to someone who has never used it.
Looks as though the pack of pseudonymous Jew trolls on UK Twitter are on the way out, and (so to speak) living on borrowed time…
Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists.
Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America.
Cuba looks better in that film than it is today, literally falling to pieces (houses in Havana collapsing after 63 years without maintenance, and the railways scarcely rolling).
There were a few positive aspects to Castro-ite socialism, but not many.
Another factor is that the Cuba of today has relatively fewer white and mestizo people as against blacks. Many went to the wall after 1959, and many others fled to the USA, the Dominican Republic etc.
More tweets
Will the Democrats take a drubbing at the US midterm elections on Tuesday?
As for that Holden cretin, just dump him in mid-Channel.
More tweets
The Conservative Party is actively destroying itself – full scale abandonment of values, member & voters. Why?? Is it because they know that sovereign democracy is over, to be replaced by a new 1 world government advised by NGOs with power flowing down to unelected technocrats.
Look at this prize idiot (below)! One “Natalie”, defending the “Bootstrap Cook” even though she then admits that she knows nothing at all about the allegations against “Jack Monroe”, or the questions raised:
Some of us want people who are in the public eye selling a false narrative to be exposed, especially so if they're making money from those lies. I'm glad people like Molly exist.
All I’ve ever seen is her putting cheap dinner ideas up and tips on how to keep the cost of food shopping down. I don’t know anything about subscribers or asking for money
All the people that have contributed (myself included) believing she was on the verge of homelessness. Subscribers more so, not getting the content they were promised for bs reasons.
Are you a grifter just like her? Do you look up to a scammer as your role model? What exactly is it about Jack Monroe that makes you want to put yourself out there looking like a right idiot infront of every sane person that sees through her scamming?
So you know nothing about what she's been doing, and therefore you think nothing is happening as a result of your own ignorance. GTF honestly pic.twitter.com/f0HuTRWrQo
To be fair, every time Jack Monroe tweets or posts anything about herself, "which is A LOT) it only takes a second or two to compare it to one of her many other previous wild claims to find the contradictions.
That was the end of the exchange(s). Thick “Natalie” goes away without a parting word. I wonder whether she is now less ignorant.
Twitter, the home of many proudly ignorant, but absolutely sure of their politically-correct rectitude.
F.E. Smith once replied to a judge, who had said that he had listened to Counsel for an hour and was “none the wiser“, “No, my Lord, but you are much better informed“…
What strikes me about the above is not only how gullible people can be but also how defensive, once their minds have accepted, uncritically, a certain narrative, a narrative about which they know absolutely nothing.
Not only the alleged quasi-fraud by “Bootstrap Cook”, but other narratives— “Covid”, Covid “vaccines”, “Ukraine”, the 2010-2020 “need” for “austerity” (spending cuts) in the UK; above all, the whole “holocaust” farrago, especially not but exclusively the “gas chambers” nonsense.
When I returned from Rhodesia in 1977, I took a number of easy-to-get (in those days) short-term jobs. One was hauling around sacks of mail at the Royal Mail sorting office at Redhill, Surrey. Another worker was an older fellow, doing a few months before Christmas, and who had spent his long naval career in submarines. We were talking one day, amid the sacks of mail, about Atlantis. He said that he was sure that there had never been Atlantis, or an Atlantean civilization, because he had spent months, indeed years, on submarines submerged in the Atlantic Ocean, and had never seen anything!
What could one say to such an unthinking person? Ask how many portholes his submarine had?! Make the point that any remains not destroyed by 10,000+ years of tides, currents, and the pressure of water etc, would probably not be detectable by such as sonar?
Pointless to argue with some people, because you are arguing with facts (using the intellect), whereas the “Natalies” of this world have an emotional response based purely on an embedded belief itself based on what others have sown in the uncritical field of their minds.
If two scribblers for the Irish Daily Mail (someone called Tom Doorley —apparently a restaurant critic— and one Phillips, a reporter or other “journalist”) yesterday reacted quite as unthinkingly in defence of “Bootstrap Cook”, then what can be expected of “Natalie”? In fact, said scribblers were far more rude, and no more intelligent, in their response to a tweeter tweeting about “Jack Monroe”, than “Natalie”.
I suppose that “Jack Monroe” will be fairly sanguine about the Twitter-storm around her behaviour. After all, so far 600+ people are still each shoving £3.50-£10 her way every single month, most of the public will be unaware of the questions raised about her, and the major msm outlets (Observer etc) are still puffing her entirely uncritically.
Things *are* happening through multiple channels, but it's also essential that people are warned so that Jack Monroe can't keep conning them out of money with her lies. "The only thing necessary for evil to triumph in the world is that good men do nothing"
Politicians are hell bent on turning the ~UK into the worlds fund whilst making UK taxpayers pay for it. Cop 27: Britain opens the door to climate change reparations for poorer nations https://t.co/k4ilAR0DBn
Well, let’s see…non-white UK Prime Minister arranges with other non-white “leaders” (globalist puppets) that the British people should pay for the corruption and incompetence of non-white “states”. What is wrong with that? Oh, no, wait…
Can we just nail this one. It is utterly insane – in the current economic and fiscal climate – to ask the British people to use money that could be spent on vital public services on "environmental reparations" for Mauritius and Pakistan.
It is not often that I agree with Dan Hodges, but strange times [etc]…
Which country would you settle in if you had to leave Britain? Canada 15% Australia 14% New Zealand 14% USA 7% South Africa 4% Others 9% Don’t know 37%
Interesting that most British people chose countries with a mainly British ethnic base; even the USA does have that to some extent, and of course a common language as well.
As for myself, it would depend, at least to a major extent, on the position I would be in. Emperor or slave? Poet or peasant? I would not want to live in an area without trees, either.
🚨🚨New Voting Intention🚨🚨 Labour lead is eighteen points in latest results from Deltapoll. Con 29% (+3) Lab 47% (-4) Lib Dem 9% (-) Other 16% (+1) Fieldwork: 4th – 7th November 2022 Sample: 1,049 GB adults (Changes from 28 – 31 October 2022) pic.twitter.com/ufnUn4YyMr
— Redfield & Wilton Strategies (@RedfieldWilton) November 7, 2022
Both opinion polls show a slight swing back to equilibrium after the recent polls showing Con below 20%. Still, 27% or 29% is still low, and there are said to be spending cuts, and restrictions on pay and benefits, to come, which must impact what little popularity the Con Party has. The continuing cross-Channel migration invasion as well.
According to Electoral Calculus, the present state of play might result in an overall Lab majority of about 154 seats: https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/userpoll.html; Con Party with about 150 seats, Lab around 400.
“Jack Monroe”, the “Bootstrap Cook”: an assessment
I have blogged (briefly) previously a few times about the person known as “Jack Monroe” (originally Melissa Hadjicostas, half-Greek Cypriot), whose rather clever nom de plume is “Bootstrap Cook”.
The name Jack Monroe is now her official name, it having been adopted by deed poll.
In the past, I was content to be at least neutral towards “Bootstrap Cook”, in that I felt that anyone putting almost anything into the public domain that might help the millions of financially-struggling people in the UK deserved at least a chance.
Incidentally, this blog is written in the English language, and therefore does not refer to a woman (whatever her views or proclivities) as “they” or “them”.
“Ideological” criticism of “Bootstrap Cook” has come mainly from two directions. The first group would be those connected to or supportive of the “Conservative” regimes of 2010-present. They tend to say that there is no justification for the campaigning of “Bootstrap Cook” to raise State benefits etc, and that any food poverty that exists exists because the individuals subject to it cannot “budget” properly, or do not know how to cook cheap wholesome food.
An ignorant point of view (though not without a small kernel of truth, as with many basically lying narratives), which infuriates many, especially when expressed by the likes of Iain Dunce Duncan Smith, the MP who has also been a huge expenses blodger and fraudster, and who claimed vast amounts on his Parliamentary expenses (even a £39 hotel breakfast) while —as Secretary of State for the DWP— taking money away from people living in real poverty.
The second group who tend to criticize “Bootstrap Cook” are those who agree with much of her campaigning on benefits etc, but who say that she actually “enables” attacks on benefit recipients by reason of her claims that a family of 4 can be fed well on £20 a week or less.
Now, however, a third group has joined the fray, being those who claim that they and/or others have been taken for a ride by “Bootstrap Cook”, and that she is a “grifter”, or even an outright fraud, who has sold goods and services which were never delivered. These critics also claim that much of the “Bootstrap Cook” back-story is untrue, or embellished.
For example, it is said that “Bootstrap Cook” was either never in poverty herself, or was so for no more than 18 months. It is said that at least part of her financial difficulties were caused by her own (apparently past) alcohol and/or drug abuse. It is said that she makes up implausible stories about her past financial predicament, such as “having to” sell her little son’s beloved dinosaur toy to raise money (really? How much money would that raise? £1? £2? And how cruel is that, assuming the story to be true?).
It is also said that her parents are not badly-off financially, that they own buy-to-let property, and that her paternal grandfather was a millionaire. In other words, that “Bootstrap Cook” always had a financial lifeline. I have no idea whether, or to what extent, that may be, or may have been, the case.
Recently, following a storm of criticism on Twitter, “Bootstrap Cook” deleted her Twitter account, though others claim that she is merely taking a 40-hour “rest” from Twitter, and will return. Why 40 hours and not (as with Jesus Christ) 40 days, or whatever, I have no idea.
One aspect that interested me, as a former barrister, was the tendency of “Bootstrap Cook” to threaten some of her critics with legal action. A few years ago, “Bootstrap Cook” sued Katie Hopkins in libel.
Ms. Hopkins had libelled “Bootstrap Cook” entirely mistakenly as to the facts, had no defence whatever, and should have backed down and got out with minimal damage when she could have but, like many maximalisti, found sorry the hardest word, and so was hammered: £24,000 in damages, and very large legal costs. Ms. Hopkins had to sell her house in St. Leonard’s (the best residential district in Exeter) in order to pay those legal costs.
“Bootstrap Cook” retained as her solicitor Mark Lewis, the Zionist Jew who now lives in Israel, though he has also a professional foothold in London. His no-win no-fee cases have often been controversial.
I have to wonder how nice a person “Bootstrap Cook” is, if she is on friendly terms with someone such as Lewis.
As soon as people started suggesting, a month or two ago, that “Bootstrap Cook” was somewhere between “grifter” and fraudster, out came the Twitter threat that Mark Lewis and libel would be wheeled out (frankly, not so much of a threat— by no means have all of Lewis’s cases been brought to a successful conclusion, and when he was censured and fined by the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority about 4 years ago, his Counsel said that his fine should be reduced because his only possessions were his clothes, a mobility scooter. and a private pension worth £70 a week).
In fact, when “Bootstrap Cook” threatened libel action against Conservative Party MP Lee Anderson [Con, Ashfield] (in May of this year), nothing ever came of it, as far as I know:
“Food journalist and activist Jack Monroe hinted at legal action against Anderson after he commented in an interview that “She’s taking money off some of the most vulnerable people in society and making an absolute fortune on [sic] the back of people”.[36] [Wikipedia].
The Guardian says “sues“, but the Independent said “hints at suing“, and I have seen nothing on the Mark Lewis Twitter output to the effect that he ever was “instructed” (the Guardian, again) on the matter. He may have been, he may not have been. I might add that all the news reports are from 15-16 May 2022; nothing since then.
Was Anderson right, though? As I have said, I was willing to cut “Bootstrap Cook” some slack, because in recent years, the past ~15 years, the social security system has become inadequate, pay for work has also become generally inadequate, and millions are struggling both to eat and keep sheltered and warm. My view was that any useable advice was, well, useful.
I still think that (despite the fact that, to me, many of the recipes of “Bootstrap Cook” do look like a dog’s dinner, and despite the fact that many disagree with her costings etc).
More serious criticism is that she has actually been making a pretty good living out of Patreon donations, while never or rarely providing the extras offered in exchange.
When I last looked, “Bootstrap Cook” had at least 800 Patreon donors giving a minimum of £1 a month. £800 a month. In itself not bad. When you consider that the suggested minimum is £3 a head, the total increases to £2,400 a month (perhaps). I have seen a tweet where the tweeter claims, truthfully or otherwise, to have been donating £44 a month. Well, you see the point. “Bootstrap Cook” must have an income from Patreon alone of between £800 and (?) perhaps as much as £8,000 a month. Or more. That’s before one takes into account book sales, other donations, paid (?) TV appearances, other appearances etc. We do not know.
Not that “Bootstrap Cook” claims poverty, these days. No, she claims, as I understand it (and perhaps truthfully) a degree of “precariousness” in her life and finances, and she is certainly not alone in that. It is almost the norm in the Britain of 2022.
“Bootstrap Cook” has a number of defence mechanisms. One is to threaten defamation actions, but the more usual tactic is to claim the shield of disability, and she has about two dozen options there.
A further defence tactic is, I read, to set her fanatical fans (she apparently calls them “flying monkeys“) onto any critics, and I have certainly seen tweets where mentally-disturbed fans have come close to suggesting violence against anyone daring to utter critical words.
The problem here is that “Bootstrap Cook” has become a totem for a certain tribe of virtue-signallers. Not really “the poor” but more the sort of people who like to think that they are socially-progressive etc. Facts do not matter to those people, belonging to the “right” tribe does. cf. “Covid”, Ukraine, “Black Lives Matter” and, of course, “FBPE/Remain/Rejoin” etc.
When you consider that someone who claims to be able to feed a family of 4 for £20 a week might be said to be, arguably or in effect, saying that UK benefits are perfectly OK and need not be increased, is that really something positive or not?
I simply don’t understand how you can read this article, made from HER OWN TWEETS, and think Jack Monroe is anything other than a grifter https://t.co/WTCmHTdHD5
— Kelly Jackson | It’s More Fun In Your 30s (@Kelly_Jackson88) September 19, 2022
Why on earth would any Tory politico want to silence Jack Monroe? She plays straight into their message that ‘the poor’ can eat on £20/wk and are just too thick to budget & cook. Plus, she has made little to no impact on public policy. (Rhetorical tweet, obvs!)
Claiming you can't afford to put the hot water on, have unscrewed the lightbulbs and are using solar lights, and haven't bought shampoo for two years in order to gain internet points and cash donations, is also wrong.
Giving people "money-saving" advice that is going to cost them *more* money is wrong.
Not making an effort to make sure people understand that you've mistakenly given the wrong advice and pointing people to more accurate advice, is really, really wrong.
I have very good intentions. I *intend* to write book reviews and advice for people querying, to be supportive of other writers, especially those newly agented.
I don't actually do that, though. And because I don't, I don't expect to be held up or praised for it.
Jack Monroe wasn't hounded off of Twitter because of some anaemic roast potatoes. She's left because too many people were raising questions about her lucrative Patreon, murky charitable donations and questionable finances. Jesus, people are gullible.
As many have noted, this whole Bootstrap Cook thing is more like a creepy cult than anything. It’s as if a lot of fairly affluent or at least not poor people have decided that supporting “Bootstrap Cook” —right or wrong— validates their evenings of going out, their Netflix subscription, their holidays in Cuba or Costa Rica, their new cars, and in fact their whole comfortable existence.
In fact, it reminds me of the “indulgences” sold by the Roman Catholic Church before the Reformation.
Not that that is necessarily the fault of the “Bootstrap Cook” herself.
I've not much to say on the Jack Monroe issue except that if a government minister tries to tell someone how to survive on a box of cornflakes and a tin of sardines, they tend to get pilloried for it.
(Past caring if Jack Monroe's fans abuse me as did for 48 hours few week back).
Authentic, knowledgeable women in poverty now could offer useful, genuine insights into experience but overlooked and devalued while Monroe's more acceptable celebrity face of poverty is prioritised.
Well, if you can believe that the “royal” Mulatta is a sadly-abused “princess”, then believing that a poverty campaigner, who seems to be making “a nice little earner” out of it and naive followers, is a modern Joan of Arc, must be easy enough.
It was absolutely nothing to do with “the far right” and everything to do with the revelations that she’s lied about a lot of things and taken money off a lot of people in very shady ways.
Let's say you agree to pay the Times £x per month and in exchange they promise to send you a code to access their online issue – but they never send the codes. Would you see a problem there? Read the Patreon page and see if you agree the comparison.https://t.co/LUPccSWorV
No John, it appears that you don’t understand what it is. Each payment tier system means a certain amount of rewards/content in return. Jack has received money every month & has not honoured the obligations that Jack pledged. No rewards/content for TWO years.
How had she helped others? I’m seeing a lot of upset people who have given her money over the years. They’re feeling ripped off. pic.twitter.com/H6Y00rtGVs
There's a whole community of Jack watchers on a website called Tattle. Any updates are there. Have to say, they don't seem a right-wing crowd. Better characterised as working-class mums who seem pissed off about what they see as grifting.
Her recipes are shit and she only keeps within budget because the portions are toddler sized. Totally dishonest and unsustainable. No one uses her recipes though, because as mentioned, they're shit.
Because you need to be a parent in order to… count calories. Some of Jack Monroe's meals are less than 200 calories per portion. Her best meals are in the region of 400-500 per portion. It's not enough. You too can eat cheaply, if you starve.
Well, that’s enough. There are hundreds of other tweets in similar vein.
As blogged previously, my view is that Bootstrap Cook’s stuff may well be of interest to many, though —as already said— much of it looks to me like carbohydrate-heavy food often presented like a dog’s dinner.
I do not think that “Bootstrap Cook”set out to defraud anyone, and it may be that she has no such intention now, but it does seem that legitimate questions about her fundraising have been asked by a number of donors, but not answered by her.
If people think that they are somehow accomplishing something by subsidizing the not-uncomfortable lifestyle of that person, then that is their business, in a sense, but it is legitimate for others, arguably more clear-minded, to ask “where is the money going?“, “is any of this true?“, and “are people being tapped for money under false pretences?“.
I can also see that her fans seem to be, almost entirely, not the truly poor but more those who are not “poor” but who support her “non-binary” profile, the “gender bender” aspects, and the general “government must do more for the poor” activism aspect.
I think that it is legitimate to question, not only “where the money went” (or goes), but also, whether in reality Bootstrap Cook has actually influenced government, or large enterprises such as ASDA (it seems that one or two supermarket chains were actually paying her for advice or consultancy or something).
Poverty is a huge problem in the UK now. Anyone claiming to be expert in it must expect searching inquiry.
Is this all really just a morning TV virtue-signal writ large? After all, at the end of the day, the decisive question is what government does or fails to do.
I personally have no animus against “Bootstrap Cook”, but my view of her has certainly become far less positive over the years since I first heard of her.
I do think, also, that if you claim that a person can feed healthily on £5 a week, you are really playing into the hands of swine such as Dunce Duncan Smith, Esther McVey, Therese Coffey etc.
I think that anyone wanting to help “the poor” could probably do so more effectively via GoFundMe or local foodbanks than by subsidizing the lifestyle of “Bootstrap Cook”. Perhaps I am mistaken, but that is my firm view and opinion.
On a wider point, we have in the UK this msm thing whereby TV channels or shows like to have a “go-to” list. Brexit discussion? Call Farage. Free speech discussion? Call Toby Young. Poverty discussion? Call Jack Monroe. And so on.
Thus you get “activists” who are really just “famous for being famous activists”. The Caroline Criado-Perez phenomenon. A hundred thousand or a million Twitter followers but, outside Twitter etc, really unknown and without real influence.
Of course, the msm now like to feature (supposed) “experts” who are, if possible, young, female, and black. “Bootstrap Cook” is not black, but as “Meatloaf” once opined, “two out of three ain’t bad“…
Well, there it is. I prefer to concentrate on other and larger issues really, but felt that I should examine the above first, after the recent Twitter storm in a teacup.
For clarification purposes this is a live poll so results don't necessarily represent public opinion. However, the latest results are: * still 81% re bankers bonus cap * still 82% re 45% tax cut for the rich * 88% re recall of parliament * 87% re govt loss of control of economy
All that the doomed “Conservative” Party had to do, to consign Labour to the bin, was select a leader to succeed “Boris”-idiot who was even slightly competent. It failed to do so. Endex.
Here's what the UK's new electoral map would look like if tonight's YouGov poll were repeated at a general election. pic.twitter.com/HbGJQywCB2
The implications are clear: either the Con MPs get rid of Liz Truss as soon as they can, and put in someone who at least looks semi-competent, or the Con Party will be near-finished by next year. Same goes, of course, for Kwarteng, Cleverly, and Coffey.
Jack Monroe pulls apart tweets that suggest people can live off a cheap bag of pasta or oats (rightly so) but SHE reinforces this ideology with her £20 weekly Asda shops. They do not contain enough nutrional/calorific value for one person, never mind 2 to 3 people!
Look at ANY of the weekly shops she has posted. There is a good reason she doesn't follow it through with a FULL meal plan for the week. She states a few times that she'll post a meal plan or recipes for the week later on but they never appear. The idea that you can continually
COVID held a mirror up to society. As most of us were forced to slow down, we noticed it was not the mega rich or obscenely paid super stars that we relied on, but the dismissively termed ‘unskilled’ front line workers. We can’t now allow them to be forced into ‘working poverty.’
Ha ha. Yes, that ghastly little bastard Schofield is one of the worst people on TV in the UK; and, yes, it is peak contemporary Britain, just like…well, there are just too many examples around…
An eloquent warning from the former British ambassador to Moscow, in 1997 'Does Nato really have a future at all? Is enlargement really no more than a substitute for policy, the thrashing about of an organisation which has lost its raison d’etre? 'https://t.co/p1MZFFPTCG
: 'Over the centuries one great power after another has threatened the stability of Europe….in 1815 and…1945.. the victors were intelligent and self-interested enough to bring the defeated as equals into the comity of European nations.' https://t.co/p1MZFFPTCG
A good example was seen the other night. A new detective drama called Karen Pirie.
Set partly a few decades ago, partly in the contemporary era, even the older setting, in St. Andrews, Scotland, decades ago, had a black character appear. In a small town in what seems to be a bleak part of Scotland (I have never been there). Then we are introduced to the two detectives now investigating the cold case. One a small Scottish woman, the other a black or half-caste…
I do not have a great deal of patience with films or TV shows. If they do not catch the interest after 15 mins, switch— OFF. I gave this one 20 mins. A bloody bore, poorly conceived and worse-acted.
This evening, I saw an old episode of Wycliffe [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wycliffe_(TV_series)]. All characters more or less credible, and what I like best about Wycliffe is that it manages to catch the atmosphere of Cornwall well, from what I recall from when I lived there. It does not rely on cliche (most of the time, at least).
Late tweets
The UK's economic woes appear to be a story of fiscal recklessness that's forced the Bank of England to stabilize crashing financial markets by buying up government bonds.
The real story is actually more complicated, and it all comes down to pensions https://t.co/H0wFKJe8IQ
But you’ve now borrowed short-term money to buy volatile financial assets.
The thing that was so good about pension funds — their structural long-termism, the fact that you can’t have a run on a pension fund: You’ve ruined that! https://t.co/Q6dEeBI8Ztpic.twitter.com/qTFzhEjNYT
➡️A margin call earlier this year when rates rose, which depleted the pensions’ collateral buffer ➡️Liz Truss's catastrophic mini-budget led to long-term interest rates spiking 100 basis points https://t.co/8vucDdxTDQpic.twitter.com/PeAj4jmPt1
But the questions about what happened in recent days run deep, are far from relevant only to the UK and are most certainly not over https://t.co/25jsfBV8mH
The BOE may have left itself hostage to misfortune with its actions.
The risk is that it finds itself in a standoff with markets, with pressure increasing to hike borrowing costs before its next meeting, which might tip the economy over the edge https://t.co/FLzsjzcWzr
In the month since I wrote about “Jack Monroe”, the “Bootstrap Cook”, the storm around her murky financial arrangements has become fiercer yet. A few tweets:
Oh look, yet mire Jack Monroe bootstrapcook lies exposed. She's gifted donations to fund legal action and not even followed any pre-action protocol & got in touch. That money's been spent…. ❄️❄️❄️❄️⛄️ https://t.co/LrXqDsDB1b
In light of Jack Monroe @BootstrapCook's latest "working class" lies, it's worth retweeting her dad's comments regarding his professional landlording, which also reveal he has no bank debt, ie mortgages. Not surprising given he inherited 3 of his millionaire dad's 12 properties. https://t.co/7BrPnLiVtA
He is sometimes described, inaccurately, as having become a “pro bono” lawyer who works for free, out of quasi-charitable motives, whereas he in fact seems to work on a “no win no fee” basis, which is not at all the same thing.
“Jack Monroe” has tweeted that she still has several/many months in which to sue the MP Lee Anderson and the politico Martin Daubney. In theory, up to a year after the alleged libel, but the relevant Practice Directions do say that the courts will still expect any claim to be made expeditiously, so not, e.g., 10 or 11 months after the alleged libel.
The courts may (probably will) penalize even a successful defamation claimant (“plaintiff”, as was) in both award and costs if the action is not brought expeditiously.
Why are you tagging bootstrapcrook? ,she is literally doing the tories work by claiming you can feed a family on 20 quid a week, she has ripped of 1000s of working class people who have been paying into her patreon and received NOTHING, people are complaining and getting refunds
Ian Robert Millard 