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Diary Blog, 4 August 2024

5 Comments

Morning music

[Tiger tanks on the Eastern Front, 1943]

Tweets seen

Ha. I wonder what my probation officer would make of that, were she to read my blog?

Yes, dear readers, those of you who are not regular readers of the blog…I myself am, in effect, on probation, the result of my free speech trial, conviction, and sentence (trial November 2023; sentence March 2024).

15 “rehabilitation days” (in fact, mostly fairly short meetings, so far), and a financial impost, being the (notional) costs of trial— £734 in all, a third of which was crowdfunded by a few generous donors.

Diary Blog, 16 March 2024, including an account of my recent free speech trial and sentencing

…thus it was that, thanks to the Jew-Zionists, and their police and “Clown” Prosecution Service dupes, I joined the “criminal classes”, or at least the convict classes.

Actually, I rather like my probation officer, despite the fact that, ideologically, at least as I apprehend, we are poles apart. My next scheduled meeting will be in September.

The whole Kafka-esque situation rather tickles me (when it does not irritate me), though of course I should never have been subjected to nuisance and inconvenience, should never have been charged, certainly should never have been convicted and, even then, should have received by way of sentence something purely nominal, such as a £50 fine (if anything).

More tweets seen

“A special law was passed JUST FOR KIER STARMER to save tax on his pension when he retired from public Prosecutions in 2013. The Coalition government afforded him this unique right. This needs to be known widely. He’s just cut The Winter Fuel Allowance… Happy to stand corrected but here’s a government document.“

[tweeter “@juneslater17”]

“Not a lot of people know that” (I certainly did not).

Typical.

Jessica Simor, yet another “human rights” barrister who secretly —or even openly— wants to institute police-state measures if people say things with which she disagrees.

Incidentally, Jessica Simor was a fervent supporter of the joke “party”, Change UK, at which I used to laugh on the blog before it went down the drain. I occasionally laughed at her too.

She is a bit of a loose cannon generally: https://order-order.com/people/jessica-simor/.

Hampstead pseudo-liberal.

Jessica Simor is at least opposed to the Israeli slaughter of Gazan civilians, so that is something.

I usually am more fair to others than they are to me.

More tweets

That really is amazing.

It may be anthropomorphizing on my part, but the snake actually seems grateful, somehow.

As I have said for months —if not years— Labour, Starmer-Labour, will “solve” the illegal Channel crossings by simply rubberstamping 90%-95% of applications in France (or even in Africa and Asia), thus magically turning illegal migrant-invaders into nominally “legal” ones.

The remaining 5%-10% will then still try to cross the Channel anyway and, once here, will not be deported, just as at present.

Starmer-Labour has even less intention than Sunak-Conservatism of stopping mass immigration aka migration-invasion. Once you read about the Coudenhove-Kalergi Plan, all will be made clear…

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

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Camp_of_the_Saints The Camp of the Saints (French: Le Camp des Saints) is a 1973 French dystopian fiction novel by author and explorer Jean Raspail.[1][2][3] A speculative fictional account, it depicts the destruction of Western civilization through Third World mass immigration to France and the Western world. Almost forty years after its initial publication, the novel returned to the bestseller list in 2011.[4]]

World literature is, of course, replete with novels that, later, became true, at least in some slightly modified form.

Starmer-Labour is a falsely-“elected” dictatorship, and even tyranny, which, even more than the last 14 years of fake “Conservative” misrule, offers the people nothing.

How about detaching the very few “rioters” from the thousands of entirely-legitimate protesters? Not to mention the tens of millions who want England to be England, not a rubbish dump for people from the most backward parts of the world?

In fact, where was David Davis, where was Starmer, where was Yvette Cooper, when the Gypsies of Harehills (Leeds) were rioting, only a week or so ago? Nowhere, or excusing them. Same with the Bangladeshi rioters in East London.

The System is trying to demonize all white (i.e. English) dissenters or dissidents by focussing the msm on a few bottle-throwers. Also, of course, ignoring the fact that our society is slowly collapsing, and mainly by reason of mass immigration.

Our animal friends

What lovely creatures.

More tweets

System MPs, System scribblers, and System TV talking heads are almost all in favour of mass immigration. Enemies of the people and of the future of the people.

All major rebellions or uprisings carry along with them a “hooligan” element. Indeed, Bukovsky [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Bukovsky; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Bukovsky#To_Build_a_Castle_(1978)] and some other Soviet dissidents believed that the Hungarian Uprising of 1956 was so effective (initially) because of the Budapest “hooligan” element. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Revolution_of_1956. Secret policemen, prosecutors etc were hanged by the rebels.

What Britain needs, though, is not an urban riot scenario but a disciplined social-national movement, something which at present does not exist.

“Our wonderful NHS”…

Superficially, System political commentator Iain Dale’s tweet commends the NHS, but not if you look a little further.

My first wife, an American, suddenly had terrible pain one Saturday morning in 1991 (I think it was). We drove to a general practitioner doctor in a small strip mall nearby. She had not been to him before but in the USA it is not usually necessary to be registered (unlike, as I believe, in the UK) to get an emergency appointment like that.

The small doctor’s office had no-one waiting, so once a patient left (about 5 mins), the Italian-American GP saw my then wife. He diagnosed her (it later turned out, entirely correctly), within a few minutes, as having a gall bladder problem, and suggested a couple of possible hospitals. He then charged her USD $25, cash on the nail.

We drove to the suggested hospital, about a 25-minute drive down the Garden State Parkway.

[Garden State Parkway, New Jersey, USA]

The suggested hospital was not very far from the Parkway, half a mile perhaps.

A modern hospital, the car park almost empty (and no charge for parking, unlike the absurd and sometimes stressful situation in the UK).

On entering, I think no-one there except a couple of uniformed nurses or whoever behind a glass-screened reception desk.

My then wife, in some pain, explained her problem, and was asked what insurance she had. That was not a problem, because she had a high level of medical insurance that went with her job (she was an employee of the U.S. Federal Government). She was then admitted through the security door and escorted away by a nurse. I was asked to wait.

A short time later, the reception person told me that the Head of Surgery would be down to speak with me. Imagine that in the NHS…

The Head of Surgery was a tweed-suited character, redolent of reassurance and expertise, like a surgeon in a Hollywood film, and sporting a full white beard, a bit like Sigmund Freud but more solid-looking and self-confident than Freud as seen in the photo below.

[Sigmund Freud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud]

I was greeted pleasantly by the Head of Surgery, and informed that my wife had to have a gall-bladder operation and that that would be done either later that day or the next day.

In the end, my first wife spent three days in hospital, mostly on her own in a comfortable if rather white/cream and basic room (no wards in that hospital, unlike the UK; France also has only individual or shared rooms).

On discharge, the bill was itemized minutely, despite everything being covered by insurance, and nothing needing to be paid by us. It was posted to us a couple of days later (for our records only). I think that it was (33 years ago) about USD $24,000. Expensive… thank God for the insurance.

Two or maybe three nights stay, one operation, medications, other stuff used, food, drink etc.

So, thinking about that, and comparing that to Iain Dale’s experience, I have no idea how long Dale suffered before even getting a consultation and diagnosis. Not same-day, anyway. Weeks? Months?

Then again, how many NHS patients with similar-level problems (excruciating pain but nothing immediately life-threatening) would get immediate attention, immediate hospitalization, and almost immediate surgery? (I think the operation was done the following day).

Of course, in the UK you can get quicker attention if you pay privately, or have BUPA insurance etc. I have no idea whether Dale was in an NHS hospital or not. All, the same, his operation is scheduled for six weeks’ time! My first wife only had to wait for about 20 hours.

I am of course not medically qualified, but I thought that that experience was worth recounting.

Naturally, the elephant in the room is insurance or money. Without one or the other, I wonder whether an American would get even medicines or painkillers, let alone surgery; I cannot say. We hear that 40% of Americans are either uninsured or under-insured. The only good thing Obama did was to try to reform that situation (as I understand it). I do not know what Medicaid and Medicare might now offer.

“Free at point of use” healthcare is the NHS trump card, of course.

Few would want to import the American healthcare system to the UK, with the American inequities and money-orientation. However, the NHS is now a pretty basic service in most respects, as compared to many advanced countries. Too many people accept its deficiencies and treat it more like an object of veneration than a useful service, a service which, however, now needs to be properly reformed.

Incidentally, a year prior to the above events, my first wife had been recommended to have a scan, in relation to something else, and had been given a choice of seven hospitals within a 30-mile range where that could be done. In the same year, 1990 I think, one of the largest teaching hospitals in the UK, King’s College Hospital, Denmark Hill (South London) had had to appeal for donations from the public to get such a scanner machine. I recall the banner (like a big red thermometer) hanging on the outside of the hospital when I often passed by c.1990.

More tweets seen

The Kiev regime just keeps pushing and pushing…

According to the narrator of the Nevil Shute novel, On the Beach, once famous and even filmed, “thus the world ended, not with a bang but a whimper” (if I recall it correctly from about 50 years ago). Will our known world end with a bloody big bang or two (in the Middle East, first)?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Beach_(novel). Turns out that I slightly misquoted the ending. No matter.

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

Almost forgotten now, of course.

That is a building in Tel Aviv occupied by the Israeli Ministry of Defence.

Coudenhove-Kalergi Plan…

I wonder how many more migrant-invaders crossed the Channel in the past 24 hours? How many hundreds?

Whatever the number today has been, about 20x that number came in over the past day “legally”…

Late thoughts about Starmer

Saw Starmer making part of his statement, or threats, really, on TV news earlier this evening. A few thoughts came to mind.

Firstly, it is clear that the events across the country have frightened both Starmer and equally-rattled Yvette Cooper. They both looked scared, behind the threats and bluster.

Second, only a month after the General Election, it is clear that Starmer has woken up to the fact that the British people have no love for him and Labour, despite the electorally-rigged “landslide”. He knows that only 4 out of every 20 eligible voters voted Labour. In his heart, he must know that he really has no mandate.

Thirdly, Starmer has decided to rule by threats and fear. He wants to make people, “ordinary” citizens, fear the consequences even of attending a protest, or talking about events online. The tactics of a police state.

Fourthly, Starmer said that people arrested by reason of any of the above would be remanded in custody, i.e. not given bail. That is not Starmer’s decision to make, not so long as the UK retains any vestiges of being either a “free country” (though that ship has sailed, I think) or even “a society under law”.

It is not for a political office-holder, which is all that Starmer is, to effectively instruct (whether on the TV news or otherwise) magistrates, District Judges, and Crown Court judges as to whether they will grant bail or not.

A month into office, and Starmer-Labour already looks like a panicked police state.

This will not end well.

Late tweets seen

That seems to me (off the top of my head) less likely than a massive Iranian missile barrage on Tel Aviv, but I am only guessing.

Late music

Alt-Right, animal welfare, Conservative Friends of Israel, daily blog, Defence, diary blog, elections, environment, free speech, historical, immigration, Jewish lobby in UK, Liz Truss, MPs, Party Politics, Rishi Sunak, Russia and Russian relations, society, The Great Replacement, the Great Reset, Uncategorized, wildlife

Diary Blog, 19 October 2022

44 Comments

Afternoon music

On this day a year ago

Diary Blog, 19 October 2021

Tweet seen

One cannot see, as some simpletons did in the 1970s, the conflict in Northern Ireland as simply a kind of “national liberation struggle”. More a kind of several-hundred-years-old sectarian conflict between two populations, and mainly occurring in a relatively few areas of the province.

The methods of the IRA in the 1970s and 1980s particularly were brutal and callous. Despite some harsh measures on the part of the British and/or Northern Irish authorities, the sort of 1930s/1940s Soviet-style clearances that might have finished the whole problem were never used, nor ever even contemplated.

The British never really hit the IRA infrastructure as hard as they could have. Gerry Adams was, ludicrously, allowed to be notionally “on the dole” for many years, ferried around in one of the black taxis used extensively by the IRA. He and McGuinness and the like were never killed, their families never arrested, their properties never destroyed.

I think that it is clear that the British always favoured, at root, a nice polite Westminster-style “political solution”, even if that meant, strategically, giving in to Sinn Fein (and thus the IRA) in the long run (if only because the birth-rate of the “Republican”/Catholic population was higher than that of the “Loyalist”/Protestant population).

The same happened in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, a country I myself visited in 1977. In 1979, the British played it their usual way, with a nice polite conference at Lancaster House in London (a rather nice small palace, of sorts, which I saw when invited to a couple of receptions in the 1990s).

The British used their intelligence services to bug the hotels of the delegates, and made sure no-one blew the place up. Emerging from that was the idea of a British-style “election” from which would inevitably emerge the winner, that nice, well-educated, little man, Robert Mugabe.

That’s how Britain has done these things since 1945— superficially slick, well-organized, without too much noise or violence in most cases (until the British have left), but in the end, a complete disaster. It started with Indian Partition in 1947.

The bombings etc carried out by the IRA were terrible. Having said that, they were not a tenth of one percent as deadly or as wounding (in bald numerical terms) as, say, the American bombings of countries such as Iraq in the past 30 years, and even smaller by proportion than the bombings in Germany, Japan, France, Romania etc carried out, mainly, by the British and Americans during the Second World War.

More music

[Lazienki Park, Warsaw]

More tweets

Anyone listening to System/Jew-Zionist-lobby pundits such as Dan Hodges is likely to be disappointed, at least most of the time.

I agree with the above, though. This is not now about a piece of Westminster Bubble theatricality, but about the fact that million upon million British people are now going to suffer terribly simply because stupid Liz Truss and woolly-head Kwarteng have been trying to play a performative game with the future of Britain.

If the last part of that tweet is right, we are well and truly ******…

Even so, need one take seriously most British “security and intelligence” sources? Those people have been wrong most of the time since 1945 (and, indeed, were for much of the 1939-45 period).

Mirabile dictu— I even find myself in agreement with sleazy Bryant this afternoon. Not that one need be a political genius to see the obvious truth of that tweet, of course.

Kick them in the head. Don’t spare the smug smirking grey-hairs either, men and women both. In fact, do them even harder.

More tweets

The future of medicine may lie mostly with a more holistic approach.

More tweets

If the Prime Minister (yes, even if it is Liz Truss) commits expressly to something, commits to it in the Chamber of the House of Commons, and in response to a direct question, that’s that…or else.

As I blogged yesterday, if the Triple Lock is not reinstated, then that is effectively the end of the Conservative Party, because the hard core of Con support consists of pensioners. If most of them abstain or vote elsewhere, the Conservative Party might really end up with a national vote of 10%, and that would leave them with 50-100 MPs, quite possibly at the bottom of that range.

The Conservative Party is polling around 20% or so. Take away half or three-quarters of that, and you are left with 5%-10%. Goodnight Vienna.

Exactly.

Lose/lose for the Conservative Party. Election now means about 50 Con Party MPs left (ironically, as blogged yesterday, probably including Liz Truss), but the only alternatives are to keep her as PM until the next general election, which might mean a near-total wipe-out, or to replace her as soon as possible, and then hope that at least a third to a half of the Con Party MPs can be saved, 100-175 of them.

Actually, it’s true: Liz Truss is a fighter, a noisy, aggressive, stupid, pointless woman used to pushing herself to the fore. Trouble is, once the silly bitch has forced herself to the front, there is almost literally nothing in her arsenal (intellectually or otherwise), and that is as true in the House of Commons as it is in any possible nuclear confrontation with Russia.

Will that be the next Liz Truss attempt to channel Thatcher and the Falklands? To try to create a “Falklands Factor” or “Belgrano Moment”? If so, a big mistake, and we may all be the victims of it. Russia is not Argentina, it has many thousands of nuclear weapons, many more advanced than our own few (most newspapers etc say the UK has 30-60, some claim 100).

Yes, it may be that Russia could only land 50 or 100 nuclear weapons on us. Is that OK? Do people think that anything much would be left?

See also: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2019/01/26/the-tide-is-coming-in-reflections-on-the-possible-end-of-our-present-civilization-and-what-might-follow/.

“Stein”? (((J)))? Looks like it…

[Jason Stein]

Liz Truss is, apart from all her other faults, totally in the pocket of the Jew-Zionist and Israel lobby. She “proudly” said as much at the recent Conservative Party Conference, at the fringe event organized by the horrible “Conservative Friends of Israel” [“CFI”].

I posted, yesterday, Peter Oborne’s excellent analysis of the Truss/Kwarteng “government”:

That 9-minute exposition is a must-see.

I noticed that Oborne says that, over the past decade, the Conservative Party has been “captured” by “about four” groups, the primary one being “the super-rich“.

Another, interpenetrating, would be the Jew/Zionist/Israel lobby.

I agree. Generally, the aid monies stick to the aid “industry” itself, its executives, to corrupt governments and officials etc. Look at “Save the Children”: millions of pounds wasted on the salaries and expenses of sex pests and rapists such as Brendan Cox, the then husband of assassinated “Labour” MP, Jo Cox. I think that Brendan Cox alone was getting something like £300,000 (maybe £200,000 or so) a year, and he was not even the top boss!

If you want to help the poor of Asia or Africa or elsewhere, 9 times out of 10 your best bet is to just find a family and give money to them. No take-out, no bureaucracy; just a bit of money to help them get on.

There may be circumstances where a large-scale project can have good effects, but that is usually better done on the governmental level.

As for animal charities, better to find one which is directly doing good, such as those supported by the actor Peter Egan [A Perfect Spy etc]: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Egan#Animal_rights_activism.

More tweets

Cut off all money, arms, and ammunition to the Jew-Zionist dictatorship in Kiev.

Is Harry Cole pushing for war with Russia? Bad idea, if so.

Incidentally, we read that Cole has “the best security and intelligence contacts” of all mainstream journalists in London. Maybe, but how can he check the veracity of what he is being told? What do his contacts want in exchange? What is their agenda?

We are living in unusual times. Historically, more money spent on defence meant more real security for the British people. Now, the reverse is the case. More money spent on defence may mean a greater chance of a nuclear attack on the UK, especially when billions of pounds are wasted on the Jew-Zionist regime in Kiev, which (((typically))) is alternately wheedling and demanding more from us daily.

At the same time, the Royal Navy cannot or will not even secure our shores from migration-invasion.

More tweets

Wealthy Jew Peston may think that keeping the Triple Lock is a “car crash“, but Liz Truss and her fellow Con MPs know for certain that they are toast if it goes. I have blogged today and yesterday about it.

It is a simple calculation: with Triple Lock, the pensioners who are the core of Conservative electoral support will stay on board, most of them; without the Triple Lock, over half, maybe three-quarters, of the Conservative vote just evaporates, leaving the Conservative Party in an existential hole.

It may well be that international bankers prefer “austerity” for the British people, while parasites siphon off hundreds of billions, but the British people beg to differ.

When will idiots like Peston start working for the British people, and stop spouting System finance-capital propaganda?

You want to cut spending? Close down 90% of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, none of which are doing anything at all useful now. Also, stop sending money to arms manufacturers and to Kiev.

Interesting analysis

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/19/uk-austerity-voters-brexit-cuts-chaos

 “After weeks of City chaos, and scoldings from Larry Summers and the IMF, even the most liberal and tofu-loving of commentators have bought into a dangerous idea: that you can never buck “the markets”.

Behind this mentality lies a whole mix of things, including the very understandable schadenfreude that comes with watching the Britannia Unchained lot find out that the markets don’t actually love them back. And who wouldn’t find joy in seeing the double-breasted, vacant-eyed, permanently post-prandial beetroots who between them make up the Conservative parliamentary party await an electoral tide that will sweep them out into generational oblivion? But the “markets know best” is not the lesson of the past few weeks, or the pandemic, or the bankers’ bailout before it. And believing so puts you on a collision course with voters.

You can see the result today: the UK is once again in the grip of austerity and anti-democratic politics – when we got into this crisis precisely because of austerity and democratic failure. The vast spending cuts made by George Osborne wrecked our hospitals, our schools and our town halls, and stoked the frustrations that ensured Brexit. I heard it over and over while reporting before the referendum – passersby declaring they were voting out, and citing as their reason nothing to do with Brussels and almost everything to do with the Tories. Their mum’s wait for an operation, their kids’ inability to get a council house, the loss of industry, the black hole left by privatisation: 40 years of bombed-out economics and bullshit politics.

To prove how far we have regressed, the politician who is once again everywhere is Osborne, easily the most ruinous Conservative minister this century. Others might name the layabout liar Boris Johnson or Truss the malfunctioning android, but it was Osborne who robbed Britain of a future. In the 2010s, interest rates hit rock-bottom and markets were practically screaming for governments to spend and invest. The UK could have rethought and rebuilt its post-crash economic model, but he chose to trample on the working poor and to cut, cut, cut. He is a big reason why Tory economics now has only two settings: cutting taxes for the rich, which never produces growth, or pursuing austerity that never brings prosperity.

Even today, Hunt is copying Osborne’s moves, right down to outsourcing politics to the financiers – just look at the newly installed panel of economic advisers, which comprises just two representatives of giant asset managers and two hedge-funders. Yet Jeremy cannot be George, because his role model cut public services so far there is nothing of substance left to take without them falling over. Now inflation is in double digits (unlike the prime minister’s approval ratings), it is devouring every Whitehall budget.

This is the UK’s horrific doom-loop, where voters are told the untenable is inevitable, while the sensibles keep mouthing stupidities and capitalists mirthlessly toast a cadaverous capitalism. Further downstream, surveys suggest over half (54%) of the 4m households on universal credit have gone without food in the last month, sick people in Wales can wait nearly two days inside an ambulance before getting admitted to A&E, and about 100,000 households each month are rolling off their mortgages into financial disaster.“

[The Guardian]

I have noticed that “George” Osborne (Gideon Osborne), that nasty part-Jew “a nobody-but-with-money”, is now once more all over the TV politics shows, dispensing his “wisdom”.

Britain 2022

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/oct/18/hardship-heartbreak-devon-families-lose-homes-airbnb-lets

It’s like It’s a Wonderful Life but without any angels to help people. Maybe what Britain needs are avenging angels. As people now say, “just sayin’.”

Suella Braverman

Suella Braverman must be the shortest-serving Home Secretary ever. Like her predecessor, Priti Patel, another one of Indian origin, she talked a good game on migration invasion and immigration generally. Whether she would have been any more effective, I doubt. Anyway, that’s her gone as Home Secretary, gone as part of the Government, but not as MP: she scored over 63% of the vote last time, so has a safe seat even in these times.

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fareham_(UK_Parliament_constituency); https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suella_Braverman.

Apparently, she may be replaced by the Jew Shapps, who, about a decade ago, posed as other (invented) people, even using false identity badges, in order to sell get-rich-quick schemes in the Palace of Westminster and elsewhere.

A fanatical Jew-Zionist, and former head of the UK branch of B’Nai B’rith [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%27nai_B%27rith].

Can this “shitshow” of a government actually get much worse?

[Update, 31 August 2023: In fact, Suella Braverman, having been appointed Home Secretary on 6 October 2022, and having resigned on 19 October 2022, was reappointed by new PM Rishi Sunak only six days later, on 25 October 2022! As of time of writing, she remains, albeit ludicrously, pointlessly, and uselessly, in post. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suella_Braverman.

Meanwhile, the Jew Shapps, the shortest-“serving” Home Secretary in history (6 days), and who has had other jobs since October 2022, has only today [31 August 2023] been appointed (ludicrously), Defence Secretary].

Late tweets seen

https://twitter.com/jjh_1993/status/1582824523187236864?s=20&t=cpUXcWfKY2kuJ4J5ZrmrOA

“Useless“? Well, maybe (I have never heard of her). More useless than, say, Liz Truss, Boris-idiot, James Cleverly, Therese Coffey, and a hundred others?

How mad does this “shitshow” have to get before someone just takes Liz Truss outside and…well, you get my meaning?

There was a time, not so long ago, when British people laughed at goings-on of that sort overseas. Italy, Spain, maybe Yeltsin’s Russia, parts of Latin America or Asia. More than awkward. Humiliating for the whole country.

Late music

animal welfare, Boris Johnson, daily blog, Defence, diary blog, elections, Liz Truss, MPs, Party Politics, society, the Great Reset, Uncategorized

Diary Blog, 9 October 2022, with thoughts around Liz Truss possibly freezing the UK State Pension

3 Comments

Morning music

[The Palace of Westminster]

On this day a year ago

Diary Blog, 9 October 2021

5 years ago on the blog

Football Lads’ Alliance March

The “grey vote”: Liz Truss adviser advised “freeze State Pension“

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/oct/08/freeze-pensions-slash-nhs-schools-matthew-sinclair-liz-truss-adviser

Well, there it is. Anyone not wealthy, and over the age of 65, as well as quite a few people of lesser age, who votes for the Conservative Party, is now a turkey voting for Christmas.

During the currency of the 2010-2017 governments, David Cameron-Levita realized that the only reliable demographic voting Conservative was that of “older people” generally— the older the voter, the more likely was he (or she) to vote Con, and also the more likely that that voter was to actually vote at all.

UKIP and, also, Farage’s other and later vehicle, Brexit Party, were mainly made up of fairly grey-haired and mostly ex-Conservative members and voters, people who at least vaguely realized that the Conservative Party was actually helping to destroy Britain, as the young Disraeli once wrote [“the great Conservative Party, that destroys everything“] and wanted a party that reflected their views better.

The trend is more or less the same now, except that UKIP and Brexit Party do not exist in any real sense, though Reform Party has taken up some of that slack.

Cameron-Levita and his cronies knew that fewer and fewer “younger” people, especially voters under the age of 30, were voting Con. That underlined the need to consolidate the Con vote in older age-groups, and especially the group that not only mostly voted Con, but could be relied upon to cast a vote, those in receipt of a State Pension, meaning those over 65 and some over about 62 (the eligibility age being slowly raised over time).

There were other factors: the older sections of the population were also those more likely to own a house or other dwelling outright, having either never had a mortgage or having paid it off while in their fifties, typically. The rise in nominal money-value of residential property therefore benefited that same group of older people.

The older sections of the population, especially the pensioners, were also those who favoured Brexit the most.

It is widely accepted that the general elections of 2015 and 2017 were won by the Conservative Party entirely by reason of the pensioner vote.

“In the 2017 general election age became a clear dividing line in British politics: older voters overwhelmingly voted Conservative and younger voters backed Labour.

The data shows that there are still some clear patterns along these lines, although the waters are somewhat muddied by a move away from two-party politics.”

[YouGov: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/10/31/2019-general-election-demographics-dividing-britai].

“The average age of the Conservative voter is such that the steepness of its “age curve” (the increasing probability of a person at 2017 voting Conservative given their age) is now almost certainly steeper than the natural degree to which people “get” more Conservative as they age. This is important as it suggests that new cohorts of voters cannot replace and replenish the ranks of the Conservatives, even if they do naturally get more Conservative over time.”

[https://wpieconomics.com/insights-archive/newsletter_blogs_polling-and-the-conservative-loss-of-political-ascendancy/]

See also: https://www.varsity.co.uk/opinion/22276.

The Conservative Party induced that reliable pro-Con voting bloc to carry on voting Con by introducing the “Triple Lock”, by which State Pensions would rise by the rate of inflation, or average pay, or 2.5% a year, whichever of the three was the greatest.

That obviously suited most pensioners very well, and secured those two election victories.

Poorer pensioners who received both State Pension and Pension Guarantee Credit were also served not badly, because the State Pension was covered by the Triple Lock, while Pension Guarantee Credit would still increase in amount, though only in line with inflation.

Rishi Sunak suspended the inflation part of the Triple Lock in 2021 (for financial year 2022-2023) [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53082530], thus —if you like— cheating pensioners; he also thereby broke the election pledge the Conservative Party made during the 2019 General Election.

Sunak, best known for his “panicdemic” “free money” giveaways, probably has that Triple Lock default, or sleight-of-hand, to thank for his not being ushered in as Conservative Party leader in 2022.

The vast majority of actual Conservative Party members are either pensioners or not far from becoming so. The, so-to-speak, “Indian giver” was basically given a slap by the Conservative Party pensioner membership. Had he not cheated the pensioners, Sunak would almost certainly be Prime Minister by now.

I’m laughing…

Now, it seems that the Liz Truss government may or may not continue with —that is, reinstate— the Triple Lock after 2023 (she still says yes…), but State benefits including Pension Guarantee Credit may or may not be uprated in accord with inflation— they may even be frozen.

“Under the triple lock, pensions increase by the highest of earnings growth, price inflation or 2.5 per cent a year.

The government temporarily suspended the wages element of the pensions triple lock for 2022-23 to avoid a disproportionate rise of the state pension following the pandemic.

…former chancellor Rishi Sunak confirmed the return of the triple lock in May, and prime minister Liz Truss has since said she is “fully committed” to the lock.

…“With inflation into double-digits, average earnings (total pay) of 5.5 per cent isn’t expected to be the deciding factor in next April’s state pension increase. The state pension is likely to increase by around double this at over 10 per cent, confirmed in September’s inflation figure published next month.”

…“While prime minister Truss committed to reinstating the triple lock in the immediate term during her leadership campaign, questions will remain over its affordability and whether the triple lock will survive in its existing form in the manifestos of all parties ahead of the next general election.”

[FT Adviser]

Can Liz Truss be trusted or relied upon? I think not (and her husband knows not!).

One thing is for sure— if Liz Truss or woolly-head Kwarteng short-change the “grey vote” any time between now and the next general election, that “grey vote” will either vote elsewhere or even just abstain, though it is ingrained in most of those of pensionable age that they should at least vote, as a civic duty.

There is also the point that house prices are forecast to fall, perhaps significantly, in 2023.

The Conservative Party is now around 20% in the opinion polls. Most of that hard-core 20% is composed of the “grey vote”. “Mess them about” by interfering with the State Pension and/or Pension Guarantee Credit, and the Con vote nationally, at a general election, might fall to as low as 10%. Then it would be “Goodnight Vienna” for the Conservative Party.

Tweets seen

Quite. Meaningless “exam passes”, “degrees” etc. Is James Cleverly any better or worse a Foreign Secretary for having a “degree” in Hospitality Management? It might even be “worse”…

https://twitter.com/telephonisttm/status/1578674940244504576?s=20&t=or3UHRd2Qau67cH3n5D27A

Subhumans.

https://twitter.com/Harley_Ride/status/1578735479549140993?s=20&t=or3UHRd2Qau67cH3n5D27A

More music

More tweets

Britain needs social nationalism. It alone can give the people what they need now and what they need for the future of their children.

Late tweets seen

I agree with both.

https://twitter.com/BernieSpofforth/status/1579132178461782016?s=20&t=5rcuPBUkxNBtgALcc0q-BQ

Social nationalism’s chance to rise up, and destroy the enemies of Europe’s future, will soon arrive.

Late music

Alt-Right, Boris Johnson, Brexit, elections, historical, MPs, Party Politics, Uncategorized

Can The Conservatives Win A General Election? (or are they doomed?)

1 Comment

We are where we are, in the now-ubiquitous phrase. The prime-ministerial chair once occupied by the likes of Pitt, the 1st Duke of Wellington, Gladstone, Lloyd George, Churchill, Attlee, Harold Wilson, Margaret Thatcher etc is now occupied by a public entertainer of mixed ethnic and cultural origins, born in New York City, brought up partly in the USA and Belgium, and until recently a dual passport-holder. A rootless cosmopolitan playing out a performance as an “upper-class” “Englishman” caricature. Am-dram Churchill. Poundland Churchill.

Boris Johnson, Boris-idiot, Boris the clown. More to the immediate point, Boris without a majority, soon. As a child of eight years, Boris Johnson wanted to be “world king” and has for decades schemed and cheated and lied in order to get to the nearest position (outside the monarch’s own ambit) that England allows: the rank of Prime Minister. However, he has not become “King of the World”, but “King for a Day”, the traditional role, in the Revels, of the Jester or Fool (“…for who but a Fool would be King for a Day?”).

The Conservative Party elected Boris Johnson its leader. Conservative MPs voted to reduce the field to two. Conservative Party members, some 140,000 of them, voted and 66% of them, about 92,000, preferred Boris Johnson. It is not my purpose of this article to rail more than en passant against the absurdity that allows a prime minister to resign and for her successor to be, in effect, elected by 92,000 (mostly very elderly, mostly rather well-off financially) Conservative Party members (out of about 50 million voters generally). This article is for the purpose of examining electoral chances.

First of all, we have the Brexit chaos. I favoured Leave. I still favour Brexit. However, the whole process was criminally mishandled by the Conservative government of Theresa May.

How will Brexit affect a general election? I assume that the House of Commons will not allow a WTO or “no deal” Brexit, and so any general election that is then called will see Boris Johnson parking his tanks on the lawn of Brexit Party and trying to go all out for, effectively, the Leave vote of 2016. There are dangers for the Conservative Party in that.

Brexit is not the only issue in a general election. Some more affluent voters may vote Conservative for tax or other reasons even if they oppose Brexit. Also, many in the population will never vote Conservative even if they favour Brexit. Many despise Boris Johnson and will never vote Conservative as long as he is the leader. This is, if chess, three-dimensional chess.

However, now that the Conservatives under Johnson present themselves as the “Leave”/Brexit party, it can be assumed that a sizeable number of former Conservative voters who favour staying in the EU will migrate, at least temporarily, to the only significant Remain-supporting party, the LibDems. Where else can they go? It might be argued that many Conservative MPs favour Remain, and that those MPs will receive a special vote based on that. Don’t count on it. The label is the primary motor, and if Conservative means Leave, many Remain voters will leave…the Conservative Party.

If the next general election is called without the UK having left the EU, or having left on terms dictated by the EU (Brexit In Name Only), then Brexit Party will be waiting to snap up the hard-core Brexit vote.

Brexit Party intends, at present, to contest all 650 seats. Its mere presence ensures that dozens, maybe even beyond a hundred, Conservative MPs will lose their seats, in some cases to Brexit Party, but in more cases to the LibDems or Labour.

There has been talk of a Conservative/Brexit Party electoral pact, but that carries the danger of gifting the Brexit Party a bloc of seats. which might challenge the Conservative Party more strongly later.

Labour, though now called by msm commentators a Remain party, is more nuanced. Corbyn’s fence-sitting tactic, though much criticized, is all that he can do in a circumstance where Labour-held seats were more often (about 60%) Leave-voting, though most Labour voters voted Remain (because, as I blogged recently, Labour votes are increasingly concentrated in fewer and fewer seats).

It may be, anyway, that Labour voters have concerns other than, or as well as, Brexit: low pay, the Conservative attacks on the social welfare and benefits system, the burgeoning crime and disorder problem etc.

The composition of the Boris-idiot Cabinet and government will not attract many former Labour, LibDem or floating voters.

My conclusion is that the Boris Johnson government may struggle to attract the votes of more than 30% nationwide. Recent opinion polls have put the Conservatives at anywhere between 23% and 30%. Labour has been between 18% and 28%. LibDems around 16%-20% and Brexit Party 14%-20%.

If the Conservatives continue to lean towards Brexit strongly, they risk losing many of their pro-EU voters to the LibDems, but if they try to fence-sit or move more towards Remain, many of their previous voters will vote for Brexit Party or stay at home.

There is also the Boris Factor, but we see that, even though there has been a “Boris Bounce”, its effect has been slight. The Conservatives are still polling at or below 30% (as is Labour). Indeed, it could be argued that, for many former Conservative voters, especially in marginal seats, Boris-idiot is not an attraction but a turn-off. I concede that that is a guess, but it is at least an educated one.

I have fed various recent opinion poll results into the Electoral Calculus calculator [see Notes, below], and it is quite hard to come up with a Conservative majority in the Commons. Most results show a hung Parliament with either Lab or Con as largest party. Only one showed a Conservative majority (of one vote). In several cases, both main System parties were as many as 80 MPs short of a majority.

Now we all know that the “glorious uncertainty” of the Turf is carried over to the field of battle of British elections. It is hard to predict elections in Britain and “a week is a long time in British politics”, as Harold Wilson said. Also, Electoral Calculus is a fairly rough guide. Having said that, it seems clear that, at least in the short term, the Conservatives are on the back foot here. Any gamble to increase the Conservative majority in the Commons may well backfire, as in 2017. That would mean the end of The Clown as Prime Minister, but would also mean something of a political and even Constitutional crisis.

These should be fertile days for social nationalism, but we are as yet not even in the game…

Notes

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

Afterthought, 29 July 2019

David Cameron-Levita as Prime Minister always made sure that the interests of pensioners were prioritized, in particular by introducing the “Triple Lock” on State pensions. Pensions have been one of several issues taking greater prominence over the years by reason of the increasing average age of the population of the UK.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Pension_(United_Kingdom)#Pensions_Act_2007

There were clear practical political reasons for this policy. Support for the Labour Party at elections is fairly even across the half-dozen usual age groups, whereas support for the Conservative Party is concentrated among the old and middle-aged: just under 50% of all Conservative votes are those of persons aged over 65 years. Hardly any young people intend to vote Conservative (in the 18-24 age group, below 4%).

The loyalty of the over 65s has been reinforced by pensioner-friendly policies. There are signs now that the Conservatives intend to, in the oft-seen phrase, “throw the pensioners under a bus”. In 2017 Phillip Hammond wanted to remove part of the Triple Lock, but the DUP insisted on its retention in part-payment for DUP “confidence and supply” support in the Commons.

The Conservative Party is already getting some flak from the elderly for the BBC’s announcement that free TV licences will be withdrawn for those of 75+ years. There are rumblings about bus passes for pensioners. Overall, it is clear that the free market crazies now in the ascendant under Boris-idiot want to target the elderly as they have already done the disabled, sick, unemployed etc.

The Labour Party is now the party of the blacks and browns, those dependent on State benefits, and of the public service workers. The Conservative Party is now the party of the rich, the affluent, the buy-to-let parasites and the like, and (many of) the elderly. If the elderly who are not particularly well-off desert the Conservatives, the Conservative Party is in big trouble, because only about 10%-15% of UK voters can really be described as rich or even affluent, certainly no more than 20%. In 2017, the Conservative vote amounted to 42.4% of votes cast. If half or more of those votes suddenly disappear, the Conservative Party is quite likely to disappear with them.

Further Notes

https://www.ipe.com/countries/uk/peers-call-for-removal-of-triple-lock-on-uk-state-pension/www.ipe.com/countries/uk/peers-call-for-removal-of-triple-lock-on-uk-state-pension/10030786.fullarticle

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/apr/27/pensions-triple-lock-questions-answered

https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2019/04/james-kanagasooriam-the-left-right-age-gap-is-even-worse-for-the-conservatives-than-you-think.html

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/bbc-over-75s-licence-fee-18335538

Update, 3 February 2023

Well, we all now know that, in December 2019, Boris Johnson and the Conservative Party won a supposed “landslide” at the General Election. In fact, the Conservative Party vote was only 43.6% of votes cast, but Labour’s vote fell to 32.1%, and that decided the matter.

Key was the decision of Nigel Farage to stab in the back his own candidates and supporters by withdrawing Brexit Party from serious contention. That was the key act that ensured a Johnson/Conservative win.

Brexit Party ended up with 2% of the vote nationwide. Had Farage and Brexit Party gone all out to win from the start, Brexit Party might have got 15%, which though giving Brexit Party few if any seats, would have tipped the balance back to hung Parliament territory.

Other factors were the elderly and late middle-age voters sticking with the Conservative Party, and the relentless and mainly Jewish anti-Corbyn campaign in the msm, which helped to crush Labour’s chances.