Morning music
Saturday quiz
Well, this week a modest 5/10, but still enough to beat political journalist John Rentoul, who scored 2/10. I knew the answers to questions 1, 2, 3, 8, and 10, should have got questions 4 and 10 but did not, and my answer to question 2 was a wild guess but, to my surprise, correct. I may have dredged it up from my subconscious mind, maybe a submerged childhood memory.
Question 4 is not correct, in part of its premises, anyway.
Tweets seen
[“The claim that nobody at the heart of government — ie close to Starmer — knew Mandelson had flunked his security vetting is unravelling at a rate of knots.
Starmer’s head of comms was alerted by the media last September.
Sources tell me multiple folks in the Cabinet Office (where the UK Security Vetting unit is based) had known for quite some time.
Cat Little, Cabinet Office Permanent Secretary, even had a copy of the UK Sec Vet January 2025 document concluding Mandelson was unfit to be US ambassador.
She informed the new cabinet secretary Antonia Romeo.
Soon there were about a dozen lawyers and officials crawling all over it.
Such matters don’t stay secret for long in the upper echelons of Whitehall.
But it seems the PM was still in the dark … until last Tuesday.
Mmmmmm.”]
In a sense, a political-nerd/Westminster Bubble story and scandal. I cannot believe that, in public bars and golf clubs, people talk of little else, but it does tend to support the now-embedded narrative that Starmer-stein is either dishonest or incompetent, or both, something I myself have believed for several years.
As frequently blogged previously, as far as the Pakistani/Muslim rape gangs are concerned, Starmer and Labour cannot afford to “offend” the voting bloc consisting of Muslims, especially, because they are now at least 6% and 8%, and moving towards 10% of the population. By the time of the next general election (probably 2029 if not “suspended” by reason of a contrived war against Russia), that ~10% bloc will be about half, maybe even two-thirds, of the Labour vote; Muslims are already at least a third of Labour voters nationwide.
At the same time, Starmer-stein himself is of course heavily pro-Jew, pro-Israel, is married to a Jewish woman, and has children being brought up as if full-Jew. He belongs to Labour Friends of Israel, and much of Starmer’s —and Labour’s— recent funding has come via Jewish links.
Starmer and his government are, therefore, being pulled in opposing directions, and are in any case incompetent and rudderless.
Well, that translates to a Commons with about 293 Reform UK MPs (about 33 short of an overall majority), 84 Cons (very weak official Opposition), 78 Greens, 69 LibDems, 53 Lab, and 45 SNP [etc].
Once again, on those figures, Starmer would lose his own seat, a potential fact indicated by all recent (for several months) opinion polling.
One joker in the GE 2029 pack might be Restore Britain. If it stood enough candidates, it would split the “conservative-nationalist” vote, hitting Reform worst; maybe the Cons a little as well.
Restore at present does not look like it can supplant underwhelming Reform, so they might end up competing for more or less the same bloc of votes. I have little time for Reform, but it really is, at present, the only game in town if you want to wipe out Lab and Con (leaving aside the loonie new Greens, with their pro-drug and pro-mass immigration policies).
The above result, a hung Parliament, might be the best result for social nationalism: the System parties gravely and perhaps mortally wounded, and Reform unable to govern effectively without Con MP-votes. That might in turn lead to a demand for real social nationalism. As Lenin may have said, “the worse, the better“.
That opinion poll again underlines the main or central fact: people are voting against the System parties, not for either the Greens or Reform.
The UK— a country sliding to disorder and some sort of civil/social war.
If so, and as I expect, the central fact, or “big story” will be the collapse of both main System parties.
The local elections, many of which Labour tried to “postpone”, are about more than just local council seat numbers. They are often training grounds for future MPs, and though mostly unpaid, do provide “expenses” of various kinds, and remuneration for those in charge of local “cabinet” briefs at the various councils. If Lab and Con are massively culled on 7 May 2026, that cripples their local organizations, and that has knock-on effects at the later general election currently expected to be in 2029.
In fact, I think that only three local election leaflets have been put though my own door (New Forest area) so far: Reform UK, LibDems, and an Independent lady (the most impressive-looking candidate, arguably).
The main System parties have not put their tawdry wares on display here, so far.
…and if that proves to be “impossible”, then we have other and permanently-effective solutions.
Ecce American “democracy”…
Certainly, women often tend to vote based on emotional responses, or superficialities. Difficult question.
I do think that voting in national elections in the UK should be restricted to persons of 28+ years. Having said that, only about 40% or so of those under 28 vote anyway: see https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cley905dg20o.
Very true…
Tweeter “6070y80aqui” has obviously never heard of Paula Vennels, Dido Harding etc (or Liz Truss, Antonia Romeo etc)…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_Vennells
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dido_Harding
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liz_Truss
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonia_Romeo
In fact, I should say that that tweeter “6070y80aqui” has almost certainly had little experience of capitalism or capitalist enterprises in practice.
[“One of women’s best talents, is dodging responsibility.
I say this as a woman.
I notice myself doing it a lot.
We have this thing built into us, that makes it okay in our minds, when we mess up.
Like little white lies.
It’s okay you cheated because he…
It’s okay you were late, because…
We excuse ourselves more than men do.. and then act like it was not our fault.
Imagine making us as judges in a court system??“]
Interesting and rather true, quite often.
That last sentence, about female judges, is very true. Usually unwilling to take a really independent stand against the accepted sentiment or expected result.
Talking point
Ian Robert Millard 