Tag Archives: privatization

Diary Blog, 27 February 2024

Morning music

[Sukhumi, Abkhazia]

Tweets seen

Grotesque.

I never see boring Newsnight now, so had missed that.

More grotesquerie.

Talking point

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

I had not previously heard of this person or of his crimes. It does beg the questions around Nature v. Nurture, in that the subject had been brutalized from an early age, firstly by his own parents, then by the juvenile “reform” system, then by other experiences, and finally by the state and Federal adult prison systems.

In other words, someone evidently monstrous, but at the same time someone made monstrous, arguably. It would be interesting to compare the life-stories of his several siblings.

From the newspapers

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13127193/Elderly-patients-denied-life-saving-cancer-care-NHS-major-study-warns.html

Still clapping?

Having said that, there are, I think, still many good people in the NHS, but the structure and management of the Service is obviously unwieldy and inefficient.

More tweets

If a black hits a white, especially a white woman, the penalty should be… [COMMENT REDACTED BECAUSE THERE IS NO LONGER ANY FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION IN THE UK]…

I have a shrewd idea (or maybe not so shrewd— we shall see…) that “30p Lee” Anderson may have jettisoned the Conservative Party rather than the other way around. After all, the Con Party is staring down the barrel of an electoral meltdown which may finish off arguably the longest-surviving political party in the world.

The Conservative Party was looking at quite likely defeat in Anderson’s constituency, but now maybe not (if Anderson is reinstated). If Anderson is not reinstated, he may well be able to stay on as MP either as an Independent or, more likely, after having stood as Reform Party candidate. He now has real national profile.

I blogged about this a few days ago: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2024/02/24/diary-blog-24-february-2024-2/: see below

Lee Anderson, and Ashfield (Derbyshire)

The maverick MP has been suspended from being under the Conservative Party whip.

Naturally, I do not agree with his statement that London is “run by Muslims”. Sadiq Khan is from a Muslim background, but has been pretty much in the Jew-Zionist pocket for many years.

It would be more accurate to characterize Sadiq Khan as “anti-white”.

As to Anderson himself, I suggest that he is trying to bolster his position vis a vis the General Election expected later this year.

Until 2019, Ashfield had always been won by Labour since its inception in 1955, with one closely-run by-electoral exception in 1977. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashfield_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2020s. “New Labour” and Gloria de Piero changed all that.

David Marquand, a former MP for Ashfield (1966-1977; he is still alive, at 89): “Originally a tentative supporter of Blair’s New Labour, he has since become a trenchant critic, arguing that “New Labour has ‘modernised’ the social-democratic tradition out of all recognition”, even while retaining the over-centralisation and disdain for the radical intelligentsia of the old “Labourite” tradition.” [Wikipedia]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Marquand.

Marquand defected to the SDP and then was honourable enough to step down as MP, not contesting the by-election.

In fact, Marquand was himself rather intellectual:

“Marquand addressed Britain’s relative economic decline in The Unprincipled Society (1988) and The New Reckoning (1997). He argued that this decline was caused by Britain’s failure to become a developmental state like France, Germany and Japan. In those countries state intervention had encouraged industrial development and had facilitated the necessary adjustments to competition. Britain, however, was wedded to an economic liberalism which prevented the state from undertaking the necessary measures to meet the country’s developmental needs.[7] In The New Reckoning Marquand claimed: “The economies that have succeeded more spectacularly have been those fostered by developmental states, where public power, acting in concert with private interest, has induced market forces to flow in the desired direction”.[8]” [Wikipedia].

In fact, Ashfield is not quite as “safe Labour” as the history might suggest superficially. Gloria de Piero won in 2010 by a majority of under half a point (0.4%, 192 votes) from a LibDem.

While de Piero’s majority increased in 2015 (as the LibDems imploded), in 2017 she beat the Conservative candidate by less than one point (0.9%, 441 votes). An Ashfield Independent came third with over 9% of the vote.

In 2019, Lee Anderson won convincingly: 39.3% of the vote, followed in second (27.6%) by another “Ashfield Independent”, Jason Zadrozny [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Zadrozny], who has had a chequered political and personal history. In third place came Labour, with only 24.4%.

Zadrozny is going to contest the seat at GE 2024.

So far, apart from Anderson (who may or may not be standing as Conservative Party candidate, depending on whether he gets back the Conservative whip), only the Ashfield Independent and Reform UK are presently known to be likely to stand at GE 2024, but a full field is almost guaranteed. There may be a dozen or more candidates.

At first, I thought that Anderson could probably be written off as post-GE 2024 MP, but now am not so sure. He has now (whether by design or not) distanced himself from the unpopular Conservative leadership —and possibly from the equally-unpopular Conservative Party— is anti-EU, anti-migration invasion etc, and is now known nationwide. He must have at least a chance of retaining his seat. If he does, and if he also retains it as a “Conservative” MP, he might be one of 100 or even as few as 50 such MPs. Who knows what might then happen?

[from this blog on a previous day].

It may be that Anderson would be better off electorally standing either for Reform UK or as Independent than he would be as a Conservative Party candidate. Voters like “celebrity”; look at how Caroline Lucas has built up her constituency vote at Brighton Pavilion over the years, and that despite Green Party candidates elsewhere generally losing their deposits with votes under 5%.

More tweets seen

How ironic it would be if, one fine day, a kind of “Nuremberg” trial were to take place, with Netanyahu and others tried, convicted, and even hanged.

Take away his rice bowl. The Kiev regime has scarcely even the facade of a genuine state. Everything is being propped-up by aid monies from the USA, UK, EU etc.

Sam Melia

I happened to see the communique below from Laura Towler of Patriotic Alternative:

Morning all. Bit of an update about Sam as he’s still under direction not to talk about his trial on social media.

He is being sentenced on Friday. There is a chance he will get a custodial sentence, but there is also the possibility he won’t. We are preparing for the worst but hoping for the best. It’s a weird feeling right now because we don’t know whether this will be our last week together for a while, but despite this Sam is in a good place. When you can hold your head up high and honestly say your intentions were good, and when you have the truth on your side, you can take whatever is thrown at you.

Sam has recorded a video that will be uploaded after Friday, sharing his thoughts and a message for you all. If he gets a custodial sentence, that will be how he speaks. If he walks away a free man, he will be able to post again.

Pictures are from last week when we went away for a few nights as a family and it was really lovely to spend that time together.

[Laura Towler]

[Sam Melia with one of his children (I believe that he has two, though am unsure)]

Good luck to Sam Melia and Laura Towler.

See also: https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/01/29/even-the-far-right-must-have-the-right-to-free-speech/.

Even the far right must have the right to free speech...”

[Spiked magazine].

I recall having met Professor Tettenborn in 2002, when we were both “Lords Justices of Appeal” for a day, judging a moot for his students from Exeter University at the Guildhall (in the High Street at Exeter). My one and only appearance as a Lord Justice of Appeal.

More from the newspapers

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13130819/Putins-Nordic-nightmare-strategically-Baltic-Sea-NATO-lake-Sweden-alliance.html

The strategically important Baltic Sea is being dubbed NATO’s lake after Sweden was cleared to join the military alliance – strengthening its power in the region in a nightmare development for Vladimir Putin.

[Daily Mail].

The Scandinavian states and Finland must be mad. They have just made themselves targets for possible nuclear attack.

Worth hearing.

I imagine that, in the medium term, before 2035, the Jews will be driven out of “Israel”/Palestine, and will flee to the USA and Europe etc. The destruction of the Israeli state will weaken the power of the Jewish lobby worldwide.

Diary Blog, 25 March 2023

Afternoon music

On this day a year ago

Saturday quiz

Well, I only scored the same as political journalist John Rentoul this week— 5/10. I did not know the answers to questions 4, 7, 8, and 9; in the back of my mind, I knew the answer to question 1, but could not bring it to mind, so counted that as a “did not know”.

From the newspapers

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/mar/25/garden-multilayer-forest-biodiverse-tom-massey-rhs.

Tweets seen

Yes, tweeter “@DevilsAdvo1971” certainly did shut up when confronted by not only facts but also evidence directly from one of the many people scammed by “Jack Monroe”. So many people are desperate to believe in something, or someone.

More tweets

Yes. I recall talking about similar issues in 1976 with a couple with whom I was then friendly, a (supposedly ex-) getaway driver-turned-limousine service-owner, and his wife, both in their thirties (I was 19 at the time). The discussion was about the relative merits of the Western way of life as compared with the Soviet socialist system.

That fellow’s comment has stayed with me: “what matters to me is not the detail about how it works but what way of life comes out the other end.” Like many —more-or-less— “villains”, he was basically quite “Thatcherite” in his views (though this was three years before Margaret Thatcher actually became Prime Minister).

Indeed. In the late 1970s, the inefficiencies of the subsidized industries, and the (neo-Luddite) power of the trade unions, were the stuff of legend, but the “Thatcher Revolution” went far too far in various ways. All the same, people realized that some change was needed.

I have blogged previously about how the ~33-year cycle works. In 1989, old-style socialism died, but that did not happen overnight. In the UK, the change had been in preparation for many years, starting notionally with the Thatcher governments.

Telecoms policy illustrates the point. The State-owned British Telecom was privatized in 1984: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BT_Group. Even in the mid-1980s, it could take a long time for the average customer/consumer to be supplied with a telephone. It sounds ludicrous now, of course.

I knew someone from my schooldays who owned a couple of houses in South London, rented out by the room. He wanted the tenants to have a coin-operated telephone, and arranged with British Telecom to have one installed. After several months, he was getting angry that the telephone had not been installed. He was fobbed off with various reasons (excuses) until, finally so exasperated at the lack of action, about a year after he had asked for the installation, he called British Telecom to say that he was cancelling the order, only to be informed that the telephone was going to be installed a couple of days later. Which it was. Still, a whole year just to get a telephone!

That kind of rationing did not affect people equally. I remember being told, in the late 1980s, at dinner in Lincoln’s Inn, and by (now-deceased) Lord Justice Parker [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Parker_(judge)], that when he was first appointed a judge in, I think, 1969, that appointment had co-incided with his moving to a country house in a rather out-of-the-way part of Essex. There was no telephone.

Parker had then contacted the manager of the (then) GPO for the area to request installation of a telephone. He was told that it might take several months, if not longer. He then said that he needed a telephone for his work. The telephone manager had asked what work. “I have just been appointed a judge“. The manager then apologized, and said that a telephone would be installed that week. It was.

I imagine that the later Lord Justice of Appeal put his case quite forcefully. I certainly found him a rather unpleasant person, that one time that I spoke with him.

It sounds antediluvian now, when anyone can buy a basic mobile telephone for a small amount of money, and get it from a supermarket or other outlet in a matter of minutes.

The point is that the heavily-subsidized nationalized industries of 1945-1980s had become sluggish and a drag on economic efficiency. However, the privatization trend went too far in the late 1980s and 1990s. Now, the taxpayers fork out huge sums to notionally private enterprises, from railways and offshoots of the DWP and NHS, to the farming industry and others. We are getting neither proper service nor value for money.

The same is true of the “tax credits” payments put in place by Blair and Brown, and also the current “Universal Credit” low pay boondoggle. It subsidizes poor-paying employers out of public funds. That cannot be right.

More music

More tweets

To my mind, the loss is $30 cash plus the cost price of the goods minus the profit margin on the goods. I admit that I am no economist (or mathematician)…

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petro_Poroshenko]

More from the newspapers

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/property/article-11899481/The-property-owning-couple-bought-ENTIRE-Welsh-village-raised-rents-unaffordable-prices.html

Put a beggar on a horse and he rides it to death” [German proverb].

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11901377/Asylum-seekers-say-like-living-jail-hotels-taxpayers-footing-bill.html.

The number of hotels being used to house asylum seekers in the UK is about to reach 400 as migrants continue to cross the Channel in small boats, MailOnline can reveal.

Currently 395 hotels in the UK are understood to be being used to accommodate more than 51,000 people at a reported cost of £6.8million a day – but the number is constantly increasing as the Government battles to start moving some asylum seekers to Rwanda while their applications to stay in the UK are processed.

[Daily Mail]

The continuing cross-Channel migration-invasion will put the final nail in the Conservative Party coffin, even though Labour will be no better re. the problem.

More tweets

The “democratic” pseudo-statesmen who feel the need to be heavily protected from those they claim to represent. Adolf Hitler never needed such measures, certainly not in the six years of peace 1933-1939.

What a contrast.

Late tweets

Just as one cannot see a single TV ad now in the UK, nor any drama series, even one set in 1950, and even one set in 1590 (!), that does not have numerous blacks in it.

It’s a start, no more.

Whatever happens in and around Bakhmut/Artyomovsk, the war in Ukraine has all but solidified. We see ever more detailed maps and reports about ever-smaller areas. Russia needs a massive gamechanger in order to retake the initiative on the large scale.

Late music