Tag Archives: Russia

Diary Blog, 30 December 2022

Morning music

[aerial shot of ruined Warsaw, 1940s]

On this day a year ago

A cautionary tale about electric cars

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11583677/Why-Britains-electric-dream-driving-distraction-One-motorist-reveals-how.html

Amusing to see affluent idiots like that porcine woman journalist (I remember seeing her commentating on TV years ago— she was constantly pumping out pseudo-“Conservative” and/or “austerity” propaganda during the David Cameron-Levita years) suffering a little by reason of her own virtue-signalling and/or lack of thought or preparation. England has too many of such silver-spoon scribblers. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_Mills_(journalist).

The readers’ comments appended to that Daily Mail story are telling.

Another idiot

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11584095/Man-stashed-17-700-chimney-cash-burned-ashes-wife-lit-fire.html

More from the newspapers

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11584103/More-misery-motorists-spending-filling-car-wrecking-potholes-roads-slashed.html

£400M slashed from road repair budget” yet billions wasted on the regime of the Jew Zelensky, and so also on prolonging the war in Ukraine. Mad, but also stupid— our roads need repair. It is not a minor matter, but one that affects tens of millions of British people.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/dec/03/why-inheritance-is-the-dirty-secret-of-the-middle-classes-harder-to-talk-about-than-sex

Very true. I raised the issue repeatedly when I had a Twitter account (before the Jew-Zionist lobby conspired to have me expelled in 2018); I believe I have blogged about it as well.

In socialist Poland in the 1980s, which I visited a few times, the population was divided, not only by those pro or anti the socialist government, but also, and in more immediately-practical ways, by those who had access to hard currency (mainly U.S. dollars, but also Deutschmarks etc) as against those who did not. Even a few dollars regularly made the difference between having the means to live semi-decently, as against having to struggle.

That’s the divide in the UK now, but with inheritance as the touchstone.

Ukraine

As can be seen from that map, the front is now essentially frozen, indeed literally, despite recent relatively minor advances by the forces of the Kiev regime.

What is more important is not shown on the map.

20% of the pre-2022 population of Ukraine is now living beyond the pre-2022 borders— in eastern, western and central Europe, and in Russia itself.

Ukraine now has a mainly non-functioning electricity-generating and distribution network.

Gas supplies, formerly supplied from Russia, have been halted.

Industry is mostly not in operation.

Agriculture, though continuing, cannot export most of its production.

The Kiev regime only fights on because it has become a complete NATO (NWO/ZOG) proxy, fuelled by shipments of arms, ammunition, petrol/diesel, medical supplies, clothing, other equipment and, of course, money, in vast amounts.

On the Russian side, the problems are different: indifferent military leadership, apparently-poor officership at all levels, low morale among troops, and apparent uncertainty within the high political leadership. Above all, no clear and expressed strategy in relation to ultimate war aims and how to achieve them.

In terms of presenting itself to the peoples of the West via public relations or propaganda, the Kiev regime has “played a blinder” from the start, meaning early 2022; the Russian effort in public relations has been wooden and ineffective by comparison.

NHS

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-64038636

A care agency boss has described the NHS as “a joke” after a disabled man was forced to wait for 48 hours in A&E.

One of David Williams’ clients, who has severe epilepsy, had been taken to the Grange Hospital near Cwmbran, Torfaen, complaining of chest pain.

Mr Williams said he had to wait in a chair with no food for 36 hours.

Aneurin Bevan health board said delayed hospital discharges and winter viruses had led to longer waits at A&E.

Mr Williams, the responsible individual and director of Prestige Care Agency Services, said the NHS was a “failed system”.”

[BBC Wales]

I don’t think it was any fault of the hospital, I think it’s a fault with the system.”

He added: “There’s a fear of destroying the myth that the NHS is fantastic and the best in the world… I think it needs a fundamental shake up.”

It does.

Tweets seen

The “safety first” mob have totally taken over, but not today or yesterday; years ago. Example: the hysterical tightening of laws by both Major and Blair, with the aim of all but removing firearm weapons from members of the public. Why? Because (in the whole of history in the UK) there were TWO gun massacres (Hungerford 1987, and Dunblane 1996), though in fact since the “gun laws” were tightened (and almost all privately-held handguns confiscated) there has been another such “spree killing”— in Cumbria in 2010.

1. “Dr” Louise Raw is far from being the brightest tool in the box, despite her supposed doctorate (said to be a Ph.D. based on one particular strike in London in 1888); 2. it raises the Twitter profile of Ms. Raw (and to her that is apparently important); 3. under GoFundMe rules, she can use any monies donated any way she wants, for political or even personal purposes, and the donor mugs will have no say in that.

Incidentally, Meghan Mulatta is not “black” but a half-caste (or “mixed race”, if you prefer). You don’t have to take it from me— look at the words of the Mulatta herself:

She identifies as mixed race, often answering questions about her background with “My dad is Caucasian and my mom is African American. I’m half black and half white.””

[Meghan Markle, Elle magazine interview, cited in Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meghan,_Duchess_of_Sussex#Early_life_and_education].

Late tweets

At times over the past months, since I really began to look at her activity, I have thought that “Jack Monroe”, “Bootstrap Cook”, tries to “push the envelope” of outright fantasy/lies out of pure devilment, as if to say “I wonder how far I can go before those mugs twig?“, as with her Grenfell Tower “firefighter” fantasy (she did once, long before Grenfell, answer the telephones in some fire call centre, but in Essex, not London); then there was her “I am so poor that I have to boil soap to make shower gel” etc, followed by the implied subtext, “please send me —and my disabled child— money“.

Incredibly, as of time of writing, no less than 647 utter mugs are sending the “Bootstrap Cook” between £3.50 and £44 each and every month via the Patreon website. Thousands of pounds each month. In fact, 647 is an increase of 4 since yesterday; amazing when you know how “Jack Monroe” has been forensically exposed for months on Twitter.

Reading a few tweets, one realizes how dim many of the “Jack Monroe” supporters are. Interesting demographically, though. Few young people, and few of any age who are —in any sense— “poor”.

Christmas University Challenge

Once again a match between two teams of alumni (Balliol v. Hull). I thought semi-final, but I now see on Twitter that it was the final.

The winning team, Balliol, was this time no worse than me, though I should say no better. Overall, I think that I still got more than both teams together. I did OK, I think, if I myself say so; after all, there are 8 of them playing.

Late music

Diary Blog, 29 December 2022, including a few thoughts about the philosopher Roger Scruton

Morning music

[Wanda Landowska at the keyboard, as Tolstoy looks on; probably at Yasnaya Polyana, though possibly at Tolstoy’s house in the Kropotkinskaya district of Moscow. I myself have been in that latter house, long ago, and the parquet floor was similar]

On this day a year ago

From the newspapers

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11580525/Israels-defence-minister-threatens-Iran-attacks-nuclear-sites-two-three-years.html

https://news.sky.com/story/britons-facing-cost-of-living-catastrophe-with-average-household-1200-worse-off-experts-warn-12505557.

Cost of living catastrophe“, but that was written (and tweeted) by Sky News in December 2021, about 3 months before the Russian incursion into Ukraine that (we are now told) is the cause of all our woes…

Mainstream media lies.

Tweets seen

Meaning because of “them”…

Very true. Worth reading.

Roger Scruton

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

…and in the middle of the alien crowd, I see the philosopher Roger Scruton, now deceased. “And then there were none“.

A couple of friends of mine in South London were friendly with Scruton, back in the mid/late 1970s. He would arrive by bicycle, in the manner of Cambridge University.

Then a fairly obscure university college lecturer at Birkbeck College (part of the University of London), though already becoming known and communing with the famous and well-connected (including Margaret Thatcher), Scruton later dropped the couple I knew for fear of being associated with them after the popular Press ran a story about how Scruton of the Salisbury Review etc was associating with “fascists” and “neo-Nazis” etc.

In other words, Scruton put career before friendship.

Having said that, Scruton was a considerable figure, sometimes honoured more in the recently ex-socialist states such as the Czech Republic —where I myself once saw a whole bookshop window of Scruton’s works in Czech— than in the UK.

That display was seen by me in Central Prague in 1999; it could not have happened when I had previously been in that city (1988); very few Western visitors were there then, and the works of Scruton (and many others) were banned.

Scruton was born into modest circumstances and, when later both famous and wealthy (as some might say, “box office“, with his high-selling books in multiple translation, and with several income-streams), he took on some of the traditional habits of the English “upper classes”, such as foxhunting, and living in country houses. He also started to take money from tobacco-lobby interests.

[Scruton’s house —2004-2009— near Sperryville, Virginia, USA]

Scruton (whom I myself never met) strikes me as having been, like many, perhaps most people, a blend of the highminded and tawdry, of the original and the very derivative, of the highly ethical and the morally-suspect.

A hugely-talented man, in any event. One could say, without it being too much of a cliché, “a Renaissance man“.

Perhaps better remembered in his works than in himself.

Blame and praise alike befall, when a dauntless man’s spirit is black and white mixed, like the magpie’s plumage…”

[Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival]

More tweets seen

Perhaps the (at time of writing) 643 utter “mugs”, each presently donating between £3.50 and £44, and every month, might start to wake up if they saw the total income (from that source alone) of “Jack Monroe”, the so-called “Bootstrap Cook”. Somewhere between a few thousand pounds and tens of thousands, monthly.

Criminal?” My idea of “criminal” is pleading poverty or (when, e.g., Tiffany earrings are noticed by alert readers) near-poverty, in order to induce people to donate thousands of pounds monthly to a private bank account, while never or rarely providing the goods and services offered, and (it is said by many) never having intended to perform; or crowdfunding in order to fund a defamation case, with no real intent to launch such a case, and later (it is alleged by many, at any rate) keeping the donated monies for private purposes.

This will only be clarified if, or when, police and/or trading standards officers and/or various regulators properly investigate the activities of “Jack Monroe”, the “Bootstrap Cook”.

No decent meal can be made for either 30p or 11p. This is reaching Monty Python levels of nonsense.

Without the Russian connection (there since Kievan Rus in the 9thC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kievan_Rus%27], there would be really nothing of note in Ukraine, and that is exactly what its present Jew-Zionist dictatorship wants; in other words, for there to be nothing in Ukraine that existed before 1991, when this shambolic, corrupt and Jew-Zionist-ruled and exploited republic emerged from the collapse of Sovietism.

Afternoon music

Christmas University Challenge

A semi-final alumni teams match: Balliol, Oxford v. Exeter, Oxford.

At last, two teams which at least scored about the same as me, not far below as over the past two weeks. Balliol seemed rather better than on their previous appearance (admittedly not hard). Some incredible howlers all the same.

Late tweets

It cannot be denied that this conflict started in 2014, not in 2022.

The Zelensky regime in Kiev wants NATO to weigh in on the Kiev-regime side. If that were to happen even more blatantly than is presently the case, a nuclear exchange between NATO (NWO/ZOG) and Russia will be only a matter of time.

I cannot say whether the above is a genuine cause or not; probably it is. In any case, the true cost of war is the suffering of both human beings and their companion animals.

It is bad that Ukraine, whatever the reasons, is a theatre of war. Let us make sure that the rest of Europe is not dragged into a worse, and greater, war.

Diary Blog, Boxing Day 2022

Morning music

[The Old Orangerie, Marianske Lazne/Marienbad, Czech Republic]

On this day a year ago

From the newspapers

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/sep/24/do-our-brains-have-extraordinary-untapped-powers

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11573591/NHS-bosses-want-interview-panels-justify-hired-white-person.html

Tweets seen

Then of course there was the Miners’ Strike of the early 1980s, which greatly accelerated the decline of the UK’s deep-mine coal industry.

Quite. The UK-USA treaty is basically one-sided, and entirely so in cases with a political element. The UK became a complete colony of the USA (itself under strong Jew-Israeli influence) during the tenure of Blair and Brown, and that has simply continued.

From 14 December 2022. I must have missed that one.

Christmas University Challenge

A quarter-final alumni match between University College London [UCL] and Aberdeen.

Again, neither side impressive, and once again I think that I can claim to have beaten both teams easily. The Aberdeen team was very poor, and the UCL team even worse. A few tweets make the point:

…and that was the winning team!

The writer, Ken Follett [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Follett], was on the UCL team, and obviously believes himself very clever indeed, a view not supported by this evening’s evidence. He thus joins the club already containing, inter alia, the narcissistic barrister-tweeter, Jolyon Maugham, and the faux-revolutionary oddity and “licensed Bolshevik”, Owen Jones.

Another strange one on the UCL team this evening was one Ria Lina, described as “British comedian“, but whom I now see from Wikipedia is half-Filipina, half-German, and with an American accent, no doubt from her time in an American expat school in the Netherlands: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ria_Lina. I had never heard of her. Knew absolutely nothing, and seemed to be chewing something throughout;.

Late music

Diary Blog, Christmas Day, 2022

My Christmas and Yuletide greetings to all well-intentioned readers of the blog, to all Europe, and to the wider world.

Christmas morning music

On this day a year ago

Stray thought

It is always suspect to draw general conclusions from personal experience, at least without more. All the same, we have to start somewhere, like Newton and his apple.

It seems to me that there is an absence of what I recall as “Christmas feeling”. Am I wrong to believe that the feeling of Christmas as a special time has ebbed away over the past couple of decades? If so, why has it happened? It cannot simply be economic stringency etc, looking at the travails of the 20th Century— wars, the Great Depression etc.

I am not talking about religious or wider spiritual belief or adherence, but the actual feeling of Christmas-time. Do “the young”, children etc feel the same, or is the feeling of— what? Flatness? Unease?— connected to the nostalgia which is more naturally an accompaniment of greater age? I do not know.

I come to no conclusion here, but have raised the question. It worries me. I think that it goes beyond Christmas, too.

Tweets seen

Seems to be a good idea in principle. I wonder, though, how much electricity such an installation can produce, and how it can be distributed.

Christmas TV

I doubt that I shall watch TV much in the next few days. Today, saw a few minutes of a religious service (Church of England) on BBC TV. It was from Blackburn Cathedral, a cathedral of which I had never heard, and in a town which I have never visited.

Instead of a traditional carol, something which sounded like the soundtrack for a black mass in a horror film; admittedly, I only saw a few minutes of the whole thing. Instead of a robed officiant such as a priest, a large black man wearing a kind of lumberjack shirt. As for the congregation (or should that be “audience”?), a relatively small crowd. The camera zoomed in on a young British-seeming couple with a tiny baby. The (?) husband and/or (?) father looked stressed or even (as it seemed to me) spiteful, somehow. No smiles seen from either. Were they actors? I suppose not; after all, actors might have simulated some happier look.

Nein danke…I switched off from it.

From the newspapers

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11572881/CIA-spate-explosions-Russia-veteran-claims-CIA-NATO-ally-sabotage.html

The CIA is combining with the spy service of a NATO ally in Europe to conduct covert sabotage operations inside Russia, according to new claims.

The clandestine campaign is behind many unexplained explosions and fires that have hit strategic or prominent facilities in recent months, says US expert Jack Murphy, an eight-year Army Special Operations veteran.

Separately other European intelligence services have allegedly been ‘running operatives into Russia to create chaos without CIA help’, as has Ukraine.

[Daily Mail]

Insanity like that (if true, is proven) can have only one result, eventually— escalation, leading to Russian strategic nuclear attack on both North America (both cities and military bases, ports etc) and Western Europe (particularly the UK, particularly London).

More tweets

Reason to be cheerful?

Good to know that Little Matt Hancock’s book has failed to capture public attention, and has failed to make the freeloader even more money, depending on what was his advance, if anything.

More tweets

[Girls of the BDM ride in the German forest, 1930s]
[“The Fuhrer as friend of animals“]
[“Heil Goering!“; other captions proclaimed that “even the animals vote for the Fuhrer!” after Germany was the first and only state on Earth to ban experiments on animals in 1933, a law sadly repealed by order of the Western forces after the disastrous defeat of 1945]

See also: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2016/11/17/social-nationalism-and-green-politics/.

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

Saw, rather sub protest, the film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.T._the_Extra-Terrestrial] on TV.

In fact, it was better than expected, despite having the usual suspects (loud children, louder adults). One of the former looked like becoming the “inevitable” Hollywood film Wunderkind, but in the end did not.

Late music

Diary Blog, Christmas Eve 2022

Whether it be called Christmas or Yuletide, the essence is the same.

No more wars within the European family and, now that Sovietism has perished under its own weight, no more wars with Russia or the Russian people.

[I made the same points on Christmas Eve last year, suspecting but not knowing that they would be even more urgently relevant in 2022].

On this day a year ago

Saturday quiz

Well, this week brings another victory over political journalist John Rentoul; he scored 4/10, but I trumped that with 6/10. I did not know the answers to questions 4, 6, 7, and 8.

Tweets seen

Even were Ukraine (the Kiev regime) able to defeat Russian forces, decisively, in the field, which is unlikely, that result would only then lead to the use by Russia of tactical or even strategic nuclear weapons, or to the decision to use fleets of bombers to reduce Kiev to rubble. Putin cannot accept the loss of “captured” territory in the “Russian” areas of Ukraine (Crimea and the Donbass), whatever happens

Maybe. That does chime with Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, of course. A prophet, of sorts.

My assessment from 30 September 2022 (I am far more critical now, having seen more evidence): https://ianrobertmillard.org/2022/09/30/diary-blog-30-september-2022-including-an-assessment-of-jack-monroe-aka-the-bootstrap-cook/.

From the newspapers

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11571009/Government-introduce-unlimited-fines-PRISON-sentences-illegally-cut-trees.html

At last, something the Government has done and of which I approve.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11570541/Divorced-gay-vicar-quits-parish-amid-claims-drunken-rows-string-girlfriends.html

Typical of the Church of England in 2022— slab-faced lesbian priestesses preaching the gospel of “woke”. Time to disestablish this institution.

Twitter

The layout seems to have changed overnight. No longer is there a “latest” (tweets) column, allowing one to peruse a timeline in sequence by subject. This is very poor, eroding much of the point of Twitter.

More tweets

Clegg and his Spanish lawyer wife now live in one of the most expensive neighbourhoods in the USA, near San Francisco. He betrayed the British people before taking the Facebook shilling (in fact, millions) and fleeing to the United States.

Sean Penn needs a good kicking.

“Dr” Louise Raw crowdfund appeal

The kefuffle around the crowdfunder launched by “Dr” Louise Raw to (ostensibly) sue Jeremy Clarkson continues, with people not only saying that it is doomed on its own terms (for legal reasons, and as I pointed out a few days ago on the blog), but suggesting that the whole thing is a “grift” or near-(?) fraud by Louise Raw, something which I doubted when I wrote about it (if only because it seemed to me that it would be difficult to get away with a blatant fraud of that sort). Maybe I was too kind.

I had thought that Louise Raw would not want to taint her “militant” or pseudo-revolutionary image to her mug followers on Twitter by keeping some of the money for her own use. On the other hand, the said “woke” mug Twitter followers are usually pretty dim, as can be seen in some of their responses to the legal critique of this doomed attempt to sue Clarkson.

Come to that, look at the fundraiser promoted by Roanna Carleton-Taylor on behalf of “grifting” fake “historian” and “journalist”, Mike Stuchbery (along with some Paki-stani solicitor whose name I forget). They raised about £12,000, which as far as I know has never since seen the light of day.

Unless I discover otherwise, I shall believe that, on the balance of probabilities, those monies were split between “Roanna” and Stuchbery, with the solicitor getting a bit by way of “professional fees” (for doing almost nothing but sending one letter to Tommy Robinson). Certainly, no legal action was ever launched. About 800 “woke” mugs donated to that crowdfunder.

Stuchbery still has over 88,000 Twitter followers, though Roanna Carleton-Taylor has apparently withdrawn from online activism (I have no idea whether or not the police took an interest in her and/or her husband’s other activities, as claimed by some people). Anyway, there it is.

See also: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2019/10/23/a-few-words-about-mike-stuchbery/ and https://ianrobertmillard.org/2019/11/27/mike-stuchbery-and-tommy-robinson-legal-dispute/.

Then, of course, we have —what increasingly looks like— a continuing and outright “grift” by the so-called “Bootstrap Cook”, who calls herself “Jack Monroe”.

As of today, 643 mugs, donating regularly via Patreon, are closing their eyes to the very telling exposures of “Jack Monroe” which have appeared since, especially, August 2022; they are supplying her, in aggregate, with monies amounting to some sum between £2,300 and £30,000 each month. Maybe, at a pure guess, about £6,000 or so, monthly. Probably taxfree, too.

“Jack Monroe” also had a crowdfund appeal going from May 2022, ostensibly in order that she could sue MP Lee Anderson and political activist/commentator Martin Daubney. People donated, but (quelle surprise) the “defamation case” has never been initiated, and the monies donated have disappeared into what might be called the “Jack Monroe” lifestyle fund…

“Jack Monroe”, despite everything, not only still has that cadre of 643 utter mugs sending her money every month, but also has no fewer than 563,000 “followers” on Twitter.

See also: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2022/09/30/diary-blog-30-september-2022-including-an-assessment-of-jack-monroe-aka-the-bootstrap-cook/.

Even that ridiculous West Indian woman who caused a fuss recently at Buckingham Palace, and who literally “cosplays” as a tribal African, not only managed to rip off £170,000 before people started to look into the affairs of her blacks-only “charity”, but also, tellingly, has since then managed to get hundreds of mugs to donate another £36,000 in order to help to buy “her charity” a house. Unglaublich!

In other words, those “grifters” have not at all been damaged by what some have been calling outright theft of donated monies, because they make the right sort of “politically correct” or “woke” noises.

Perhaps that is what will happen to Louise Raw’s crowdfunder, i.e. a small amount will go to a solicitor, and Counsel, in return for a nicely-written Advice advising that legal action against Clarkson is impossible, after which Louise Raw will (I speculate, of course) keep whatever is left, perhaps donating a thousand or so to a domestic violence charity (on the publicized record, for public show).

Louise Raw is notably reticent with some information, e.g. as to her own background, including where she studied for her “doctorate” (if any) and her first and Master’s degrees (if any). It may be that she never will give information as to where the bulk of the monies raised went (or shall we say “disappeared”?). All she would have to do, on that hypothesis, is to say that the monies went to suitable “good causes” and that the “good causes” “requested no publicity” or some such. “Jack Monroe” has tried that one in the past, and the mug donors just accepted it as true, so…

More tweets seen

The first tweet above of course refers to 1. The absurd Marlene-something-posing-as-African; 2. “Jack Monroe” (and her dog’s dinner “cooking”); 3. Dr. Julia Grace Patterson (was very briefly an NHS doctor, now lives off “grifting” and/or selling useless facemasks etc); 4. Either Louise Raw, or notorious fox-batterer Jolyon Maugham, the narcissistic New Zealand-educated barrister and “activist”, and his largely pointless “Good Law Project” (anyone who saw his lamentable ignorance on Christmas University Challenge recently might prefer to keep their money).

Incidentally, I just saw a few tweets by “Jack Monroe” about how hard it was for her (supposedly a recovering alcoholic) to find mince pies in the supermarket made without alcohol. Surely a quasi-professional cook would make her own, especially at Christmas? Oh, well, there it is.

Those refer to Louise Raw and her stupid (or maybe not so stupid, if indeed it is a “grift”) crowdfunder.

I was just trying to remember what were the best fees I myself ever got for one-off written Advices when I was at the Bar. I do not include advice given when I was a salaried lawyer overseas in the late 1990s (Kazakhstan, Caribbean, elsewhere), and provided to large companies such as Raytheon, because I was then charged out at about USD $400 an hour, but that money went to the law firm(s), not me personally.

I think that the best fees for basic written Advices that I myself ever had were somewhere in the region of (in the money of 15-30 years ago) somewhat short of a thousand pounds (you could/might double that to put it in the money of 2022), so fairly modest compared to Counsel in the best —or best-padded— chambers.

I do recall, when working in Charleston (South Carolina) in 2002, telephoning to London to ask the Clerk of one of the top company law chambers in Gray’s Inn as to how much a written Advice from one of their QCs would cost. The document in question was 17pp long, but the only important bit consisted of only two paragraphs, and on only one page. A few alternatives were offered, but the bottom line was— £4,000 to £5,000. Again, maybe you would have to increase that by 50% or even 100% today, but even so, the £15,000 appealed for by Louise Raw seems high, particularly in view of the non-commercial subject-matter.

“Wokes” such as “Dr” Louise Raw always claim to be speaking up etc for the people, but the said “wokes” seem to forget that they chose the losing side re. Brexit, in the 2017 and 2019 General Elections, the 2016 US Election etc. Not that I myself favour Trump or the “British” Conservative Party, or even mishandled Brexit, as such, but the “wokes” are in a Twitter (etc) echo chamber where they refuse to even listen to, or see, any views contrary to their own; indeed, they try to “deplatform” people, as do the Jew-Zionists. Louise Raw is a prime example of an “I’m not listening” “woke”. No wonder they always get things wrong.

Incidentally, Louise Raw is on Twitter as “@LouiseRawAuthor”. “Author“?Technically so, because she has had one (non-fiction) book published, a decade or so ago. Is that really enough, though, to validate a self-description as an “author“? Maybe in her world, just as it seems to be OK, in her world, or mind, to call herself “Doctor” based on a “doctorate” granted (if indeed she has one) on the basis of the same subject-matter as her sole book, a strike of match-factory girls in London in 1888.

Late music

[Glacier Peak, Washington state, USA; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacier_Peak]

Diary Blog, 22 December 2022

Morning music

[painting by Volegov]

On this day a year ago

On the blog 5 years ago

That was then…

From the newspapers

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-11563109/JENNI-MURRAY-wary-talk-Jewish-heritage.html.

Why am I not surprised?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11562241/Ancient-oak-tree-starred-John-Lewis-Christmas-advert-CHOPPED-DOWN.html

How sad. How typical. Just a stump left, which itself will probably be uprooted. Unnecessary. 700 years of life just expunged.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11561141/Ambulance-unions-choice-inflict-harm-patients-warns-Health-Secretary.html

Does anything work properly these days in the UK?

Tweets seen

Take away Zelensky’s ricebowl.

One can only hope that Biden has a nurse with a syringe nearby, in case he goes completely mad.

…and, of course, a complete cheating of those who have donated money to Louise Raw, even if they are stupid mugs. ..

There really are people with whom it is impossible to reason. “Against stupidity, even the Gods struggle in vain” [Schiller, Die Jungfrau von Orleans]. “Anna Mills”/”@AnnaM46” is clearly one of them.

Don’t forget the “Jack Monroe”/”Bootstrap Cook” stuff, or indeed the fake “Sue Tommy Robinson” crowdfunder set up by “antifa” activist Roanna Carleton-Taylor along with half-crazed would-be “journalist” and “historian” (sacked supply teacher and general “grifter”), Mike Stuchbery. See https://ianrobertmillard.org/2019/10/23/a-few-words-about-mike-stuchbery/; and https://ianrobertmillard.org/2019/11/27/mike-stuchbery-and-tommy-robinson-legal-dispute/

Stuchbery and Roanna Carleton-Taylor, with a “one man” “law firm” (a Pakistani solicitor in some closed-down Northern mill town), managed to raise about £12,000 from about 700 mugs.

Tommy Robinson never was sued by them (as I repeatedly predicted from the start), and the £12,000 “seems” to have vanished without trace, as far as I can see. Certainly, it was never used for the purpose the 700 “mugs” thought intended.

Incidentally, Louise Raw tweeted in support of that Stuchbery crowdfunder, and against me. What can one say? “Grifters United”?

Also incidentally, Stuchbery threatened to sue me too, a number of times. I was unworried, and blogged about how the crazy bastard was a “man of straw“, as indeed he is. He also threatened to sue (or, in his language, “clean out“) a number of others who noted in tweets Stuchbery’s constant “grifting” etc; even a number of stray Danes!

So was it a two-way split? Did the Pakistani solicitor lose out? I doubt it.

More tweets seen

Don’t forget how “Jack Monroe” claimed that she turned up at the Grenfell Tower fire scene and was “waved through” the police cordon because, er, she once answered the telephone at an Essex fire station or call centre…

As if…

You only have to see what some of the Twitter mugs supporting such as “Jack Monroe” tweet (though some are pretty clearly fake or “sock” accounts actually run by the “Bootstrap Cook” herself), or Louise Raw, or Mike Stuchbery (etc), to understand that they do not know their **** from their elbow. Their understanding of politics, law etc is very obviously on a rudimentary level.

Late tweets

Hard to know who to despise more…”Conservative” MPs who think that peanuts State benefits are more than enough to live on (so long as you iron last year’s Christmas wrapping paper) or the “Jack Monroe” type, making a living out of tweeting or writing rubbish “moneysaving” tips etc while (in her case) “grifting” a pretty good living by reason of 643 mugs each sending her £3.50-£44.00 per month via Patreon.

Incidentally, that deadhead MP, Rebecca Pow, suggests how to save a few pennies by re-using wrapping paper, but fails to say where the presents themselves come from! How do you magically create the presents, or the money with which to buy them? Or should they be small wooden animals carved out by the poverty-stricken over long evenings lit by the light of a single candle, as in the less strict Soviet labour camps?

Rebecca Pow:

Pow received criticism for stating during the 2017 Budget debate that people in Taunton have “thousands of extra pounds in their pockets”. This was disputed by many of her constituents.[13][14]

[Wikipedia]

In May 2019, it was alleged that Pow had falsely claimed parliamentary expenses through means of an ‘accommodation uplift’ for her children that she was not entitled to.[19]

[Wikipedia]

Another safe-seat MP petty fraudster and freeloader, in short.

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

The book by Sergei O. Prokofieff, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_O._Prokofieff],  The Spiritual Origins of Eastern Europe and the Future Mysteries of the Holy Grail, goes deeply into questions around the relationship of Russia with Eastern, Central, and Western Europe, and the Western powers generally.

I never met the (now-deceased) author, but was very slightly acquainted with his (also now-deceased) father in the 1980s. The author’s grandfather was the famous composer, Sergei Prokofiev [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Prokofiev].

[Space monument, Moscow]

Diary Blog, 21 December 2022, with thoughts about foreign students at the Bar of England, about Jeremy Clarkson and “Dr.” Louise Raw, and about the continuing Ukraine situation

Afternoon music

On this day a year ago

Interesting vlog

A few comments.

There have always been a certain, and in fact fairly high, number of foreign students qualifying at the Bar in London. Many go back to their own home countries to practise law. Some become leaders of those countries, one such leader having been Lee Kuan Yew, who “invented” Singapore as we know it today: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Kuan_Yew. Others too became not only national leaders but also founders of states: Gandhi was called to the Bar in London, as was Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Ali_Jinnah.

In Malaysia, it is a tradition that those who can, go to London to study law, and they have a particular affection for Lincoln’s Inn (my old Inn, at which though, thanks to the Jew-Zionist lobby, I am now effectively persona non grata).

Lincoln’s Inn is, even today, the Inn of Court to which most if not all Malaysian students apply, by reason of the fact that the first Prime Minister of Malaysia was a member: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunku_Abdul_Rahman.

Many of the Chinese names read out in that vlog are probably from Singapore, Hong Kong, or Malaysia, where the legal system is a derivation from the English.

Having said that, it is disturbing that there are so few English names. It may be, in part, because most of the English students pass the exams and then are Called to the Bar in the Trinity Term (Summer), rather than the Michaelmas Term (Autumn).

I have to admit that, while I saw some very low-quality black and brown barristers when I was practising at the Bar in the early/mid 1990s and then again in 2002-2008, I also saw some pretty rock-bottom English ones.

I do agree with the vlogger, though, that all barristers who are practising in chambers in England should be English or (real) British.

Incidentally, for those readers of the blog unaware as to why I am now no longer a barrister, please read the following: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2017/07/09/the-slide-of-the-english-bar-and-uk-society-continues-and-accelerates/.

Twitter

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11559991/Twitter-colluded-Pentagon-run-network-fake-accounts-world.html

Tweets seen

Most of the push for censorship and repression comes from the Jew-Zionist lobby.

I favour the “free at point of use” principle of the NHS, but it is becoming increasingly clear that the NHS is just not fulfilling its proper role. It is no answer just to say that more money is needed. More money may well be needed, but the whole thing has become a bureaucratic mess which is delivering poorer and poorer outcomes.

The “panicdemic” and, overall, all the nonsense which the NHS espoused (the facemask nonsense being just one) has broken something in the connection of the people with the NHS.

Hollywood is another Augean Stables, which should be cleansed, no matter what.

I did not know anything much about Sean Penn until today, when I read a bit about him. Needs a good kicking. Horrible bastard, it seems. I was also unaware, until today, that he is a half-Jew.

Ukraine

The war would have ended some time ago without the huge arms shipments (and transfers of cash) from USA, UK etc to the Kiev regime.

The items referrred to are those that Americans call “potbellied stoves”.

The Russian side is probably looking now at a stable front during the cold weather, assuming that it becomes really cold, with renewed advances in summer 2023.

While the strategic view is superficially not good for the Russian side (most of Ukraine as a whole remaining controlled by the Kiev regime, and most of eastern Ukraine too), the fact is that Ukraine is on life support. The electrical power system is being reduced to rubble, industry is almost at a standstill, something like 10%-20% of the population has fled, and both the armed forces and civilians are being kept going by the vast influx of aid from Western states, NGOs, and private charity.

Russia continues to control most of the coastal areas of the Sea of Azov and Black Sea, as well as Crimea, and most of the Donbass region.

As blogged some time ago, Russia needs to cut the Gordian Knot of this bogged-down attritional battle/war in the southeast of Ukraine. It has started by applying “oblique warfare”, mainly by reducing the electrical power system throughout the whole of Ukraine, but that alone will not achieve a breakthrough. Kiev remains the main target. Somehow, Kiev has to be taken, something which would have been not too difficult 8 or 9 months ago, but is far harder to accomplish today.

The alternative is a peace treaty, or at least a ceasefire, but the Kiev-regime side will not agree one without a withdrawal of all Russian forces, as well as delivering the (almost all Russian) population of Crimea into the hands of the Ukrainian/Kiev side. Impossible.

There may be an escalation in 2023 by the Russian side, something on a large scale.

More tweets seen

As the above tweets imply, it will be interesting to see how many “socially progressive” (in their own little minds) mugs send money to “Dr” Louise Raw in order, supposedly, to sue msm loudmouth Jeremy Clarkson and others.

Actually, I have just clicked the GoFundMe link posted by “Dr” Raw: in less than a day, she has raised nearly £6,000 of her £15,000 goal, from no less than —at time of writing— 125 utter mugs.

As the first tweeter, Barbara Rich, above, tweets, it is hard to see what could be the cause of action. Clarkson’s comments in the Sun “newspaper”, impolite though they were, do not amount to defamation (if I recall them aright), but are “mere vulgar insult”— not actionable. As to those remarks being “hate speech“, well that is not, in itself, actionable, and is also very much “in the eye of the beholder“, so to speak:

There is no cause of action here recognized by law, and not even (moving to the criminal realm) incitement. It is very doubtful that anyone would really be incited to chuck poo at Meghan Mulatta or to drag her through the streets (even were she in the UK, and even if she had no bodyguard force to protect her).

Most British people do at least distrust the Mulatta, and also despise both her and the “Harry Formerly Known As Prince”, but Clarkson’s remarks not only do not but could not amount to incitement of any kind.

As to lack of an identifiable claimant (“plaintiff”, as was)— that too. “Dr” Raw has no locus standi; who does? Only the Mulatta herself, were she foolish enough to get involved in “Dr” Raw’s hopeless idea.

I see that the GoFundMe says that “Although the legal route is expensive, I have received a lot of support already and have a team of lawyers who have agreed to review the case.

Note “review the case“.

Of course. It is an easy few thousand pounds for any barrister or solicitor (perhaps a cynical one) who can see that there is no chance, but who will provide an erudite and beautifully-printed Opinion or Advice saying (with much citing of case precedents, statutes, and obiter dicta) that the claimant (if there is any claimant as such) has no case.

When I was a practising barrister, I not infrequently had to (try to) save potential claimants from themselves by formally/informally telling them that they would be wasting their money. Sometimes they listened, sometimes they did not (would not). Sometimes people simply insist on going to law.

Once, about 28 years ago, I was asked to advise on whether a matter, already considered more than once by the Court of Appeal, the High Court, and (originally) an arbitrator, might go to what is now the Supreme Court of the UK (since 2009: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_Kingdom; https://www.supremecourt.uk/about/history.html), but which was then still called the House of Lords (Judicial Committee). The brief was (literally) heavy, and the fee more than acceptable.

I found that there was no possibility of being able to take the matter to the House of Lords, and spent a couple of days writing a detailed Advice to that effect. That resulted in the potential claimant (already declared a “vexatious litigant” by the Court of Appeal) storming into my London chambers, storming past the Clerk and others, and demanding that I explain (again) why he could not take his —in any event, hopeless— case to the House of Lords. A colleague who was there was so concerned (that I might be assaulted by this large, heavily-bearded, and very angry, man) that he volunteered to help me elucidate the issues to the furious would-be litigant (who, after 20 minutes or so, stormed out and off).

There were several similar though less incipiently-violent incidents with other clients unable to accept reality. I expect that many barristers have had similar experiences.

Incidentally, the reason I call Louise Raw (who has more than once tweeted very silly things about me) “Dr“, in quotation marks, is that (as I have already blogged about in the past), in England, it has always been accepted that the title “Doctor” should not be used as a title by people who have simply had a doctorate, such as a Ph.D, granted to them after having spent a year on some course or other, and (presumably) written a thesis.

The title “Dr” should, as a general rule, only be used by bona fide academics, bona fide scientists attached to recognized institutes, persons in holy orders, or by medical doctors (in fact, medical doctors often do not actually have a doctorate— the “Dr.” is simply a courtesy title in their case).

There is no law about all that, it is simply custom; it is considered infra dig in England to use the title, usually. In Germany etc, no such custom exists. Thus Joseph Goebbels was “Dr. Goebbels” because he had a doctorate in Philology from Heidelberg [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Goebbels].

I have no idea from what university “Dr” Raw got her doctorate, which was apparently based around her thesis about the strike, in 1888, by women employees at the Bryant & May match factory in East London. “Dr” Raw has always been rather reticent about where she studied (though I have no reason to doubt that she has a “doctorate”).

Likewise, I have no reason to suppose that “Dr” Raw intends to keep for her own use the monies raised by her GoFundMe appeal. It does occur to me, though, that the appeal raises her (?) faded political profile on Twitter. Perhaps that is her motivation, or part of it.

I might add that some MPs and others, meaning some (other) odd types seen on Twitter, also misuse the “Doctor” title.

Late tweets seen

Hard to believe that the editor of a major trade publication could be so unaware.

Christmas University Challenge

As on previous occasions, I have to say that I scored far better than the teams of alumni (Durham and York) this evening, all or almost all of whom were possessed of professorial status (if not knowledge— at least outside their narrow, mostly scientific, specialisms).

A few tweets make the point:

Very true. Tends to be, or so I was once told, the place for people who wanted to go to Oxford or Cambridge but were rejected. I once, in the late 1980s, met an entirely ridiculous man at a dinner party in Blackheath. I was at the Inns of Court School of Law at the time, belatedly; he was a barrister, possibly already QC. No doubt competent in the law, but otherwise a complete idiot. Durham graduate. Later, he was not only QC but also a Recorder in England and, I believe, a civil/commercial judge in Hong Kong, among other things. I believe from what my then girlfriend told me that his family were prominent in the (English) Civil War. Is that typical of Durham University? I do not know.

I see from Twitter that I am not alone in finding the teams on Christmas University Challenge egregiously ignorant. This evening, one team did not know the (old-style calendar) month of the Bolsheviks’ 1917 Revolution (i.e. October Revolution); they, or the other team, also not only missed the Second Symphony of Shostakovitch but (one of them) thought that Tchaikovsky had written it! In 1927!

Another fairly easy question that seemed to puzzle the teams was the name of a famous “female Anglo-Iraqi architect” (Zaha Hadid, now deceased). I mean, how many can there be? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaha_Hadid.

Late music

Diary Blog, 18 December 2022

Morning music

[Tiger tanks advance, Ukraine, 1943]

On this day a year ago

Tweets seen

Once again, a “mug” imagining that “Jack Monroe” somehow “helps” the “vulnerable” by having 643 other mugs pay her between £3.50 and £44 a month into her personal bank account(s).

True up to a point. I spent time in Poland and (to a very limited extent) elsewhere in the East of Europe in 1988 and 1989. Unfortunately, many people in Eastern Europe and Russia, after 1989, found that they had just exchanged one big boss-tyrant (the socialist State) for lots of little bosses (finance-capitalists).

The idea that a sovereign state is like an ordinary person, and its finances like those of Mrs. Thatcher’s “housewife’s shopping basket” is absurd yet now ingrained in the public mind.

“New Zealand Secret Intelligence Service”. What a joke, even without that horrible ugly woman who is apparently their Chief.

I blogged about the UK version of this “woke” police state system (inc. “Prevent” and “Channel”) over four years ago: see https://ianrobertmillard.org/2018/05/30/one-mans-extremism-is-another-mans-struggle-for-liberty-and-justice/.

Late tweets

Surely the Essex Police should also be investigating the several alleged frauds complained of?

Does the Oregon medical profession allow its members to incite harm like that? Seems anti-Hippocratic, apart from anything else.

https://www.oregon.gov/omb/investigations/pages/how-to-file-a-complaint.aspx.

This is not so much a “criminal” problem as it is an existential demographic problem. Britain must become a white European country again, no matter what.

To suggest, as Carl Benjamin/”Sargon of Akkad” does, that the solution is something as trivial as corporal punishment (even assuming that the untermenschen are actually identified, charged, prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced) is a typical “Conservative-nationalist” or semi-nationalist “libertarian” non-solution.

Late music

Diary Blog, 17 December 2022

Afternoon music

On this day a year ago

Saturday quiz

Well, this week I achieved 6/10, thus just beating political journalist John Rentoul, who scored 5/10. I did not know the answers to questions 3, 5, 8, and 9.

I was actually not quite sure about question 4, but against that I got question 1 right despite the fact that the question is itself flawed (the book in question was published in the late 17th Century, not 18th…).

BBC

It has only now come to my attention that the Chairman of the BBC (since February 2021) is one Richard Sharp, a Jew (or possibly half-Jew), who was previously an international banker worth several hundred million pounds, and who has given £400,000 to the Conservative Party.

Incidentally, Sharp’s sister, Victoria Sharp, is President of the King’s Bench Division of the High Court, and a former Lady Justice of Appeal.

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Sharp_(BBC_chairman); https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Sharp.

Tweets seen

[Update, same day: so only yesterday, “Jack Monroe” had “all-consuming bleak and crushing depression“, but less than a day later (earlier this evening) she is tweeting about being ready to go to a fancy dress party? See below on this blog post. Does she ever tell the truth?]

More music

More tweets

Well, there it is, in plain sight. A new wave of non-white migration-invasion (inc. Albanian, which is non-white, in effect), given the green light by Britain’s first non-white prime minister.

The Coudenhove-Kalergi Plan in action. See http://adam.curry.com/art/1543753587_mkXBrvrY.html; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalergi_Plan.

The Plan is no “conspiracy theory”. Just look around you, especially if you live in a city and/or are over 40+ years of age (and so able to recall the 1960s and/or 1970s to compare).

Brilliant. Maybe I shall apply to have my old Twitter account restored, with “blue tick”. First target…well, we shall see. A pack of malicious Jews around the fake “charity”, “Campaign Against Antisemitism” or “CAA”, conspired to have it removed in 2018.

The idea that the NHS was somehow wonderful before 2010 or 2012 is just silly. I can recall seeing (as an almost daily visitor to a hospital, though not as patient) some appalling service and attitudes (as well as the opposite, and as well as surgical excellence) during the period 2012-2015, from only about 18 months after the 2010 General Election. It takes longer than 18 months for either positive or negative trends to develop in such a huge organization.

It is clear that maladministration is a major problem in the NHS, perhaps the major problem.

London in 1967

Moscow in late 1950s/early 1960s

Late tweets seen

Asks only for a donation to a worthy charity”? Ha ha. What a “mug” tweeter “@SteveChev1” must be. 643 other mugs are each sending “Jack Monroe” between £3.50 and £44 each month via the Patreon website, and not even getting the various bits and pieces promised; they are thus sustaining the not-uncomfortable lifestyle of the “Bootstrap Cook”. Somewhere between £2,500 and £30,000 each month.

Sadly, most people prefer the comforting lies, whether re. race, culture, Ukraine, migration-invasion, the “Covid” “panicdemic”, “Jack Monroe”/”Bootstrap Cook”, the war against the German Reich, or whatever.

That tweet by tweeter “@360Raygun” is not as silly as it may seem to many.

There is nothing wrong with the principle(s) behind the NHS, but the system is just not working or properly working now, and simply increasing the pay of nurses, doctors and others (not that I oppose that) will not help in the slightest, because the administrative system is broken, from the top down.

Late music

[Akademgorodok, nr. Novosibirsk, Western Siberia, in winter]

Diary Blog, 16 December 2022, with analysis of the Stretford and Urmston by-election result

Morning music

[Katyusha rocket launchers, 1945]

On this day a year ago

Interesting blog post about Russia and Ukraine

Tweets seen

More music

Barclays bastards

I have just seen an online ad for Barclays Bank. An adviser (black) talks to a young couple (woman white, man black). A typical example of the racemixing propaganda now being pushed out ever-more blatantly. Part of the conspiracy around the Coudenhove-Kalergi Plan: http://adam.curry.com/art/1543753587_mkXBrvrY.html; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalergi_Plan; https://ianrobertmillard.org/2018/12/10/tv-ads-and-soaps-are-the-propaganda-preferred-by-the-system-in-the-uk/.

What is especially interesting and telling about those “normalizing of racemixing” ads (and TV dramas,” and “soaps” etc) is that the actual black population of the UK is “only” about 5% of the whole (non-whites of all types comprise about 20% of the whole population now), yet almost every TV ad, online ad now has at least one actual black in it.

Munich 1939: interesting colour film documenting historical events

[Munich, 1939]

Stretford and Urmston by-election

I usually assess by-elections prior to polling, but missed this one.

A safe Labour seat since its creation for the 1997 General Election, Stretford and Urmston has never come close to being captured by the Conservative Party.

This is a “machine Labour” constituency. The by-election was caused by the former MP, Kate Green, half-Jewish and (I think) a member of Labour Friends of Israel, stepping down in order to be able to take up the role of Deputy Mayor of Manchester. The present Deputy Mayor is Beverly Hughes, who also preceded Kate Green as MP for Stretford and Urmston.

Both of those Deputy Mayor appointments were nominations by Andy Burnham, also of course a former Labour MP and still a possible future Labour Party leader: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverley_Hughes; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Green; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Burnham.

The 2022 by-election saw Labour at its highest in the constituency, at 69.6% (lowest was 48.6%, in 2010).

The highest Conservative Party vote in the constituency was in 1997 (30.5%), the lowest in yesterday’s by-election (15.9%).

The Labour vote has been above 60% in the last three elections in the seat: 2022, 2019, 2017.

Before yesterday’s by-election, the Conservative vote has been between 27% and (about) 30% since the creation of the constituency in 1997.

Conclusion as to numbers: the Labour vote has somewhat increased, but the Conservative vote has almost halved since 2019. The former Conservative Party voters have mostly abstained, but with some voting elsewhere.

The numbers tell the story: in 2019, just over 50,000 voters voted, as against about 18,400 in the by-election, but at the 2019 General Election, 13,778 voters voted Con, as against only 2,922 in yesterday’s by-election, a far steeper fall. In other words, former Con voters have voted with their feet.

The LibDems and (other?) minor party candidates are not worth discussing; Reform UK yesterday got exactly the same as Brexit Party managed in 2019— 3.5%. The same voters? Underwhelming.

As for the new MP, it is one Andrew Western, another product of the Labour Party machine, and office-holder in local politics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Western.

What does this tell us about overall trends? In my view, that Labour, though not exciting, is consolidating its core vote. Also, that the Conservative Party is not at all enthusing even those who voted for it previously, not only in 2019 but even in elections prior to that. Also, that the LibDems are pretty much dead in the water in much of the country. Also, that Reform UK is obviously not going to get anywhere.

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Stretford_and_Urmston_by-election; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stretford_and_Urmston_(UK_Parliament_constituency).

More tweets

Unexpected. I had not thought that Woollyhead Trussbanger (Kwarteng) was a cocaine abuser, though other former and existing Con ministers and MPs certainly have been and probably still are, that little pro-Jew bastard Gove for one. As for Liz Truss, thinking about her erratic behaviour, maybe.

Christmas University Challenge

Well, watched the Grand Final (Edinburgh v. Hertford College, Oxford). As on previous occasions, my wife and I scored better than the winning team. Surprising ignorance shown by both teams, bearing in mind that these are prominent and/or famous people, including the Political Editor for BBC News, one Adam Fleming, who (as in the previously-shown contest) displayed painful ignorance even in areas bordering on his own work.

Late music