You see rubbish on Twitter about this, all about how New Zealand’s economy is “booming” etc. Well, the statistics lie, and for a very obvious reason: when you shut down a country almost completely for 2 years, the economy nosedives. Any activity at all after that seems, superficially, to be strong growth.
“Then there is her approach to Covid. Initially, the world bought into the myth that her government was a top performer in eliminating the disease.
The truth, of course, is that it’s relatively simple to quarantine remote islands. And having introduced a strategy of isolation and hard lockdown at the start of the pandemic, Ardern clung to a zero-Covid policy that was way beyond the edge of reason.
Her government shut down businesses, closed entire towns if a small outbreak of the virus occurred, and forced New Zealand citizens who happened to be abroad when the pandemic struck to apply to enter their own country, with only a tiny number of places available via an online lottery system.
At first, the policy was popular, with Ardern using Facebook Live sessions to communicate with the nation in a crumpled jumper, after putting her daughter to bed, in a manner that struck a chord with the public. Indeed, in the 2020 election, her party polled almost 50 per cent.
Yet, as time went on, opposition to this sometimes cruel policy (for which exemptions were only available for celebrities and the ultra-wealthy) grew, with critics lambasting a sluggish vaccine rollout and pointing out that the only world leader more bloody-minded in holding on to a strategy of eliminating Covid at all costs was communist China’s president Xi Jinping.
The crescendo of division and unrest saw huge demonstrations outside parliament.“
[Daily Mail]
“Huge demonstrations“…which were not covered at all by the BBC, Sky, ITN, or the “Lugenpresse” System msm outlets of the UK; and what about that bit re. “exemptions were only available for celebrities and the ultra-wealthy“? Peak pseudo-socialist nonsense. As in “the virus is so dangerous that only the ultra-wealthy and —of course— ‘celebrities’ can do whatever they like”…
It reads more like a parody than real government policy, even if it is from a joke state like New Zealand.
Try telling the truth, though, to the msm drones in the UK, let alone the Twitterati mugs. They are closed to the truth, on almost any subject.
Jacinda Ardern was just another Blair-type NWO/ZOG puppet (in fact, she worked for a while as a “SpAd” at Westminster, under Blair.
The whole interconnected milieux (msm “journalism”, “fashion”, TV/radio “comedy” and “drama”, in fact TV generally) should be purged, and I do not just mean deprived of its riches and platform.
Perhaps the New Zealanders could institute a “Jacinda Day”, akin to our “Guy Fawkes Day”, in which an effigy of “Jacinda” might be immolated in some way that produces few “emissions”… A kind of “damp squib” fire that produces little light or warmth. Symbolic, you might say…
So which narrative you guys trying to run with here?
1) Ardern is as tough as any man, and qualified for taking on the role of president! Yay, girlbosses!
2) Mean people hurt Ardern's feelings, so she's quitting
You're gonna have to pick one or the other there, guys.
Only (sort–of) joking… but then, Sinn Fein/IRA has become a joke anyway, a kind of —superficially— more militant SNP or Plaid Cymru.
Jack Monroe
Still “grifting”…
Jack Monroe on record saying she definitely is suing Lee Anderson. Hmmm there's plenty of receipts and media that back up his comments about her so I'm intrigued how she thinks this will play out. Also, what is a libellous lickspittle? https://t.co/rTEf67J4sT
Jack Monroe says she is going ahead with her libel case against Lee Anderson, Laurence Fox etc. I would normally side with almost anyone over them, but, if anything, their comments about Jack were actually far too generous. She is the ultimate wolf in sheep’s clothing. https://t.co/Fl9lMZ3vpA
Still not told us how much she got the first time round. "Not a lot" and it's not been touched apparently. So that's all OK and above board and ring-fenced (in a personal Paypal account) and definitely, positively couldn't have been squandered on anything else. No siree.👍
The police should be investigating all that. Why should a black woman in Bristol be facing trial on very similar facts yet “Jack Monroe” not only not investigated but even still being promoted by some of the msm?
A typical “Jack Monroe” supporter might be a woman of about 60 years old, not badly-off, pretty ignorant but thinking herself rather educated, and living in some suburban or rural area; a Guardian reader, pro the Kiev regime, pro the facemask nonsense, needless to say “anti-racist” etc. Or a male, or LGBTQXYZ, equivalent, possibly retired, possibly a business owner in a modest way, probably “woke” etc. Certainly not “poor” or “struggling”.
More music
[British officer and soldier, possibly “Auxiliaries”, searching IRA suspect in Ireland, circa 1920; officer using left hand to search, while keeping the suspect covered with his revolver, unseen in the right hand. Note the body on the ground]
More tweets
Jack, you don't have a stance. You have grifts. Constantly playing the victim to an army of imbeciles that keeps you in a more than comfortable lifestyle. Not knocking you for it, a fool & their money are easily parted. But the gigs near up now.
The first part of that is plainly not libellous even on its face.
The second part may or may not be.
Me neither, I think this case (if there is one) will be fascinating. I wonder if all the recent interest in her means it will get played out on tv like Wagatha did? This could finally be the end of her.
How is saying that “Jack Monroe” “makes more money than the Prime Minister” libellous at all, even if not true? Answer: it isn’t.
Sorry to break this to you, but it is another Jack Monroe cash grab. The money that was donated to her the last time she made this false claim was blown on drink, drugs and sideboards, and she laughed about it in the papers. pic.twitter.com/AlywluyisM
(I’m still suing 30p Lee and his cohort of libellous lickspittles, by the way. I just can’t say much about it here because that’s how these things work)
So she claims to be “still suing” Con MP Lee Anderson. I wonder. So far, according to Lee Anderson, he has not received any pre-action correspondence as required under the Civil Procedure Rules.
An action in defamation must be brought within a year of the triggering cause, but even then is still expected to be brought expeditiously; in lieu of that, there may be costs consequences.
“Jack Monroe” still has, in theory, 3-4 months in which to bring proceedings, but I doubt whether they will be brought or, if brought, would be successful.
Can anyone rely on any statement put out by “Jack Monroe”? I think not.
Late tweets seen
Patreon was a clearly defined transaction of payment in return for goods, discounts and additional content. None of which happened. current estimates are c£150k/Yr Patreon income for no service delivery. Ergo a scam.
On the basis of the thousands of pieces of evidence, screenshots, Jack's own tweets & the determination to keep the tip money incoming, it's my honestly held opinion that Jack Monroe is indeed just grifting and taking advantage of the poor, fraudulently making money from poverty. https://t.co/vZBmT8Y76Ipic.twitter.com/P39hMTso5u
My guess is that “Jack Monroe” may even get a solicitor to send a “Letter before Action” to Lee Anderson, which will help her to continue to plead for money im various ways, and keep her in the news, so maybe attracting more mugs to subsidize her. There will, however, be no actual issuance of proceedings against Lee Anderson or Martin Daubney. If I am wrong about that, and proceedings are actually issued, that will eventually turn out to be a very expensive error for the “Bootstrap Cook”.
Actually, she goes lower. Lee Anderson claimed that 30p can feed someone at least for a day or part of a day; “Jack Monroe” claims 11p! Is there a prize for the first idiot or “grifter” who claims to be able to make a 1p lunch?
Omg what fresh hell is this? Jack Monroe has added tips to her Twitter now page now. Grifters gonna grift. pic.twitter.com/1cpFYGrZCj
The problem with this is that our reasoning is all on record. Back in early 2021, this website wasn't awash with Tweets saying "I won't be getting this vaccine because I tossed a coin and decided it might be dangerous." There was clear evidence and logic from the outset.
Exactly. From an email copied to my MP in April 2021: If a complete nobody like me with just an internet connection and a suspicious mind could find out this information, anyone could. pic.twitter.com/H5wcB3kBtt
Apart from suspicion re the supposedly lethal nature of covid, it was the ghastly £multi million propaganda campaign + all the awful 'nudge' stuff + bullying totalitarian edicts which confirmed for me that the vaccine was to be avoided at all costs.
“Jack Monroe”, the “Bootstrap Cook”: an assessment
I have blogged (briefly) previously a few times about the person known as “Jack Monroe” (originally Melissa Hadjicostas, half-Greek Cypriot), whose rather clever nom de plume is “Bootstrap Cook”.
The name Jack Monroe is now her official name, it having been adopted by deed poll.
In the past, I was content to be at least neutral towards “Bootstrap Cook”, in that I felt that anyone putting almost anything into the public domain that might help the millions of financially-struggling people in the UK deserved at least a chance.
Incidentally, this blog is written in the English language, and therefore does not refer to a woman (whatever her views or proclivities) as “they” or “them”.
“Ideological” criticism of “Bootstrap Cook” has come mainly from two directions. The first group would be those connected to or supportive of the “Conservative” regimes of 2010-present. They tend to say that there is no justification for the campaigning of “Bootstrap Cook” to raise State benefits etc, and that any food poverty that exists exists because the individuals subject to it cannot “budget” properly, or do not know how to cook cheap wholesome food.
An ignorant point of view (though not without a small kernel of truth, as with many basically lying narratives), which infuriates many, especially when expressed by the likes of Iain Dunce Duncan Smith, the MP who has also been a huge expenses blodger and fraudster, and who claimed vast amounts on his Parliamentary expenses (even a £39 hotel breakfast) while —as Secretary of State for the DWP— taking money away from people living in real poverty.
The second group who tend to criticize “Bootstrap Cook” are those who agree with much of her campaigning on benefits etc, but who say that she actually “enables” attacks on benefit recipients by reason of her claims that a family of 4 can be fed well on £20 a week or less.
Now, however, a third group has joined the fray, being those who claim that they and/or others have been taken for a ride by “Bootstrap Cook”, and that she is a “grifter”, or even an outright fraud, who has sold goods and services which were never delivered. These critics also claim that much of the “Bootstrap Cook” back-story is untrue, or embellished.
For example, it is said that “Bootstrap Cook” was either never in poverty herself, or was so for no more than 18 months. It is said that at least part of her financial difficulties were caused by her own (apparently past) alcohol and/or drug abuse. It is said that she makes up implausible stories about her past financial predicament, such as “having to” sell her little son’s beloved dinosaur toy to raise money (really? How much money would that raise? £1? £2? And how cruel is that, assuming the story to be true?).
It is also said that her parents are not badly-off financially, that they own buy-to-let property, and that her paternal grandfather was a millionaire. In other words, that “Bootstrap Cook” always had a financial lifeline. I have no idea whether, or to what extent, that may be, or may have been, the case.
Recently, following a storm of criticism on Twitter, “Bootstrap Cook” deleted her Twitter account, though others claim that she is merely taking a 40-hour “rest” from Twitter, and will return. Why 40 hours and not (as with Jesus Christ) 40 days, or whatever, I have no idea.
One aspect that interested me, as a former barrister, was the tendency of “Bootstrap Cook” to threaten some of her critics with legal action. A few years ago, “Bootstrap Cook” sued Katie Hopkins in libel.
Ms. Hopkins had libelled “Bootstrap Cook” entirely mistakenly as to the facts, had no defence whatever, and should have backed down and got out with minimal damage when she could have but, like many maximalisti, found sorry the hardest word, and so was hammered: £24,000 in damages, and very large legal costs. Ms. Hopkins had to sell her house in St. Leonard’s (the best residential district in Exeter) in order to pay those legal costs.
“Bootstrap Cook” retained as her solicitor Mark Lewis, the Zionist Jew who now lives in Israel, though he has also a professional foothold in London. His no-win no-fee cases have often been controversial.
I have to wonder how nice a person “Bootstrap Cook” is, if she is on friendly terms with someone such as Lewis.
As soon as people started suggesting, a month or two ago, that “Bootstrap Cook” was somewhere between “grifter” and fraudster, out came the Twitter threat that Mark Lewis and libel would be wheeled out (frankly, not so much of a threat— by no means have all of Lewis’s cases been brought to a successful conclusion, and when he was censured and fined by the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority about 4 years ago, his Counsel said that his fine should be reduced because his only possessions were his clothes, a mobility scooter. and a private pension worth £70 a week).
In fact, when “Bootstrap Cook” threatened libel action against Conservative Party MP Lee Anderson [Con, Ashfield] (in May of this year), nothing ever came of it, as far as I know:
“Food journalist and activist Jack Monroe hinted at legal action against Anderson after he commented in an interview that “She’s taking money off some of the most vulnerable people in society and making an absolute fortune on [sic] the back of people”.[36] [Wikipedia].
The Guardian says “sues“, but the Independent said “hints at suing“, and I have seen nothing on the Mark Lewis Twitter output to the effect that he ever was “instructed” (the Guardian, again) on the matter. He may have been, he may not have been. I might add that all the news reports are from 15-16 May 2022; nothing since then.
Was Anderson right, though? As I have said, I was willing to cut “Bootstrap Cook” some slack, because in recent years, the past ~15 years, the social security system has become inadequate, pay for work has also become generally inadequate, and millions are struggling both to eat and keep sheltered and warm. My view was that any useable advice was, well, useful.
I still think that (despite the fact that, to me, many of the recipes of “Bootstrap Cook” do look like a dog’s dinner, and despite the fact that many disagree with her costings etc).
More serious criticism is that she has actually been making a pretty good living out of Patreon donations, while never or rarely providing the extras offered in exchange.
When I last looked, “Bootstrap Cook” had at least 800 Patreon donors giving a minimum of £1 a month. £800 a month. In itself not bad. When you consider that the suggested minimum is £3 a head, the total increases to £2,400 a month (perhaps). I have seen a tweet where the tweeter claims, truthfully or otherwise, to have been donating £44 a month. Well, you see the point. “Bootstrap Cook” must have an income from Patreon alone of between £800 and (?) perhaps as much as £8,000 a month. Or more. That’s before one takes into account book sales, other donations, paid (?) TV appearances, other appearances etc. We do not know.
Not that “Bootstrap Cook” claims poverty, these days. No, she claims, as I understand it (and perhaps truthfully) a degree of “precariousness” in her life and finances, and she is certainly not alone in that. It is almost the norm in the Britain of 2022.
“Bootstrap Cook” has a number of defence mechanisms. One is to threaten defamation actions, but the more usual tactic is to claim the shield of disability, and she has about two dozen options there.
A further defence tactic is, I read, to set her fanatical fans (she apparently calls them “flying monkeys“) onto any critics, and I have certainly seen tweets where mentally-disturbed fans have come close to suggesting violence against anyone daring to utter critical words.
The problem here is that “Bootstrap Cook” has become a totem for a certain tribe of virtue-signallers. Not really “the poor” but more the sort of people who like to think that they are socially-progressive etc. Facts do not matter to those people, belonging to the “right” tribe does. cf. “Covid”, Ukraine, “Black Lives Matter” and, of course, “FBPE/Remain/Rejoin” etc.
When you consider that someone who claims to be able to feed a family of 4 for £20 a week might be said to be, arguably or in effect, saying that UK benefits are perfectly OK and need not be increased, is that really something positive or not?
Some tweets seen about the issues raised:
Updated with recent events, plus Jack's responses to the ONS, Lee Anderson, Patreon and Georgia Church Suppers allegations.https://t.co/j4p8QUznId
I simply don’t understand how you can read this article, made from HER OWN TWEETS, and think Jack Monroe is anything other than a grifter https://t.co/WTCmHTdHD5
— Kelly Jackson | It’s More Fun In Your 30s (@Kelly_Jackson88) September 19, 2022
Why on earth would any Tory politico want to silence Jack Monroe? She plays straight into their message that ‘the poor’ can eat on £20/wk and are just too thick to budget & cook. Plus, she has made little to no impact on public policy. (Rhetorical tweet, obvs!)
Claiming you can't afford to put the hot water on, have unscrewed the lightbulbs and are using solar lights, and haven't bought shampoo for two years in order to gain internet points and cash donations, is also wrong.
Giving people "money-saving" advice that is going to cost them *more* money is wrong.
Not making an effort to make sure people understand that you've mistakenly given the wrong advice and pointing people to more accurate advice, is really, really wrong.
I have very good intentions. I *intend* to write book reviews and advice for people querying, to be supportive of other writers, especially those newly agented.
I don't actually do that, though. And because I don't, I don't expect to be held up or praised for it.
Jack Monroe wasn't hounded off of Twitter because of some anaemic roast potatoes. She's left because too many people were raising questions about her lucrative Patreon, murky charitable donations and questionable finances. Jesus, people are gullible.
As many have noted, this whole Bootstrap Cook thing is more like a creepy cult than anything. It’s as if a lot of fairly affluent or at least not poor people have decided that supporting “Bootstrap Cook” —right or wrong— validates their evenings of going out, their Netflix subscription, their holidays in Cuba or Costa Rica, their new cars, and in fact their whole comfortable existence.
In fact, it reminds me of the “indulgences” sold by the Roman Catholic Church before the Reformation.
Not that that is necessarily the fault of the “Bootstrap Cook” herself.
I've not much to say on the Jack Monroe issue except that if a government minister tries to tell someone how to survive on a box of cornflakes and a tin of sardines, they tend to get pilloried for it.
Just… bloody hell. The tide really does seem to be turning on Jack Monroe. Interesting that she was approached for comment and declined, same as with my blog. https://t.co/vfjJXHKlaE
(Past caring if Jack Monroe's fans abuse me as did for 48 hours few week back).
Authentic, knowledgeable women in poverty now could offer useful, genuine insights into experience but overlooked and devalued while Monroe's more acceptable celebrity face of poverty is prioritised.
Well, if you can believe that the “royal” Mulatta is a sadly-abused “princess”, then believing that a poverty campaigner, who seems to be making “a nice little earner” out of it and naive followers, is a modern Joan of Arc, must be easy enough.
It was absolutely nothing to do with “the far right” and everything to do with the revelations that she’s lied about a lot of things and taken money off a lot of people in very shady ways.
I followed #bootstrapcook's 'Wintry chicken broth' recipe word for word and not only did the meal cost me £4.61 more than she suggested it came out looking like this. I want a refund! pic.twitter.com/EK2ev0rh8g
Let's say you agree to pay the Times £x per month and in exchange they promise to send you a code to access their online issue – but they never send the codes. Would you see a problem there? Read the Patreon page and see if you agree the comparison.https://t.co/LUPccSWorV
No John, it appears that you don’t understand what it is. Each payment tier system means a certain amount of rewards/content in return. Jack has received money every month & has not honoured the obligations that Jack pledged. No rewards/content for TWO years.
What about the rest Anthea? The shop was open until a few days ago. What about the Patreon money? The funds raised for the libel case that hasn’t happened?
How had she helped others? I’m seeing a lot of upset people who have given her money over the years. They’re feeling ripped off. pic.twitter.com/H6Y00rtGVs
The only ‘attacks’ I’ve seen have been requests for financial transparency or refunds. She says she had death threats but then again she says a lot of things. Some of her supporters, however, their behaviour has been abhorrent.
There's a whole community of Jack watchers on a website called Tattle. Any updates are there. Have to say, they don't seem a right-wing crowd. Better characterised as working-class mums who seem pissed off about what they see as grifting.
She was caught out as a habitual liar, grifter and generally an abusive individual who was too happy to play the disability/race/victim cards, and too many people were questioning where all of the donations went.
She's never done that herself though. Her recipes and weekly shops would lead to malnutrition pretty bloody quickly. Not enough calories, or protein. And she has storecupboards and freezers full of food that aren't included in the performative £20 asda shop. It's a dangerous lie.
Her recipes are shit and she only keeps within budget because the portions are toddler sized. Totally dishonest and unsustainable. No one uses her recipes though, because as mentioned, they're shit.
Because you need to be a parent in order to… count calories. Some of Jack Monroe's meals are less than 200 calories per portion. Her best meals are in the region of 400-500 per portion. It's not enough. You too can eat cheaply, if you starve.
Well, that’s enough. There are hundreds of other tweets in similar vein.
As blogged previously, my view is that Bootstrap Cook’s stuff may well be of interest to many, though —as already said— much of it looks to me like carbohydrate-heavy food often presented like a dog’s dinner.
I do not think that “Bootstrap Cook”set out to defraud anyone, and it may be that she has no such intention now, but it does seem that legitimate questions about her fundraising have been asked by a number of donors, but not answered by her.
If people think that they are somehow accomplishing something by subsidizing the not-uncomfortable lifestyle of that person, then that is their business, in a sense, but it is legitimate for others, arguably more clear-minded, to ask “where is the money going?“, “is any of this true?“, and “are people being tapped for money under false pretences?“.
I can also see that her fans seem to be, almost entirely, not the truly poor but more those who are not “poor” but who support her “non-binary” profile, the “gender bender” aspects, and the general “government must do more for the poor” activism aspect.
I think that it is legitimate to question, not only “where the money went” (or goes), but also, whether in reality Bootstrap Cook has actually influenced government, or large enterprises such as ASDA (it seems that one or two supermarket chains were actually paying her for advice or consultancy or something).
Poverty is a huge problem in the UK now. Anyone claiming to be expert in it must expect searching inquiry.
Is this all really just a morning TV virtue-signal writ large? After all, at the end of the day, the decisive question is what government does or fails to do.
I personally have no animus against “Bootstrap Cook”, but my view of her has certainly become far less positive over the years since I first heard of her.
I do think, also, that if you claim that a person can feed healthily on £5 a week, you are really playing into the hands of swine such as Dunce Duncan Smith, Esther McVey, Therese Coffey etc.
I think that anyone wanting to help “the poor” could probably do so more effectively via GoFundMe or local foodbanks than by subsidizing the lifestyle of “Bootstrap Cook”. Perhaps I am mistaken, but that is my firm view and opinion.
On a wider point, we have in the UK this msm thing whereby TV channels or shows like to have a “go-to” list. Brexit discussion? Call Farage. Free speech discussion? Call Toby Young. Poverty discussion? Call Jack Monroe. And so on.
Thus you get “activists” who are really just “famous for being famous activists”. The Caroline Criado-Perez phenomenon. A hundred thousand or a million Twitter followers but, outside Twitter etc, really unknown and without real influence.
Of course, the msm now like to feature (supposed) “experts” who are, if possible, young, female, and black. “Bootstrap Cook” is not black, but as “Meatloaf” once opined, “two out of three ain’t bad“…
Well, there it is. I prefer to concentrate on other and larger issues really, but felt that I should examine the above first, after the recent Twitter storm in a teacup.
For clarification purposes this is a live poll so results don't necessarily represent public opinion. However, the latest results are: * still 81% re bankers bonus cap * still 82% re 45% tax cut for the rich * 88% re recall of parliament * 87% re govt loss of control of economy
All that the doomed “Conservative” Party had to do, to consign Labour to the bin, was select a leader to succeed “Boris”-idiot who was even slightly competent. It failed to do so. Endex.
Here's what the UK's new electoral map would look like if tonight's YouGov poll were repeated at a general election. pic.twitter.com/HbGJQywCB2
The implications are clear: either the Con MPs get rid of Liz Truss as soon as they can, and put in someone who at least looks semi-competent, or the Con Party will be near-finished by next year. Same goes, of course, for Kwarteng, Cleverly, and Coffey.
More tweets
I’m not sure you can call people angry and bitter, and then in the same tweet hope that they meet an unpleasant fate in an alley, all while still trying to maintain your own moral high ground. But I’m pretty new to Twitter, so I’m still figuring the moral maze out… https://t.co/KgZ3iqCdN9
Jack Monroe pulls apart tweets that suggest people can live off a cheap bag of pasta or oats (rightly so) but SHE reinforces this ideology with her £20 weekly Asda shops. They do not contain enough nutrional/calorific value for one person, never mind 2 to 3 people!
Look at ANY of the weekly shops she has posted. There is a good reason she doesn't follow it through with a FULL meal plan for the week. She states a few times that she'll post a meal plan or recipes for the week later on but they never appear. The idea that you can continually
COVID held a mirror up to society. As most of us were forced to slow down, we noticed it was not the mega rich or obscenely paid super stars that we relied on, but the dismissively termed ‘unskilled’ front line workers. We can’t now allow them to be forced into ‘working poverty.’
Ha ha. Yes, that ghastly little bastard Schofield is one of the worst people on TV in the UK; and, yes, it is peak contemporary Britain, just like…well, there are just too many examples around…
An eloquent warning from the former British ambassador to Moscow, in 1997 'Does Nato really have a future at all? Is enlargement really no more than a substitute for policy, the thrashing about of an organisation which has lost its raison d’etre? 'https://t.co/p1MZFFPTCG
: 'Over the centuries one great power after another has threatened the stability of Europe….in 1815 and…1945.. the victors were intelligent and self-interested enough to bring the defeated as equals into the comity of European nations.' https://t.co/p1MZFFPTCG
A good example was seen the other night. A new detective drama called Karen Pirie.
Set partly a few decades ago, partly in the contemporary era, even the older setting, in St. Andrews, Scotland, decades ago, had a black character appear. In a small town in what seems to be a bleak part of Scotland (I have never been there). Then we are introduced to the two detectives now investigating the cold case. One a small Scottish woman, the other a black or half-caste…
I do not have a great deal of patience with films or TV shows. If they do not catch the interest after 15 mins, switch— OFF. I gave this one 20 mins. A bloody bore, poorly conceived and worse-acted.
This evening, I saw an old episode of Wycliffe [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wycliffe_(TV_series)]. All characters more or less credible, and what I like best about Wycliffe is that it manages to catch the atmosphere of Cornwall well, from what I recall from when I lived there. It does not rely on cliche (most of the time, at least).
Late tweets
The UK's economic woes appear to be a story of fiscal recklessness that's forced the Bank of England to stabilize crashing financial markets by buying up government bonds.
The real story is actually more complicated, and it all comes down to pensions https://t.co/H0wFKJe8IQ
But you’ve now borrowed short-term money to buy volatile financial assets.
The thing that was so good about pension funds — their structural long-termism, the fact that you can’t have a run on a pension fund: You’ve ruined that! https://t.co/Q6dEeBI8Ztpic.twitter.com/qTFzhEjNYT
➡️A margin call earlier this year when rates rose, which depleted the pensions’ collateral buffer ➡️Liz Truss's catastrophic mini-budget led to long-term interest rates spiking 100 basis points https://t.co/8vucDdxTDQpic.twitter.com/PeAj4jmPt1
But the questions about what happened in recent days run deep, are far from relevant only to the UK and are most certainly not over https://t.co/25jsfBV8mH
The BOE may have left itself hostage to misfortune with its actions.
The risk is that it finds itself in a standoff with markets, with pressure increasing to hike borrowing costs before its next meeting, which might tip the economy over the edge https://t.co/FLzsjzcWzr
In the month since I wrote about “Jack Monroe”, the “Bootstrap Cook”, the storm around her murky financial arrangements has become fiercer yet. A few tweets:
Oh look, yet mire Jack Monroe bootstrapcook lies exposed. She's gifted donations to fund legal action and not even followed any pre-action protocol & got in touch. That money's been spent…. ❄️❄️❄️❄️⛄️ https://t.co/LrXqDsDB1b
In light of Jack Monroe @BootstrapCook's latest "working class" lies, it's worth retweeting her dad's comments regarding his professional landlording, which also reveal he has no bank debt, ie mortgages. Not surprising given he inherited 3 of his millionaire dad's 12 properties. https://t.co/7BrPnLiVtA
He is sometimes described, inaccurately, as having become a “pro bono” lawyer who works for free, out of quasi-charitable motives, whereas he in fact seems to work on a “no win no fee” basis, which is not at all the same thing.
“Jack Monroe” has tweeted that she still has several/many months in which to sue the MP Lee Anderson and the politico Martin Daubney. In theory, up to a year after the alleged libel, but the relevant Practice Directions do say that the courts will still expect any claim to be made expeditiously, so not, e.g., 10 or 11 months after the alleged libel.
The courts may (probably will) penalize even a successful defamation claimant (“plaintiff”, as was) in both award and costs if the action is not brought expeditiously.
Why are you tagging bootstrapcrook? ,she is literally doing the tories work by claiming you can feed a family on 20 quid a week, she has ripped of 1000s of working class people who have been paying into her patreon and received NOTHING, people are complaining and getting refunds
Part 1 of my new Jack Monroe blog is up now, complete with slideshows – I am very excited about the slideshows! The next part will follow shortly. This time with alt text.
I have been watching, recently, a TV mini-series (three episodes) called Zen, which though a British production and using some British actors and actressses, is filmed entirely in and around Rome. It is a about a detective called, oddly, Zen, who works in the Questura (the Italian police detective branch).
As with many other well-known fictional detectives (Inspector Morse, Inspector Alleyn, Wallander, Sherlock Holmes), Zen himself is rather an outsider, in his case because he is both incorrupt and from Venice.
Zen is a quality production in every respect, and maintains the seriousness while not omitting a small amount of passing humour here and there.
Having never been to Rome, I cannot say how well the series captures the grandeur-meets-squalor of that great and ancient city, but it seems a plausible representation, to me at least.
Until last week, I had never heard of Zen, which is from 2011. Apparently, the then controller of BBC1, a Jew called Cohen (why? Always…every single time…) decided to cancel the series because “there were too many male crimefighters on TV“…Why do “they” always ruin everything decent that they touch? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_(TV_series).
Strange Twitter
I had a Twitter “account” from 2010, and started to tweet regularly and quite prolifically from 2011. I used my own name (“@ianrmillard“). The loud Jew-Zionist cabal on Twitter (really just a small number of unpleasant individuals) had me expelled from Twitter in 2018.
Since then, I have not posted on Twitter; I have no other, and never have had other, Twitter accounts. Recently, I have noticed that, if I look on Twitter, I sometimes notice accounts of people and organizations which carry the notice “Follows you“.
How and why, when I have no Twitter account? I am not very technical, so it is a complete mystery to me.
Tweets seen
So now we know: the 'covid' death toll is in fact largely the result of frightening & forcing even more people to live on junk food takeaways. And having imported huge numbers of people with sickle cell anaemia & vitamin D issues.https://t.co/yJ05pegOdo
Quite so @when_cats_away . But far too few. I well recall the first full evening of 'clap for carers' and being dispirited by the strength of the din all around me and by how long it lasted. I knew then that dissent was going to be tougher than I'd hoped.. https://t.co/Ce7Z5RUYs4
Part of the Big Brother “weekly clap”, I mean the reason why many did clap, was that there was and is a feeling that Britain was ceasing to be a community. People therefore, many people anyway, bought into the fake communitarianism of the “weekly clap” etc.
I wonder, though, how many, overall, did stand outside their houses clapping. Where I live, a tiny minority.
No @trophy4too Depression is irrational grief, not explained by actual circumstances but lying within the affected person. There's nothing irrational about being grieved by the current state of this country. https://t.co/VsMI7xYSoj
In general @ianvincnetscott, people did not believe there was a danger. I was able to see it because I have spent so much time in unfree countries. Most had never been to one. Soon they will live in one. https://t.co/pOVV1642tI
Alas, @rosearosey, it has formal *objective* legitimacy But it could have faced moral challenge a year ago, before the strangulation policy hardened into normality. The large-scale failure to challenge this (& the crushing of the Great Barrington Declaration) were key moments. https://t.co/UBlj7J6uN9
2/2 @Ianvincentscott. I'm reminded of the once-famous 1906 incident of 'The Captain of Kopenick', in which a man in a uniform successfully fooled everyone into doing what he told them. We in Britain used to laugh at this event as an instance of Prussian submissiveness. https://t.co/7kOvffkS4K
1/2 @ianvincentscott. *Timing* is hugely important. The state and the police seized huge new powers a year ago in a colossal bluff, which could easily have been called by Parliament, the media and the courts. Now this bluff has solidified into accepted normality. https://t.co/7kOvffkS4K
Unherd has a fascinating interview with J.Sumption. https://t.co/mrGvz5Geiu He's mistaken to refer to individuals ignoring bits of the law as 'civil disobedience', as it has no moral/political content. Also, once obedience to law ceases to be a moral duty, we face chaos.
“Jonathan Sumption was once the epitome of the Establishment — a brilliant barrister who represented the Government in the Hutton enquiry, Supreme Court Justice, supporter of the Remain campaign and esteemed historian of the Hundred Years’ War. But then Covid happened.
Over the past year, his unabashed criticism of lockdown policies has turned him into something of a renegade. It is a development that mystifies him; as he sees it, his views have always been mainstream liberal, and it is the world around that has changed.
In the course of our conversation, the retired judge doesn’t hold back. He asserts that it is becoming morally acceptable to ignore Covid regulations, and even warns that a campaign of “civil disobedience” has already begun.” [UnHerd magazine].
Lord Sumption, a former Lord of Appeal and Justice of the Supreme Court, who has been treated recently as a crank and half-mad dissident by the msm. The problem that Lord Sumption faces is that he is talking on the ground of reason, whereas the “lockdown” fanatics, facemask zealots and others of that type (who, with a mob of scared rabbits, may well even be a majority of the population) are dealing in fear and unreason, which is inherently more powerful as a tool of persuasion.
“John Stuart Mill regarded public sentiment and public fear as the principal threat to a liberal democracy. The tendency would be for it to influence policies in a way that whittles away the island within which we are entitled to control our lives to next to nothing. That’s what he regarded as the big danger. It didn’t happen in his own lifetime; it has happened in many countries in the 20th century, and it’s happening in Britain now.” [Lord Sumption, on UnHerd/Lockdown TV]
That “Lockdown TV” interview is the sort of intelligent, reasoned, quite lengthy interview that is now never seen on any msm television station in the UK; reminiscent of the interviews done by the late and great Brian Walden on Weekend World about 40 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weekend_World; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Walden.
Interesting to see and hear Lord Sumption has come to the same conclusion that I came to nearly a year ago about the various tyrannical “laws”, “rules”, “guidance” around “Coronavirus”. That is, that there will be little mass public anger, but more of a hidden or half-hidden defiance. In other words, “Yes, repeat No“…
This is the power we gave to the state by not standing up for our liberty a year ago: Mother strolled to get coffee – but fell foul of long arm of the law https://t.co/sP4HjrJ14a via @MailOnline
'The contemporary ‘Left’ is no longer worthy of the name.'. I agree with a great deal of this Marxist analysis of the 'The Virus, Lockdown and the Left'. https://t.co/2mho1qhuGB via @LSceptics
'Of all political entities, it is the Left that should have been attuned to the damaging politics of fear and how it swiftly generates mass hysteria and political obedience to the fear-peddlers.' So, why weren't they? https://t.co/2mho1qhuGB via @LSceptics
1/2 'During the lockdown lunacy, it has largely fallen to a sensible segment of the conservative Right (whether libertarian ‘Ultras’ or pragmatists concerned for the well-being of lockdown-threatened capitalism) to, almost inadvertently…' https://t.co/2mho1qhuGB via @LSceptics
2/2 '…stand up for traditionally leftwing causes – working class jobs & living standards, education, democratic accountability,critical thought, intellectual openness, freedom of speech, freedom of association, integrity of science, plain old civility.' https://t.co/2mho1qhuGB
As I have written often before, I never use the terms “Right”/”Left”, but the self-describing “left” now has nothing to offer people, no vision of a better society etc. It concentrates on “deplatforming” anyone described as “Right”, which apparently covers anywhere from Brexit Party, UKIP and the “alt-Right” wastes of space right through to National Socialists and those who, like me, postulate ideas and concepts which might form the basis for a society far in advance of where we are.
You can see it on Twitter, that element which is mostly pro-Corbyn-Labour, anti-Israel (mostly) while at the same time (mostly) supporting the Jewish Zionists! Also, connectedly, paying lip-service to the “holocaust” narrative etc.
Basically, the post-1989, post death-of-socialism self-describing “Left”, or pseudo-socialist position, has nothing at all to offer the people. It is an ideological and political dead end.
Some reflections on Olivia Manning's superb and often-neglected Balkan and Levant Trilogies, a more clear-eyed view of Britain's wartime experience than Evelyn Waugh's. https://t.co/zJAzAT4H6E
Hitchens writing of Olivia Manning’s Balkan Trilogy put me in mind of another literary work, in fact a “dilogy”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaka_(fiction) (extended and adapted for British TV about 30 years ago).
It occurs to me that Scotland might become a kind of “Slaka” if (when) it achieves faux-“Independence” under faux-“nationalist” political party, the SNP.
The present kefuffle around Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon etc is a straw in the wind. Salmond (obviously guilty of sexual shenanigans despite his plainly politically-motivated acquittal a while ago) and Sturgeon (a petty tyrant) are the Romulus and Remus of Scottish (fake) Independence.
I have no objection, as such, to Scotland breaking away from the UK. I wonder, though, how many in Scotland understand in what sort of country, poor and politically-repressed, they may end up living?
As a matter of fact, I can see upheaval coming to Scotland, in that only about 50% (it may be 55% or even soon 60%) of the Scottish voters support the SNP and/or Independence (as presented). If, then, the anti-SNP or anti-“Independence” 40%-50% are forced to live under a corrupt and incompetent SNP regime (even now putting forward extreme anti-free-speech laws), expect fireworks.
— Dame Minxy Mann Yeager #NeverCorbyn #MeJew (@SadieWhy) March 3, 2021
Actually, that condensation and adaptation of part of the New Testament is rather kinder on the Jews than the original:
“When the morning was come, all the chief priests and elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death: And when they had bound him, they led him away, and delivered him to Pontius Pilate the governor.” [Matthew 27, King James Version]
“And straightway in the morning the chief priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes and the whole council, and bound Jesus, and carried him away, and delivered him to Pilate. And Pilate asked him, Art thou the King of the Jews? And he answering said unto him, Thou sayest it. And the chief priests accused him of many things: but he answered nothing. And Pilate asked him again, saying, Answerest thou nothing? behold how many things they witness against thee. But Jesus yet answered nothing; so that Pilate marvelled.” [Mark 15, King James Version]
“Now at that feast the governor was wont to release unto the people a prisoner, whom they would. And they had then a notable prisoner, called Barabbas. Therefore when they were gathered together, Pilate said unto them, Whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas, or Jesus which is called Christ? For he knew that for envy they had delivered him.
When he was set down on the judgment seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him. But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude that they should ask Barabbas, and destroy Jesus. The governor answered and said unto them, Whether of the twain will ye that I release unto you? They said, Barabbas. Pilate saith unto them, What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ? They all say unto him, Let him be crucified. And the governor said, Why, what evil hath he done? But they cried out the more, saying, Let him be crucified.” [Matthew 27, King James Version]
“When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it. Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children. Then released he Barabbas unto them: and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified.” [Matthew 27, King James Version]
Re. the Royal Mulatta, it is so funny watching the self-describing “Left” defend “Meghan”, simply because she is “black” (actually, of course, a half-caste, like Obama). No matter that she has, apparently, bullied her staff etc, she’s “black”. That’s her anytime Get Out Of Jail Free card.
As for the Royal Cuck, what can one say? Why are the “socialists” of Twitter not asking the question “why should we respect the Royal Cuck anyway?“
Were Prince Harry mere Harry Who?, he would be, at best, a junior Army officer or something like a car salesman.
The concept of royalty, in the real world, is mainly dependent on blood descent. Even leaving aside the Royal Cuck, the Royal Mulatta has no right, really, yet she is given the title of “duchess”. They have both forfeited any right to position and respect, and they have done what they have done for money and to be “celebrities” on American TV.
Actually, these contaminated British titles (duke, duchess, earl, baroness etc) are now so devalued that they really should be done away with.
I suppose that the ludicrous “Royal Married with Children” soap will continue. It’s a good alternative, for American TV, to other wealthy “celebrity” riff-raff such as the Kardashians.
A good “conspiracy theory” might be that the Royal Cuck and the Royal Mulatta are being built up as a way of engaging the interest of Britain’s new raceless, cultureless masses, who have little time for the traditional royals. I don’t suppose that such is the case (it’s too subtle for the royals, I expect) but an interesting idea an sich…
Musing….it seems to me that the Harry and Meghan marriage might be described as “White royal privilege meets black affirmative action privilege”. Just an idle thought…
The best way of describing Meghan Markle would be as in the old German saying, “Put a beggar on a horse and (s)he rides it to death“…
Late afternoon music
Interesting film
New York in the 1930s…
Amazing how different many of the places shown are today (and were even when I was last in New York, 28 years ago).
Late tweets
The Gulf Stream is among the mightiest rivers you will never see, carrying far more water than all the world’s freshwater rivers combined. Some scientists fear global warming is causing Atlantic currents to weaken. https://t.co/jaD7EiphpJpic.twitter.com/g0IMoi1Mma
If the Gulf Stream really were to falter, and to fail to reach the UK, Britain might be plunged into something akin to an ice age, albeit (?) limited.
“We’re all wishing it’s not true,” Peter de Menocal, a paleoceanographer and president and director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, said of the changing ocean currents. “Because if that happens, it’s just a monstrous change.”https://t.co/P6SM3h6xmt
@belfastbuoy. Easy to say. Perhaps you have not experienced actual chaos. I have (principally in Mogadishu) and I do not recommend it. https://t.co/UEvD2poWkb
And when the narrative of white people bad is pushed as an all pervasive constant in our societies the only way to score virtue points is to agree. This has led to suicidal altruism and the aceptance of hatred and violence against us😔
Yep. It says in the article that she approached them and tried to be nice to them. She has been completely stripped of any sense of self preservation and believes the lies that these 'refugees' are poor innocent souls that need compassion. Tragic.
A 95-year-old woman is to be tried in Germany. Her crime? She was the secretary of a WW2 camp commandant, in fact based (it seems) outside the camp itself.
The German police state (the present one, not the 1933-1945 Reich) has prosecuted her as a scapegoat for those now long-dead. Others have in recent years suffered similarly, such as very old men who, as boys of 18, belonged to the Wehrmacht or SS and did low-level work in concentration camp offices, or other activity. Even accountants have found themselves charged with complicity in the alleged death of thousands of Jews or others.
Of course, behind the conscienceless prosecutors of Merkel’s Germany stand the Jews and Israel, on the international level.
Another interesting contrast is between the bleeding heart pseudo-liberals and their refrain in relation to almost any criminal (that people should be treated leniently, released early etc), and the same bleaters when someone of 95 or 100 is on trial for supposed “crimes” “committed” by Germans in the early 1940s (such as shuffling paper in railway offices). Then, the “liberalism” vanishes, because the one-time 18 year old SS recruit or 18 year old secretary was “a Nazi”, i.e. was alive in the Germany of 1941-1945.
Were the 18 year old secretaries or draftees of 1945 Los Alamos (New Mexico) somehow responsible for Hiroshima and Nagasaki? No? Why not? If they were not guilty of wartme mass killing, then neither is a very old lady who was secretary to an SS commandant in 1944 or 1945 when she was 18 or 19…
The Guardian report even recycles the discredited “six million” stuff…
Farcically, the persecuted and prosecuted 95 year old (presently resident in a care home), will be tried in a youth court, because she was under 21 during WW2! Alice in Wonderland, in German translation.
That very old woman is a pawn in a game of “holocaust” publicity, the game being yet another ZOG Schauspiel.
Yikes. I dealt with just one stabbing tonight (he was OK). Last I heard from the police there were EIGHT stabbings in Croydon tonight alone. What is going on?? People – FFS stop trying to kill each other. We've already got a pandemic trying to do that. #croydonstabbings
I think that there may have been 10 incidents, in fact. Others say 10 stabbings in 5 incidents. Net result more or less the same. Seems that some blacks have not taken the “Black Lives Matter” mantra too seriously…
Paramedic tweeter “@peepculture” finds it a puzzle what is happening. His Twitter profile has a “rainbow” motif etc. It naturally must be puzzling or even hurtful to people who perhaps sincerely believe that a multiracial, multicultural society can work, when all human history shows that it cannot, not for long anyway.
Example:
Habitual thief jailed for 30 years after stabbing man to death in Croydon over Gucci bag https://t.co/cRq0srwgc4
Looking at that “von Sternberg”, he certainly did not look German. I sought the answer. Wikipedia informed me that his real name was in fact Jonas Sternberg; Jew. The “von” presumably added for reasons of fashion, though I presume not camouflage (after all, most Hollywood studios were run by and riddled with Jews even in the 1930s, few of whom thought to attempt to conceal their origins).
All supporters of diversity & #Equality must celebrate the success of 100% fairly elected #PresidentBiden in ignoring unfounded smears about dual loyalty & breaking the WASP dominance that shamed America's past. The USA is now ruled by a minority, just how #progressive is that? pic.twitter.com/rrKFErArEM
CNN career liar throws a Twitter fit over Rep Greene sharing video featuring my Coudenhove-Kalergi speech.#whitegenocide is neither a 'conspiracy theory' nor an accident. https://t.co/7XtR3zbNme
This is no longer a conspiracy. It's the endgame of the NWO. Complacency for governments is no longer acceptable. Birth rates must increase to ensure the future of our race. pic.twitter.com/HrGxa9Ck3i
Even 'Alice Through the Looking Glass' never imagined debtors being paid to be indebted. Next, will it be Savers' Prisons, the opposite of the old Debtors' Prisons, from which you will only be released if you stop saving and spend all your money? @geraldcnxhttps://t.co/lH1CrvyMbj
Damn. John Rentoul got 6/10 today, better than me, who scored only 5/10. That is only the —I think— third (maybe even second) time he has beaten me since I started doing the quiz months ago. Today, I did not know the answers to questions 4, 6, 8, 9, and 10.
Firefighters rescued a herd of deer that fell into a frozen lake in northwestern Poland. pic.twitter.com/MqJn5bzvUa
Ian Robert Millard 