…The reason I consider this particular example is that one source high up in the care sector texted me earlier regarding the Home Secretary’s comments to say “She hasn’t got a clue the damage she is doing!” They’re already desperately clinging on to staff.
A side-effect of workers moving out of care work to other work would be that care work would then only attract people with no other choices, forced to do care work by being, for example, pressured by the DWP.
It’s astonishing but amazingly people allowed it to happen as they believed the hype. There was a spike in deaths in all western countries around April 2020.
Interesting video, rather idealistic. If the British Empire still existed and still ruled, the Arab-Jew problem in Palestine would be contained, and Israel would not be a centre of a manipulative web across the world.
Why have I just lost 500 followers? Is it because Elon’s waving his chequebook around again?
That report reminded me of when I was first in Almaty, Kazakhstan (in 1996 and 1997). I lived on one of the main boulevards, Prospekt Lenina. There were frequent power cuts or, as the Americans say, “outages”.
I bought some candles for my 12th-floor Soviet penthouse apartment, and that was OK, though I nearly got stuck in the lift one day when there was a power cut the moment I stepped out of that lift, having returned from my office. The power did not return until about midday the next day, so that was a lucky miss for me.
In fact, my area of the city was not so badly affected as others, being within the “Presidentsky” district, where the then Presidential Palace and major embassies were located. Usually, the power cuts involved one or two areas at a time, with other areas continuing to receive electrical supply. Where I lived was certainly given preferential treatment, but still lost power fairly often.
I remember well that I was due to dine with three people one evening at a small and little-patronized Georgian restaurant in a quiet lane not too far from my home, a place almost in the countryside.
When the time came to meet those people, I was sitting in the empty restaurant. They arrived together, a young American in the Peace Corps, and two local Russian girls who were employed by an American organization; I had met them previously.
No sooner had they sat down than the electricity was cut off. The owner of the place, a Georgian lady called Bella, hurried to put out quite a few candles.
In the restaurant, with its wooden walls and lack of traffic noise (the lane outside was deserted), this created a kind of 19th century environment. One of the Russian girls started to play the piano which was there. Mainly Chopin.
In the candlelight, it was like being in a scene adapted from Chekhov or some other pre-revolutionary author; perhaps a country estate circa 1860 and in a Russia not yet hit by modern warfare or the shocks of violent revolution. Charmant…
Still slightly favourable on defence and “terrorism”? How? Why? The armed forces seem incapable of stopping migration invasion across the Channel, and are too small to stop any conventional invasion. The present ZOG (Zionist Occupation Government) is pledged to continue to waste billions funnelling money and arms to the Jew-Zionist regime in Kiev.
What about “terrorism”? The Muslims are not taking over the British cities via “terrorism” but via their birth-rate. The Jews continue to send their teenage children to Israel, there to be trained in the use of firearms, as well as in techniques of streetfighting, but are not even monitored (much) by the UK Security Service on their return to the UK.
More tweets
I honestly can’t believe Liz Truss is leader of anything or anyone. Just can’t believe it
BREAKING: The Tories have banned laughing, humour and comedy! 🤬
Three brilliant Parody accounts I follow have been wiped off Twitter in the last 3 day’s. They all had over 100,000 + followers. Parody Liz Truss, Kwasi and Mancock 🙇🏻♂️#GeneralElectionNow#WhoVotedForThis
James Cleverly, proud possessor of a McDegree (in Hospitality Management) from a McUniversity, and who has never done much else (except work his way up in the TA) drones on. That half-caste is Foreign Secretary, believe it or not. This country is so screwed, and in so many ways.
I must do a blog article, in my Deadhead MPs series, about Cleverly.
Liz Truss Should Fear Homeowners and Rising UK Mortgage Rates – Bloomberg https://t.co/DBSr2c3Tzp
Some would. People whose income is well above the norm, perhaps; those on £150,000+, and who are also voting out of purely personal self-interest . Then —the largest group— those who want to vote specifically against Labour, and see a Con vote as the only effective way to do it.
Are there any other groups of “Conservative” voters now? I think not. The last 12 years have seen no effective policy or action on the immigration problem, whether in general or specifically re. the cross-Channel migration-invasion. As for that trad Con strongpoint, “law and order”, we have seen police numbers cut, courts (in the hundreds) closed down to save money, a huge backlog of trials, and legal aid cuts which have effectively denied millions the right to access the legal system.
Yes, a lot can happen in the two years before a general election has to be held, but it cannot really be said that Liz Truss has any popular mandate, and things look likely to slide even further from here: utility bills, mortgage payments, whatever may hit the UK by reason of the wrongheaded anti-Russia sanctions and military adventurism.
Even the mainly self-interested “grey vote” of pensioners and those nearing State Pension age might pause before placing their crosses next to the Conservative Party candidate, now that it has emerged that the young Liz Truss actually wanted to abolish the State Pension, and who intends to slash other benefits relied on by pensioners.
‘She’s seeking comparisons with Singapore or an economy like the United States.’
Saw an episode covering 2020. Not as good as the previous episode. Too many scenes with patients suffering (supposedly) from “Covid”, not enough scenes about the political infighting. The drama stuck to the official or accepted (?) narrative(s). Not much questioning of that.
Late tweets seen
Started with a sore throat on Sunday, then a tickly cough for a couple of days, now a bit of a runny nose. Someone asked me how I know it's not Covid. I replied 'why does it matter?' My natural immunity will sort it.
“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?
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.
(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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
“Aubrey Allegretti, political correspondent: Kwarteng starts by pinning the blame for inflation and spiralling energy bills directly on Putin.“
[The Guardian]
Well, after all, it could not be the fault of the Boris-idiot government, which all but shut down the UK economy for 2 years for no good reason, while doling out free money like a drunken sailor…oh, wait a minute…
“Aubrey Allegretti: Kwarteng seeks to turn the last 12 years of Conservative economic wisdom on its head and present the government as new and radical – rather than hanging on the coattails of the last one.
He lays out his central point that “growth is not as high as it should be”, arguing this only leads to less money to fund public services, relying on higher taxes, and so on.
“We need a new approach for a new era” should be seen as nothing less than a bid to reinvent the Conservatives and present them as a party of change – to avoid being blamed for the mistakes of the past. (Despite, of course, Truss having served in the previous three Conservative governments.)“
[The Guardian].
This mini-budget is completely mad. The result can only be roaring inflation, higher interest rates for businesses and mortgage-payers, and before very long a huge spike in house-repossessions as people default on the mortgage commitments taken out in easier times.
Reducing tax for those earning over £140,000 —about 3x or 4x the average pay? That is just ridiculous and will be applied to purchase of hedging assets (including paying off any mortgage commitments such higher-earners may have).
Stimulation of the economy requires more money at the bottom end, where people are almost compelled by circumstances to spend on goods and services, not at the top end of the income scale.
Today, the pound sterling is down, as I write, by about 2%. Interest rates for UK government borrowing are rising steeply.
A budget of this sort does nothing for the poor (however defined), nothing for the bulk of the population, and only helps those already affluent or wealthy.
Indeed, it might be said that the “middle ranks”, meaning people without much capital, working for a modest living, paying off a mortgage, paying for children and a household, will be hit very hard.
If only there were an existing, tightly-controlled, social-national party, —even if small— and with credible policies and people. One does not exist. Somewhere soon down the road might come a “1929” moment. That was what started the NSDAP and Hitler on its path to glory (ultimately, tragic glory, but that is another question).
[“At the end stands Victory!“]
[Germany 1945— “We are fighting for the future of our children“]
Hilary Mantel
The authoress, Hilary Mantel, has died.
I was struck by this, seen on her Wikipedia entry:
“In an 2013 interview with the Telegraph, Mantel stated: “I think that nowadays the Catholic Church is not an institution for respectable people.”[5] She continued in the interview to say: “When I was a child I wondered why priests and nuns were not nicer people. I thought that they were amongst the worst people I knew.” These statements, as well as the themes explored in her earlier novel Fludd, led some to question her work in Wolf Hall, with Bishop Mark O’Toole noting: “There is an anti-Catholic thread there, there is no doubt about it. Wolf Hall is not neutral.”[46].”
I myself had no contact with Roman Catholicism as a child. Indeed, I do not think that I even knew any Roman Catholics until I was in my early 20s. All the same, the few impressions that I had then were not favourable, as when I was in Ireland aged about 21 and had left Tralee station to walk or hitch-hike to the mountains. A small car approached, the first one since Tralee. I stuck out my thumb, only for the miserable-looking bastards on board, a thin, rat-faced and bespectacled Catholic priest, and a thoroughly nasty-looking nun (who was driving), to pass me without even a glance.
After a week or so in the sea-mountains, I returned the same way. Again, a car approached. The same car. The same occupants. I thought that this time they would stop, having seen me the previous week. No. Straight on past, not sparing me a look.
Miserable bastards, whom I hope met a miserable end.
Incidentally, I did get a lift eventually, in both directions; on the journey out, from an attractive dark-haired young Irishwoman who would not accept a chocolate from me because it was Lent.
The years spin past ever-quicker. That was in early 1979, all of 43 years ago now.
Tweets seen
Interest rates face their sharpest rise for more than 30 years as millions of households face huge increases in their mortgage costs https://t.co/kYpBCYqQaQ
It means that almost four million households who have climbed on to the property ladder since the global financial crisis face significant increases in their monthly bills
Sir John Gieve suggested the Bank and the government are pulling in different directions.
The chancellor is poised to announce more than £30bn worth of tax cuts on Friday in the mini-budget as the government freezes corporation tax, reverses the rise in NI and cuts stamp duty
🗣️ “They are trying to slow down the economy. The rhetoric we’ve heard so far from the new government is that they want to speed it up by increasing borrowing”
The thing is, the billionaire will use every loophole possible to pay absolutely nothing and HMRC looks the other way, while the one on 50k has tax taken from them automatically and if you even owe 50 pence, you’ll get a brown letter through your door 🤣 https://t.co/EzxeSjaYgr
Exactly. Both above tweets are right. The income point however leaves out the main difference between the few and the many, the capital held by each group.
The average Joe has no, or virtually no, capital. In fact, if you leave aside any equity value in residential property owned (usually just one dwelling, and Average Joe himself lives in it), most British people really only have a tiny amount of capital, a few thousand pounds, or even just a few hundred.
The wealthy few however, are often not at all dependent on income as such, certainly not income from any ordinary job. Their capital, invested in real property, or shares etc, is the key to their wealth. Careful investment and accountancy can mean that Average Millionaire/Billionaire Joe has almost no taxable income at all, while in any given year, his capital might have increased by 20%, 50%, even 1,000%.
The wealthiest of all have seen their capital increase hugely since the last financial crash in 2008; The Elon Musks (from about USD $2 billion to about USD $277 billion— in just one decade), the Jeff Bezos’s etc.
People like that laugh at the very idea of income tax. It is simply irrelevant to most of them. Look at the Duke of Westminster, small compared to the mega-billionaires, but still worth £10 billion -£20 billion. Then compare that to the Average Joe, who might (or might not) own, even including his house equity, maybe £200,000 or so. £1 for every £100,000 owned by the Duke of Westminster, and maybe £1 for every £1,500,000 owned by Elon Musk.
Hmrc wanting self employed people to submit tax returns every 3 months from 2024 🤡 literally no point in working hard in the uk at all between taxes and the state of the place
I myself had a great many problems with HMRC long ago. Partly but not entirely self-inflicted, and all now (long ago, over a decade ago) resolved to my satisfaction. I never ever encountered a bureaucracy as shambolic (as well as, in some cases, unpleasant) as HMRC. Not in Eastern Europe, not in the former Soviet Union, not in the USA (which came close, at times).
Had a letter from HMRC saying I owe £824.80 for 2021/2022. Logged into my account online and it says I owe £53.20.
Looks like an hour on the phone again ringing HMRC on my next day off. 🙄
I have decided to be more like the royals. I shall in future only pay tax voluntarily. If they, who are infinitely richer than me, can do this, then so can I. Fair's fair! I shall be informing HMRC of this decision immediately!
Look at them: Charles, Anne, Edward, Andrew, Harry (formerly known as “Prince”), William. Are any of them beyond mediocre in intellect, character, or in any way other than unearned and unmerited wealth? Most of them do not even pay taxes.
Meanwhile, Kelvin McKenzie, formerly of the Sun “newspaper”, exposes his ignorance once again:
McKenzie seems unaware that there is more to tax than income tax and inheritance tax. To give the obvious example (obvious at least to anyone better-informed than McKenzie), everyone pays VAT, a tax which is a major contributor to State funds, and is paid disproportionately by the poorer part of the population.
Hey Meghan remember your sister Samantha the sister who raised you and watched over you b/c Doria was always MIA you dragged this poor disabled woman through the mud you didn't even invite her to your wedding #MeghanMarkleExposedpic.twitter.com/BSoSCKa3UH
I have to admit that I have little interest in the minutiae of it all, but from the ruthless, Ayn Rand, callous self-interest point of view, the Mulatta has, as they say, “played a blinder”.
I think he took an irrational self-damaging decision @shaun_hutchings, in the full knowledge that it was so. That doesn't mena he smears his excrement on the wall, or thinks he is a poached egg and demands toast to sit on. But the decision was mad. https://t.co/PbqhbeYXdH
Putin’s decision to invade, as such, was not a mistake, but the decision to invade without proper preparation, without a proper plan, without having eliminated Zelensky, and with no proper logistics in place, was more than a mistake. It was criminally negligent. The GRU and General Staff should be purged, cut to the bone. Start again, as Stalin did.
It could have been done swiftly, with minimal hurt and damage.
This 12yr old Tory government are playing Russian Roulette with British finances. They’ve decided that the best way to solve the financial crisis is to give more money to rich people. Who’ll pay? Tory supporters have already paid with their souls #minibudget2022#stockmarketcrash
Put a short-term boost into the economy, win an election, to hell with the long-term economic consequences. This has been the Tory way for as long as I can remember- and that’s a long time now. Cocaine economics. #stockmarketcrash
True, but remember how Blair, and Brown in particular, worshipped the banking “industry” (sometimes useful but basically parasitic service industry).
More thoughts about the “mini-Budget”
Seems that “the markets” are dropping like a stone.
I mean, a simple-minded, almost cretinous Budget, announced by a woolly-headed ****** posing as Chancellor of the Exchequer; then we have a semi-educated half-caste with a “degree” in Hospitality Management posing as Foreign Secretary, and a stupid and ridiculous woman (who only became an MP on her back), actually posing as Prime Minister….what could possibly go wrong?
Jesus Christ! Is that stupid lot the best “the great Conservative Party” (in the words of Disraeli, his sentence ending “which destroys everything“…) can do? And is that hopelessly banal package of economic measures the summation of their thoughts?
Late tweets seen
The war in Ukraine has reshaped global energy markets. Gulf states—especially Qatar—are likely to be the big winners https://t.co/Ww9nATJ1jC
Every single value you claim to be ‘defending’ in Ukraine was absolutely demolished by your government over the past two and a half years. It was criminally immoral and totally unjustified. But you went along with it all the same. https://t.co/jt6QfvTu6o
Liz Truss. The latest clown to pose as Prime Minister of the UK.
…I'll be on @mrmarkdolan@GBNEWS at 8:30PM tonight talking about why it is chilling to witness, in a supposedly liberal democracy, the cancellation and demonetisation of campaign groups who dared to fight the orthodoxy.
I remember when, in the 1980s, a load of caravan-dwelling “travellers” decided to camp on Hampstead Heath, near the opulent house of “socialist” humbug Michael Foot. Suddenly, the great champion of the “rights” of the Gypsies and “travellers” (Irish tinkers) was against them camping near his house…
Well, I beat political journalist John Rentoul again this week, but not by much— 6/10 as against his self-awarded 5.5/10 . I too could have awarded myself another half-point, re. question 4. Apart from that one, I (also) did not know the answers to questions 3, 5, and 6.
The broad-front, multi-pronged attack on Europe and on European-race societies
A viral video depicting a male teacher wearing large prosthetic breasts in view of young students can be traced to Oakville Trafalgar High School in Ontario.
The “trans” nonsense (about 99% is nonsense) is just part of a campaign by secretive cabals to destroy white European-race society, a campaign being carried on across a broad front.
“Trans” stuff, the more general LGBTQXYZ stuff, “Black Lives Matter” and general “anti-racist” (99% anti-white) propaganda, most of the “climate change” propaganda, anti-British Empire propaganda, the blacks inserted into every “British” (Swedish, Danish, German etc) TV show, news broadcast, TV drama, TV soap, and TV ad, as well as the long-running “holocaust” fakery, hoaxes and propaganda, the “Covid” “panicdemic”, and now all the “I stand with Ukraine” hullabaloo.
The cartoons below, by Bob Moran, make the point:
Other tweets seen
Safeguarding exists not because all members of a group are a threat to another group, but because sufficient are to justify protected spaces for the more vulnerable group. Trans women retain the same pattern of sex offending/violence as males. https://t.co/H5NmGkTLe9
I cannot believe the effort that sex offenders put out in order to engage in their activities. Seems a big waste of energy and time to me. I suppose that that means that I am guilty of the mortal sin of sloth, but I prefer being my kind of sinner to their kind of sinner…
“Jack Monroe”, the “Bootstrap Cook”
I asked Jack Monroe @BootstrapCook some questions, and she didn't respond, but immediately blocked me. I don't think I was rude or unreasonable. Are all questions 'a smear campaign'? How is this echo chamber helpful to the people she claims to "support"? People like me.
Feeling rather low. Blocked by Jack Monroe. I only asked a question. (Not about her sinus congestion, or playing in the snow.) Just a small request, re: the ONS And where'd that money go?
As I have blogged previously, I myself hold no animus against “Jack Monroe” (originally Melissa Hadjicostas— half Greek-Cypriot), aka “the Bootstrap Cook”. It may be that her activity is of use to some people.
I myself am unlikely to use much of her work, partly because some of the recipes she puts out (and that I have read…admittedly a fairly small number) result in dishes that (to me, or in my opinion, looking at photos) look like a dog’s dinner, and partly because the recipes seem, often, to be heavy on carbohydrate, which I think is not good in a country plagued by type-2 diabetes (though I take her point, made on TV, about it being better for people to eat something not completely healthy than to eat nothing, and that it is wrong that so many in our country have to make that choice).
[actually, in the interest of fairness, I just looked at some of her other recipes, and many arein fact not“a dog’s dinner” to look at, though I have to say that a number do still give me that impression; and yet others are scarcely “recipes” at all, such as some very basic pasta suggestions].
I have not wanted to involve myself in the recent furore about whether or not “Bootstrap Cook” has been a little —indeed, more than a little— “economical with the truth” about a number of matters from her own history, and about whether she has been, or is, financially “transparent”.
I have my own opinion, based purely on what I have read on Twitter and elsewhere, and suffice to say that I shall certainly not be donating to, or buying from, the “Bootstrap Cook”. In any case, she probably has a good deal more money than me, again based on what I have read. Still, if people want to give her money, and cannot find a deserving person or cause instead, well, that is their concern, assuming that they are compos mentis.
I can see why women do not want men like this in their intimate spaces. I mean, I would rather not have him in men's spaces either. But sadly, that's where he belongs. Third spaces look more appealing, suddenly. Either he can use them, or maybe I will. https://t.co/9dfIBVNVBK
Loonies like that green-hair seem to be coming out (so to speak) of the woodwork all over the place now. Often nasty, often (in my view) mentally disturbed. This is destructive of society. I suppose that, in the days of the Reich, such odd and unpleasant individuals would probably have ended up in a mental hospital (or, perhaps, a labour camp).
The magpie is one of the most intelligent animals to exist. Their brain-to-body-mass ratio is outmatched only by that of humans. Their playful, curious spirit drives adaptation and exploration
The one good thing about Boris-idiot’s time as Prime Minister was that at least some attention was given to animal welfare, wildlife protection, and the environment. Liz Truss has no feeling for that, so even those small steps are not to continue.
Maybe, in the end, one can find at least one opinion by those in the enemy camp with which one can actually agree. It is indeed rare for me to agree with anything said by very active Jewish Zionist, David Collier.
As for that ghastly African “professor” based in the USA (an untenured associate professor at Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh), I blogged about her tasteless and absurd views last week.
This is not the queue, stretching miles, to see Queen Elizabeth's coffin lying in state. This is the queue for a charity food bank in the capital city of the world's fifth richest country.pic.twitter.com/lu90NLjK0H
“The poor are always with us“, according to Jesus Christ but, at the same time, policy can either reduce their numbers to a minimum, or expand them to a tenth, a quarter, or even half or more of the population. Policy is key. Governmental action or inaction is key.
Police have made an arrest after a man appeared to rush towards the Queen's coffin on Friday. Footage showed a dark skinned man being swiftly surrounded by several security guards & police officers in front of onlookers, before he was removed from the floor of Westminster Hall pic.twitter.com/6Ka9e0RsOE
— Sir Keir Starmer is a KNOB Not Knight (@UK_Doll_Master) September 17, 2022
I was wondering why some “dark-skinned man” would do that. No-one has as yet been charged (at time of writing), so I feel free to speculate.
There is a “conspiracy theory” around that, for some reason unexplained, the coffin does not contain the body of the late Queen.
Was the man arrested trying to “prove”, by finding the coffin empty, or without a body, that the late Queen has been buried already, as required, in particular, in Judaism? I do not know, of course, though my understanding is that the 24-hour rubric for Jewish burial is in fact not rigid, and can be extended for days, or even longer. On the face of it, that theory seems unlikely to be correct.
In any case, the arrested person could not (I presume) have actually opened the coffin. The lid (again, my presumption) must have been screwed down and/or sealed.
Schizophrenia is far more prevalent in the blacks and browns as compared to white Europeans. Maybe that is the explanation for what has happened.
Sometimes, mentally-disordered persons (of any/all races) carry out such attacks. A crazed ex-monk hijacked a plane in France about 40 years ago. His demand was that the Pope release the details of the “Third Secret of Fatima” [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Secrets_of_F%C3%A1tima#Third_secret]. I believe that the hijacker was arrested and incarcerated in a mental hospital, at least at first. He was imprisoned later.
185-mile range. Moscow itself is, at closest point, less than 300 miles from the Ukrainian border. A missile with a range of 185 miles could hit important cities such as Kaluga, Voronezh, and Volgograd (former Stalingrad), among others.
if it comes to the point where #Russia uses a tactical nuclear weapon, I think most of the world will understand that it is #NATO and #US that caused it to happen. #Russia#Ukraine 'New World Order' European Union
President #Putin: #ShanghaiCooperationOrganisation has become world’s largest regional organisation, with over 1/2 of global population, accounting for about 25% of global GDP, with powerful intellectual & technological potential and considerable part of global natural resources. pic.twitter.com/9WPDzkyhjO
Just caught up with the remarkable story of how Therese Coffey (then DWP) fought tooth and nail to stop you reading this @NatCen research report on disability benefits which the govt itself commissioned (h/t @DrFrancesRyan & @patrickjbutler) https://t.co/oh3OjocIWe
As the most pessimistic person in the country, it falls to me to point out how many good things we have lost in the last 70 years: https://t.co/7vyUDdiFQD via @mailplus
I remember Bill Bradley from when I lived in New Jersey in the early 1990s. One of those “best President (or Prime Minister)who never made it” figures, like (in the UK) Rab Butler, Enoch Powell etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Bradley.
On the main question here, the Russia-Ukraine situation, we see above a number of figures from, inter alia, the U.S. State Department, the CIA, the British Foreign Office, not to mention the American, Australian and other political establishments, all warning against NATO expansionism and against stoking Ukrainian political and military aggressiveness.
Few of those political and diplomatic figures can be, plausibly, written off as “Russian shills” and the like, as we see all too often written on Twitter and elsewhere, as the unthinking “I stand with Ukraine” mob bay for anything up to and even including nuclear war with Russia.
The disastrous policy of actively supporting the Jew-Zionist kleptocracy in Kiev headed (or figureheaded) by Zelensky is bad enough in itself (and is soon going to result in recession and/or stagflation in the UK and the EU) but, worse than that, may develop into a military situation between NATO and Russia which may then slip or slide into a nuclear conflict which would devastate the UK, much of Europe, the industrialized parts of Russia, and the cities of the USA.
Other tweets seen
Andrew Pierce shredded by Ed Balls. Nothing more than a pathetic Tory apologist and hypocrite. Pierce now wants more government borrowing after years of supporting austerity. £2.5trillion national debt. Twelve years of total economic failure.@GMB@toryboypierce@edballs
I may not like moneygrubbing expenses cheat and Bilderberger, Ed Balls, and the same goes (double) for his venal, hypocritical, “refugees welcome” (but not in her own several homes) wife, Yvette Cooper, but it has to be said that Balls is a trained economist, and did criticize at the time the ludicrously wrongheaded “austerity” nonsense put forward by the part-Jews David Cameron-Levita and George Osborne from 2010-2015, a policy which has run Britain threadbare.
#GMB Andrew Pierce ‘Kwasi Kwarteng has a brain the size of a planet’
Says the man who spent nearly three years bullying and blackmailing the Bri oh what’s the point it’s the same shit every single time. https://t.co/dgSjYRkRHh
A salutary tale, and one which I have just reread, this time also reading many of the readers’ comments. Some had had similar experiences.
I was reminded, reading all that, of an experience of my own.
Over twenty years ago (how time flies in this world when one is no longer young), I was invited, with my wife, to the wedding of a friend, and former teacher at a language school where I had been a part-time student in the early 1980s.
I had become very friendly in the late 1980s and early 1990s with Ig, a noted translator of Dostoyevsky; Ig was divorced (from decades before) and lived in a semi-detached house with a large garden, in North Finchley (London outskirts).
Ig worked at a language school near Warren Street, in Central London, an institute where most of the Russian-language faculty were exiles of one sort or another. He himself had been born in Latvia between the world wars; when he was 14, his family fled to Germany, at the end of WW2, and as the Red Army advanced from the East. They had then settled in the UK.
I sometimes enjoyed a drink, and occasionally a curry in Drummond Street (also near Warren Street), with Ig and one or other of his friends, such as “Uncle John”, a divorced fellow whose wife, Alla from Leningrad, was another language teacher of mine at one time, or with Guy Churchill, a pleasant retiree and one-time SAS soldier (during the Malayan Emergency of the 1950s), who had the odd habit (never seen before or since) of breaking the filter tips off his cigarettes before smoking them.
Ig was rather eccentric, and sometimes did things which were very surreal, as when he took me, for no obvious reason, to have tea with the writer, Doris Lessing [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doris_Lessing], at a cafe-bar near the language school. A strange, awkward, rather Kafkaesque experience.
It never occurred to me that Ig, not far off retirement age, might remarry and so compromise his bachelor life of Russo-Soviet culture, beer, and collecting railway clocks (several were in the main room of his house). I was therefore surprised to be invited to his wedding, at a Register Office somewhere on the extension of Edgware Road, far up that road, maybe near Brent Cross (I cannot now exactly recall).
My wife and I attended the short ceremony, and met the bride. She was Russian but had been resident in Latvia, where Ig had met her (not sure where or how; possibly at a bus stop or the like). She was supposedly mid-twenties (my wife thought older), and looked a bit lost amid Ig’s rather grey-haired friends, who included a couple of occasional teachers of mine at that language school, one being a one-time Army linguist (and keeper of goats), another being Gerald Brooke, who had spent 4 years in prison near Moscow before being swapped for the Krogers: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Brooke; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_Cohen_(spy); https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lona_Cohen.
That was the wedding. Some time later, Ig asked me to take his new wife to lunch at Lincoln’s Inn. She was friendly, pleasant, and told me that she had a law degree from Latvia, maybe Riga.
Scroll forward. My wife and I took on the lease of a large country house, one of the largest in North Cornwall.
We invited Ig and his wife to stay for the weekend. They arrived, but right from the start there was something wrong. For one thing, in a cold autumn, Ig’s wife came in a short dress, no coat, no gloves, perhaps unaware of how cold a large English country house can be, despite large fuel bills (one January, I spent nearly £700 on oil alone; plus coal and firewood. £700, in one month, 20 years ago).
Ig’s wife was actually quite rude from the start, not at all friendly to my wife, treated her like a serf, did not offer any help or whatever (we had the big house, but not any domestic staff as such), and just seemed to be sulking constantly. We assumed that the ill-matched couple had had a spat on the way down.
Anyway, after a weekend which —without going into great detail— tested my wife’s patience to the hilt, and when the pair were almost ready to go home, my wife thought to take some extra towels to their room (the house had originally had 26 bedrooms). She saw that Ig’s new wife’s suitcase was open on the bed; on top of the contents, a silk scarf belong to my wife, from Hermes. Ig’s wife had actually stolen the silk scarf (and other items, including bottles of scent) and placed them in her suitcase. The item were retrieved, and a diplomatic way found to raise the matter with the guest/thief.
Not an entirely successful weekend.
After that, I received calls from Ig’s Russian friends, begging me to think of a way to “save him from that stupid girl, who knows nothing but films and fashion“.
In fact, Ig did try to divorce her, after he overheard her talking to her mother in Riga, and the pair plotting to divorce him and so get half of his quite valuable house. In the end, the divorce never happened, despite preliminary court hearings.
Ig was prevailed upon to change his mind and, looking at that Guardian obit, they seem to have remained married until his death some 11 years later. I hope that the woman was not unkind to Ig in his last years, because he was a good fellow, but I never saw him after the disastrous weekend, and only spoke to him a couple of times when (maybe at her instigation) he wanted to bring her down again to Cornwall. I could not put my wife through that sort of nonsense again, though.
I presume that that woman got his house, I believe worth (in 2013) about £800,000 (and I suppose worth twice that much now), and other financial benefits.
However, not all Russians, Ukrainians etc can be tarred with the same brush. For example, I knew one girl (from Kiev) who was offered marriage by a British diplomat (who became an ambassador only about 2 years later) but refused him.
Many Russians (and, no doubt, Ukrainians too) are very fine people, but they come from a very different cultural and social background than English people. History has been harsh in those regions, and attitudes are fashioned out of such history.
Truss’ Cabinet picks are genuinely terrifying. We must brace for the utter turmoil which is no doubt ahead of us all. It’s going to be a long, dark winter.
The last Cabinet contained only sycophants prepared to ignore Johnson's epic unsuitability for high office. The new one will contain only sycophants prepared to ignore Johnson's epic unsuitability for high office who haven't criticised or upset Liz Truss. It's a narrowing field!
The main surprise is that Nadine Dorries is not there, it being rumoured that she is about to be elevated to the Lords. Well, why not? After all, a woman (Michelle Mone) who faked a “success story” about her insolvent bra company is there, as are several absurd black women, one of whom is only there because her son was killed in a scuffle with white yobs at a bus stop. Just a few examples of the deadheads in the House of Lords (Oona King is another one).
If Truss freezes energy prices but makes working people pay for it rather than the big oil and gas companies, she’s going to be out of office pretty quickly.
In principle, correct, but there is no mechanism, as we have seen in recent years, for the public to be able to dispense with even the most ridiculous Prime Minister, until given an opportunity at a general election.
New Foreign Secretary James Cleverly voted to reduce Corporation Tax 9 times, yet he has voted to cut benefits 23 times.
Not many people know Cleverly advocated scrapping the minimum wage in 2013.
Another humiliation for Britain, having this ridiculous creature as Foreign Secretary, complete with his “degree” in Hospitality Management from West London Poly.
In fact, apart from a couple of years as a sales manager, Cleverly seems not to have had a job for much of his life, unless you include his Territorial Army officer activity. He was never commissioned into the Regular Army, by reason of a supposed leg injury (unspecified); nor is it known whether he dropped out of Sandhurst or other training institution.
A couple more bits of news about the new Cabinet
That little pissant Robert Jenrick, a total puppet of the Jew-Zionist/Israel lobby, has been appointed a Minister of State despite his very “questionable” links to Jew property speculators.
Jewish wife; children brought up as if full-Jew. Completely in the Zionist pocket.
The other news is that ex-officer Johnny Mercer, who seemed like a rare breath of fresh air in the Commons at first (but who, disappointingly, turned out to be a moneygrubber, at least from what I have read), has been kicked out of Government, and his wife, seeing the extra salary etc disappearing up the chimney, is livid.
Prime Minister Liz Truss has been branded an "imbecile" by the wife of sacked minister Johnny Mercer.
Felicity Cornelius-Mercer said the cabinet system “stinks” and “treats people appallingly” after her husband was removed as veterans affairs minister.https://t.co/ghjIelYWOG
I suppose that Mercer was hoping against hope to be appointed at some later stage as Defence Secretary, though his “bring it on!” rhetoric about nuclear war with Russia hardly inspired confidence in his judgment.
As for Mercer’s wife, Felicity, of whom I knew nothing until today, I award her 9 out of 10 for honesty, 1 out of 10 for diplomacy, and another 9 out of 10 for making my day more amusing.
You see that sort of thing all the time on Twitter— a cavalcade of talking heads, supposed “comedians”, sports talking heads etc, all paying lip-service to the BBC which, in most cases, pays them. Sickening homage to patronage.
Look at that Sweet bastard (whoever he is). Begging for state censorship.
It was this @bobscartoons cartoon which the complainant took offence to. This is, from my perspective, a valid representation of school curricular overemphasis these days. But the point is that @WHSmith should be selling the FULL spectrum of opinion for us. Not choosing for us. pic.twitter.com/nKGeVI6ZLH
@kerr649, @louisemensch has never forgiven me for a long-ago column item in which I laughed at the way she wandered in and out of New Labour back in the 1990s, when she was still writing chick-lit. I actually agreed to meet her to discuss it. https://t.co/eXpofp8ZWw
Louise Mensch. A blast from the past, now just a washed-up, divorced Twitter twit who, after I was —both wrongfully and unlawfully— disbarred in 2016, actually tweeted directly to me, threatening (ignorantly) to have me disbarred in New York as well. Never heard anything more about it.
Louise Mensch was, inter alia, a drug abuser, and admitted that her drug abuse “messed up her head“. A rock “music” “groupie” at one time long ago (when at University), who became, at least metaphorically, an Israel- lobby “groupie” later.
So only 22% of people are at all pleased that Liz Truss is or is about to be Prime Minister (once rubberstamped by the Queen). Not such a surprise, in view of the fact that the voters have not been asked to vote on this. At least, only those voters who are Conservative Party members, i.e. about 1 in every 500 people, of which only just over half voted for Liz Truss.
Liz Truss has therefore been voted for by about one person out of every 900 people. Not much of a mandate.
Even most of those who normally vote for Conservative Party candidates are not pleased about this— a mere 41% of those voters.
Coudenhove-Kalergi Plan in operation
“For the first time in Britain’s history, there will not be a white man in one of the four great offices of state.” [The Guardian]
LEAST WE FORGET what the Tories have done, this being amongst the worse – & after public outcry they gave water companies until 2050 to reduce sewage dumping thro infrastructure & the right to increase our bills to pay for the work.https://t.co/yUJIju123v via @MetroUK
Tory false populism and failed energy policies: shelved the nuclear strategy of the last Labour govt, sold off gas storage facilities, failed to push renewables adequately, abandoned the home insulation programme.#newsnightpic.twitter.com/S8R5xdEGqL
— Alan M – Square One is underrated💙 🇬🇧 🇩🇪 🇪🇺 (@am1874northwich) September 5, 2022
More on Ukrainian “refugees” in the UK—
“Why I’m glad to see the back of my Ukrainian refugee“
“As Olena’s luggage once again filled half of my downstairs corridor, ready to be loaded into the car that would ferry her to her new accommodation, I could hardly wait to see the back of her.”
I suggest that all well-meaning and/or virtue-signalling mugs thinking of hosting such guests read that Daily Mail article before buying into a pack of trouble.
Another point is that most of Ukraine is not a war zone in reality, not yet anyway. With the exception of part of the Black Sea coastal belt, and the odd military base, almost anywhere west of the Dnieper is not under attack, and that is well over half of the country. The same is true (so far) of the majority of territory east of the Dnieper.
In all, about three quarters of Ukraine is pretty safe and life is continuing in a relatively normal fashion, bearing in mind the overall situation of conflict, and the fact that Ukraine is not a real state at all but a failed, shambolic, corrupt, crime-ridden kleptocracy, run by a Jew cabal.
Tweets seen
Yes @jonboyjon1976 I am supporting his freedom of speech and opposing the government’s lawless use of arbitrary punishment against him. I regard this as my civic duty. Do you * oppose* freedom of speech or support arbitrary punishment? https://t.co/iPbTPYyhb0
@robertchallis. As I’ve written in The Mail on Sunday, I regard it as wrong. I don’t know which law might make it illegal,but in that case punishment should follow arrest, charge, trial and conviction.We call this due process. What I am protesting against is arbitrary punishment. https://t.co/ulFkvyydGz
Tweeter “Gerard” must be a complete idiot. Look at a. the population numbers for Russia and Ukraine, then b. at the full military and/or destructive power available to both; then c. at the economic strength of both.
I certainly do not advocate this, but what does tweeter “Gerard” think would happen if Putin landed a nuclear bomb on Kiev?
Political ambition is a dangerous thing. Those in its grip are often deluded by beliefs which bear little relation to reality. Nobody should go into politics until they have raised children to adulthood, or fought in a war, or run their own business. Or something of that sort. https://t.co/59Zdf6s2x0
The free market is a liberal obsession, and has been ripping through Communist China fur decades . There is nothing conservative about such crude money-worship. Conservatism values the family, the little platoons, tradition and permanence, not unending waves of greed. https://t.co/d5qvwrLbwE
The obese Therese Coffey, the new Health Secretary.
This is how u know NOTHING is going to change.
The NHS is a repair & accident service, it is not a healthy lifestyle service. A Health secretary shd have a handle on what a constitutes a healthy life.https://t.co/DSMilJORP8
I have not listened to LBC joke radio since about 1976, but I see that irascible radio loudmouth Nick Ferrari (pro-Jewish lobby drone) has today referred to “Boris”-idiot as “a supremely successful leader“. Just one example of the unreality that pervades the UK’s msm.
More music
[Panoramic view of Moskva river and Kremlin at sunrise]
Eddie Izzard
Intentionally or not, Eddie Izzard shows how supposedly intelligent people will go along with anything if they think that’s the approved opinion. pic.twitter.com/FMcqVImrvR
A not-very-funny (because it could just happen) piece of political satire.
In the circumstances mooted, only a [self-censored…] of the evil in society would cleanse this country.
Eddie Izzard is a man who enjoys wearing make up & feminine clothes. That’s entirely his choice. However it doesn’t mean he is a woman, any more than my cropped hair, jeans & lack of lipstick make me a man. Please don’t reinforce regressive stereotypes with incorrect pronoun use
I applaud Eddie Izzard's courage in becoming the Screaming Lord Sutch of our generation. We've long needed a hilarious spoof candidate to remind us our politics is broken. pic.twitter.com/bSRn2TMEzs
Proof that this society, at least in large parts (which means overall, really) is broken. Many people are so confused about reality that they cannot distinguish male from female, good from bad, decent behaviour from mere virtue-signalling, and social cohesion from fake communitarian nonsense (such as the brainwashed plebs of 2020, “clapping for the NHS” on order, or under social pressure, outside their dwellings).
The Labour Party is especially infected with socio-political disease.
More music
More tweets
Therese Coffey who hid 9 reports that apparently detailed wrong doings and cruelty in her last department is Health Secretary, Deputy PM – She is also best friends with Truss. https://t.co/XOoGOZRljv
There is no real democracy in the UK, just a rigged electoral system designed expressly to maintain a mere facade of democracy while, in reality, providing the voters with a fake and basically binary Con/Lab “choice” leading to an ultimately-similar result no matter which party “wins”.
Ken Clarke on BBCr4today said that the UK is heading into a deep long lasting recession even worse than the one Ted Heath's govt created. National Debt is 100% the equivalent of GDP – only ever happens when the Tories are the govt. Some party of FISCAL RESPONSIBILTY.
Free money for “Covid” “panicdemic” nonsense, free money for the regime of the Jew dictator Zelensky, free money for migrant-invaders and hoteliers, free money for MPs, free money and tax cuts for speculators, but poverty and suffering for most of the British people.
PAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
She voted for 70 million people to be placed under potentially fatal house arrest, for no reason, multiple times.
What the fucking hell do you think she's going to do to defend the 'principles of liberty'? https://t.co/pR4sBvl8qF
…and the “BLM” “useful idiots” talk about “cultural appropriation” by white Europeans! Of course, the blacks are just being used by the “you know whos” (((you know whos))). “They” are those who infest the world of TV, film and radio (and the Press), not the blacks.
Late thought
I saw a minute or so of the public valete of “Boris”-idiot in Downing Street. Pathetic. Entirely expected. Pitiful, really.
There was the usual back-of-postcard “classical” reference (to Cincinnatus— https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucius_Quinctius_Cincinnatus), in order to remind the public that Johnson was at Eton and Oxford, and the usual pathetic jokes, this time mainly about how Johnson saw himself as a “booster” (rocket) to get Liz Truss into orbit. To my mind, more like a “booster” (injection) that poisons and kills the recipient. Anyway, as far as I know, only former MP Mark Field has been able to get Liz Truss into orbit, and she very quickly fell to Earth in the muddy fields of South West Norfolk.
It seems that Therese Coffey, the appalling woman presently Secretary of State for the DWP, is likely to be appointed Secretary of State for Health (assuming a Liz Truss premiership— we shall know about that later today).
Good grief. Thick half-caste James Cleverly as Foreign Secretary?! What an incredible embarrassment and humiliation for this country, even after Liz Truss…
The others mooted? Well, we have as mooted Chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng, the “African at Eton”, who said, in a book he co-authored with others (including Liz Truss), that “Once they enter the workplace, the British are among the worst idlers in the world.” See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britannia_Unchained; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwasi_Kwarteng.
Incidentally, that book was written by 5 MPs, of whom only 2 (Liz Truss, Chris Skidmore) are full European, the others being Kwasi Kwarteng (Ghanaian origin), Priti Patel (East African Indian origin), Dominic Raab (half-Jew).
Then we have Ben Wallace, Defence Secretary since 2019 on the strength of having been a captain in the Scots Guards. Seems to think (after a few whiskys) that the now-pitiful British armed forces can take on Russia (in a nuclear war?) and “win”.
Wallace’s actual words were to the effect that the Scots Guards had “kicked the [backside]” of Nikolai I of Russia in the Crimean War (about 170 years ago) and could do it again.
Let us hope that Wallace stays off the whisky, in case he confuses 1852 with 2022 and then, while a little too merry, tries to kick Putin’s nuclear backside.
“Culture— Nadine Dorries“. Need one say more?
“Security— Tom Tugendhat“. Really? The part-Jew former desk soldier whose wife is a politically-connected French judge, while Tugendhat (a fervent pro-Israel drone, closely connected to the Jewish lobby in the UK) is himself a French citizen (dual French-British citizenship). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Tugendhat.
Nadhim Zahawi? He emulates the limpet. He blagged his corrupt, expenses-cheating, tax-evading way into Cabinet under “Boris”-idiot, and he will be clinging onto office no matter what.
Most of the rest on that list can be best described as deadheads and idiots.
Such a Cabinet, at such a time? The auguries cannot be favourable.
Basically, “Boris” Johnson appointed to his Cabinet those MPs with more interest in office than their own self-respect. The dregs, pretty much. What we now see is a new Cabinet which can be described as the dregs of the dregs.
Rather telling, though weakened near the end by a would-be-respectful nod to the Ukrainian woman married to the Jew dictator, Zelensky. Hard to feel sorry for a woman who, with her corrupt husband, owns at least two villas in the sun (in Italy and in Florida), one of which is apparently worth USD $40 million.
Not only does it feed and shelter sealife and buffer the coast against storms, it absorbs carbon dioxide in the same way as land forests do pic.twitter.com/7TemDDN1I7
🗣️“Seaweed is the gift that keeps on giving,” says the Seaweed Alliance, a group set up in 2019 to support a burgeoning industry. It is fast-growing, sustainable and “has amazing properties”
In the 19th century it was used to make iodine and in the 1970s it went into hydrocolloids, a gelling agent for ice cream, salad dressing and jelly. One hydrocolloid, alginate, is used to thicken toothpaste
An interesting report, which hits a few points or questions many of the ultra-wealthy preppers written about may have considered but not resolved. For example, once there is an existential disaster in society, once your money (whether gold coins, bank deposits, or Bitcoin etc ) is worthless, how can you ensure the loyalty of your security force?
The snake-oil salesman becomes a gin salesman. Well, I suppose that, after all, that other —sort-of— smoothie, Ribbentrop, sold Champagne at one time…
Strange to think that, as recently as (?) 5 years ago, some people saw this egregious example of “controlled opposition” as a potential prime minister. Having said that, and after “Boris”-idiot and now Liz Truss, Farage seems relatively straightforward and capable! Our national life now must lie somewhere between Nietzsche and Kafka.
I shall not be trying Farage’s alcoholic product any more than I would his political products; I have never once tasted gin, and I do not think that I shall start now.
“The Last Kings of Shanghai: The Rival Jewish Dynasties That Helped Create Modern China” tells of two Iraqi Jewish families of business magnates, the Sassoons and Kadoories, who dominated Chinese life for almost 200 years until the advent of Communism.” https://t.co/bcuXLKCCdD
In a CDC survey of over 13,000 children, more than 55 percent of the subjects between the ages of 6 months and two years had a “systemic reaction” in response to their first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna #COVID19 vaccines, the CDC said.https://t.co/gPzM5RRiXR
If anyone wants inspiration to take action now, not later. Watch this clip from @drstevejames (who was pivotal in ending vaccine mandates) expressing his regret for not standing up earlier, when it was affecting care home workers but not NHS staff, yet.#together@Togetherdecpic.twitter.com/Od5BsyNSKA
Part 2: Yes, they've been to 'the market' to seek alternative quotes. No other provider will even quote for their business. Not a single one. We need urgent action by govt to address what is, in reality, a monopoly not a market.
Off to the Lords as a cushy, and remunerative, reward for her repeated embarrassing public failures in the service of undying loyalty to her master.
Rarely has there been a career that is more emblematic of the failure of the British state than that of Nadine Dorries.#Newsnighthttps://t.co/lMN6rbJFvM
— I Am Incorrigible also on Bluesky, threads & masto (@ImIncorrigible) September 5, 2022
Not a word of condemnation from the MSM or political leaders anywhere. It’s pretty obvious the reason they aren’t condemning it is because it is their intention to implement it globally. Anyone who thinks this isn’t coming to England is in for a rude awakening very soon #TYRANNYpic.twitter.com/jYtkwr6HcU
When I had a Twitter account (a pack of Jews had me expelled, via malicious complaints, in 2018), I frequently tweeted that Russia might offer the UK cheap gas supplies in return for a less-aggressively anti-Russia foreign policy.
The fact is that there are some people who cannot wait to be given the green light to denounce others. It happened not only in Stalin’s Russia but in the Britain of the Second World War, and in Germany too.
The Gestapo which (contrary to Western popular opinion formed via Hollywood films) was not a huge monolithic “NKVD” or “KGB” but a relatively small and efficient organization staffed almost entirely by ex-police detectives from the “Kripo” or Kriminalpolizei, spent much of its time following up leads generated by the public. Most were nonsense. In fact, a Gestapo officer spent much of his time binning plainly malicious and often anonymous denunciations.
“The Gestapo—at times—was overwhelmed with denunciations and most of its time was spent sorting out the credible from the less credible denunciations.[116] Many of the local offices were understaffed and overworked, struggling with the paper load caused by so many denunciations.” [Wikipedia]: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestapo#Population_ratios,_methods_and_effectiveness.
As can be seen, British people in 2020 and 2021 have shown themselves willing to report their neighbours and others even for breaches of the ridiculous and arbitrary “Rule of 6”, a “rule” just made up on the hoof by the bad joke currently posing as Prime Minister.
The propaganda put out last year was that Britain had become a stronger “community”. 90% or more of that was and is rubbish. As with most of the “virus”-related stuff, you are better off believing the very opposite of what the authorities say.
Friday daydream
Hard to believe that this house (and 127 acres) is less than a mile from my now very humble home…
Just put on sale this week for “offers over £10.5 million”. Ah, well, I have a Euromillions ticket, so here’s hoping…
Afternoon music
More tweets
Around 40 migrants on a beach in Ambleteuse, France, crowd onto a tiny craft bound for UK shores.
French police stand & watch them as they carry the dinghy to the shore & enter the water to board. Evidence they are culpable in trafficking by doing nothing.
You can see what is happening from the wider perspective: the international conspiracy (or “consensus”) wants to destroy the European peoples, their race and culture.
Aim: destroy European race and culture.
Method: flood Europe with the racially and culturally backward.
Also: Broadcast racemixing propaganda: put it into every TV drama, radio programme, TV ad, and promote the aim in a hundred other ways; normalize mixed-race offspring; prevent opposing views being heard or seen.
In the UK, there is empty rhetoric from the NWO/ZOG government about stopping “illegal” migration, but at same time the System is encouraging “legal” migration (and now also openly inviting 5 million Hong Kong Chinese to come and live in the UK).
Look at what the police, border guards, navies of Britain and France are doing. Are they even trying to stem the flood? No, they are facilitating it, with the occasional arrest of a few people-smugglers (to keep the public quiet).
This is conspiracy, and treachery.
Google “Coudenhove-Kalergi Plan”, “Coudenhove-Kalergi” and The Camp of the Saints etc and share it with others. While you still can.
Late tweets
They'll go after their children next when there is no one left from that time .
Gee, I wonder how all the poor countries without vaccines are doing. They must be an absolute train wreck by now. I mean, Egypt with 102 million pop and only 5% vax rate has less new cases per day than multivax Singapore. What? pic.twitter.com/wMsSRWwVkz
Over the past decade, ideas I have had for a long time (rewilding, a “wildlife grid” etc) have become almost mainstream. I am glad to see it. Both charities and wealthy individuals are leading the way. People with fewer resources are also joining in, in various ways (by keeping part of their private gardens “wild”, by not using pesticides and herbicides etc), and their numbers count, bearing in mind that the UK has anything up to 10 million acres of private gardens.
Before and after pictures have been released showing how rewilding and habitat restoration have transformed a once barren landscape in the Trossachs over a 25-year period. pic.twitter.com/edUUpuJZpP
Glen Finglas estate was a hill farm that had been heavily grazed by sheep when it was taken over by the Woodland Trust charity a quarter of a century ago. pic.twitter.com/MQkxARWWBg
Over the years more than one million native trees have been planted at the site, creating some 1,800 hectares of new woodlands. pic.twitter.com/agvv35Eg28
The Tory line trotted out on the Universal Credit cut, 6 not 2 hours work are required to make up the difference. (Nearly 6 day week) #bbcqtpic.twitter.com/9J3tJhtTQ6
As to BBC TV Question Time, I have not bothered to watch that rigged circus for years. Seems that last night featured the Jew fraudster and MP, Shapps; also, the System-approved black MP David Lammy, as well as Kate Andrews, the mouthpiece for System-“libertarian” views. She is American, Lammy Caribbean black, while Shapps is of course a Jew-Zionist.
In fact, that kind of terminally-tired 1940s or 1950s-style “Brains Trust” kind of show has little to offer now, especially when the “brains” have poor brains. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brains_Trust.
The last politician or politician-manque on that show yesterday was one Munira Wilson. I admit that I had never heard of her. “Obscure” seems to best describe her. East African Asian, an ex-Muslim turned C of E Christian, and with a British husband: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munira_Wilson.
Seems that, as on previous occasions, the “outsider” (non-Westminster bubble) panellist was the most sensible. Walker was the only one, from the Question Time clips I have just seen, seemingly capable of “running a whelk stall”, though Iceland is rather bigger than that! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceland_(supermarket).
Exactly. Now we see a similar phenomenon in the UK, as those who fight back, even with words, against Jewish-Zionist influence and control over our country, being called “far right” “extremists”, and in some cases prosecuted as “terrorists”, even without having done anything.
Near miss
While researching on Wikipedia today, I noticed that the now long-deceased aunt of a one-time girlfriend had once been one of the governors of the BBC. I knew that she had been a life peer, but not that she had been on the BBC Board of Governors. Saw a few other things about her that I did not previously know. In some respects an intellectual pioneer. She would have been interesting to talk to, but died in the Spring of 1981, before (though not long before) I met her niece. Pity.
Late morning music
The new “unacceptable face of capitalism”
Jake Brown, a 27-year-old former non-league footballer, founded Avro Energy in 2014 while studying law at Birmingham University
The collapse of Avro’s consumer division on Wednesday was the biggest failure yet seen of a household supplier
Avro Energy expanded rapidly by offering families cheaper electricity and gas. Its turnover soared from £80 million in 2017 to £390 million in the 18 months to June 2019. However, a small profit slumped to a £28 million loss
“A pair of female thieves dubbed the “Rolex Rippers” have seemingly struck again after a wealthy elderly man had his watch stolen….
On Tuesday, the man in his 80s became the latest victim of two women who are targeting men in affluent areas and close to exclusive golf clubs across southern England.
The theft is believed to be at least the 21st incident, with the duo, thought to be in their 20s, targeting men in Dorset, Hampshire, Surrey, Gloucestershire and Sussex.
In many cases, the women have posed as charity workers with clipboards and have stolen watches from their victims without them realising as they sign a petition.
However, other times they have been less subtle and simply ripped the expensive timepieces off the men’s wrists.
This time the pair approached the man outside his home in Links Road, Poole, which is next to £2,000-a-year Parkstone Golf Club, at lunchtime on Tuesday.
They asked him to sign a petition and then one of the women thanked and hugged him. He did not notice until a few minutes later that his watch had been taken.
‘Be mindful of being approached’
A spokesman from Dorset Police said: “It is believed that these females are responsible for a series of similar thefts across Dorset this year and the public should be mindful of being approached in this manner or engaging in conversation with the individuals.”
The pair are believed to have struck in Dorset at least seven times before in Poole, Wimborne, Wareham, Ferndown, Highcliffe and Poundbury.
Hampshire Police said they have at least 10 victims, and two brothers, aged 85 and 91, were targeted 80 miles apart in Gloucestershire and Surrey.
Both women are said to be aged in their 20s or 30s and between 5ft 2ins and 5ft 9ins tall. They both have dark hair and Eastern European accents although some victims have believed them to be Spanish.
The spate of robberies are thought to have begun on May 19 at Stoneham Golf Club near Southampton.” [Daily Telegraph].
I am glad, in a sense, that I no longer have (or have the means to have) Rolex watches. Mine were all Rolex Seadwellers. Now I no longer have need of any watch. Relative poverty, but also relative freedom…
Oddly enough, I was just looking, not long ago, on Google maps and Google Earth, at the area of Sydney, Australia, where I lived, in the late 1960s, for 2-3 years as a child of 10-13 (Ellalong Road, Mosman/Cremorne and, for the first 6 months or so, Wyong Road, Mosman). Also, the area around the nearby little school that I attended at first (Middle Harbour PS, at Macpherson Street, Mosman; I was later at North Sydney Boys’ High, a few miles away, for 7-8 months).
Many changes. I notice that quite a few roads, including Ellalong, have been made into dead ends to prevent through traffic. A good move. Other changes? Well, quite a few houses there in the late 1960s have been demolished and replaced by much larger ones; larger houses, smaller gardens. Google Earth shows that almost every house in that neighbourhood now has a swimming pool. In 1967-69, not many did.
I notice a change in street vegetation. Far more small trees and flowering bushes, as far as I can recall. Fewer palm trees, though. There seems to have been, perhaps, a move to native species, and to more green/flowering trees, though the tall imperial palms near my old school are still there.
Overall, I should say that that neighbourhood is rather more scenic now, because of the flowering abundance, though with far more cars, both moving and parked on the street (if I remember aright, street parking was unusual when I lived there). Looking at the pictures, an impression of greater wealth overall, perhaps.
That was also true of Balmoral Beach (which was the nearest convenient beach to us, about 5-10 mins in the car). Many cafes, and a more manicured look generally.
BBC Radio 4 Today Programme drone pushing the “lockdown saves lives” rubbish, when in fact, taken overall, far more will die because of “lockdown”. They will die of everything except Coronavirus.
Looks as if the UK government (ZOG regime) is intent on keeping the “Coronavirus crisis” going as long as possible. In fact, the regime may well be quite content that, in care homes and private homes, the very elderly and unwell are dying “quietly”, out of the public eye. It solves for the regime the care crisis that it itself has created via spending cuts since 2010.
Conspiracy theory? I think not (ask Dominic Cummings and his “weirdos and misfits”).
#r4today Tory Cabinet Minister Therese Coffey coming up. She has the welfare brief! No seriously – she’s in charge of our welfare! pic.twitter.com/X1seg7yF8h
Therese Coffey is parroting lines not answering the questions & not showing any empathy for residents or workers. This is simply not good enough. #CareHomeCrisis#COVID2019https://t.co/bNPoyNpnHv
— Simon Gosden. Esq. #fbpe 3.5% 🇪🇺🐟🇬🇧🏴☠️🦠💙 (@g_gosden) April 14, 2020
Therese Coffey “entirely happy” with the Govt’s response to the c19 crisis. #BBCBreakfast UK deaths now 167 per million of population (excluding those who have died outside hospital) Germany deaths now 38 per million.
But the Tories are happy with that. 🤬
— NE man lost at sea 🇪🇺🇬🇧🏴 (@nemanlostatsea) April 14, 2020
This government of fools (illegitimate ZOG regime) is lost without its part-Jew public entertainer, Boris-idiot (who apparently has now been tested for Coronavirus and shows no sign of it, oddly, despite his supposedly having been almost dying from it for two weeks; surely he would show “antibodies”? Perhaps either I, or the commentator, more likely, need to understand better the situation, the virus, the testing procedure or the language used.
Looks like I was right to blog about Therese Coffey as a “deadhead MP”!
— Mirror Breaking News (@MirrorBreaking_) April 14, 2020
Either Sky News or the useless “Office of Budget Responsibility” is looking for pie in the sky (Sky?). The near-collapse of the UK economy is already happening in reality, and the Government is now unlikely to finish this nonsense of “lockdown” any time soon, mainly because the Cabinet is now, in the absence of the part-Jew public entertainer Boris-idiot, posing as Prime Minister, akin to a headless chicken.
As for a swift “bouncing back”, where does that idea originate? In the Conservative Party propaganda department? Half of the world is still not functioning economically. By Autumn, the Coronavirus crisis/scare/whatever will be over, presumably, but in Europe (still our main trading area, despite Brexit) demand will be at rock-bottom. The same will be true of the USA/North America, our second most important area.
Domestic demand will be very weak too, in a situation where millions will be unemployed and where the “self-employed” (5 million people) will often be making little money. Pay generally is likely to be low. So from where does the “bounce-back” come?
Perhaps what is meant is that there will be a huge fall in activity, but then followed by an increase on that low figure.
NEW OBR will publish noon today illustrative scenarios on pandemic hit to UK GDP/deficit… we reported last week internally Gov looking at bigger end of Q2 hit ranging from independent forecasts of -7.5% to -24% GDP -average -14% -no precedent since 1921 https://t.co/ClDw86Z444
Lack of PPE is a symptom of general permanent failings in an NHS which (whisper it ) is often well short of perfect. Testing is a diversion. https://t.co/YG2qrUOEPT
Causation is easily demonstrated with seat-belts. Also, you cannot, if you examine all countries' experience of covid-19 outbreaks, identify any consistent correlation between *any* state action and the level of deaths, let alone causation. @veritasherehttps://t.co/k6jNo2m9qr
How have I moved them? Why should I do so? My argument has remained the same from the start. The government's actions are damaging, threaten lives, freedom and prosperity and are not proportionate to the problem.This is still the case. @raulmurryhttps://t.co/q8FxoMgFWd
People want to believe what they're told @jwdlewis. Fear's a great unifier, and tends to make those who are afraid more trusting towards, and reliant upon, power. Govt and much of the media released this force and now, like the Sorcerer's Apprentice, they can't control it. https://t.co/mdMRAOlwLc
A kind word about me on Twitter. Rare, now that Twitter has been ethnically and politically “cleansed” by the Jew-Zionist element and its malicious and concerted campaign of “complaints” and “reports”…
(the tweeters below are discussing the self-publicizing solicitor, now an Israeli citizen, and who calls himself “Mark Lewis Lawyer”)
Oh yes, especially after the disciplinary action against him, well detailed in Ian Millard's blog. I am probably not of the correct ethnic category to expect his help.
Incidentally, I still see people tweeting the 2016 report about me in the Independent. The report was one-sided but at least partly-accurate. I disliked as much, or more, the accompanying headless photograph, presented as if me, but which was of some other barrister.
I do not smoke, have never been a cigarette smoker, and had far better shoes than the barrister in that Independent photo! The Independent also seemed ignorant of the fact that “to practise law” is written thus, and not “to practice law”, which is only the correct usage in the USA. A small but telling point, symptomatic of the crashing standards in the terminally-sick UK Press (Lugenpresse; Judenpresse…).
My blog
I had a pleasing spike in blog hits yesterday: 435 views from 286 individual visitors. Far above the usual range.
The madness gets madder (something I keep thinking impossible, and then am proven wrong…)
I do not blame “Bootstrap Cook”, aka Jack Monroe, for using the unpleasant “Mark Lewis Lawyer” in her libel case against the commentator, Katie Hopkins, and it worked out for the Bootstrap Cook, though as a one-time practising barrister I can say with absolute certainty that a precocious child could have won that case against Katie Hopkins, who was evidently either badly-advised or not advised (I do not know whether she was “her own lawyer”, which is usually a mistake).
I have to say that, of the few of her recipes seen by me via her Twitter profile, I have not been enthusiastic about many, but I admit that I have never actually made (or tasted) any of them (they may well be pleasant in actuality). However, I think that this person is performing a public service.
We see in Britain how many people are living on peanuts (sometimes literally), the result of Britain’s economic and social decline combined with —mostly— Conservative Party government policies which have made tough times worse for so many, while the wealthy and very wealthy have thrived in the past 10-20 years especially. Anything that helps people both to survive, and survive without unnecessary pain, must be good.
Many people in the UK cook little, and eat far too many takeways etc, which may be not only unhealthy if taken in excess, but relatively expensive if indulged in frequently. That becomes even more true for those on very low incomes. Often one sees TV reports about people living on pennies getting Chinese takeaways, Indian curry, or fish and chips, and spending their little money on that. Fish and chips ?£5-£10 per head, an Indian or Chinese even more; the Indian place, in a nearby town, and that I use occasionally for takeaway (it’s also a restaurant), is very good but works out at about £15 a head.
I do not forget that sometimes people living in a poor way need something that just briefly seems to make life worth living, even if it is not the most healthy option. George Orwell wrote about that in one of his essays.
I am not merely opining de haut en bas here. I have been down there a few times… especially in — and for several months— 1998, when I had to learn to live in London on plain rice, one piece of fruit per day, bits and pieces (I even ate fruit abandoned by traders at street markets and left in empty boxes by the stalls!).
I had to be “creative” with the Underground (I expect that their technology would defeat me these days) and otherwise had to walk everywhere, trudging morosely past places formerly frequented as a customer, such as Julie’s restaurant in Holland Park, Raoul’s cafe in Little Venice (where I had formerly breakfasted daily in the early/mid 1990s) and other places barred to me by lack of cash such as the once-lovely River Room at the Savoy Hotel (I believe much changed since those days), where I always ate and drank the same thing: “Atlantic Platter” of fish and shellfish, washed down by pretty much the best Chablis I ever had.
[above: The River Room at the Savoy. Actually not looking completely different to how it was c.1994, if memory serves, but the tables are ugly square things now; they used to have beautiful big round tables, even for two people; also, there is a less opulent look somehow, the tables now without full heavy white tablecloths]
Silver lining: I lost rather a lot of weight on my enforced diet with enforced exercise; in fact everyone told me how well I was looking!
“Shocking footage shows a man brandishing a stick after being confronted by a furious local after he ignored the coronavirus lockdown to go camping in Wales. The video was posted on social media after the camper was confronted by a group of locals who asked him to leave the site at Llyn Cowlyd near Trefriw on Saturday.”
“The daughter of the 60-year-old in the footage told North Wales Live : “My dad was with the owner of the land and all they did was ask them to leave and said that the police were on their way.”
“Then the man threatened to hit my dad in the head with the stick. She added: “When the police arrived, the campers said they were from Hull. The officers were mortified.”
“”They were fined and they traced the number plate to make sure they returned home.”
Her dad added: “It was unbelievable that they travelled all the way from Hull to the top of a mountain to camp when the whole country is on lockdown and the government clearly has instructed everyone to stay home unless necessary.” [Daily Mirror]
Well, for me the lunacy is on the part of those locals. What possible harm in terms of spreading the virus can two people do, camping on a remote mountain? It seems that they left a mess. Well, fine them for that.
It just shows how quickly the masses have internalized the “we are slaves of the State and will do what the government says (even if very silly)” propaganda, given strength by the virus-“fear” aspect…Actually, what is borderline frightening is how easily supposedly rational individuals (as a mass) can be manipulated and controlled.
As for the locals, the story put me in mind, perhaps unfairly, of this:
The shutdown of the economy
Was just looking at the latest companies to actually go into administration. They are unlikely ever to return to active trading. Oasis, Warehouse and Debenhams. About 25,000 employees, currently on furlough, have nowhere to go when the stupid “lockdown” finishes. Their furlough money ends in June.
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Struck by change of tone on major TV news bulletins this evening. ITV leading on unemployment threat, BBC lead critical on care homes (as was C4, and second lead the huge problems facing economy.
My feelings about China are torn: I hate the way the Chinese as a group abuse the natural world and especially the animals. In some ways they are very backward as a people. Also, the sheer numbers are an existential danger not only to Europe but to the whole planet. On the other hand, who could fail to be impressed by a display such as this?
Ian Robert Millard 