Tag Archives: Zelensky

Diary Blog, 16 July 2024

Morning music

Trump

Trump looking presidential, in a way that he rarely did even when he was President before.

If he can survive the campaign and get re-elected, his personal history, and his personal flaws, can take a back seat. He can stop funding Zelensky and the whole Kiev regime. That can be his first task.

Trump may be in a position, if or when re-elected, to call a halt to the rush to world war. That is the issue of primary importance.

From the newspapers

https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/24453094.warrant-issued-barge-asylum-seeker-bit-police-officer/

An arrest warrant has been issued for an asylum seeker who tried to bring cannabis onto the Bibby Stockholm barge and then bit a police officer when he was being arrested.

Kenson Noel, aged 29, pleaded guilty at Weymouth Magistrates Court on June 7 to possession of a class B drug and assault by beating of Portland Port Police officer Christopher Grant.

The charges relate to an incident on May 16, 2024.

He was due to be sentenced today at Poole Magistrates Court but did not appear.

This triggered a warrant for his arrest to be issued by the court.

The court previously heard that Noel, whose address was given as a hotel in Bournemouth, is an asylum seeker who fled Trinidad and Tobago after being threatened by gangs.

[Bournemouth Echo]

Can you even believe the way this country is run?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13637003/Fighting-Irish-immigration-Protesters-hurl-missiles-riot-police-Dublin-factory-asylum-seekers.html

Protesters hurled bricks and fireworks at riot police near a Dublin factory set to house asylum seekers today, with officers spraying activists with pepper spray.

Gardai clashed with hundreds of people gathered at the former Crown Paints factory in Coolock as fighting exploded throughout the day.

[Daily Mail]

People on both sides of the Irish Sea are getting very angry, and that can only continue and intensify as more millions of migrant-invaders arrive in 2024, 2025, 2026, 2027, 2028, 2029 etc.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13635989/lost-alphabet-Biblical-Canaanites-jordan.html

Archaeologists have finally traced a lost alphabet that puzzled scholars for decades back to a 3,000 year-old civilization of Biblical significance. 

Since 1964, archaeologists have found 15 different tablets with strange carvings at the site of an ancient settlement in Jordan.

Thanks to new analysis, archaeologists have found that they were likely made by the Canaanites, an indigenous group who thrived in the Middle East until the second half of the 13th century BC. 

The Canaanites resided in ‘the Promised Land’ from 3500BC until 1200BC before they were conquered by Israeli tribes following their Exodus from Egypt.

The Canaanites are mentioned several times in the old testament, including the books of Genesis, Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Joshua.

[Tablet 3524 is made up of two fragments that fit perfectly together, even though they were discovered in totally separate places— Daily Mail]

[Daily Mail]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13637439/trump-shooter-thomas-matthew-crooks-assassination-attempt-spotted-roof.html

Donald Trump‘s would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks was spotted on the roof 26 minutes before he opened fire, a bombshell new report claims.”

[Daily Mail]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13636153/trump-classified-documents-case-dismissed-judge-rules.html

Federal Judge Aileen Cannon has dismissed the classified documents case against Donald Trump in a bombshell ruling less than 48 hours after the former president was shot at a rally in Pennsylvania.

Trump was accused of taking highly sensitive national security documents to his Mar-a-Lago estate when he left the White House, and FBI agents seized a trove of material during a search of his Florida home in August 2022.

Judge Cannon threw the case out based on ‘violations’ of the Constitution’s Appointments and Appropriations clauses.

In her ruling, she found that the appointment of Special Counsel Jack Smith was unconstitutional.

The decision has an enormous impact on Trump’s legal battles, and he now faces just two criminal trials in Georgia and the federal court in Washington D.C. 

A year ago, Trump’s classified documents case appeared to be his most serious legal threat: perhaps easier to prove than Trump’s January 6 case, which relied on public statements, tweets and complex schemes involving electors around the country to charge a complex conspiracy to overturn the election.

[Daily Mail]

Everything’s going Trump’s way, it seems…

Tweets seen

Fuck it. I’m just gonna come out and say it. After a lot of thought, I am now 100% behind Donald Trump for President. Let me explain my reasoning…

Trump fell short in many ways in his first term. He was weaker than he should have been on the border. He appointed people to his cabinet that frankly stained his image and sunk his reputation. He let us down with the vaccines and Operation Warp Speed. But it’s about more than Donald Trump. It’s always been about more than Trump.

He has awakened the sleeping giant in America and across the world. People have hit breaking point. And they are sick to the back teeth of the status quo. For all my reservations, I do believe at heart his intentions are mostly good. Compare and contrast him to a demented old man who doesn’t remember what he had for breakfast.

What happened on Saturday night pushed me over the edge. They have tried everything to stop this man. Impeachment, election rigging, lawfare and now an attempted assassination in broad daylight. It’s not about trying to stop Trump. It’s about trying to stop a populist uprising.

In these times we can’t be picky. Trump isn’t going to fix all our problems. Trump isn’t going to save the world. We are living through a time of pure evil, the likes of which only God can protect us from. But we have to rebuild, we have to reorganise. We all have differences of opinion on various issues but ultimately we all see the evil in this world and we all want to make a change. And I believe the best start to that work is to get behind Donald Trump and use our influence to push for the change we want to see.”

[David Morgan]

There has simply never been a nation-state in history that has endured the sheer scale and speed of demographic change that is currently unfolding around us and remained a healthy, socially cohesive, prosperous, high-trust society.

[Matt Goodwin]

Coudenhove-Kalergi Plan. The “Great Replacement”…

…and virtually all the children now being born in the UK, and particularly in England, are non-white (including mixed-race). Demographic disaster.

Let’s bin all “diversity hires”, starting with David Lammy, presently and ludicrously posing as Foreign Secretary.

Ha ha…yes, but the joke is on us…

The System promotes idiots like that, making sure that they can wave a few bits of paper (tick-box degrees, diplomas etc) if challenged, as a way of accelerating the destruction of European civilization.

Even the System msm cannot ignore the migration invasion completely, because the public has started to awaken and, indeed, become fearful of what is happening, and what might and probably will happen not so far down the road.

The Twitter-twits, and the System politicians, have been laughing at the Reform UK result at GE 2024 (“only 5 MPs” etc), but the underlying reality is that, out of nearly 29M actual votes, Reform UK got over 4.1M, the Conservative Party only 6.8M, and victorious Labour 9.8M.

Labour received under 10M votes, and has 411 MPs, despite only getting about (indeed, less than) two-and-a-half times the number of votes cast for Reform UK, fobbed off with merely 5 MPs.

As noted in previous blog posts, for every 20 people who were eligible to vote at GE 2024, a plurality, 8 people, did not bother to vote, probably because they were disenchanted with the whole set-up.

Out of that group of 20 people, only 4 actually voted Labour.

Another 3 out of the 20 voted Conservative; 2 voted Reform UK. 2 also voted LibDem (which however received only 3.5M votes as against Reform’s 4.1M). (Almost) 1 notional voter out of the 20 voted Green, which party received 1.8M votes.

The point is that Reform UK is, at least in part, “controlled opposition” but, notwithstanding that, over 4 million people decided to register their anger by voting for it. Another 19.6 million did not vote.

It is possible that, were a credible social-national movement to exist, a substantial part of the 19.6M non-voting bloc, as well as a large part of Reform UK’s 4.1M bloc, might vote for, or otherwise support it.

Remember, out of every 20 adult people in the UK, only 4 voted for Starmer-Labour.

Starmer-Labour has no real mandate from the people.

Salus populi suprema lex

[“the welfare of the people is the highest law“— Cicero]

More tweets

This is only the start.

Europe can only be saved when its peoples, including the British, rise up against the tidal wave of migration invasion.

Starmer-Labour carrying on from where the Sunak misgovernment tailed off. The System is evil.

All you really need to know about the real view taken by both Starmer-Labour and the now-binned Sunak misgovernment is that virtually all government ministers (of either main System party) were and are signed up, in reality, to the Coudenhove-Kalergi Plan. Mass immigration into Europe, with the aim of destroying European culture and civilization. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalergi_Plan.

Talking point

Happened to see part of one of those fly-on-the-wall cop shows, called Police Interceptors. The bit I saw concerned a raid on a house where a man was thought to be trading in drugs.

The police arrived in force, were ready to bust open the front door but found it unlocked, so went in and took control of the property. The man named on the warrant was not at home, but his wife/girlfriend/whatever was, along with her small and terrified children.

In the kitchen, the police found large bags stuffed with herbal cannabis, apparently harvested from the marijuana farm in the attic, which the police also found. They also found little plastic bags used for retail sales of the drug.

The woman was arrested only because the wanted man refused to give himself up, but was in touch with the woman by telephone, under police guard, and was apparently nearby. He gave himself up a few days later.

What interested me was that I should have thought that there was ample evidence to prosecute them both for “possession with intent to supply”, but in the end the woman was released (I was distracted so missed the exact outcome, I think an official caution), and her husband/boyfriend/co-habitee was apparently not charged with anything!

A big raid, the police all dressed up in the paramilitary style to which they have become accustomed, warrants obtained, searches made, drugs found, arrests made and, in the end…nothing.

The police and CPS need to start dealing with (real) crime, rather than snooping on tweets and blog posts and generally behaving like a poundland Stasi.

This country is now pretty close to running on empty.

Late music

[painting by Victor Ostrovsky]

Diary Blog, 14 July 2024

Morning music

Tweets seen

After Trump’s courageous immediate response to the attempted assassination, his stock among the American voters must surely rise.

This must surely seal the Presidential race for Trump, even if the Democrats replace Biden with someone compos mentis.

Having said that, were Biden to be replaced by someone such as Michelle Obama, popular —God knows why— among the non-whites who are now the majority of the American population, it is possible that Trump might lose, I suppose, but that really might see an actual civil war develop.

Have we just seen and heard, in those popping shots at the Trump rally, the first shots of the second American Civil War, akin to the shot fired at Fort Sumter, Charleston, South Carolina in 1861, or even that fired by the cruiser Aurora in 1917?

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Embankment#Battleship_Aurora_during_the_revolution

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

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-shooting-raises-questions-about-security-lapses-2024-07-14/

Is anything Liz Truss may think even worth reporting? Her rise to prominence, then —briefly— power came as a result of peculiar and particular political circumstances; and, after all, she only became an MP in the first place on her back.

Were her crazy idea about pension age ever to be implemented, it would cause an electoral, and perhaps actual, rebellion that would make the rise of Reform UK look like the Teddy Bears’ Picnic.

More music

[Loon Lake, Oregon]

More tweets

Thick-as-two-short-planks “diversity hire” Lammy is not only a barrister and a member of Lincoln’s Inn (as I was from 1986 until my wrongful and unlawful disbarment in 2016, when I was automatically expelled) but I think now even a Bencher there. He is welcome there; I am not. Could one imagine a more absurd example of where our society has gone wrong?

Reminiscent of the famous WW2 photo from Iwo Jima:

The Trump photo will surely come to be regarded as equally historic.

More tweets

Quelle surprise…

As Matt Goodwin has predicted, the Starmer-Labour government will crash and burn very quickly. It has no real mandate anyway, despite its Commons majority. Only 33.7% of the popular vote. People wanted rid of the fake “Conservatives”, that’s all. Few really wanted Starmer-Labour. Don’t forget that Sunak’s “Conservatives” also had a large Commons majority.

How is it that a Zionist Jew such as Aaronovitch can post that, and nothing happens, but a comment or cartoon about Jewish behaviour, allegedly posted by an English blogger, causes the suborned UK police and/or CPS to go mad?

Oh…

I refer readers to the posts re. my free speech trial of 2023.

Quite.

Of course, both Biden and Trump kow-tow to the Israel lobby, but at least Trump would or will avoid war with Russia and, I hope, take away Zelensky’s ricebowl.

https://www.mattgoodwin.org/p/the-realignment-is-over-10-key-messages

The Labour hegemony in the younger age-groups (highest in the 25-34 age-group— 46%) will not last. The wider 18-44 group —where Labour support was, at GE 2024, over 40%— will soon defect or fall away when Labour fails to improve the housing crisis, or improve the poor deal renters get in the UK, among other issues.

Farage

I see that the little world of UK Twitter/X is going mad because Farage is going to visit Trump. According to those Twitter-twits, Farage is neglecting his duties as MP and, in particular, neglecting the constituents of Clacton by briefly going to the USA. They obviously have no idea that a great many MPs either do nothing at all for their (notional) constituents, or send pro-forma letters back to them, explaining why they can do little or nothing. There are exceptions, but those are exceptions to the general rule of uselessness.

Late tweets

I think so. Of course, it is a gamble, but one at reasonable odds.

Meanwhile, poor old Biden has decided to cancel his engagement tomorrow in Texas…

The GoFundMe appeal is already not far from USD $3M: https://www.gofundme.com/f/president-trump-seeks-support-for-butler-pa-victims

Late music

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

Diary Blog, 12 July 2024, with more about who really voted for what at GE 2024

Morning music

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Ippolitov-Ivanov]

Tweets seen

Back in the mid-1980s, I sometimes enjoyed Spitting Image [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spitting_Image]. The sort of real cutting satire that would simply not be allowed today, much of it. In any case, with the sort of events we now see (eg Biden’s funny but also sad descent into the fog), any similar show today would have to fight hard to compete with what is actually happening in front of our eyes.

True, Reagan was not the most-obviously intelligent world leader, but the satirical treatment of him was deliberately “over the top”; whatever his flaws, he was not in the grip of a dementia-related condition plainly visible whenever he spoke in public.

I have not seen the more recently remade Spitting Image but I doubt that it pokes fun at the kind of non-political targets the 1980s original did, e.g. black “rap” performers. I admit that I am guessing, though. The remake is not broadcast on mainstream TV.

The regime of that evil little bastard has only one main chance— to drag NATO into the war. That might mean a slide into a nuclear confrontation before very long.

If the Kiev regime starts to attack Russian cities far from the front line, the response might be that Ukrainian cities in the western part of Ukraine, west of the Dnieper, might be attacked and even destroyed.

So far, Russia has not launched all-out attack on Kiev, partly because of its role in Russian history, but if major Russian cities start to be bombarded, that may change.

I predicted, a couple of years ago, on the blog, that Russia would start to degrade the electrical production and distribution network across Ukraine. That is now being intensified, and is a far more intelligent way of waging war than the more brutal and harsh —and less effective— choice of attacking directly the homes and neighbourhoods of the Ukrainian civilians.

If the Kiev regime starts to badly damage Russian cities away from the front line —especially Moscow, Petersburg and surrounding territories— the Russian response could be devastating enough to bring NATO into the war on some pretext such as Poland suffering damage. Were that to happen, all of us would be but a step away from a Russia-NATO war, which is being pushed by secret circles within the West. Such a war, which would quite likely go nuclear within weeks, would change Europe and the world forever.

More tweets

Incredible, when you think of the historical hardships of the Irish people. Now, unwanted non-European migrant-invaders demand this, that, and the other…

Forget the “Conservative” Party. Social nationalism can provide the right policies and administration.

Starmer-Labour has surprised even me by its evident ineptitude. We are only one week into what looks like being a disastrous 5 years.

Talking point

I do not follow football at all, but it seems to me that both domestic and international matches are now, in effect, a situation where people put “national” or team labels on a group of players and say to each other: “my blacks can beat your blacks“.

More tweets seen

Another example of the undemocratic and quasi-dictatorial nature of the Starmer-Labour government. 411 MPs from whom to choose, yet Starmer is appointing ministers at will from outside the Commons, elevating them to the Lords first.

Sophie Corcoran fails to point out that her comment might also apply, absolutely exactly, to the past 14 years of Conservative Party government.

Reform UK, GE 2024, and the Twitter twits

I was just looking at Twitter/X, which is alive today with Twitter-twits attacking Reform UK and, particularly, belittling Reform for, as it were, pretending to be a serious political party when it “only” has 5 MPs.

As recently as June 2024, the LibDems only had 11 MPs, and had only 8 from 2015 until 2017.

The forerunner of the LibDems, the old Liberal Party, at one time the party of government with hundreds of MPs, fell to having only 6 MPs during the 1950s and again in the early 1970s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_Party_(UK)#Electoral_performance.

As for the SNP, from its foundation in the early 1930s and until 1970, about 37 years (!), the SNP had no MPs at all; in 1970, the SNP managed to have elected 1 MP. The MP-cadre of the SNP then varied from 2 to (1974 to 1979) 11 MPs in the years 1974 to 2015, but mostly stuck at 2 or 3 MPs until 1997, when the SNP bloc increased its numbers, this time to 6 MPs. When the FPTP tipping-point was reached in 2015, the SNP mushroomed from 6 MPs to 56 (out of 59 Scottish MPs) overnight: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_National_Party#House_of_Commons.

Apart from those comparisons, the Twitter-twits might like to consider what this blog has been saying for the past week, as have some others (though not enough) even in the msm: Labour did not win by some kind of popular “landslide”, but only in terms of seats conferred by a totally unfit-for-purpose electoral system.

As noted on the blog in past days, at GE 2024 the Conservative Party only got (just over) 1.5x the number/percentage of votes of Reform UK, and even Labour only got (below) 2.5x the Reform UK vote-share.

As put on the blog the other day, out of every 20 eligible voters, only 12 even voted.

In very rough terms, out of that eligible 20 voters, 8 voters abstained, 4 voters voted Lab, 3 voters voted Con, 2 voters voted Reform, 2 voters voted LibDem, and 1 voter voted Green.

Not exactly, and “other parties were available”, but 90.29% of UK voters voted for one of those 5 parties. In England specifically, about 97% of voters voted Lab, Con, Reform, LibDem or Green.

The Twitter-Twits tweeting about Reform UK are mostly Labour supporters who belittle Reform because only 2 out of every 12 voters who voted voted for it, yet only 4 out of 12 (4 out of 20 if you count the abstainers) voted Labour.

I happened to notice one particular Twitter/X account, one “@RobBaron10”, who today (as of 1430) has already managed to put out about 29 Twitter/X “replies”, almost all angrily insulting, and all or almost all completely brainless. I have to say that I am loath to give much credence to someone whose Twitter/X profile says “Retired lecturer in philosophy trying to live a low-impact lifestyle. Despises the far-right and social injustice. Responds in the tone responded to.” Especially when said “retired lecturer in philosophy” thinks that “toe the line” is spelled “tow the line“…

Indeed, looking at the tweets copied below, it may be that “RobBaron10” deserves a place in my updated essay on the links between “antifascists” and/or Zionists, and mental illness: see https://ianrobertmillard.org/2019/07/18/theyre-coming-to-take-me-away-ha-ha/

More seriously, if Starmer-Labour MPs and supporters think that the absurd result of GE 2024 gives Starmer the right to impose a “woke”, and also Israel-lobby, tyranny on the people of the UK, he and they are very much mistaken.

Remember those figures— only 4 out of 12 who voted (<34%) voted Labour; only 4 out of every 20 eligible voters (~20%) voted Labour.

American citizens stand with Russia, not Ukraine. Russia is an orthodox Christian nation, a sovereign nation, doesn’t pander to illegals aliens, was lied to by Ukraine, the U.S and NATO and had forces put on their border, a violation of previous promises made. Ukraine is in bed with the illegal covert bio weapons laboratory facility’s doing gain of function. Ukraine is the most corruption country in Europe, a money laundering hub, a child trafficking hub and a live organ black market dealing hub. Fuck Ukraine and punk ass Zelensky!

That stupid woman must have the mother and father of all social connection address books…incredible.

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

Talking point

Twitter hashtag #JustChangeItBackToHowItWas

Some interesting posts on there.

More tweets seen

Also most railways, most electricity, and most other energy production and distribution.

…and no professional pretend-“offended” nuisances, such as the malicious “Campaign Against Antisemitism” cabal.

All part of the “blacks with everything” mass media cultural cafeteria (non-)”choice”.

…or the jungle.

Late tweets

That visage puts me in mind of some kind of lizard.

Along with the “gift”, he also sent an accompanying written appeal, in which he called on American politicians to stop supplying the Ukrainian armed forces with weapons and money in order to stop the bloodshed and the escalation of the conflict.

Late music

One of the great American symphonies.

Diary Blog, 11 July 2024

Afternoon music

Tweets seen

At present, the forecast for Winchester on St. Swithun’s Day (next Monday) is…wet.

Enemies of the British people.

What an incredible waste of the British people’s tax monies, thrown at the brutal and shambolic regime of the Jewish dictator Zelensky. Meanwhile Britain’s public services are collapsing.

Fake Labour is already a failure as a government.

Ultimately, this means that defending our truth-based order, free speech and national identity is considered undignified while sacrificing these values in the name of ‘equal outcomes’ and ‘emotional safety’ is not.

Of course, Labour is also proposing innocent-sounding legislation on hate speech and racial equality which will further supercharge this woke cultural socialism, shutting down offensive speech while pressuring organizations to discriminate against whites and males to achieve equal outcomes for identity groups.

Will Britain wake up in time to prevent…erosion of our long traditions of free speech, free expression, objective truth, equal treatment and due process? Will future generations be taught to hate the British past and the white men who played an outsized role in creating our national community?

At best, I think we have one or two decades to reverse the march of wokeism before today’s Zoomers and Millennials, who prioritise ‘emotional safety’ over free speech, become the median voter and the country reaches a point of no return.”

[from a guest essay, published on Matt Goodwin’s blog].

There are of course other ways to resist tyranny than via the so-called “Parliamentary road”.

It will be recalled by older British readers that, in the Dikko case of 1984, an Israeli Jew doctor was directly involved in the MOSSAD operation to kidnap a former Nigerian government minister:

The Dikko affair was a joint NigerianIsraeli attempt to kidnap Umaru Dikko, a former Nigerian government minister living in the United Kingdom, in 1984, and secretly transport him back to Nigeria in a diplomatic bag. The kidnapping took place, but the transportation thereof was unsuccessful.

Mossad sources across Europe failed to locate Dikko. However, Mossad Director-General Nahum Admoni decided that Dikko was probably in London, which had become a haven for Nigerian exiles critical of the new regime.

Mossad field officers (katsas), accompanied by Nigerian security service agents led by ex-Nigerian Army Major Mohammed Yusufu, traveled to London. The Nigerian team rented an apartment on Cromwell Road and posed as refugees from the new regime. The Mossad agents rented rooms in hotels catering to tourists from Africa, and posed as anti-apartheid activists.

Working separately, the two teams moved among the Nigerian expat community in London, gradually narrowing their search to West London, to the area around Hyde Park, where many wealthy Nigerian exiles lived. They combed the electoral registers freely available in the area’s town halls, but found no trace of Dikko.

On 30 June 1984, a Mossad agent driving down Queensway, in Bayswater, spotted Dikko. He parked his car and then tailed Dikko on foot to his house in Porchester Terrace. Admoni was immediately informed, and ordered surveillance on the house. From then on, the house was constantly watched, while the Nigerians, using their London high commission as a base, prepared a kidnapping operation.

Meanwhile, Mossad recruited Levi-Arie Shapiro, an Israeli doctor who was a consultant anesthetist and director of the intensive care unit at HaSharon Hospital. He was to fly to London and participate in the operation. Shapiro’s job would be to drug Dikko, and insert an endotracheal tube to keep him from choking on his own vomit while being transported in a crate.”

[Wikipedia]

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

Late tweets

Britain 2024, slowly (?) sinking into the darkness.

Water supply is one of the few industries that must be publicly owned, i.e. owned by the State.

The “you know who” factor…

Worth reading in its entirety.

Bravo.

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Diary Blog, 28 June 2024

Morning music

[Neuschwanstein]

Clacton and Reform UK

The System is now getting very worried about the level of support being shown even for Reform UK, a basically small-c conservative-type party. The anti-Reform UK rhetoric is now close to that displayed in the past against more social-national parties such as the BNP and, further back still, the National Front.

The System thinking must be, “if even Reform UK can be so disruptive, how more so would be a credible and genuinely social-national party?

That anti-Reform UK propaganda is broadcast as Reform UK reaches heights of popular support few thought that it would or could reach.

Some polls are putting Reform UK as high as 20%, and all are putting it well above 15%, the average now being around 17%.

Meanwhile, support for the Conservative Party has dropped to as low as 18%, and may go even lower. I have just yesterday heard admittedly anecdotal evidence that, in my own local area (in coastal Hampshire, and one of the most heavily-Con in England), lifelong Con voters are planning to vote anywhere other than Con or Labour. Many, perhaps most (?), are switching to Reform UK, and some to the LibDems.

I was just looking at my blog from about 8 or 9 months ago. I thought then that Reform UK would get a nationwide popular vote of at least 15% and, at the outside, 20%. Seems that I was right (so far).

Estimates of the number of MPs Reform UK might have by 5 July 2024, i.e. once the votes are counted, range from 1 or 2 to as many as 22. A few Reform UK optimists are doubling or even tripling that. It seems very open, with less than a week to go.

I doubt whether the Channel 4 undercover silliness will change the minds of many people planning to vote Reform UK, as witness the tweets below:

In any case, Channel 4 News is only seen by a small minority of people. Only about 4.5% of the viewing public even watch Channel 4 overall, so maybe 1% or 2% (?): https://deadline.com/2023/06/channel-4-woes-deepen-ratings-historic-low-1235417804/; https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-12199071/Panic-Channel-4-viewing-figures-plummet-historic-low.html.

I doubt that more than a few hundred of the voters of Clacton will have even seen the “expose”. In any case, the main person shown was merely a volunteer. It may even be that some people will be more inclined to vote for Reform after having seen the Channel 4 piece. You never know.

There is also the point that postal voting has already taken place. Many of the older and/or disabled British voters, as at Clacton, will by now have voted.

Farage seems nailed-on to win at Clacton, as far as I can see. The Conservative Party candidate has not even been seen (by me anyway) on TV or online, while the young African standing as Labour MP has apparently been redeployed to help another Labour candidate, in the West Midlands, and has thus left the field of battle at Clacton.

I can only suppose that Starmer decided that only the Con candidate had any chance of beating Farage, having scored 72.3% in 2019, so scaled back the Labour effort at Clacton to zero for nakedly tactical reasons.

Also, the fact that Labour deliberately chose an African for its candidate at Clacton, of all places, would be likely to prompt a surge in support for Reform UK. Anyway, he’s gone elsewhere, and will probably not be seen at Clacton until the count on Election Night. I still think that he might lose his deposit.

As blogged previously, while I am not a Reform UK supporter, as such, its existence moves the “Overton Window” a bit, at the very least, and will help to break down the “two main parties” scam.

More tweets seen

The public’s view of the mostly System politicians is not favourable. Even Starmer, on the crest of his “popularity by default”, is only viewed favourably by just over a third of voters.

Look at Sunak. Only 19%, the same as the Conservative Party. I begin to wonder whether previously undecided voters will actually start to pile in against the Conservative Party now, or at the last minute, thus reducing the Conservative vote to somewhere below that 19%, maybe as low as 16%. We shall know in 6 days’ time.

I should say “80% that’s broken“, not “everything“. Otherwise, I agree.

As Hitler said, “dirty democratic politicians“…[Mein Kampf].

See also: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2019/10/03/deadhead-mps-an-occasional-series-the-esther-mcvey-story/.

The African will probably get about 4% of the vote, and lose his deposit.

This is incredible. It does not necessarily mean that the Channel 4 “expose” was a fix, but it certainly raises questions.

How did Channel 4 News come to fasten upon that particular person for its undercover filming?

My view: both main System parties should be eliminated.

Gavin Barwell really is an utterly stupid person, yet there he sits in the House of Lords, getting nearly £400 a day (taxfree) any (sitting) day on which he chooses to turn up for 30 minutes and have his name ticked off… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_Barwell.

Yes. If all Con-leaning or anti-Lab-leaning voters were to vote Reform UK, Reform UK could just about win at Dover; even then it might be very close. One thing is for sure— the Con candidate cannot win.

So Giles Watling is still alive… I had seen and heard nothing from the retired actor since the Clacton campaign started. I assumed that he had fallen into his soup and drowned at the Garrick Club.

Watling has nothing in common with most Clacton voters. Hopeless.

The Jew Zelensky thinks that there can be a “peace summit” without Russia’s participation (unless Russia were to effectively surrender). He’s a con-man who has stolen billions.

Talking point

Should make people think.

More tweets seen

I tend to agree, up to a point, with that last tweeter. Yes, the Cons are doomed, but look at what the Labour Party now is! A mixture of Blair-Brown-style fake communitarian rhetoric, “woke” craziness, “Ukraine” (Kiev regime) partisanship, and pro-Israel-ism, combined with pro-Jewish lobby repression of free speech and, in terms of domestic policy, almost indistinguishable in reality from the policies of the Conservative Party.

Incidentally, it is Bicester and Woodstock, a new constituency, not just Woodstock. That may explain the close polling.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicester_and_Woodstock_(UK_Parliament_constituency).

Even Reform UK has more support among the under-30s in the UK, especially in England, than many suppose. A real social-national party might be able to capture far more hearts and minds.

This really is stunning. If accurate, it may mean a House of Commons with 483 Labour MPs (overall majority 316), 73 LibDems, 27 Reform UK, and only 22 Con Party MPs (SNP 18, Green 4 etc). https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/userpoll.html.

It would mean the LibDems as official Opposition, and Reform UK with several more MPs (27 in toto) than the rump of the old Conservative Party (22), which would not be the Opposition, not even third party, but a poor fourth. Finished. Washed-up.

I have yet to meet, in the past month or even longer, even one person who expresses an intention to vote Con. There may be some people I meet who intend to vote Con without my knowing it, of course; I meet relatively few people, and rarely talk directly about politics with most of those that I do meet. All the same…

In fact, and by my use of Electoral Calculus, it may be that, were Reform UK to poll at 24%, only 3 points higher than in this latest poll, Reform could edge the LibDems out of second place, which would mean Reform UK as the official Opposition, and Farage as Leader of the Opposition! Were that to happen, I should have to eat my words of a year or two ago (dismissing him as not such an effective politician despite his oratorical and mass media skills).

We shall soon know.

Brutal” is the word. Whatever one may think of Trump and his overall fitness for office, it is clear that Biden should now go into retirement.

The world has rarely if ever been in such multiform peril. The state with, by far, the greatest military-destructive power on Earth, is a “colossus on legs of straw”, and cannot, at this time, be commanded, even notionally, by someone not in command of his own faculties.

From the newspapers

https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/24416228.poole-labour-candidate-calls-others-denounce-hate-campaign/

The Labour parliamentary candidate for Poole, Neil Duncan-Jordan, said he and others have been targeted with ’disgusting and disrespectful’ comments.

He said he had been called a ‘white traitor’ and told that ‘Adolf Hitler had the right idea’.

Mr Duncan-Jordan has called on his counterparts in the election to distance themselves from antisemitism, racism and hate crime following a number of incidents he and his supporters have faced.

Mr Duncan-Jordan said: “In the last few days there have been three separate incidents that have caused me concern. I’ve been called a ‘white traitor’, one of my supporters was spat at and I was told that “Adolf Hitler had the right idea.”

“I think it’s important that all candidates in this election come out clearly and say that antisemitism, racism and fascist views have absolutely no place in modern Britain.

Spitting at someone because you don’t like their political views is disgusting and disrespectful. We cannot allow this kind of behaviour to become the acceptable norm.”

The candidate has reported the incidents to the police.

[Bournemouth Echo]

Well, while I would never condone spitting at (or for that matter, throwing milkshakes over) people (as a Labour supporter did to Farage recently), if a candidate wants to knock on people’s doors to engage them in political debate, he must expect some of his “victims” to cut up rough, bearing in mind what the System parties have been doing to this country.

More tweets seen

God knows what, in the course of time, will be the karmic, including group-karmic, consequences of everything that has happened in and around Gaza in the past 9 months, or indeed the past 77 years.

“They” are always the “victims”…

The whole of the System msm is rotten.

Britain 2024

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13579657/sleeping-grandmother-attacked-feral-thugs-scotland-park.html

A grandmother has told of how she was beaten black and blue by a gang of feral yobs, who stamped on her head as she slept at a beauty spot.

[Daily Mail].

More from the newspapers

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13579539/Now-Rishi-Sunaks-leather-jacket-loving-chief-staff-dubbed-Treasury-Travolta-quizzed-gambling-watchdog-bets-election-timing-placed-senior-Tories.html

[Liam Booth-Smith]

Rishi Sunak‘s chief of staff has been interviewed as a witness by the gambling regulator as part of the row over alleged bets on the timing of the general election, it has emerged.

Liam Booth-Smith is reported to have spoken to the Gambling Commission last week to help the watchdog understand who may have known when polling day would be.

Sources stressed to the BBC that the PM’s top adviser – dubbed the ‘Treasury Travolta’ during Mr Sunak’s time as Chancellor due to his fondness for leather jackets – is not a suspect in the regulator’s investigation and had not placed a bet himself.

[Daily Mail]

Can you believe it, even today, as the UK goes into a tailspin? The Chief of Staff of the UK Prime Minister— and look at the bastard!

Liam Booth-Smith (born 1987) is a British political adviser who has served as the Downing Street Chief of Staff since October 2022. He previously served as de facto chief of staff to then-chancellor Rishi Sunak as head of the Joint Economic Unit.

Booth-Smith was born in 1987[2] in Stoke on Trent and was raised by a single mother.[3] He read politics and social policy at Loughborough University. Booth-Smith was appointed as Downing Street Chief of Staff in October 2022 after Rishi Sunak‘s accession as prime minister. He succeeded Mark Fullbrook.

In 2023 the New Statesman named him as the ninth most powerful figure in British Right-Wing Politics.”

[Wikipedia]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liam_Booth-Smith

I know that I often expostulate in this vein, but this country really is ****** on so many levels…

[Update, 16 January 2026: Liam Booth-Smith must have been born under a lucky star— he was elevated to the House of Lords by Sunak, in his 2024 Resignation Honours List, so now gets about £400 a day taxfree just for rolling up, for as brief a time as half an hour, any sitting day, i.e. about 200 per year. About £80,000 a year taxfree, for not necessarily doing anything at all. He also makes a great deal more via his salary, bonuses etc as executive of an AI company. As a John le Carre character called this country, “the pigs in clover society“…]

More tweets

In the 1970s, Britain still had many avenues open to it. Now, it is as if (?) we are painted into a corner, with almost nowhere to turn.

2024-2029…perhaps in the next few years there will, at long last, emerge the popular social-national movement that can sweep all before it.

When I stayed for three weeks with a French couple, in Paris, in 1971 (at age 14), I was taken once by car through an area my host referred to as the “quartier arabe“. Now it seems that much of Paris is the “quartier africaine“…

What about a population of ~70 million (the UK)?

Late music

Diary Blog, 22 June 2024

Morning music

Saturday quiz

Well, this week brought only 5/10, same as political journalist John Rentoul. I knew the answers to questions 1, 2, 3, 8, and 10; was a few years out on question 7, could not bring to mind the answer to question 4, and had no idea about questions 5, 6, and 9.

Tweets seen

Alpine Switzerland. A rather wet day.

I am a market researcher. I spoke to Sunak about Polls at the leadership hustings. I don’t think he believes them and to some extent he is right to do so. But we’ve been out campaigning in Bexhill and Battle and have yet to meet anyone whose said they’ll vote Tory in a 26k majority seat.”

We read newspapers, watch TV commentary, see opinion polls, look at (often biased) Twitter/X comment. All contribute to our belief as to what might happen on Election Day. Beyond that, there is mere personal experience of one’s own local area; anecdotal, subjective.

I myself live in an area of coastal Hampshire known for being traditionally “safe” Conservative. The local MP is someone with some of whose views (eg on the Covid scamdemic/panicdemic) I can agree, but with whom I would not agree on other topics. He is also a very poor constituency MP— lazy, uncaring, and totally useless in fact, as a few people have told me after not having received help or even a polite acknowledgment from him.

In previous general elections, I have seen almost exclusively Conservative Party posters around, and one huge banner on a house in the nearby small town. This time, I think only one Conservative poster, and three or four LibDem ones. Unscientific, but is that a straw in the wind? Hard to say, but interesting all the same.

The incumbent MP has been there since the constituency was created in 1997. He has never scored below 50%, and received well over 60% in both 2017 and 2019. Labour usually come third (second in 2017) here, and the LibDems (usually second-placed, though fourth behind Con, UKIP and Labour in 2015) had their best result in 1997 (27.8%).

In other words, it would take a political earthquake, maybe a political meteorite strike, to displace the Conservative here…and yet…and yet…

I may be reading too much into the presence or otherwise of political posters put up locally, but it occurred to me that the Conservative Party in the constituency has (perhaps) few volunteers now. The average age of Con Party members in this constituency must be around 80 if not 90. Does the presence of a few LibDem posters indicate a local upsurge, or just a single diligent volunteer?

I cannot see the LibDem candidate displacing the Con candidate this time, even if Reform UK do well, but who knows? Con, Lab and LibDem are all standing for election, but so also is a double-barrelled (in both senses, probably) Reform UK fellow, a Green, an Animal Welfare candidate [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Welfare_Party], and one for the SDP, which I am surprised to see claims 2,000 members nationally [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Democratic_Party_(UK,_1990%E2%80%93present)].

How big the Reform UK vote here will be on 4 July 2024 is uncertain. UKIP scored 16.9% in 2015, though far less prior to that. Since 2015, there has been no broadly “national” party standing, and no social-national party has ever stood here.

If the staff had been Palestinian Arabs, they would have stood no chance. Having said that, Arabs would probably not have been employed anyway, for reasons of security.

Farage and Reform UK to merge with the Cons within 14 days? That sounds ludicrous. If it were to happen, in the 12 days left, it would just be a replay of 2019, when Farage stabbed his own party in the back; with one big difference, though— in 2019, Farage’s back-stab meant that instead of a likely hung Parliament, “Boris”-idiot was able to get an 80-seat Commons majority. In this General Election, the surrounding situation is very different.

Were the predicted merger to occur, and if Farage then urged voters to vote Con in many constituencies, all that would happen would be that Labour would still win overall, but with a majority of maybe 100+ instead of maybe 300. Of course, that would save perhaps 100 or 150 Con Party seats. It would also destroy whatever credibility Farage still seems to have with many people.

After any such merger, I suppose that the idea would be that Sunak would lose the election, resign, disappear from view, and that a leadership election would then anoint Farage as leader of the Con/Reform party.

Not totally impossible, arguably, but very unlikely. Reform UK is on a roll. Brexit Party had all wind taken out of its sails by Farage’s treachery in 2019. The same would happen today. It might even help Labour more than Reform UK fighting on as at present. After all, all the Reform UK candidates are now on the ballot papers.

The only way the predicted merger would work would be if Sunak and Farage were to announce a list of which seats would be “gifted” to Reform UK, but the candidates would still have to remain nominally in place.

That prediction to me sounds like nonsense. After the election might be a different story, were Reform UK to have 5-10 MPs in the Commons, and the Cons 50-100. However, once Reform UK merged with the Cons, and after (if it were to happen) Farage were elected to lead the merged parties, then what? The surviving Con MPs would be not a good match with the new Reform UK MPs; apple and orange. What could they offer the public? Con Party policies but with more emphasis on immigration? Sounds underwhelming.

Never say never, but I cannot see it as likely. If, however, it were to happen, it might yet open the door, on the flank, to real social-national people. “Always look on the bright side of life“.

As to that Gewolb individual’s views on UK interest rates, I do not have the economic background to assess them.

Incidentally, this is Gewolb: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/my-biggest-mistake-i-was-slow-to-start-a-success-1110542.html;

https://www.gewolb.tv/?page_id=30

American merchant banker, UK resident since 1999, now aged 80.

The Conservative Party is dying on its feet right in front of us. I really cannot see Farage wanting to ally himself with a party that, in another metaphor, is sinking below the waves. Not even after the election.

I notice that the Sky News “Chief Political Correspondent”, one Jon Craig, has been wheeled out to write a piece on the Sky News website about how “vile” Farage was to speak the truth about the Ukraine situation, i.e. that NATO has steadily advanced across Eastern Europe since the 1990s, thus destabilizing the NATO-Russia status quo.

Interesting language…”vile“— reminiscent of the language used by “the usual suspects” (((them)))…

The System may be getting or feeling seriously threatened by Reform UK, and is trying to use attack propaganda to weaken Farage’s appeal.

Craig claims that most “Britons” support “Ukraine” (the Kiev regime). I doubt it. Look at the comments section of the Daily Mail.

There is something going on here, with System scribblers, talking heads, and both “Labour” and “Conservative” Friends of Israel MPs all attacking Farage.

I have just heard the news on my car radio. Farage’s comments about the Ukraine situation were prominently displayed. I wonder, though, whether the Kiev regime is as popular with the people as it is with pseudo-“elite” deadheads such as Ben Wallace (former Con MP) and the Labour Friends of Israel drones. I think not.

In any case, few if any will now decide not to vote for Reform UK just because of a few comments about NATO.

From the newspapers

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/22/election-loss-rout-or-wipeout-three-tory-outcomes-predicted-by-the-polls

Interesting Guardian analysis.

More tweets

Using, as always, Electoral Calculus, I make that a House of Commons with 468 Labour MPs —overall majority of 286, Con 67, LibDem 63, SNP 20, Reform UK 6, Plaid 4, Greens 2 (etc). https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/userpoll.html.

I agree, in principle, with the vast majority of that, about 90%. Only social nationalism will actually “do de job”, though. Reform UK is too finance-capitalistic, too pro-Israel, not quite what I would ever support as a destination (rather than as a means to an end).

Today is the UK msm “hit Farage” day, it seems. “Ukraine”, NHS etc etc. Anything to get the Reform UK vote down. I doubt that it will work.

Our cat friends…

I have blogged once or twice in the past about how, in the mid-1990s, I visited the biological research base at Porton Down, accompanying the then Ukrainian Ambassador. Those posts can be found via the search box on the blog. Here is one, anyway: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2022/03/06/diary-blog-6-march-2022/

Clacton

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/jun/21/nigel-farage-populist-pitch-gains-traction-clacton

Worth reading.

Late tweets seen

Good grief. He is only 5 years older than me; looks like an extra from Lord of the Rings, perhaps (first picture) someone with an incurable affliction or someone cursed by a wizard, or (second picture) a dishonest peasant or itinerant tinker. Still moneygrasping at age 72. Part-Jew. I never liked what I saw of him. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Geldof.

Left to itself, the world’s only Jewish state would collapse into a kind of civil war, but the money and armament provided by the Jewish “communities” both directly and indirectly (via governments) in the USA, UK, France etc keep the whole project going, so far.

Zelensky is a Jewish tyrant, who has suspended elections, banned most political parties, banned trade unions, and arrested or killed political opponents.

Perhaps a general Russian advance.

Germany is no longer the same” – Orban chastised Berlin for the failure of migration policy.

Before his visit to Berlin, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban criticized modern Germany. He said that the country had even lost its former smell, clearly making fun of its problem with migration, writes The Daily Telegraph. “Germany no longer has the taste it used to have. She doesn’t smell like she used to anymore. This whole Germany is no longer the Germany that our grandparents and parents set as an example for us,” the politician said in an interview before a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

Orbán also said that Germany was once a country of “order,” “well-organized work” and “hard-working people.” But now, he noted, citing the German newspaper Die Welt, Germany is a “colorful, changed, multicultural world” where migrants are “no longer guests.” “This is a very big change,” summed up the head of the Hungarian government.

Late thoughts about GE 2024

If reports are to be believed, 20% of voters have either not made up their minds as to how they will vote, or have not decided whether they will vote at all.

The 20% equates to thousands of eligible voters in every constituency.

It is also reported that as many as 175 seats are in very close contest now, more than a quarter of all seats.

I have speculated previously whether there is, or is not, a bloc of “secret Reform UK voters”, people who may not admit to leaning towards Reform UK if asked. I do not know the answer to that, and neither do I know its size if it exists, but if that bloc does exist, and if it mostly votes Reform UK on the day, then all bets are off, because there just might be a political meteorite strike on the 4th of July…

Late music

[painting by Michael and Inessa Garmash]

Diary Blog, 21 June 2024

Afternoon music

[William Sergeant Kendall, Psyche]

North Cornwall

I happened to see a Guardian piece about the General Election as it is playing out in North Cornwall: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/19/field-fork-disillusioned-voters-feeling-pinch-north-cornwall.

I lived in that constituency for a couple of years, 20+ years ago, and in 2019 wrote a blog post about the constituency and about Scott Mann, the most recent MP (and GE 2024 candidate): https://ianrobertmillard.org/2019/03/14/deadhead-mps-an-occasional-series-the-scott-mann-story/

Tweets seen

I am presuming that that is in Clacton.

Even that averaged poll translates, according to my use of Electoral Calculus, into a House of Commons with 476 Labour MPs (overall majority 302), 62 LibDem, 60 Con, 20 SNP, 6 Reform UK, 4 Plaid, and 2 Green (etc).

https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/userpoll.html.

There are still large numbers of (arguably) “well-meaning” pro-mass-immigration idiots around. They are loud on Twitter/X, and on msm shows such as BBC Question Time. In the country as a whole, while I think that they are a minority, and possibly a smaller minority than was the case 5 years ago, there are still far too many of them.

We have to be clear. The level of immigration into the UK, effectively a migration-invasion, that we have been seeing (~1M a year), is not just a debating issue for the TV, radio, or at university moots; it is an existential danger for UK society. UK society stands in peril of complete collapse within a decade because of this.

It seems that one must repeat and repeat the valid points about pressure on every part of society caused by or made much worse by the invasion, because that pro-immigration minority, most MPs, most TV and radio talking heads, and most newspaper scribblers, are NOT LISTENING.

More tweets seen

The “Ukrainian” (Kiev regime) army just gained another recruit…

The sooner the Zionist cabal in Kiev is overthrown, or crushed in battle, the better for all the people of the region.

Yes, but literally millions of idiots and/or quasi-traitors are either unable to see that, or prefer not to see it. However, the real emergency around immigration is the total picture, not just the ~5% invading across the Channel.

Voters are increasingly dissatisfied with the System parties. A large part of that is not purely ideological but actuated by the ever-lower living standards and conditions of employment, housing and general life-expectation.

As the millions of migrant-invaders flow in, the situation can only intensify, along with the frustration and dissatisfaction of the UK masses, leading eventually to an overthrow of the entire system in this country.

What is so disgusting about the “Boris” Johnson pseudo-“upper crust” “cosplay” is that the bastard is not even really British. Part-Jew (one of his ancestors was an Orthodox Jewish rabbi in Lithuania), and brought up mainly in the USA and Belgium, with a gloss of Englishness via Eton and Oxford (where his nationality was recorded as having been “American”). Cameron-Levita is a more-polished version of the same, really.

The last actually/really British Prime Minister was Gordon Brown (if you leave out the moronic 49-day careerist “Prime Minister”, Liz Truss).

The so-called “expert commentators”— the Tim Montgomeries, the Ayesha Hazarikas, the Beth Rigbys… when have they been right about anything?

I saw a few minutes of Montgomerie on Sky News yesterday, all emotional because of the distress being suffered by people who have been Conservative MPs for years and who are now candidates, and the distress and anxiety suffered by their families now that the Cons look set to be all but wiped out. “These are people“, cried Montgomerie.

Ha ha! Watch me laugh as some at least of those System political swine and profiteers suffer a tiny bit of the anxiety and distress suffered over the past 14+ years by the sick, disabled, poor, homeless, unemployed etc, while those bastards voted time and again to bully and oppress —and repress— the real people suffering in this country. I want the “Conservative” careerists to suffer personally. I want them to have to chase jobs with no result. I want them to worry every day about whether they can feed themselves and their families. I want them to lose their homes and status symbols. I want them to suffer.

I think that a very large proportion of the country is with me on this.

…and “they” are still whining, and writing books, and making Hollywood films about Jews detained in Europe more than 80 years ago.

Mariupol on the Sea of Azov, before the present war the 10th largest city of Ukraine, and which was heavily damaged in the fighting a couple of years ago.

Looks like Russia is making a good start, at the very least, in reconstructing the city.

The city is largely and traditionally Russian-speaking, while ethnically the population is divided about evenly between Ukrainians and Russians. There is also a significant ethnic Greek minority in the city.” [Wikipedia]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariupol.

Late music

[Arnold Bocklin, Ruins by the Sea]

Diary Blog, 18 June 2024

Afternoon music

[Adzharia, Black Sea coast]

Tweets seen

Made me laugh (all three of those tweets)…

https://twitter.com/joanybaby77/status/1802833711601443145

Just one symptom of a sick society. The sort of people who take Eddie Izzard seriously (politically or otherwise…and probably call him “her”) are the same sort that would love that fake “Labour” unemployed African freeloader to win the election at Clacton.

I am not usually a Champagne drinker but…maybe a half-bottle of vintage on 5 July.

I would not be drinking to Labour’s victory but to the Con Party’s downfall, and especially to the downfall of any of their MPs who will hopefully suffer personally at least slightly as much as those victimized by them over the past 14 years.

Late tweets

Laura Trott. Complete idiot. Idiots like that pretend to know how to rule over us, they pretend to know…things; they also have a completely misconceived sense of entitlement. Kick them into the political gutter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sevenoaks_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2010s; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Trott_(politician).

Ha ha! “…I won’t be intimidated…!“, tweets Israel-lobby puppet Largan, as he runs away…

He must be looking for a new job, or getting back his old one at Marks & Spencer. His chance of re-election is very small. Nasty little man.

Another one to be binned politically in 2 weeks’ time.

Laura Farris. Another “Conservative” Party idiot. Sadly, in a (formerly, at least) very safe seat. The only way to get rid of her politically on 4 July will be tactical voting. The only obviously likely party would be the LibDems, though Reform UK is standing in Newbury, and is an unknown quantity.

In 2019, Laura Farris scored 57.4% (LibDems 30.6%).

In 2015, UKIP scored over 10% here.

In my opinion, it is not impossible to see Reform UK getting 15% or even more, and the Con vote reducing to about 40%, maybe even 35%. In those circumstances, it is at least possible to see the LibDems getting 35% (or even more, if aided by tactical voting; they scored 35.5% in 2010) and so pulling off rather a coup.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newbury_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2010s; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Farris.

According to my use of Electoral Calculus, that would give Labour 512 MPs (overall majority 374), LibDems 58, Cons 31, SNP 20, Reform UK 4, Plaid Cymru 4, Greens 2 (etc).

https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/userpoll.html

So, on that basis, a Labour “elected” dictatorship, LibDems as official Opposition, Cons facing the end of the road, and the SNP pretty washed-up. Also, Farage with a very small but significant bloc of MPs, likely to punch above their weight in public relations terms.

Incidentally, were the Cons to fall to 17% from 18%, their MP numbers would fall from 31 to only 21. FPTP is a harsh system.

Late music

[painting by Victor Ostrovsky]

Diary Blog, 15 June 2024

Morning music

Saturday quiz

Well, this week I return to winning form: 8/10, compared to the 6/10 scored by political journalist John Rentoul. I did not know the answers to questions 7 and 10.

Tweets seen

Cameron-Levita in his usual bubble of total unreality. The idiot who brought us the war on Gaddafi (result— millions of Africans flooding Europe), fake “austerity” (result— misery for millions, as well as lower economic growth than anywhere in the then EU, USA etc), and other misconceived policy choices, most recently the increased support for the brutal and shambolic dictatorship of Zelensky in Kiev.

Ursula Haverbeck— arguably the bravest person in Europe.

She thinks that she is terribly clever, and making the old lady seem outdated, “bigoted”, “gammon” etc. Ha. Laugh now if you want to…

The pendulum may start to swing back now that pine martens are being reintroduced in several parts of the country; pine martens prey on grey squirrels but not (much) on red squirrels.

The Tories are unlikely to attract many Reform UK voters given…

– Only 36% would vote Tory if a Reform UK candidate wasn’t standing

– 61% are voting Reform despite thinking they won’t win in their seat

– 75% say the Tories and Labour are as bad as each other

– 74-76% dislike Rishi Sunak and the party.

Desperate. I had not heard of that MP. Looks a bit of a careerist; tried to become a Police and Crime Commissioner at one point (came third in the election): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbie_Moore_(MP).

Keighley has, with 2 exceptions, been a “bellwether” constituency since 1959, so is likely to fall to Labour this time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keighley_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2020s.

I cannot think that those attempts at confusing the voters (of High Peak and also Keighley) will work. After all, most people vote according to party label, so when the voter is faced with a ballot paper, the “X” is placed by the party more than the candidate’s name.

I have to admit that the Italian woman “brushes up well”, as they say…

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

Clacton

Had to look that one up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wakanda.

Jovan Owusu-Nepaul, Labour candidate, seems to come out of a black activist (African; Ghanaian) background in Nottingham: see https://heartofthenation.migrationmuseum.org/stories/sylvia-owusu-nepaul/.

About 25. Never had a non-political job, in fact has never had any job except a couple of p/t “internships”. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jovan-owusu-nepaul-3a95b17b/.

The candidate’s aunt has also been socio-politically active: see https://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/7138/1/Owusu-Kwarteng_Between_Two_Lives_2010.pdf.

This Labour candidate is a kind of less-prominent Femi Oluwole. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femi_Oluwole

Labour has, since 2010, when the present constituency of Clacton was established, never scored higher than 25.4% of the votes cast there; that was in 2017. The lowest was 11.2%, at the by-election of that year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clacton_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2010s.

Labour has no chance at Clacton, a famously “left behind” and white British area. To choose an African “eternal student” as candidate is almost insulting to the voters there. Moreover, one whose social media posts make clear his hostility to the real people of the UK.

Despite Labour’s overall “popularity by default” in the nationwide campaign, I should not be surprised if its vote-share at Clacton were to dip below 10%.

The frightening thing is not that such a candidate is standing in Clacton, where Labour has little or no chance; it is that, across the country, similarly-hostile individuals are likely to be elected next month for Labour. God help the poor English people of these islands.

Late tweets seen

Not quite what I want to see: too many Con MPs. A couple of unexpected wrinkles too, such as Reform UK with 7 seats, and the SNP with 37, more than twice the number predicted elsewhere.

While the Con Party is toast pretty much whatever happens between now and 4 July, in some respects the General Election is quite open. A substantial minority are either undecided as to for which party they might vote, or are undecided as to whether to bother to vote at all.

That may mean a better than expected Con Party performance, a better than expected Labour (or even LibDem) performance but, most intriguingly, perhaps an even better than expected Reform UK vote, either as a targeted anti-Con vote, as a serious “I am dissatisfied” protest vote, or an angry “F.U., System parties!” vote.

The election is shaping up to be both interesting and important, perhaps even historic.

So will you, probably!

As people, from what I have seen online etc, ex-officer Mercer and his lady wife seem like a pleasant couple, but we are talking serious politics here.

Mercer has increased his majority steadily and considerably since first elected in 2015, but the general unpopularity of his party, his poor performance as a minister, and his personal moneygrasping would seem to leave him exposed. Also, Reform UK may well eat into his 2019 vote. Well, we shall soon know.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_Moor_View_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2010s

Late music

Diary Blog, 29 May 2024, including a look at Natalie Elphicke

Morning music

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

Tweets seen

I never believe “them” without corroborative evidence.

Exactly. Eternal “victims”, even when they are victimizing others.

A mere caution, for attacking an elderly man in the street.

Natalie Elphicke

Whatever the facts of that, there are facts that are indisputable: Natalie Elphicke could have stood at GE 2024 as Con Party candidate. She received 56.9% of the vote in 2019 under that aegis.

I was puzzled as to why Natalie Elphicke crossed the floor, she after all knowing that a general election had to be called sometime before a date in January 2025. Does she have some better offer from outside Parliament? Seems doubtful to me.

Natalie Elphicke gives me a dual impression: not particularly intelligent, but particularly focussed on her own ambitions.

Incidentally, many may be misled by the academic section of her biographical details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natalie_Elphicke#Early_life_and_career.

As a former member of Lincoln’s Inn, I have met several people over the years who were (as was Natalie Elphicke— see the Wikipedia entry) beneficiaries of Hardwicke scholarships. None impressed.

I saw this comment:

Hardwicke Scholarships aren’t that prestigious. A mere submission of an application is more than enough to win one. They give about 150 away each year, and not many more people apply to each inn for a scholarship, surprisingly enough.” [online commentator].

I think that the real figure is nearer to 100 than 150.

To intrude a personal comment, I recall a young blonde lady barrister who (unsuccessfully, in all cases) opposed me in court a number of times during 2002-2008 when I was in chambers in Exeter (she was in another set, also in Exeter). She was a former Hardwicke scholar, just like Natalie Elphicke. I used to think of her as “Mrs Malaprop”, because her use of English was so poor. Comically so. A pretty poor barrister in terms of both legal knowledge and presentation, in my view, though wearing a sense of self-importance as thick as a suit of armour.

I had better not name that lady, mainly for reasons of propriety (I am too poor now to be worth suing; and there would be no basis for such a suit anyway). I just looked her up online for the first time, and found that she is still in Exeter, and still in the same chambers as she was 20+ years ago, apparently flourishing like the green bay tree.

I note that, having been Called to the Bar in 1994, only a few years after me, Natalie Elphicke decided to leave the Bar and to convert to be a solicitor (something that, at least then, basically meant filling out a few forms).

Natalie Elphicke only worked as a lawyer for a year or two, as a salaried employee of the Inland Revenue (as was; now HMRC) during 1995-1997. She married her now ex-husband, Charlie Elphicke, in 1995. They have two children. She appears to have returned to legal work for a year or two during the years 2011-2013, before helping to found a company which was dissolved 2-3 years later.

After that, her husband’s connections seem to have got her a couple of brief public appointments in the years 2016-2019, as well as the CEO job at the Housing and Finance Institute: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_and_Finance_Institute. This may not be very lucrative, though, looking at the Institute’s funding. Hard to say.

Ah…[10 mins later…]… seems that my hunch was correct: that HFI CEO position is entirely unpaid: see https://members.parliament.uk/member/4795/registeredinterests.

Many will know that, though having displayed (performative?) “loyalty” to her disgraced MP husband, Charlie Elphicke, during his trial, Natalie Elphicke had by then already taken over as MP for Dover in 2019. She separated from him in 2020, and later divorced him, prior to which she sold her story to the Sun “newspaper” for £25,000. https://www.kentonline.co.uk/deal/news/mp-wife-of-naughty-tory-paid-25k-to-tell-all-234749/.

I have to say that I agreed (and still agree) with Natalie Elphicke’s comment at the time of her husband’s unsuccessful appeal (against sentence only— he had been sentenced to 2 years, plus £35,000 costs, and was released after a year) that the 2-year sentence was harsh. He had really done very little: “During his trial the court heard how Elphicke groped one of his accusers, chased her around his house, and sang “I’m a naughty Tory, I’m a naughty Tory.” [Wikipedia].

I should have thought that a suspended sentence would have been enough. From what I read at the time, his three crimes were all just silly, really; almost identical, too, and surely only just coming within the “sex crime” area. Pathetic more than anything, in my opinion.

To my mind, if crimes and criminals can be divided into “bad, sad, or mad“, Charlie Elphicke’s conduct was surely “sad“, with a dash of “mad“, but nothing seriously “bad“.

Having —whether rightly or wrongly, and I think rightly— identified Natalie Elphicke as a “go for the main chance” opportunist, why on Earth did she defect to Labour? Looking at the electoral statistics for Dover, she had a very good chance of being re-elected. Maybe Starmer offered her a peerage (seems unlikely, though), or some quango chair (more likely), or a safe Labour seat (relatively unlikely, surely?).

I admit, Mrs. Elphicke’s motivation is still puzzling to me.

As to Charlie Elphicke, I had little time for him when he was an MP, but I have to say that his fall from status and relative affluence has the elements of a minor Greek tragedy. Apparently, he now lives in a small rented flat somewhere like Earl’s Court, and may (I do not know) be either unemployed or working in some obscure occupation. I can find no record of him still on the Solicitors’ Register, and the same is true of Natalie Elphicke, but as far as I know both are still able to practise; again, I cannot say.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-61276734

While looking up the above details, I noticed this story from the Daily Mail in 2022: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10367265/Naughty-Tory-Charlie-Elphicke-makes-700-000-profit-selling-cliffside-home-Kent.html.

Turns out that the Elphickes bought a house on the Kent coast for about £800,000 in 2012, and were able to sell it only a decade later for over £1.5M. The house almost doubled in value in 10 years. A commentary upon the house-price madness in this country.

More tweets

There is also no evidence that Reform UK is getting anywhere. Nothing lower than an across-the-board 20% will win any seats; even a few percent more may only win a small handful, maybe 3-5. 11%, 12%, even 15%, is “nowhere” territory in seat-winning terms.

The LibDems and Greens are on a lower nationwide support, yet have seats in the Commons because their vote is concentrated, here and there.

Having said that, I make two points. Firstly, most intending Reform UK voters know perfectly well that RF is not going to win many, if any, seats. Their vote is a protest vote and/or a way of kicking the Sunak government and Conservative Party, by weakening greatly the Con Party vote in almost every constituency, but without voting Labour.

Secondly, as mooted yesterday, there may be a number, perhaps even a large number, of “secret Reform UK voters”, who do not show up in the opinion polls because they say “Don’t Know” or nominate a mainstream party out of embarrassment. Very English, arguably.

I doubt whether the usual general election convergence will happen this time. People hate and despise the useless Conservative Party governments of the past 14 years, and especially the past 5 years. That includes a huge number of 2019 or previous Con voters.

In fact, I should not be surprised were the Lab-Con gap to widen, though more because the Cons may slide again rather than because Labour increase their percentage.

A plurality of voters do not know where Starmer stands. For Starmer, that may be what he wants.

Telling…

That must be “value” olive oil. The last bottle I bought (extra-virgin olive oil, first cold pressing, but not a single-estate or special one) was nearly £13.

Incredible posting by Simon Myerson (1) @JewishMirelle’s statement can be opinion and defamatory. (2) Myerson is re-publishing a likely defamatory statement. (3) He’s a KC suggesting to someone on twitter that their statement might not be defamatory. (4) He’s the KC who acted for Pete Newbon according the Telegraph. #GroundhogDay

Myerson again.

Honest opinion is now a defence [Defamation Act 2013, s.3].

I think that I shall quit now, while I am ahead. I have not been in Bar practice for 16 years, and do not, in general, keep up with changes in the law.

General Election news

According to my use of Electoral Calculus, that might result in a House of Commons with 541 Lab MPs, 46 LibDem, 28 Con, 12 SNP, 3 Plaid Cymru, 2 Green, and 18 various Northern Irish.

On those figures, what Disraeli described as “the great Conservative Party, which destroys everything“, would be itself almost destroyed, reduced to a rump of 20 MPs; not even the official Opposition, which would be the LibDems.

Such a result would be a strategic defeat for the SNP too. 12 MPs, down from 56 (out of 59) at the 2015 peak, and 48 at the 2019 GE.

I get the impression that the SNP’s version of fake “nationalism” (blame England/the UK for everything, keep importing non-whites into Scotland, and think it normal to have a Pakistani as First Minister) has well and truly foundered on the rocks of socio-political reality). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_National_Party#House_of_Commons.

https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/userpoll.html.

Of course, a change in the Labour vote of even one point either way would add several to (or subtract several from) the Conservative total, and even more to or from the Labour total.

More tweets

A twisted and evil woman.

Ukraine knows that it’s all over” While the UK is preoccupied with the general elections, Kyiv “cannot withstand Putin’s brutal attack,” reports the British The Telegraph. Main points:

Kiev was forced to transfer thousands of soldiers to the northeastern part of the front line to try to slow down the advance of the Russian Armed Forces in the Kharkov region.

The war is reaching a critical point as Western interest in helping Ukraine risks weakening again.

Zelensky seems to understand that time is running out for Ukraine: over the weekend he called on Joe Biden and Xi Jinping to take part in the upcoming “peace summit” in Switzerland.

Zelensky’s team is concerned about the shift of attention in the United States to internal elections: Ukraine is receding into the background.

The harsh reality is that Ukraine risks simply running out of people to fight.

Exactly.

I have, on the blog, been saying for 2 years that Russia cannot lose this war, and will not lose it.