News Round-Up
- “Questions over who really owns PPE firm linked to Baroness Mone given £200 million” – A tax expert has called for a new investigation into PPE Medpro, a specialist manufacturer of personal protection equipment, reports the Sunday Times.
- “Women’s Open: Oil protesters with flares halt play after making way on to 17th green” – The AIG Women’s Open was halted at a crucial stage when the 17th green was invaded by Extinction Rebellion protesters, says the BBC.
- “Keir Starmer abandons plans for U.K.-wide Ulez zones in blow to Sadiq Khan’s authority” – Labour has done a U-turn on plans to expand low emission zones nationwide, following the Party’s unexpected defeat in the recent Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election, according to the Express.
- “Extinction Rebellion founder hits out at Ulez as protesters have tyres slashed” – Around 100 opponents of the London Mayor’s Ulez-scheme in Bromley have had their vehicles attacked, reports the Telegraph.
- “Now ban on oil boilers is thrown into doubt amid Tory backlash” – Plans to ban new oil boilers have been thrown into doubt following backlash among Tory MPs, with some Government insiders now insisting it was just a ‘proposal’, says the Mail.
- “Head of climate watchdog behind boiler ban plan admits he still uses gas heating” – The chief of a climate watchdog responsible for lobbying to ban boilers has admitted he still uses gas heating in his home, reports the Mail.
- “Britain isn’t being told the truth about Net Zero” – Both Labour and the Tories’ room for manoeuvre on green policy is exceptionally limited, explains the Telegraph in a leading article.
- “A great chance (best since 1850s?) to replace the Tories” – Dominic Cummings assesses the prospects of a notional Startup Party, a political project aimed at winning an General Election in 2028 and giving voters “the sort of government they want and deserve”.
- “Germany considers ban on far-Right AfD” – Germany is debating whether to ban the Right-wing Alternative for Germany as the party surges to 21% in the polls, reports the Telegraph.
- “West Yorkshire Police have some explaining to do” – Why did the police arrest a drunk autistic child, asks Robert Jessel in the Critic.
- “Who is Professor Emma Renold?” – The fact that Emma Renold holds a Chair in the Department of Social Sciences at Cardiff University is evidence of academic ‘title inflation’, says Toxic Feminism.
- “The treachery of the atheists” – Why have so many rationalists fallen for the hocus pocus of the trans cult? Spiked’s Brendan O’Neill explains.
- “Drag queen story time event for children funded by Welsh Government” – A Drag Queen Story Hour in Cardiff last year was funded by the city’s Labour-run administration, according to Yahoo.
- “When I was 14, a transsexual manipulated me into changing sex” – “When I was very young, I was manipulated into sex reassignment by a transsexual man in his mid-40s,” says Polish biologist and science blogger Lukasz Sakowski in the Mail.
- “The narcissism of queer theory” – The ‘queering’ of the Mary Rose is a preposterous attack on history, writes Ann Furedi in Spiked.
- “What happened to the Edinburgh Fringe?” – Leo Kearse joins Chris Snowdon and Tom Slater on the Spiked Podcast to discuss the woke censors at the Edinburgh Fringe, the junk science about ‘ultra-processed food’ and why middle-aged, privately educated liberals are ruining everything.
- “Biden censors battered – expect an epic Supreme Court showdown” – A federal judge has condemned the Biden administration for potentially “the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history”, reports the New York Post. Biden v Missouri looks to be heading to the Supreme Court.
- “Vivek Ramaswamy: The millionaire who could be Trump’s heir” – Vivek Ramaswamy, the rising star of the Republican Party, wants to send troops to the Mexican border, abolish Government departments and push for a deal to let Russia keep parts of Ukraine, says the Sunday Times.
- “Musk v Zuckerberg: Florence mayor proposes ‘match of minds’” – The Mayor of Florence is calling on tech billionaires Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg to swap a spectacle of fisticuffs for a battle of wits in the birthplace of the Renaissance, reports the Telegraph.
- “‘Not only does it punish free speech, it makes compelled speech part of the punishment’” – German Saucedo tells Andrew Doyle on GB News that a Mexican civic has been convicted of “gender-based political violence” for misgendering a political opponent.
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👍 Excellent paper “The Light” Worryingly though in a discussion with Nick Dixon a few weeks back Toby seemed not to have heard of it ! I Would love to get his take on it 🤔🤔🤔
Yes I found that gap in Toby’s awareness very surprising. It does make you wonder
👍 Nick didn’t get too excited either 😳
Toby’s been playing a rather strange game for a while now. I fear he’s compromised in some way. It’s difficult to draw any other conclusion.
The Startup Party: reflections on the last 20 years, what could replace the Tories, and why (substack.com)
I tried to read this from Cummings but failed. Word salad. No clear statement of what he thinks it might or should stand for. General impression is that it should stand for putting people like him in charge, because he’s so great and can fix everything.
The last party I’d want anything to do with would be one involving the authoritarian, technocratic, elitist hypocrite, Dominic Cummings.
A key player in pushing U.K. lockdowns
There was an article I read recently about the recent local elections in Boston, Lincs. A mixed group of local people got together to discuss what they should do to oust the Tories and the Labour councillors as none of them wanted to stand for any of the traditional parties. They decided to stand as independents. They got in and now control the council and hopefully put an end to all the nonsense of net zero, 15 minute city zones and all the other woke ideology being rammed down people’s throats. If this formula was replicated round the country we could get rid of all the major political parties ruining the lives of everyone with their woke ideology. We might even get out country back as well and put an end to the two party system that pretends to be democracy but isn’t.
So Germany might ban the AfD. Excellent. The more extreme they (the left) get, the more clearly everyone will see them for what they are.
The AfD is roughly what the UK Conservative Party once was.
Yes I’ve read up on their policy positions- pretty moderate
Wow, I had no idea that Ivermectin was working like a charm to reduce excess deaths in Peru in 2020 but then they got a new President who restricted its use and it all went South for them. New peer-reviewed paper here;
”Reductions in excess deaths over a period of 30 days after peak deaths averaged 74% in the 10 states with the most intensive IVM use. As determined across all 25 states, these reductions in excess deaths correlated closely with the extent of IVM use (p<0.002). During four months of IVM use in 2020, before a new president of Peru restricted its use, there was a 14-fold reduction in nationwide excess deaths and then a 13-fold increase in the two months following the restriction of IVM use. Notably, these trends in nationwide excess deaths align with WHO summary data for the same period in Peru.”
https://www.cureus.com/articles/172991-covid-19-excess-deaths-in-perus-25-states-in-2020-nationwide-trends-confounding-factors-and-correlations-with-the-extent-of-ivermectin-treatment-by-state#!/
“Britain isn’t being told the truth about Net Zero” – Both Labour and the Tories’ room for manoeuvre on green policy is exceptionally limited, explains the Telegraph in a leading article.
Reminds me of this Homer Simpson clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQvvmT3ab80
The legal constraints are rather laughable in a “rules based world order” that can change the rules as it goes along. If we could invade Iraq illegally, and backpedal on the clear results of the Brexit referendum, and ignore promises made to Russia about the expansion of NATO, then surely it’s no big deal to abrogate any legal commitments to Net Zero, if they’ve a mind to.
Yes, the whole point is that previous governments have set rules that later governments have to either abide by or change (hence the reference to ‘that’s a problem for future Homer. Man I don’t envy that guy‘).
Our government (and for that matter the current opposition party) is not united on trivial matters (like the clash between normal people’s and Trans people’s rights), let alone important stuff like Net-Zero, and is unable to change the legislation almost no matter how much the people demand it. The treacherous MPs who block the necessary changes need to be removed from office.
The Leo podcast linked where they assert that an all natural ingredient, fresh that day, home made pizza isn’t healthier than a frozen slab of chemical preservers for a quid, is comedy gold.
“A great chance (best since 1850s?) to replace the Tories” – Dominic Cummings assesses the prospects of a notional Startup Party, a political project aimed at winning an General Election in 2028 and giving voters “the sort of government they want and deserve”.
Well, the sort of government the people want would not include you or your totalitarian ilk Cummings, so I’d politely ask that you f”ck off back under the rock you crawled from. Some of us have this thing called memory.
Personal animosity does not invalidate the proposition that we have an excellent opportunity to close down the Conservative Party. That would open space they currently hold through voter habit and fraudulent campaign messages.
The space could be used by a new party which we desperately need. If the voting system could be changed, maybe two new parties, one of which should definitely campaign for a smaller government at all levels.
I never said it did. Personally, however, I think anyone that still believes the current political system can save us is living in cloud cuckoo land. Whoever gets in will be corrupted at some point. We need the drafting of a kind of peoples charter – something akin to the US constitution (but far more robust) – that places the ultimate power with the people. If a new party proposed that then I’d think about voting again; until then it’s a pointless act. In fact, I’d argue that by voting under the current system all you are doing is showing support for the system that tore up all your rights and excitedly shat all over you these last few years.
I used to think we needed a written constitution but now I don’t, not because constitutions are a bad thing, but can you imagine what would be included today? It would be totally different from something that might have been written even 20 years ago. 600 pages on trans rights for a start.
The current system of politics in the UK does seem to be missing something, the shakedown/realignment of the parties that I think was required post-2016 hasn’t happened and instead we continue with the same old parties flogging mid 20th century rhetoric but in reality converging on the same policies. But how do we get from here to where we want to be? Self-disenfranchisement isn’t going to change anything, and the first past the post system is very hostile to new parties of any political colour.
AV would have given us the ability to vote against parties we disapproved of (ie anyone except the XXX candidate). The people turned down AV in the second UK wide referendum in 2011. AV with a ‘none of the above’ option would be a good move in my opinion. All missing votes to be counted as ‘none of the above’.
I quite like the AV system, although perhaps tackling the unelected elements of government might be a higher priority for me.
Perhaps with a strong enough mandate a government could get the civil service to obey.
I get your point, but not sure I agree. The wording cannot be specific to the challenges of the time and must be as futureproof as possible. Ultimately, all the societal challenges we face today revolve around freedom of speech (even thought now!), and the capture of all institutions by one ideology. It can’t be beyond the wit of man to compose something that protects us from this one-sided, destructive, dogma that’s gripped the entire West. After all, the US constitution, even though it was compiled nearly 250 years ago, has stood the test of time fairly well. Not perfect, but it’s a pretty good template. We need something that we certainly don’t have now.
There was an attempt a few years back in pre Brexit times:
https://harrogateagenda.org.uk/
Only hope of that is a kind of UKIP 2.0 with people like Andrew Bridgen, Nigel Farage, Jonathan Sumption, etc., running it.
The key will be a recognizable party name, such as UKIP.
All these “Re-” parties (Reform, Reclaim, Reset . . .) just won´t cut the mustard.
“A great chance (best since 1850s?) to replace the Tories” – Dominic Cummings assesses the prospects of a notional Startup Party, a political project aimed at winning an General Election in 2028 and giving voters “the sort of government they want and deserve”.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/dominic-cummings-covid-boris-johnson-b1854048.html
Dominic Cummings is the cretin who fell for the Imperial College ‘Report 9’ hook, line and sinker. The prat scared the government into outrageous and unnecessary infringements of personal liberty which achieved damn-all apart from near destroying what was left of the NHS, the future prospects of a huge cohort of school kids and students and the country’s economy. I’d rather vote for a Communist party – at least they might be honest about their policies.
This guy must not be allowed anywhere near government ever again.
“Germany considers ban on far-Right AfD”
Banning any political party anywhere by anyone is the very essence of dictatorship!
Why is it that when lefty parties get nervous, they try to blow out the candles of their opposition to make theirs ‘look’ brighter!
They never try to prove their worth by their actions!
Why does the NHS have anything to do with Stonewall?
It´s there to cure my illness. Or does it now have a view on the Ukraine war?
And what is the relevance of my pronoun during an emergency?
Starmer IS a U-turn in human form.
Women can have penises. Women can’t.
Not only women can have a cervix. Only women can.
God help us. The Tories are bad enough (and I’m a died in the wool conservative) but Labour will be a total and utter disaster.
“The doctrine of the lesser magistrates” is becoming powerful in the United States.
Essentially, it holds that those in lesser authority have a responsibility, indeed a duty, to remedy abuses of power or derelictions of duty by higher authorities. This duty extends right down to the heads of families of individual citizens.
It is the basis of Trial by Jury, where twelve good men and true can (in a particular case) nullify the effect of a law passed by parliament and approved by the king.
Given the behaviour of this parliament since 2019 (and this king since 2022), we could do with some of the doctrine of the lesser magistrates.