My ancient and revered Mother - ninety-five years of age and still sharp as a tack - has said that she would like just ten minutes alone with Ed Miliband and her walking-stick in a soundproofed room. I will draw a veil over the detailed plans she has for the walking-stick.
One of your best, LSO. There's precious little to laugh about at the moment, so thanks for the Druids' sacrifices gag, and the Gordon Brown's swap gag, and the "lose weight by shaving off your eyebrows" gag, all of which got a hearty chuckle out of me..
Where the wind turbines are concerned, you left out the environmental cost in dead birds, and that (IIRC) they only last about 25 years, after which the need disposing of and replacing.
The one thing I'd take issue with is the "Rwanda was never going to work" bit. I'm not saying it _would_ have worked, but no-one's ever given me a good reason why it couldn't be compared, in principle, with Australia's off-shoring policy which, as I understand it, saw the numbers arriving there in illegal boats fall off a cliff quite rapidly.
Thanks patrocles! Delighted you got a laugh out of it.
You’re right about the turbines. I don’t know so much about them and I was stretching my knowledge even then. Scott Campbell who has a great Substack is an expert in this area. His stuff is always worth a read.
My issue with Rwanda wasn’t the principle. I think off shoring is a good idea. My objection was that it was almost entirely performative. They knew it wouldn’t work, the whole point was ‘the battle’ to supposedly make it happen. Easy to point to ‘lefty lawyers’ scuppering your plan when your plan was so crap it could be scuppered by a few lefty lawyers!
I wouldn't mind so much if they hadn't spent a small fortune paying Rwanda (which they have not returned) on top of the millions they paid France for doing zilch, neither of which achieved one fewer "refugee" gaining asylum in the UK.
Yes Iris. I agree. But it was always going to be a huge waste of money. It was never ever going to happen. And the French thing was also a bit of a joke. Why would the French keep the migrants and the money, when they could choose just to keep the money? It was always bonkers.
It amazes me that our leaders, who are surrounded by very well paid advisers, seem to come up with such ludicrous schemes that the man on the Clapham omnibus can see won't work within 2 minutes.
The advisors are well paid but not always well endowed with brains. They have a major weakness of proposing things that will please their masters who are the key to their future career progress.
Well done post. Warfare, welfare, and climate change. The grift goes on. Extract wealth from the private sector and doom the grandchildren to soverign debt slavery in order to fund public interest groups. The insanity is global.
THE INSANITY IS GLOBAL AND ITS COMING FROM CHINA via the UN and its myriad bought and paid-for apparatchiks in thousands of government positions, NGOs and centres of power, large and small. 'Net Zero' is DESIGNED TO RUIN US. Mass/unvetted immigration is designed to demoralise and destroy us. Gender madness is designed to screw up young people's minds. Excessive borrowing/spending is designed to bankrupt us, as it surely will. All of these psyops are a new form of warfare on the west, rotting us from within, just as Antonio Gramsci laid out in the 1920's, now perfected by China. Read the book 'Hidden Hand', it's all there in plain sight.
Thanks for the book recommendation but the idea that this is coming from China is puzzling. I trace the beginning of the destruction of the West to 1913. The income tax is the second plank of the Communist manifesto, and a Central Bank is the fifth plank and both of these were installed in 1913. I suppose the power hungry elite are having their biggest wins in China, so they relocated the top of the organization there. But people need to realize the problem is not about geo-politics but about an ideology that promotes collectivism and abhors individualism. Fortunately we now have independent media that can override the mass media controlled by the elite.
I think you have to go back to at least 1871. The Paris Commune is regarded as the first time communism seized power. The violent revolution led to the destruction of a large portion of the arts and architecture of Paris, and laid the foundations for future revolutions. The centres of Communism have moved around the world., from Paris to St Petersburg, Moscow and Beijing. But it never dies.
Agreed. Mine is an American perspective but the global perspective is critical because it is an assault on humanity first and assaults on geographies second.
Thank you LSO once again for a good rant. I will add some thoughts.
Reeves said that the one thing Labour would consider borrowing for, because it meant growth, was capital infrastructure programs. Yet she has cancelled them all. Instead she is going to have to borrow nearly £10 billion to pay the inflation busting public sector pay rises. Because the pensioners freezing to death this winter will be contributing their money to illegal immigrants instead. After all, a shiny new iPhone (to replace the one they chucked in the sea) for each illegal immigrant will cost more than three breadline pensioners' winter fuel allowances.
Slightly off topic, there was a debate about whether the Olympic pool was "slow," because few personal bests were broken. All sorts of theories were expounded as to why this might be so, with others saying it was nonsense.
Now forgive me for being naive, but if there could be a dozen explanations for a "slow pool," and we don't know which one (or more) is right, or even if the pool is "slow," how come the scientists are sure that one teensy weensy factor, CO2 and methane emissions by man, are the sole reason why the planet is apparently boiling over?
Your point about China and renewables is well made, but here are some further thoughts. The pro anthropogenic climate change Druids point to China as a shining example of how a nation can embrace renewables. But the Chinese don't believe in man made climate change. They sent the IPCC off with a flea in its ear back in the day.
But then wiser heads prevailed. "Let's pretend we believe in all this nonsense, and then we can sell the idiots in the West all these solar panels and electric vehicles, at knock down prices to wreck their economies," one probably said. Another no doubt said, "let's build lots of renewables for ourselves. It's sunny in China, and we have cheap labour and materials, but far more importantly than that, we have very few fossil fuels of our own, so this is energy security for us."
Make no mistake. We are going nowhere near net zero. For all China's renewable efforts, only 18% of its electricity comes from renewables, compared to our 33%. They burned more fossil fuels in 2023 than 2022. The world burned more coal in 2023 than ever before. Worldwide energy consumption is over 80% fossil fuels, with just 4% wind and 2% solar, and increased 1.5% in 2023.
Brilliant comment Jeremy. Your point about the pool is well made. ‘It could be a number of factors’. It’s a closed system with known variables but they are still unsure if the cause. The climate is an infinitely more complex system, but in this case only one explanation is acceptable.
It’s clear what China’s goal is. We seem to be doing our utmost to help them achieve it.
Taking Jeremy’s “slow pool” theory to the nth degree, seems to suggest to me- in line with current methane emissions science- that obviously the cause of a slow pool is swimmers farting in it.
Australia is just as keen on net zero as UK governments, so they have (or are) shutting down all their coal burning power stations. They sell the coal instead to China so they can burn it. The western "democracies" are completely mad. They have a death-wish - or at least those in charge have, and they'll take us all down with them.
Hi Jos. It’s utter madness. It’s the environmental equivalent of simply sweeping the mess under the carpet. These supposed environmental zealots seem to think it doesn’t count when China does it. It like someone trying to lose weight who thinks that fast food from somewhere like Leon doesn’t contain the same calories as a Maccy D. Nuts.
Mais oui! But it does not count towards the Aussie CO2 output! Part of the madness. Every country submits data and calculations showing its emissions annually and they are just like rabbit holes with estimates, coefficients, guesses, and even the supposedly hard data like oil consumption is built up from so many different sources, each with its own errors, that the end result is just a broad brush number - though the Govt and civil servants will insist it is accurate within the limits of their knowledge!
The reason "The scientists" are sure that man's actions are 100% to blame for the planet boiling is that all dissenting opinions from equally qualified scientists have been cancelled, silenced, de-platformed, etc., and the authors of these ridiculous claims put on the dole for eternity (or when the planet explodes. whichever comes sooner.)
This hits the nail squarely on the head. I thought the previous government were bad, but I am in total despair at this one. Starmer must already be at risk of challenging Liz Truss's 'Shortest honeymoon period of a British Prime Minister' Guiness Book of Records entry?
Thanks Nick. I share your despair. Especially since as I approach retirement age Starmer seems intent on kicking the feet out from under me. I haven’t got a public sector pension, so I’ve tried to do the right thing and sort myself out. Greedy apparently. 🙄
I predicted he’d stay popular because he’d buy voters off with other people’s money. Seems I was wrong! He’s making a hash of everything and it’s only month one. I hated the Tories. But I can’t even bear to hear Starmer speak.
Now yes. Back in the day I didn’t mind him. Starmer and Reeves are definite ‘no’s. Angela Rayner is a solid yes, just to see what she’ll say. Cooper is probably the worst.
"Great British Energy" ... It reminds me of the Wilson-Brown government of the 60s with their Department of Economic Affairs and their National Economic Development Council - all regulation and control and, yes, spending even more of our money on useless projects. It culminated with the devaluation of sterling in 1967 and Wilson coming on TV to tell us it was just a technical matter and the pounds in our pockets were not devalued!! They treated us like fools even back then.
That is spot on Jos. And so devalued since. People think that things like houses have become more expensive. Not really in absolute terms and gold. It’s just that money is becoming worthless.
My parents married in 1961. Back in the early days of their marriage they lived very well on a combined income of £100/month, out of which their mortgage payment was £12. My father was a manager at an engineering company and my mother was a cashier in a small branch of Barclays bank.
In 2010, when my mother came to visit me in Cambridge, she was leafing through the property adverts and stopped at one. She said this semi-detached house for £210K was the spitting image of the one she and my father had bought in Rochdale, when they were newly married, for £2100. We had a think about how prices had changed in 50 years. That example of the house was an increase of 100x (admittedly between a cheap and an expensive area). We compared the price of a pint of beer: maybe a factor of 50x (from 1/6 to nearly £4).
When I read P.G. Wodehouse's stories, many of which involve the financial complications of his upper class characters, I mentally multiply the sums of money by 100 (which approximates the decline in value of the pound from a century ago). So when Bertie Wooster's cousins ask to borrow £5 for lunch, they are not after a takeaway coffee and a sandwich, but intending to dine at the Savoy Grill or the Ritz.
Yes Geoff. I think that’s what I read. That the value of the pound has declined by 96% over the last hundred years or so. I think that’s why they don’t want you to accrue assets. It stops you becoming poor.
Exactly Nicholas. The actual ‘value’ of the house might not have changed that much. I mention above that Dominic Frisby did a fascinating comparison of how much gold it would take to buy a house, I think, 100 years ago. And how much gold it would take now. It was surprisingly comparable. What has changed is the value of money. That value has been inflated away.
We can see that the forthcoming Labour budget will be an attack on non ‘working people’. It’s actually explicit. They don’t want you to have any assets, which are of course, simply an independent store of wealth. They want us living hand to mouth. We’re easier to control that way.
The Climate Act 2008 was the biggest state sponsored transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in our history. Who was responsible for putting it in place? A Labour Government! Step forward Ed Milliband, Protector of the Disadvantaged! Except he's not. The Labour Party hate the poor and the working class with a passion.
Another brilliant piece, LSO. One of the things that came out of the Brexit vote was the realisation that I was not just a lone, rogue freak. Your writings, and the comments you receive help to keep that feeling of being one among many alive.
It’s a two way street P. Writing this Substack has genuinely saved my sanity. And that’s only because of the positive reaction from so many brilliant readers. It’s great to know we’re not alone right? So thanks for coming!
What really annoys me is that I am held responsible for the outcome of my vote not being as hoped. How many times do I have to explain that we have not had one PM nor majority in parliament since 2016 who believed the UK was worth a light and couldn't wait to get back under Brussels' tender care .
That’s a great point. I find it equally annoying that Brexit is seen as a failure, which I think it has been, because the government/state has refused to take any advantage of the freedoms it has given us. And as you say, then people blame that failure on the initial vote. No. We voted to open a door, the state then refused to go through that open door. It’s moot now anyway, we’ll be back in, in all but name, by 2030.
"Just like so much overseas ‘aid’ it will be swallowed up, siphoned off, and soaked up by useless NGOs, ‘charities’, action groups, climate initiatives, research bodies, activists, international agencies, think tanks, grifters, corrupt foreign governments, and rent seekers." The first tranche of any project money always goes to the minister of whatever department is getting the project. He or she probably has to pay a commission to the president who has expensive bodyguards, an army and the latest hardware to maintain. After all the various clients have taken their cut, a small amount of money filters down to the village level. And then, of course, some well-paid western consultants have to visit the project ("monitoring and evaluation") to make sure the project is delivering ( a new village pump, a system for marketing village produced goods, etc). The minister's department wants to be involved in this too, so of course it needs a brand new car to visit the projects which also allows them to keep n eye on the western consultants in case one of them should suggest not much has been achieved for the hundreds of thousands spent. (Most won't because they have an eye on the next M&E job). In the end, foreign aid has very little benefit for the people and allows foreign governments to spend more on armaments and personal luxuries. It is pernicious because it actually sustains the despots in power.
Yes Jos. And then when there are some good projects, and I believe there surely must be, they miss out or get tarred with the same brush. Essentially governments are incredibly poor distributors of other people’s money. Because their interests are not met by doing it properly, fairly or efficiently.
Try reading Dead Aid by Dambisa Moyo. When she wrote it in 2009, Africa had just exceeded $1 Trillion in aid (gifts not loans) since WWII. Africa was around the same level of development as Taiwan or S Korea in 1945. The latter received no aid at all and look at them now: as rich as the West. She demonstrates aid just breeds massively corrupt government and dependency. Aid is a nice, kind idea but with terrible results.
Thanks Dan. I’ll put it in my list. Aid is a huge grift from the sounds of it. If you really want to help developing countries let them trade tariff free with your club, and help them develop good governance and secure property rights. I think it flows from there. Apparently we prefer to keep them dependent and asset strip them.
There are good project aims, but is it necessary for the UK (or the West generally) to fund them? These are countries which have been independent for more than two generations and it is high time they stood on their own two feet. We have bred dependence and expectations, like spoiled kids who will never leave home.. All that happens is the majority of western money is just propping up the regimes which are too selfish, too lazy, too evil even to look after their own people. Aid should be limited to assistance in times of unexpected disasters (floods, hurricanes, volcanic explosions etc).
Unfortunately, there is huge lobby in the West that benefits directly from this aid - not least the civil servants working in International Development, and the consultants and NGOs they employ to run/monitor/evaluate all these projects.
Just speaking as some one who has worked in a few developing countries on aid funded projects
I don’t think we should be funding the countries through Aid programmes. But I do feel we have a duty to help other people. Just human decency. But I’m very much of the opinion that we should be doing this by lending expertise and helping build markets. We can’t be denying people in poor countries proper power grids while fobbing them off with inadequate renewables for example. It’s so difficult though, because 90% of Aid or intervention seems little more than a grift.
I was one of those giving my expertise to these countries. Most of the time it achieved nothing because those in power did not want the liberation of free markets and accountability. I do not agree that we should give, and give, and give while the main beneficiary sits in his presidential palace and changes nothing. We are maintaining a corrupt and useless system.
I remember the anecdote that Western representatives, upon visiting one of Mobutu Sese Seko's palaces, would be unable to hide their astonishment. Mobutu thought they were impressed at the lavish opulence of his estate. In reality, they were thinking: 'My God! This is where all our aid money has been going!'
Wow. That rings true. And of course it happens. If you were a warlord type why would you let in the Aid agencies for free? And so it goes at every level I expect. And it’s self fulfilling. If you have a functioning government which respects the rule of law there’s less need for Aid. Except in proper emergencies. When of course, we should help.
Yes, there was a general movement at one time to forgive a large part of the third world debt, but cannot recall the exact terms. However, individual countries frequently forgive debt. In the Seychelles, policy was developed on the assumption that they would only ever have to repay a small proportion of the debt (loans received outside the aid packages)
Your last sentence .... I think they already have. Govt set up an internet watch organisation during Covid to identify "misinformation" etc. That was never disbanded, but renamed and it is now watching out for "dissidents" - people like you and I who can think for ourselves. The pre-crimers (people the authorities think will commit or support a crime in the future, even if just a thought crime) If I come across the reference again I will post it here. Meanwhile, I am thinking I should get myself a pseudonym, though that will not stop anyone easily discovering the things I have been doing and commenting upon for the past thirty years.
Well. I have had a long and varied career, never choosing the safe option, not because I am a risk taker, brave or anything else, but simply because I could not bear to think of reaching old age and looking back with regrets that I did not even try to do something different. Fellow lecturers and public servants were aghast when I left the safety of their little fold for something new. I'll contribute here when I think I have something useful to say, but I am always cognisant of my wife's warning "Don't bore people, Jos,". She knows what I am like when I get the bit between my teeth.
A good example of what a waste it is for us is when the President's new compound in South African cost the exact amount of one year's "aid" from the UK
As if on cue, the following are copied from Gript (Irish free thinkers):
"Ireland has donated about half a billion euro in aid to Ethiopia over the last decade. That’s all very admirable until you consider that a third world country like Ethiopia has an annual defence budget of $1.6bn and boasts an air force of 97 aircraft including nine MiG-23 fighter jets! It’s certainly impressive for what is considered a third world country and most certainly impressive when compared to Ireland’s own collapsing defence forces." And:
" ... the case of Irish aid going to Uganda. Uganda at that time had just taken delivery of a squadron of maritime attack aircraft despite the fact that it is a landlocked country hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean. None the less they are the proud owners of a squadron of maritime attack aircraft while the Irish tax payer enables this folly by paying for their health and education services such as they are. Ireland of course possesses no military jet aircraft of any kind. Our air corps are using 40 year old Italian propeller aircraft that would perform poorly against a first world war Soppwith Camel biplane. "
And this story can be applied to virtually every third world country.
Thank you for that explanation from personal experience.
It used to be said that foreign aid was poor people in rich countries paying money to rich people in poor countries.
But that charmingly informal system was back in the old days. Now there is a whole industry that helps organizations in the rich countries to get some of the money too.
After two years working as economic advisor in the Dept of Finance, Seychelles, and seeing most of the aid projects which came to the Islands, and knowing full well how "valued" my economic advice was to the (essentially communist) regime, I recommended to the Aussie aid organisation that no more aid should be given (with full supporting evidence, of course). The aid advisor was aghast. He would miss out on his annual all expenses paid week in the Seychelles - he spent most of the time snorkelling, swimming and loungeing by the pool - and Australia's geo-political clout (yes, they thought they had clout!) would be diminished. One person back in Canberra thought the aid should be reviewed but the high-ups just shelved the report. The aid industry has a lot of beneficiaries back home who will do whatever is necessary to keep their employment
Years ago I worked with a lady who had been employed by the British Council in India during a famine. The aid poured in of course but she reckoned less than 10% of the rice unloaded at the docks arrived in the villages whose crops had failed. Everyone on the trip had to have a slice, from the dock workers unloading the ships, all along the road where every thug manning a roadblock had to have a piece, to the Administrators of each area and village chiefs and those "facilitating" the journey. She advised me never to contribute to any aid request, even for disasters. I have often ignored that advise but am pretty sure only a very small % went where I intended it to.
Maybe the only way out is if we ALL stop working / saving (buy some gold bars instead) - and therefore ALL stop paying tax, ALL claim benefits and see how long it is before printing money becomes unsustainable. I reckon 3 months would do it. If only......
Without this being deliberate, millions of hard working tax paying types will just take their feet off the pedal. Why work harder? Why make more effort? Why contribute more? We will become less and less productive - there will be a point at which we go into terminal economic decline (never mind other forms of decline).
Absolutely Martin. We are chasing away all the moneymakers and replacing them with low skilled people. Who’d start a business in Britain now? It would be a nightmare.
Serious point here. There is a collective loss of oomph from so many quarters, that we just stop moving forward. Maybe we will find a plateau to enjoy and gradually learn to be less dependent on growth and material delights. On the other hand we may find that we can’t keep the show on the road without growth and society is like a bicycle that has to keep moving. Every generation so far has had an urge to survive, and to pass something on to the next, preferably with some improvement to show for the effort. I see this as Peterson’s ‘spirit of adventure’ in Genesis, which sort of sets us on our journey. But what happens when we lose that - culturally, economically and spiritually?
I’m sure the race & gender grifter, sorry expert, appointed by Phillipson to review the national curriculum and make it mandatory in all schools will take care of that. Our kids will be safe.
I genuinely admire how utterly ruthless they are. If only the Tories had displayed 10% of that gumption. This lot are changing the face of Britain without stopping to take breath. I don’t hear Labour saying can’t can’t can’t every two seconds, sure they are pushing at an open door but still…. I’m afraid there will be no way back Paul.
I may have posted this before - but it's probably worth repeating...
The biggest accumulator bet ever:
First, you have to believe that we are the first generation of humans ever able to accurately tell the future.
Then, you have to believe that climate change is real and is actually going to happen as prophesied. All we know for a fact is that almost all prophesies on this matter have been inaccurate over the years.
Then, you have to believe that climate change is caused - or at least, dramatically influenced by - human behaviour. And, specifically, human behaviour or activity over the past hundred years or so.
Then you have to believe that we, as a race, are both capable of and committed to modifying our behaviour so that climate change fails to occur, or occurs so benignly that it does not materially affect our lives or chances of survival.
Then, you need to believe that it is possible to get all the world's great carbon dioxide producers (or polluters, if you like) to act in unison and to reduce emissions to their proposed targets.
Finally, you need to believe that, if it were possible to get all the world's great carbon dioxide producers (or polluters, if you like) to act in unison and to reduce emissions to their proposed targets without beggaring their populations, that it would make a material difference to projected climate change. The IPCC say no, it wouldn't, the damage is done. To be fair, they've been wrong in the past.
And each of the above has to be 100% correct. If any single one of them is not, it and all the rest are rendered pointless.
Exactly Mark. At the moment I’d settle for ‘they ask some questions occasionally to interrogate the climate (apocalypse) theory. But they don’t seem very keen. Too many people making too much money I guess.
Did you notice that Reeves also put the kybosh on funding for adult social care training? Along with her Scrooge-like defunding of the elderly heat allowance, it seems Labour are jettisoning their traditional supporters. The state of care home staffing was already dire and Sunak's desperate invitation to the "third world" to give visas to all and sundry to work in a care home only increased their numbers, not the quality of care, since the newcomers were inexperienced and untrained. Reeves clearly feels that politically this is a sector that can be ignored.
There’s definitely something weird going on in the care industry. I think maybe because demographic change is coming like a tsunami. Soon everyone is going to be old. And all the young people will be from elsewhere or second generation. It’s genuinely a tricky problem wherever you sit politically.
As well as adult social care training she should be spending money on nursing bursaries and all sorts of other training instead of insisting we have to import untrained staff from abroad, many of whom cannot speak a word of english.
We should do nothing about CO2 emissions. The whole concept is a scientific conjecture with no real world verification. We may as well worry about Rudolph’s Nose luminosity. But it’s been drummed into people that somehow there “may” be an effect. How are you going to measure it? Grifters all the way down.
100% Overhead. I’m not against working towards some form of climate change mitigation. Especially in the long term. But we seem to be the only ones actually doing it, as usual. And suicide is not a viable strategy.
My ancient and revered Mother - ninety-five years of age and still sharp as a tack - has said that she would like just ten minutes alone with Ed Miliband and her walking-stick in a soundproofed room. I will draw a veil over the detailed plans she has for the walking-stick.
Ha ha. All the very best to your mum Chris.
One of your best, LSO. There's precious little to laugh about at the moment, so thanks for the Druids' sacrifices gag, and the Gordon Brown's swap gag, and the "lose weight by shaving off your eyebrows" gag, all of which got a hearty chuckle out of me..
Where the wind turbines are concerned, you left out the environmental cost in dead birds, and that (IIRC) they only last about 25 years, after which the need disposing of and replacing.
The one thing I'd take issue with is the "Rwanda was never going to work" bit. I'm not saying it _would_ have worked, but no-one's ever given me a good reason why it couldn't be compared, in principle, with Australia's off-shoring policy which, as I understand it, saw the numbers arriving there in illegal boats fall off a cliff quite rapidly.
Anyway, keep up the good work!
Thanks patrocles! Delighted you got a laugh out of it.
You’re right about the turbines. I don’t know so much about them and I was stretching my knowledge even then. Scott Campbell who has a great Substack is an expert in this area. His stuff is always worth a read.
My issue with Rwanda wasn’t the principle. I think off shoring is a good idea. My objection was that it was almost entirely performative. They knew it wouldn’t work, the whole point was ‘the battle’ to supposedly make it happen. Easy to point to ‘lefty lawyers’ scuppering your plan when your plan was so crap it could be scuppered by a few lefty lawyers!
I believe several EU27 countries are looking into opening up similar schemes. I will watch carefully to see how they fare.
Exactly. I believe so anyway.
I wouldn't mind so much if they hadn't spent a small fortune paying Rwanda (which they have not returned) on top of the millions they paid France for doing zilch, neither of which achieved one fewer "refugee" gaining asylum in the UK.
Yes Iris. I agree. But it was always going to be a huge waste of money. It was never ever going to happen. And the French thing was also a bit of a joke. Why would the French keep the migrants and the money, when they could choose just to keep the money? It was always bonkers.
It amazes me that our leaders, who are surrounded by very well paid advisers, seem to come up with such ludicrous schemes that the man on the Clapham omnibus can see won't work within 2 minutes.
The advisors are well paid but not always well endowed with brains. They have a major weakness of proposing things that will please their masters who are the key to their future career progress.
Well done post. Warfare, welfare, and climate change. The grift goes on. Extract wealth from the private sector and doom the grandchildren to soverign debt slavery in order to fund public interest groups. The insanity is global.
THE INSANITY IS GLOBAL AND ITS COMING FROM CHINA via the UN and its myriad bought and paid-for apparatchiks in thousands of government positions, NGOs and centres of power, large and small. 'Net Zero' is DESIGNED TO RUIN US. Mass/unvetted immigration is designed to demoralise and destroy us. Gender madness is designed to screw up young people's minds. Excessive borrowing/spending is designed to bankrupt us, as it surely will. All of these psyops are a new form of warfare on the west, rotting us from within, just as Antonio Gramsci laid out in the 1920's, now perfected by China. Read the book 'Hidden Hand', it's all there in plain sight.
Thanks for the book recommendation but the idea that this is coming from China is puzzling. I trace the beginning of the destruction of the West to 1913. The income tax is the second plank of the Communist manifesto, and a Central Bank is the fifth plank and both of these were installed in 1913. I suppose the power hungry elite are having their biggest wins in China, so they relocated the top of the organization there. But people need to realize the problem is not about geo-politics but about an ideology that promotes collectivism and abhors individualism. Fortunately we now have independent media that can override the mass media controlled by the elite.
The desperation to demonise and shut down the more troublesome aspects of the independent media reveals just how much of a threat it really is MCL.
PS. I'm on the American side of the pond.
Good morning then MCL.
I think you have to go back to at least 1871. The Paris Commune is regarded as the first time communism seized power. The violent revolution led to the destruction of a large portion of the arts and architecture of Paris, and laid the foundations for future revolutions. The centres of Communism have moved around the world., from Paris to St Petersburg, Moscow and Beijing. But it never dies.
Agreed. Mine is an American perspective but the global perspective is critical because it is an assault on humanity first and assaults on geographies second.
Thank you LSO once again for a good rant. I will add some thoughts.
Reeves said that the one thing Labour would consider borrowing for, because it meant growth, was capital infrastructure programs. Yet she has cancelled them all. Instead she is going to have to borrow nearly £10 billion to pay the inflation busting public sector pay rises. Because the pensioners freezing to death this winter will be contributing their money to illegal immigrants instead. After all, a shiny new iPhone (to replace the one they chucked in the sea) for each illegal immigrant will cost more than three breadline pensioners' winter fuel allowances.
Slightly off topic, there was a debate about whether the Olympic pool was "slow," because few personal bests were broken. All sorts of theories were expounded as to why this might be so, with others saying it was nonsense.
Now forgive me for being naive, but if there could be a dozen explanations for a "slow pool," and we don't know which one (or more) is right, or even if the pool is "slow," how come the scientists are sure that one teensy weensy factor, CO2 and methane emissions by man, are the sole reason why the planet is apparently boiling over?
Your point about China and renewables is well made, but here are some further thoughts. The pro anthropogenic climate change Druids point to China as a shining example of how a nation can embrace renewables. But the Chinese don't believe in man made climate change. They sent the IPCC off with a flea in its ear back in the day.
But then wiser heads prevailed. "Let's pretend we believe in all this nonsense, and then we can sell the idiots in the West all these solar panels and electric vehicles, at knock down prices to wreck their economies," one probably said. Another no doubt said, "let's build lots of renewables for ourselves. It's sunny in China, and we have cheap labour and materials, but far more importantly than that, we have very few fossil fuels of our own, so this is energy security for us."
Make no mistake. We are going nowhere near net zero. For all China's renewable efforts, only 18% of its electricity comes from renewables, compared to our 33%. They burned more fossil fuels in 2023 than 2022. The world burned more coal in 2023 than ever before. Worldwide energy consumption is over 80% fossil fuels, with just 4% wind and 2% solar, and increased 1.5% in 2023.
Brilliant comment Jeremy. Your point about the pool is well made. ‘It could be a number of factors’. It’s a closed system with known variables but they are still unsure if the cause. The climate is an infinitely more complex system, but in this case only one explanation is acceptable.
It’s clear what China’s goal is. We seem to be doing our utmost to help them achieve it.
ATB Jeremy.
Taking Jeremy’s “slow pool” theory to the nth degree, seems to suggest to me- in line with current methane emissions science- that obviously the cause of a slow pool is swimmers farting in it.
Australia is just as keen on net zero as UK governments, so they have (or are) shutting down all their coal burning power stations. They sell the coal instead to China so they can burn it. The western "democracies" are completely mad. They have a death-wish - or at least those in charge have, and they'll take us all down with them.
Hi Jos. It’s utter madness. It’s the environmental equivalent of simply sweeping the mess under the carpet. These supposed environmental zealots seem to think it doesn’t count when China does it. It like someone trying to lose weight who thinks that fast food from somewhere like Leon doesn’t contain the same calories as a Maccy D. Nuts.
This will also eke out China's modest fossil fuels.
Surely that adds even more to the problem as the coal has to be transported to China on nasty fuel-burning vessels?
Mais oui! But it does not count towards the Aussie CO2 output! Part of the madness. Every country submits data and calculations showing its emissions annually and they are just like rabbit holes with estimates, coefficients, guesses, and even the supposedly hard data like oil consumption is built up from so many different sources, each with its own errors, that the end result is just a broad brush number - though the Govt and civil servants will insist it is accurate within the limits of their knowledge!
The reason "The scientists" are sure that man's actions are 100% to blame for the planet boiling is that all dissenting opinions from equally qualified scientists have been cancelled, silenced, de-platformed, etc., and the authors of these ridiculous claims put on the dole for eternity (or when the planet explodes. whichever comes sooner.)
This hits the nail squarely on the head. I thought the previous government were bad, but I am in total despair at this one. Starmer must already be at risk of challenging Liz Truss's 'Shortest honeymoon period of a British Prime Minister' Guiness Book of Records entry?
Thanks Nick. I share your despair. Especially since as I approach retirement age Starmer seems intent on kicking the feet out from under me. I haven’t got a public sector pension, so I’ve tried to do the right thing and sort myself out. Greedy apparently. 🙄
I predicted he’d stay popular because he’d buy voters off with other people’s money. Seems I was wrong! He’s making a hash of everything and it’s only month one. I hated the Tories. But I can’t even bear to hear Starmer speak.
I have the same reaction to Tony Blair. Makes my skin creep.
Now yes. Back in the day I didn’t mind him. Starmer and Reeves are definite ‘no’s. Angela Rayner is a solid yes, just to see what she’ll say. Cooper is probably the worst.
superb.
Thanks Dominic!
"Great British Energy" ... It reminds me of the Wilson-Brown government of the 60s with their Department of Economic Affairs and their National Economic Development Council - all regulation and control and, yes, spending even more of our money on useless projects. It culminated with the devaluation of sterling in 1967 and Wilson coming on TV to tell us it was just a technical matter and the pounds in our pockets were not devalued!! They treated us like fools even back then.
That is spot on Jos. And so devalued since. People think that things like houses have become more expensive. Not really in absolute terms and gold. It’s just that money is becoming worthless.
My parents married in 1961. Back in the early days of their marriage they lived very well on a combined income of £100/month, out of which their mortgage payment was £12. My father was a manager at an engineering company and my mother was a cashier in a small branch of Barclays bank.
In 2010, when my mother came to visit me in Cambridge, she was leafing through the property adverts and stopped at one. She said this semi-detached house for £210K was the spitting image of the one she and my father had bought in Rochdale, when they were newly married, for £2100. We had a think about how prices had changed in 50 years. That example of the house was an increase of 100x (admittedly between a cheap and an expensive area). We compared the price of a pint of beer: maybe a factor of 50x (from 1/6 to nearly £4).
When I read P.G. Wodehouse's stories, many of which involve the financial complications of his upper class characters, I mentally multiply the sums of money by 100 (which approximates the decline in value of the pound from a century ago). So when Bertie Wooster's cousins ask to borrow £5 for lunch, they are not after a takeaway coffee and a sandwich, but intending to dine at the Savoy Grill or the Ritz.
Yes Geoff. I think that’s what I read. That the value of the pound has declined by 96% over the last hundred years or so. I think that’s why they don’t want you to accrue assets. It stops you becoming poor.
Here is a slightly more modern, but equally valid observation of the same principle.
I married in 1978. I was a technician at £4100 PA, and my wife was a Radiographer at £3000 PA.
Our house- new build at the time- was £10,450.
Same house changed hands recently.
£210,000.
Exactly Nicholas. The actual ‘value’ of the house might not have changed that much. I mention above that Dominic Frisby did a fascinating comparison of how much gold it would take to buy a house, I think, 100 years ago. And how much gold it would take now. It was surprisingly comparable. What has changed is the value of money. That value has been inflated away.
We can see that the forthcoming Labour budget will be an attack on non ‘working people’. It’s actually explicit. They don’t want you to have any assets, which are of course, simply an independent store of wealth. They want us living hand to mouth. We’re easier to control that way.
The Climate Act 2008 was the biggest state sponsored transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in our history. Who was responsible for putting it in place? A Labour Government! Step forward Ed Milliband, Protector of the Disadvantaged! Except he's not. The Labour Party hate the poor and the working class with a passion.
Yes Ian, they love to talk about redistribution. But it seems to go in the opposite direction to the one advertised.
Another brilliant piece, LSO. One of the things that came out of the Brexit vote was the realisation that I was not just a lone, rogue freak. Your writings, and the comments you receive help to keep that feeling of being one among many alive.
It’s a two way street P. Writing this Substack has genuinely saved my sanity. And that’s only because of the positive reaction from so many brilliant readers. It’s great to know we’re not alone right? So thanks for coming!
What really annoys me is that I am held responsible for the outcome of my vote not being as hoped. How many times do I have to explain that we have not had one PM nor majority in parliament since 2016 who believed the UK was worth a light and couldn't wait to get back under Brussels' tender care .
That’s a great point. I find it equally annoying that Brexit is seen as a failure, which I think it has been, because the government/state has refused to take any advantage of the freedoms it has given us. And as you say, then people blame that failure on the initial vote. No. We voted to open a door, the state then refused to go through that open door. It’s moot now anyway, we’ll be back in, in all but name, by 2030.
"Just like so much overseas ‘aid’ it will be swallowed up, siphoned off, and soaked up by useless NGOs, ‘charities’, action groups, climate initiatives, research bodies, activists, international agencies, think tanks, grifters, corrupt foreign governments, and rent seekers." The first tranche of any project money always goes to the minister of whatever department is getting the project. He or she probably has to pay a commission to the president who has expensive bodyguards, an army and the latest hardware to maintain. After all the various clients have taken their cut, a small amount of money filters down to the village level. And then, of course, some well-paid western consultants have to visit the project ("monitoring and evaluation") to make sure the project is delivering ( a new village pump, a system for marketing village produced goods, etc). The minister's department wants to be involved in this too, so of course it needs a brand new car to visit the projects which also allows them to keep n eye on the western consultants in case one of them should suggest not much has been achieved for the hundreds of thousands spent. (Most won't because they have an eye on the next M&E job). In the end, foreign aid has very little benefit for the people and allows foreign governments to spend more on armaments and personal luxuries. It is pernicious because it actually sustains the despots in power.
Yes Jos. And then when there are some good projects, and I believe there surely must be, they miss out or get tarred with the same brush. Essentially governments are incredibly poor distributors of other people’s money. Because their interests are not met by doing it properly, fairly or efficiently.
Try reading Dead Aid by Dambisa Moyo. When she wrote it in 2009, Africa had just exceeded $1 Trillion in aid (gifts not loans) since WWII. Africa was around the same level of development as Taiwan or S Korea in 1945. The latter received no aid at all and look at them now: as rich as the West. She demonstrates aid just breeds massively corrupt government and dependency. Aid is a nice, kind idea but with terrible results.
Thanks Dan. I’ll put it in my list. Aid is a huge grift from the sounds of it. If you really want to help developing countries let them trade tariff free with your club, and help them develop good governance and secure property rights. I think it flows from there. Apparently we prefer to keep them dependent and asset strip them.
There are good project aims, but is it necessary for the UK (or the West generally) to fund them? These are countries which have been independent for more than two generations and it is high time they stood on their own two feet. We have bred dependence and expectations, like spoiled kids who will never leave home.. All that happens is the majority of western money is just propping up the regimes which are too selfish, too lazy, too evil even to look after their own people. Aid should be limited to assistance in times of unexpected disasters (floods, hurricanes, volcanic explosions etc).
Unfortunately, there is huge lobby in the West that benefits directly from this aid - not least the civil servants working in International Development, and the consultants and NGOs they employ to run/monitor/evaluate all these projects.
Just speaking as some one who has worked in a few developing countries on aid funded projects
I don’t think we should be funding the countries through Aid programmes. But I do feel we have a duty to help other people. Just human decency. But I’m very much of the opinion that we should be doing this by lending expertise and helping build markets. We can’t be denying people in poor countries proper power grids while fobbing them off with inadequate renewables for example. It’s so difficult though, because 90% of Aid or intervention seems little more than a grift.
I was one of those giving my expertise to these countries. Most of the time it achieved nothing because those in power did not want the liberation of free markets and accountability. I do not agree that we should give, and give, and give while the main beneficiary sits in his presidential palace and changes nothing. We are maintaining a corrupt and useless system.
I remember the anecdote that Western representatives, upon visiting one of Mobutu Sese Seko's palaces, would be unable to hide their astonishment. Mobutu thought they were impressed at the lavish opulence of his estate. In reality, they were thinking: 'My God! This is where all our aid money has been going!'
Wow. That rings true. And of course it happens. If you were a warlord type why would you let in the Aid agencies for free? And so it goes at every level I expect. And it’s self fulfilling. If you have a functioning government which respects the rule of law there’s less need for Aid. Except in proper emergencies. When of course, we should help.
Correct me if I am wrong but do I remember a few years ago billions of debt in Africa was written off to give them a fresh start?
Yes, there was a general movement at one time to forgive a large part of the third world debt, but cannot recall the exact terms. However, individual countries frequently forgive debt. In the Seychelles, policy was developed on the assumption that they would only ever have to repay a small proportion of the debt (loans received outside the aid packages)
Your last sentence .... I think they already have. Govt set up an internet watch organisation during Covid to identify "misinformation" etc. That was never disbanded, but renamed and it is now watching out for "dissidents" - people like you and I who can think for ourselves. The pre-crimers (people the authorities think will commit or support a crime in the future, even if just a thought crime) If I come across the reference again I will post it here. Meanwhile, I am thinking I should get myself a pseudonym, though that will not stop anyone easily discovering the things I have been doing and commenting upon for the past thirty years.
Well. I have had a long and varied career, never choosing the safe option, not because I am a risk taker, brave or anything else, but simply because I could not bear to think of reaching old age and looking back with regrets that I did not even try to do something different. Fellow lecturers and public servants were aghast when I left the safety of their little fold for something new. I'll contribute here when I think I have something useful to say, but I am always cognisant of my wife's warning "Don't bore people, Jos,". She knows what I am like when I get the bit between my teeth.
A good example of what a waste it is for us is when the President's new compound in South African cost the exact amount of one year's "aid" from the UK
That’s amazing. Is that true or just anecdotal?
As if on cue, the following are copied from Gript (Irish free thinkers):
"Ireland has donated about half a billion euro in aid to Ethiopia over the last decade. That’s all very admirable until you consider that a third world country like Ethiopia has an annual defence budget of $1.6bn and boasts an air force of 97 aircraft including nine MiG-23 fighter jets! It’s certainly impressive for what is considered a third world country and most certainly impressive when compared to Ireland’s own collapsing defence forces." And:
" ... the case of Irish aid going to Uganda. Uganda at that time had just taken delivery of a squadron of maritime attack aircraft despite the fact that it is a landlocked country hundreds of miles from the nearest ocean. None the less they are the proud owners of a squadron of maritime attack aircraft while the Irish tax payer enables this folly by paying for their health and education services such as they are. Ireland of course possesses no military jet aircraft of any kind. Our air corps are using 40 year old Italian propeller aircraft that would perform poorly against a first world war Soppwith Camel biplane. "
And this story can be applied to virtually every third world country.
Thank you for that explanation from personal experience.
It used to be said that foreign aid was poor people in rich countries paying money to rich people in poor countries.
But that charmingly informal system was back in the old days. Now there is a whole industry that helps organizations in the rich countries to get some of the money too.
After two years working as economic advisor in the Dept of Finance, Seychelles, and seeing most of the aid projects which came to the Islands, and knowing full well how "valued" my economic advice was to the (essentially communist) regime, I recommended to the Aussie aid organisation that no more aid should be given (with full supporting evidence, of course). The aid advisor was aghast. He would miss out on his annual all expenses paid week in the Seychelles - he spent most of the time snorkelling, swimming and loungeing by the pool - and Australia's geo-political clout (yes, they thought they had clout!) would be diminished. One person back in Canberra thought the aid should be reviewed but the high-ups just shelved the report. The aid industry has a lot of beneficiaries back home who will do whatever is necessary to keep their employment
Of course. It’s just an industry really. Like the woeful charity industry. Thats a great story Jos. Thanks for sharing it.
Years ago I worked with a lady who had been employed by the British Council in India during a famine. The aid poured in of course but she reckoned less than 10% of the rice unloaded at the docks arrived in the villages whose crops had failed. Everyone on the trip had to have a slice, from the dock workers unloading the ships, all along the road where every thug manning a roadblock had to have a piece, to the Administrators of each area and village chiefs and those "facilitating" the journey. She advised me never to contribute to any aid request, even for disasters. I have often ignored that advise but am pretty sure only a very small % went where I intended it to.
Maybe the only way out is if we ALL stop working / saving (buy some gold bars instead) - and therefore ALL stop paying tax, ALL claim benefits and see how long it is before printing money becomes unsustainable. I reckon 3 months would do it. If only......
Gold bars? Great idea. And Dominic Frisby could get the commission and take us all out for lunch.
Without this being deliberate, millions of hard working tax paying types will just take their feet off the pedal. Why work harder? Why make more effort? Why contribute more? We will become less and less productive - there will be a point at which we go into terminal economic decline (never mind other forms of decline).
Absolutely Martin. We are chasing away all the moneymakers and replacing them with low skilled people. Who’d start a business in Britain now? It would be a nightmare.
Serious point here. There is a collective loss of oomph from so many quarters, that we just stop moving forward. Maybe we will find a plateau to enjoy and gradually learn to be less dependent on growth and material delights. On the other hand we may find that we can’t keep the show on the road without growth and society is like a bicycle that has to keep moving. Every generation so far has had an urge to survive, and to pass something on to the next, preferably with some improvement to show for the effort. I see this as Peterson’s ‘spirit of adventure’ in Genesis, which sort of sets us on our journey. But what happens when we lose that - culturally, economically and spiritually?
Bang on.. glad others are awake to this next Government scam.
How do we stop them?
Sorry Rich. I originally put the wrong reply here. I think we need to stop teaching our kids that the world is about to end. That would be a start!
Very true... Just look at headlines over the last 50 years, how rising sea levels will kill us all each new decade.
I know. Eastbourne is still not underwater. Amazing.
I’m sure the race & gender grifter, sorry expert, appointed by Phillipson to review the national curriculum and make it mandatory in all schools will take care of that. Our kids will be safe.
I genuinely admire how utterly ruthless they are. If only the Tories had displayed 10% of that gumption. This lot are changing the face of Britain without stopping to take breath. I don’t hear Labour saying can’t can’t can’t every two seconds, sure they are pushing at an open door but still…. I’m afraid there will be no way back Paul.
'safe'?
I may have posted this before - but it's probably worth repeating...
The biggest accumulator bet ever:
First, you have to believe that we are the first generation of humans ever able to accurately tell the future.
Then, you have to believe that climate change is real and is actually going to happen as prophesied. All we know for a fact is that almost all prophesies on this matter have been inaccurate over the years.
Then, you have to believe that climate change is caused - or at least, dramatically influenced by - human behaviour. And, specifically, human behaviour or activity over the past hundred years or so.
Then you have to believe that we, as a race, are both capable of and committed to modifying our behaviour so that climate change fails to occur, or occurs so benignly that it does not materially affect our lives or chances of survival.
Then, you need to believe that it is possible to get all the world's great carbon dioxide producers (or polluters, if you like) to act in unison and to reduce emissions to their proposed targets.
Finally, you need to believe that, if it were possible to get all the world's great carbon dioxide producers (or polluters, if you like) to act in unison and to reduce emissions to their proposed targets without beggaring their populations, that it would make a material difference to projected climate change. The IPCC say no, it wouldn't, the damage is done. To be fair, they've been wrong in the past.
And each of the above has to be 100% correct. If any single one of them is not, it and all the rest are rendered pointless.
Well - how much would you bet?
Exactly Mark. At the moment I’d settle for ‘they ask some questions occasionally to interrogate the climate (apocalypse) theory. But they don’t seem very keen. Too many people making too much money I guess.
One of your best yet. Thank you.
Thank you for reading it Maria.
Did you notice that Reeves also put the kybosh on funding for adult social care training? Along with her Scrooge-like defunding of the elderly heat allowance, it seems Labour are jettisoning their traditional supporters. The state of care home staffing was already dire and Sunak's desperate invitation to the "third world" to give visas to all and sundry to work in a care home only increased their numbers, not the quality of care, since the newcomers were inexperienced and untrained. Reeves clearly feels that politically this is a sector that can be ignored.
There’s definitely something weird going on in the care industry. I think maybe because demographic change is coming like a tsunami. Soon everyone is going to be old. And all the young people will be from elsewhere or second generation. It’s genuinely a tricky problem wherever you sit politically.
As well as adult social care training she should be spending money on nursing bursaries and all sorts of other training instead of insisting we have to import untrained staff from abroad, many of whom cannot speak a word of english.
We should do nothing about CO2 emissions. The whole concept is a scientific conjecture with no real world verification. We may as well worry about Rudolph’s Nose luminosity. But it’s been drummed into people that somehow there “may” be an effect. How are you going to measure it? Grifters all the way down.
100% Overhead. I’m not against working towards some form of climate change mitigation. Especially in the long term. But we seem to be the only ones actually doing it, as usual. And suicide is not a viable strategy.