Some thoughts

A collection of articles on events oft eh past weeks that I found interesting and depressing (Hopefully none of which will get me in trouble with Two-Tier Starmer) The Disunited Kingdom  - IM 1776 There is No Cope  - Konstantin Kisin The Hollow Kingdom  - Christoper Rufi Labour to 'Define' Islamophobia So It Can More Easily Continue Its War on Native Brits - HotAir Were the ‘Spontaneous’ Anti-Racism Rallies Even Real?  - Daily Skeptic Night of the ghost fascism  - The Critic Britain’s Foxes are Beset by Wolves - N.S. Lyons Humorous takes from the Babylon Bee: Elon Musk Buys The United Kingdom To Establish Free Speech There In Latest Bond Film, 007 Tasked With Taking Down 83-Year-Old British Grandma Who Shared Inaccurate Meme Speaking of memes: And finally, Dominic Frisby's very good song (a few months old now but very apt at the moment)

As Low Status Opinions has succinctly put it, Labour has not just hit the ground running , but gone 'full on Tonto, absolute double nut job bat shit crazy crackers looney tunes, on Week One'. Today, we saw the King's Speech, which committed to a range of measures. The main one this post will focus on is rail nationalization. First, I'll point out how most of the UK network was built by private firms in the 19th and early 20th century and was nationalized in 1948 after being commandeered and run into the ground twice in the world wars. I'll also point out that what is usually considered to be the best rail network in the world, Japan's, is mainly private (JR is a consortium of 7 firms, each covering a specific area. Last I heard only the 3 on Honshu are private and the 3 covering Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Shikoku are still state-owned. In addition, numerous private firms compete with JR, often running parallel tracks on similar routes (where I lived there were JR and...

F*ck Starmer, F*ck Labour,  F*ck everyone who voted for them. (exhales) Now I've got that off my chest, let us reflect. The Conservatives deserved to lose Labour didn't deserve to win.  I'm used to being disappointed with elections, but this one was a new low. I'd hoped Reform would come second in % of votes and  10-20 seats. I wanted the useless fake Tories reduced to below 100  and was annoyed the watermelons (Greens) got 4. The SNP wipeout was a plus, but the Islamist independents are a worry. Turnout was low, as I'd expected apathy was a big winner.  In the end I voted Reform. I saw my local (now ex-) Tory MP at a school event last week. I was helping run the BBQ at our summer fair and he bought a hot dog. We chatted for a bit then he suddenly said 'I'm REDACTED, by the way' as if annoyed that I hadn't recognized him. I asked if he was confident about the result and he replied not really, and blamed 'Reform voting idiots' for his impendi...

One of the key aspects of our criminal justice system is the idea that once you've served your punishment, you have paid your debt to society. It is true that there are still consequences, it is harder for ex-prisoners to get jobs and sex offenders (rightly) have prescriptions to prevent them from reoffending. However, they are still accorded the full range of rights and legal protections that everyone else has. This is why I found comments like  this  so disturbing. To summarise, this supposed conservative host is arguing that racists should be stripped of all rights, "No bank account, no ability to travel, no passport no benefits nothing." Wow. Considering that we don't do this for murderers, rapists or pedophiles is he suggesting that making racist comments is worse than these crimes? What having and voicing unacceptable views means you should have your life destroyed and end up on the street? Plus of course, the big question is who decides where the line is drawn?...

Dom pulls no punches (again:)  The PM on Hancock: 'totally fucking hopeless' . Foe me though this was the ket paragraph: 'The Cabinet Office built by Heywood was totally unable to cope with this crisis because it did not have the right sort of people with the right skills in key jobs and could not rapidly fire/promote/move people and act with determined authority — it could undermine departments and No10 and slow things down, and sometimes improve things, but it could not itself act as a proper executive authority but neither could No10' Sounds like thing were unchanged from his previous experience working at the Department of Education from 2010-14. Despite the reforms Gove has planned, I doubt things will improve without a concerted effort from the top. 

Sockpuppets being the term used by Chris Snowden (IIRC) to describe the situation where one government-funded body lobbies the government to take a course of action, as can be seen to have been happening here:  Stonewall and the problem with taxpayer-funded campaigning   'the government practice of publicly funding campaigning organisations is deeply damaging to democracy. It distorts decision-making in favour of the interests and ideological preoccupations of a narrow political elite. It slows adjustments in the direction of policy in reaction to new evidence or circumstances. It increases political apathy among the public. And perhaps most unethically of all, taxpayers are forced to help groups with which they may seriously disagree.' Really any org that derives most of its income from the state isn't a charity. But hen getting grants is easier thn fundraising from the public. We really need to hack back this incestous relationship

Mary Dejevsky in The Spectator writes  In defence of the foreign aid cut . This is a particularly good point: The aid organisations have grow dependent – and fat – on taxpayers’ largesse, with fieldwork with, and for, 'the most vulnerable' having to take its place alongside political lobbying and the bureaucracy to support successful grant applications.Stop and think for a moment. What have the charities been saying in recent weeks? Where have they turned to in their hour of need?  Their complaints and their pleas have all been addressed to government. Why have they not instead been making their case to the public and asking us to help make up their cash shortfall?  I have long been of the view that aid should entirely be voluntarily funded, and given that the UK has a massive deficit it is mad for us to be borrowing money to give away.  As Guido pointed out the other day: 'The same people that claim millions of British children are living in absolute poverty, want ...

As I may have mentioned, my view is that WW1 was the key event that shattered the West, but specifically Europe. The USA wasn't as shaken, it took later events to do that. This brings me to this interesting article I came across a few days ago, which argues that the death of JFK was a similar seismic shock for America:  JFK’s Death Split the American Psyche . Some excerpts: Unable to face the fact that Kennedy was murdered by a communist, liberals became intolerant, prone to hysteria and conspiracy theories, and intent on punishing America for the sins of its past. Feminism transformed from a quest for quality to hating men, particularly the darker impulses of men This makes a lot of sense, it was from the mid-sixties and Vietnam war (that Kennedy got the US into- a fact that is often ignored) that the left began to be anti-American. Christopher Lasch noted that the fact that both left and right believe in the idea that societies move towards perfection would have been considered b...

  Well, he certainly didn't pull his punches ! I've long been an admirer of Cummings insights into the problems in government, particularly with the dysfunctionality of the civil service (such as his Hollow   Men  posts) and his comments on this topic today show nothing much has changed. It also shows the flaw in the leftist's arguments that their side would have done better, as they would still have to deal with these issues.  I also find it frustrating how he still seems to be pushing the line that lockdowns were essential, being such a data-driven guy he can't be unaware of the problems with the modeling, and the actual death rates (that I've posted about ) among the under 60s and patients with no prior conditions. He is right that shutting the border earlier and screening arrivals would have been a good idea, and I suspect his comments on Hancock are on the mark.  For me, the real tragedy with Cummings is that while he is good at diagnosing problems he seems...

Can the Labour party be saved?  No. Next question  

After spending the weekend watching the results trickle in, a lot of commentaries have been generated. The biggest surprise was how close the London mayoral race was, as some  have pointed out Bailey could have won if his campaign had been better supported.  Looking at my hoped-for results from Thursday , it was disappointing that Fox ended up sixth. It also shows the shattering of the former UKIP vote. If we look at the numbers ((from the BBC ): Combined Reform, UKIP, and the Abolish the Welsh Assembly party got 107454 votes but zero seats (another  disappointment) ,  compared to the last election when UKIP got 132,138 votes and 7 seats. These results show  If they are to be viable going forward, these shards need to be put back together into a single party IMO. Looking at the English results, a few commentators have picked up on the beginnings of a shift away from the conservatives in the more affluent, remain voting areas. I'm not sure if there is suff...

Via yesterday's Podcast of the Lotus Eaters : The linked episode is particularly amusing, especially the part on Tory councillor Tiger Patel. As much as the Conservatives under Boris Johnson have been a letdown, the results in England have put a smile on my face. I've long thought that Labour replacing the Liberal Party in the 1920s was a mistake that caused most of the current ruination of Britain, it was their policies in the postwar era that started the long term decline of British industry, and their nationalisations in the '60s and 70's that finished it off. Blair's reforms have proved to cause further damage, especially their devolution policies that have led to the current situation in Scotland, while since losing power in 2010 they have lurched further and further to the hard left and embraced full-on identity politics. At this point, I would glad to see them eliminated as a viable force, and replaced by the  Conservatives splitting back into Whigs and Tori...

I walked down to the polling station and voted before work this morning. It's not particularly exciting around here, just the county council, and police commissioner. Plus only the big three parties (and Greens) were standing. As the results won't be out for a few days there won't be the usual late-night tv coverage we'll just have to speculate while we wait. So here's what I'd like to see: London: a good showing by Lawrence Fox, one or two London Assembly members from Reform UK or Heritage party, Scotland: SNP denied a majority and lose seats, a good showing for unionist parties, Wales: Abolish the Welsh Assembly party gets some seats. The best scenario would be for Labour to lose enough seats for a Conservative lead coalition government, Hartlepool by-election: Labour humiliated, another brick out of the red wall. Let's see how accurate I am in a few days!

Douglas Murray on top form as usual:  Carrie Symonds and the First Girlfriend problem . Key quote: 'she is having too great an impact on the course of government. There are issues the Prime Minister avoids because she does not favour them. And there are others — principally green issues — which he appears to adopt to satisfy her. The feeling is growing that the First Girlfriend wants political power without the trouble of having to run for office, and to wield it without any resulting criticism. This is not a sustainable state of affairs.' She does seem to be doing a Yoko Ono, especially if it true that it was partly due to her that Dominic Cummings left. Boris really needs to stop being so whipped and rediscover the principles he wrote about off those years if he wants to salvage his premiership.  Related from a few days ago:  Westminster’s empty narcissism . It does seem ridiculous both how much fuss there has been over this but also how much money they managed to spend...

A good critique of the many problems with Marx and Engel's work:  

Patrick O'Flynn in the Spectator asks  When will there be another right-wing insurgency? As noted there, there are a number of small parties, particularly spawned from UKIP (which continues to shuffle on in a zombielike fashion. TBH they should have wound up the party after the UK exited the EU) As well as that party's corpse there is also the rebranded Brexit party, Reform UK , plus the Heritage party, and Laurence Fox's Reclaim party . A quick search turned up this brief summary of the three groupings. As O'Flynn notes 'Where Ukip looks like a has-been, various other entities risk becoming never-weres' and ' a political party going is a time-consuming undertaking. Local branches of active members must be formed to establish footholds in actual communities and render the entity real rather than merely a series of tweets.' In addition, there is the problem that three groups risk splitting votes and duplicating infrastructure, so maybe the best option w...

The current riots in Northern Ireland reminded me of this old article at Strange Maps:  Is Ulster Doomed? . Since this year marks the centenary of the original partition of Ireland , so it is perhaps time to reconsider the current arrangements. As things stand under the Good Friday agreement NI remains part of the UK until the population wishes otherwise. Depending on how you count it  polls suggest  growing levels of support for a change.   However, reunification would have a high cost for the Republic (assuming the UK ceased all financial support for the province), while leaving a large population unhappy with the result. A co-dominion would be a short-term solution, but would probably only delay the event. So let's look at a more off-the-wall suggestion, as brought up by that Strange Maps article: repartition. Looking at the last general election result we could see the new borders set so: While the 2017 map is basically the same: These are both similar to o...

I read some of the extracts of his diaries in the Mail, he does come off as a twat with an overly high opinion of himself I have somewhere a copy of Saturn's Children , co-written by Duncan in the late '90s. As well as calling for the legalization of all drugs, privatising the schools and universities and massive cuts to public spending. It's quite sad how he went from one of the most radical, anti-state MP's to the sneering remoaner he is now. A good example perhaps of how the system assimilates all to its worldview, and an argument for term limits for MP's. 

It's official: Britain isn’t a racist country .  Interestingly, as another spectator columnist notes 'Crucially, members of the commission were not drawn from the race relations industry. They were instead chosen from all kinds of backgrounds and asked to follow the evidence, wherever it led.' As Guido notes,  the left is outraged , naturally. For if there isn't a problem how can they justify tearing down Western Civilisation? Or how can they make a (dis)honest living stirring up greviances?  Hopefully this will be used to push back against the race-grifters and troublemakers and stop the spread of American identity politics.

 Yesterday I finished reading  Cynical Theories: How Universities Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity - And Why this Harms Everbody  by  Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay and highly recommend it.  The authors do a fine job explaining the origins of Critical Theory in the Postmodernists of the '60s (especially Michel Foucault, who after reading this I'm adding to my list of 'authors whose baleful influence are the cause of the current mess' (so far him, Marx and Gramsci), and how these ideas were refined in subsequent decades leading to Critical Race Theory, Gender Theory, Queer Theory and so on. It is a good guide to the key academics in these fields whose writings have been influential, and what they are all about.  After finishing this I now understand where the woke left is coming from and how they see the world- especially in terms of everything being about power and oppression. It was especially interesting how the original postmodern...