Broad Oak Magazine

The problem is law enforcement isn't tough enough

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 10:49:32 +0000

All we need is to have law that applies to everybody and is strictly enforced. They do have to be just laws that make sense to everybody, of course. But lawmakers, police and courts have to “get a grip.”

No socio-economic excuses, no cultural relativism special pleading.

It can be done because it has been done before:

The judge who stopped knife crime

Lord Carmont rocked the underworld of Glasgow in the Fifties when he began handing out long sentences for knife crime. Judges should follow his example now, says ADAM EDWARDS

Daily Express
24 Jul 2008

Picture: NEWSQUEST/AP

RUTHLESS: Carmont imposed lengthy sentences on those who used blades

ONE terrible fact leapt out of the crime figures published by the Government last week: a knife attack takes place in Britain once every four minutes on average. There were 129,840 violent attacks involving a knife last year – more than 350 a day. The stark numbers bring shock and surprise – surprise that the Government has little idea what to do about them.

But a dip into fairly recent British history suggests the solution to the knife-crime epidemic is obvious.

Back in the Fifties, Glasgow was in the grip of razor gangs when Lord John Carmont, one of its leading judges, decided to do something about it.

The hawk-faced adjudicator, who died more than 40 years ago, was ruthless in his determination to rid the city of its stabbers and slashers. His answer to the wave of knifings was simply to give long jail terms to anyone caught carrying an open “cut-throat” razor.

His tough stance became known as “copping a Carmont”. From 1952, he became so notorious for punitive sentences that even today the French language still contains the phrase “faire un carmont”. The message quickly reached the gangs and carrying razors fell out of fashion. He “rocked the underworld of Glasgow”, wrote a contemporary, and stopped knife crime in its tracks.

“When I was a teenager in Glasgow, I remember the sporadic terror wreaked in the city centre’s dance halls by gangs intent on recreational violence,” says Charlie Gordon, Labour member of the Scottish Parliament for Glasgow Cathcart. “It took exemplary sentences issued by Lord Carmont to stop a razor-slashing culture that was growing in the city.”

Born in 1880 to a distinguished Catholic family, John Carmont was educated both in France and at the beautiful Abbey School in Fort Augustus in the Scottish Highlands. Called to the bar in 1906, he saw active service during the First World War both in the ranks and as an officer in the Black Watch.

He took silk in 1924 and established himself as one of the most formidable characters in the Scottish judiciary. He had an unusually retentive memory, could quote verbatim from legal texts and was admired for his sturdy independence of mind.

Though his sentences were harsh, he was personally “the gentlest and kindliest of men”, notes his 1965 obituary, adding that his sentences were “the logical outcome of his sense of priorities which demanded that the public was entitled to protection from the anti-social activities of the lawless”. Would that all judges had such views now.

With the constituency of Glasgow East voting in a by-election today, it is significant that the retiring MP, Labour’s David Marshall, has also spoken of the impact of Carmont’s crackdown.

In a speech on law and order, he told the Commons: “I feel sorry for the police. I give them my full support and they do splendid work but much of what they do is to some extent negated by the courts, which let down the law-abiding citizens of this country and its police force. If the courts were to make an example of some criminals, particularly those who commit acts of violence, crime would rapidly decrease.

“I cite an example from 40 or 50 years ago. Lord Carmont sentenced a few razor-slashers in Glasgow to 20 years’ imprisonment at a time when 20 years meant precisely that. Overnight, razor-slashing ceased.”

In fact, a standard Carmont sentence was one decade behind bars rather than two but Mr Marshall was on the right lines.

In the first half of the 20th century, Glasgow had an unenviable reputation for violence. The city took the brunt of the Depression in the Thirties with very high unemployment, substandard housing and poor levels of health.

The worst of the suffering was in the run-down district known as the Gorbals where, according to the writer Colin MacFarlane who was born there: “Human waste ran down the tenement stairs and filth, violence, crime, rats, poverty and drunkenness abounded.” A novel No Mean City by Alexander McArthur was published in 1935 about slum life in the Gorbals. Its anti-hero was “razor king” Johnnie Stark. The book was so grim that many libraries refused to stock it.

Glasgow and knives were inextricably linked in the public’s mind. The nickname for a slashing, for example, was known in some quarters as “a Glasgow smile”.

“By the early Fifties every gangster carried an open razor,” according to Danny Grant, a former policeman whose beat included Glasgow’s toughest districts.

When Lord Carmont, by then a senior high court judge, saw how many of Glasgow’s criminals were being sent to his court for knife crimes, he knew that the city was in the grip of a violent crime epidemic which had to be stopped.

“Carmont stated that in future anyone appearing in front of him who had been found in possession of an open razor would be sent to prison for 10 years,” says Grant. Back then, a 10-year sentence meant 10 years behind bars.

Carmont’s reputation for being tough was already well known to Glasgow criminals, as his treatment of John Ramensky attests.

Ramensky was the best-known safe blower in Scottish history, as famous for his prison breaks as for his crimes. During the Second World War, he was recruited by the military to blow up enemy buildings and steal important documents. He won the Military Medal and had been given a free pardon.

Shortly after the war, at the age of 50, Ramensky appeared before Carmont after being caught blowing a safe. He made an impassioned plea for clemency and cited his war record. He pleaded with Carmont that he had undergone more than his share of suffering. “Give me a chance, as only good can result from it,” he said in mitigation. But Carmont sentenced him to 10 years with the cold remark that “any sentence of less than 10 years would be useless”.

AS SOON as Carmont had decided to solve the blade problem, he was merciless. In one court sitting he passed sentences of up to 10 years on eight men – 52 years in all – simply for carrying razors and knives.

Those sentences had an immediate effect. For a brief period in Glasgow’s history, razors and knives vanished from its streets.

Today the plea for tougher sentences for knife crime echoes across the country.

In 2006, Charlie Gordon moved an amendment to the Criminal Justice Act going through the Scottish Parliament calling for mandatory jail sentences for possessing knives. His amendment failed.

But now he has renewed his call for automatic jail sentences for knife possession. “This is an idea whose time has come,” he said.

It is time for all MPs and judges to take note of the views of the public. It is time a new generation of violent hooligans got to know the meaning of “copping a Carmont”.

______________________________________________________

Found via https://www.pressreader.com/ and previously shown on Broad Oak Magazine in 2019.

Could the death of Henry Nowak have been avoided?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 08:13:28 +0000

The point of training is so that you do not have to be wise after the event.

It will be fifteen months before the inquest into Henry Nowak’s death is held. By that time the goldfish attention of the media will have been turned elsewhere, but when it turns back we shall be told that lessons have been learned and someone will make sure of something.

But even now it is clear some things went wrong in the police appoach to this incident. If a young man appears physically distressed and says he has been stabbed, would you check carefully rather than tell him (as recorded) “You’ve been stabbed? Whereabouts? I don’t think so, mate”?

The pathologist at the murder trial said that Nowak’s wounds were not survivable. That is a professional opinion but not the only possible one, as we shall see. Had the lad been taken to the nearby trauma department within what is known as the “golden hour” who knows?

If he could have been saved the way the police reacted may have reduced his chances. A doctor who is trained in combat medicine has seen the bodycam footage and read the autopsy report. He thinks that Nowak’s cut clavicular vein might have clotted as a natural defence but the rough handling and the process of handcuffing could have reopened the wound and that may be why the victim then bled out and lost consciousness three minutes later.

Basil the Great@BasilTheGreat

🚨BREAKING: SPECIALIST DOCTOR SAYS HENRY NOWAK COULD HAVE LIVED IF NOT FOR POLICE In summary: - Henry was alive when they arrived and likely clotted - Aggressive police intervention likely tore clot - Major Trauma department was minutes away from scene - Judge and Pathologist

1:53 PM · Jun 4, 2026 · 1.62M Views

1.46K Replies · 16.9K Reposts · 55.7K Likes

If paramedics had arrived first on the scene, Henry’s chances of survival would have been as high as 50%, says Dr Magier according to “Basil the Great.”

Were these police officers not trained in dealing with stabbing injuries? There are around 50.000 such incidents annually in England and Wales and we now often see a “bleed control kit” next to a defibrillator in public places. Or is it that anti-racism training biased the officers to make a fatal assumption, bearing in mind that the killer’s brother called the police to say it was a racist attack by Nowak and that no weapons had been involved?

The possibility of prevention goes back further. There were signs that if correctly read should have flagged Vickrum Digwa for monitoring - in fact his father and brother too. The family had collected an array of weapons and brother Gurpreet brandished a sword in a different road rage incident. The killer was already known to police, had stolen weapons from a gurdwara (Sikh temple) whose leaders described him as “argumentative with the congregation and confrontational.”

Perhaps there should be less reporting of infants to Prevent for potentially racist comments and more careful noting of genuine danger signals. Perhaps old-fashioned beat policing would have been able to use the local community knowledge and judgment of officers instead of the current reactive system that uses them as the bin men of crime, cleaning up after the event has happened.

And perhaps we should then not have a febrile people lashing out around them because of systemic governmental failure to protect us. We should not have to see political speakers in a wild bidding war to see how many first and second generation immigrants should be deported.

Rather than the divisive and inflammatory “two-tier” policing and justice (denied to be such by the present PM) we might benefit from a return to the pre-2002 attestation for constables. The wording used to be:

I, [name] of [place], do solemnly and sincerely declare and affirm that I will well and truly serve Our Sovereign Lady the Queen in the office of constable, without favour or affection, malice or ill will; and that I will to the best of my power cause the peace to be kept and preserved, and prevent all offences against the persons and properties of Her Majesty’s subjects; and that while I continue to hold the said office I will to the best of my skill and knowledge discharge all the duties thereof faithfully according to law.

Back on the beat!

FRIDAY MUSIC: Sixties Beat Boom, by JD

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 08:32:48 +0000

And some more golden oldies from this ageing baby boomer reminiscing about the good old days when life made more sense and there was such a burst of creativity and a sparkling variety of good music. I do hope I am not boring the youngsters of generation X or Y or Z or whatever/whoever they are. But have patience, we will not be here much longer: all of the artists featured this week and last week will now be in their late 70s or early 80s and more than a few are no longer alive.

Status Quo - Pictures Of Matchstick Men (Official Top Of The Pops Video)

Chris Farlowe with Out Of Time
This song was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and Farlowe’s version was number one in the pop charts in 1966 on the day England won the World Cup!

Ride My See Saw - Moody Blues {Stereo} 1968

Fleetwood Mac Albatross 1969
This is the real Fleetwood Mac which featured Peter Green, Danny Kirwan and Jeremy Spencer; probably the only rock group with three lead guitarists.

The Box Tops - The Letter (Upbeat 1967)

Rolling Stones - Paint It Black LIVE (1966)

Data Centres: Castles of Subjection

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 10:01:01 +0000

We’ve watched as industrial jobs have been scythed away and young people face life as shelf-stackers or on the dole.

Now technology is coming for the knowledge workers and many in the middle classes will feel the cold wind of insecurity blowing around their ankles. Quasi-intelligent machines with vast memory banks will take over many functions where experts and skilled managers used to be needed.

There is a building boom in “data centres.” The State of Ohio has 250 of them planned or under construction; Texas has 962.

They also have the capacity, and it will be used, to monitor and control the people and shut down dissent. Technology multi-billionaire Larry Ellison, chairman of software company Oracle, said in 2024:

“Citizens will be on their best behavior, because we’re constantly recording and reporting everything that is going on.”

They are like the chain of castles (the “Ring of Iron”) built by Edward I in Wales, to keep the Welsh down. Their modern equivalent will be needed to oppress a people increasingly poorer and less free.

In the two years before that Ellison’s personal foundation invested $130 million in the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) and has pledged $218 million since then. Blair is a firm advocate for digital ID and has been photographed “living the dream” on Ellison’s yacht “Rising Sun”:

(Picture from Alamy via this Substack article)

Blair is a fantastic narcissist:

(Image: GQ magazine 2 May 2021)

- but there is no reason why we should be cast in his Matrix-type dreams (do PM Keir Starmer and Labour not share them?) and every reason not to.

China's financial "China Syndrome"

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 16:18:23 +0000

The YouTube video below, viewed today, is disturbing in its implications not only for China but for our interconnected world economy.

According to the presenter China’s debt-to-GDP is far higher than commonly understood (c. 50%), because we must also take into account local government debt and debt taken on by corporate business. The national government is progressively absorbing quantities of the last two in order to disguise their potential bankruptcy.

The total debt load is equivalent to over 300% of GDP. At the same time China’s foreign debtors are running into difficulty and they may fail to service the loans China granted them.

The economy that has seen such dazzling growth has been supported by revenues from land sales and they have declined sharply. Internal consumer demand and international trade are also affected by worry and pessimism.

In the 1979 disaster movie “The China Syndrome” a nuclear power station malfunctions and threatens a meltdown (the title exaggeratedly implies a really deep one!) Already ballooning debt plagues the US, UK and many other developed countries. Maybe China will encounter a financial crisis it cannot hide or overcome; but maybe a collapse elsewhere could be the trigger instead.

For us the lesson is not to gloat at Beijing’s problems but to hope for the best and to prepare to retrench.

FRIDAY MUSIC: From the Sixties, by JD

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 29 May 2026 08:11:03 +0000

I see we have been here before when I did a post of music ‘The Likely Lads’ would have been listening to in their younger days - https://theylaughedatnoah.blogspot.com/2025/08/friday-music-classic-hits-of-50s60s-by.html

The reference to the Golden Oldies channel on Freeview still applies and, if anything, it is worse than last year. Freeview used to have three channels devoted to ‘golden oldies’ but now there is just one and this is how they describe their ‘best of the sixties’:

“A selection of live performances from TV music shows in the 1960s for a genuine taste of the best of the ‘60s!

‘From TV music shows’ ought to have been a clue because a good proportion of the videos are from American TV variety shows and a lot of them feature unknown singers who are definitely not giving us a genuine taste of the Sixties.

This is what they ought to be playing but you will never hear them on golden oldies channels either on TV or on radio. And it is a very eclectic and always melodic mix.

Cream - Badge

Mary Wells - My Guy

The Drifters - Under The Boardwalk (Official Video) Re-Mastered

The Scaffold - Lily The Pink

The Doors - Love Street

Martha & the Vandellas - Heatwave

Ben E. King / All Star Band - Stand By Me (The Prince’s Trust Rock Gala 1987)

Plenty more where that came from. The problem was what to leave out!

And yes George Harrison did play on that Cream song but for copyright reasons he was listed on the album cover as l’angelo Misterioso.

Ben E King’s song has been covered by 400 artists and is a timeless classic. It was inspired by a gospel song By Sam Cooke called ‘Stand By Me, Father’

Hope you enjoy that selection as much as I do.

Labour's corporate bullshit

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 27 May 2026 15:27:23 +0000

A front page article in The Times says a study from Cornell University shows that people who are taken in by ‘corporate bullshit’ tend to be stupider and more likely to find their leaders inspirational.

Coincidentally or not, the front page also features a piece in which Tony Blair offers his statesmanlike advice to the Labour Party. Apparently a change of leadership is not helpful if there is no change in policies. A longer summary on page 10 says that compared with the big boys - the USA, China and soon India - we are in danger of being ‘marooned on an island of irrrelevance.’

That ship has sailed, you may say. Though when the real ‘Robinson Crusoe’ was marooned it was for predicting his ship would sink - which it did shortly afterwards. He was ‘better off out’ then and so are we now, if only we seize the chances Brexit gave us.

More bullshit on page 5 where Home Office Minister Mike Tapp tells us that while Reform are squabbling ‘the Government is actually bringing down immigration.’ The official gross figure for y/end 2025 is c. 813,000 compared with 948,000 in 2024. But that’s assuming the Government actually knows the numbers. For over a decade MigrationWatch has predicted our total population will eventually hit 70 million; last October Ed West guessed that we’re already past that point; some think that given data on shopping and utilities it could be millions more than that.

Blair’s rich fantasy life pitches his Party the idea of representing a ‘Radical Centre.’ Hardly a new notion: the 1997 manifesto said ‘New Labour is the political arm of none other than the British people as a whole.’ Now his Institute is recommending ditching various 2024 manifesto commitments so we don’t go under.

I would suggest that the average Briton 1) is not a radical and 2) does not know what is in the various Party manifestoes, 3) would be a fool to think they are binding and 4) votes partly tribally and partly in an emotional spasm when disappointed.

Apparently, according to ‘The Master’, Labour won the 2024 General Election by being ‘an acceptable… default option to a Conservative government.’ If he is implying that voters switched from Tory to Labour he must be hard put to explain why Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership got more ballots in 2017 and 2019 than Starmer’s.

Corporate bullshit.

FRIDAY MUSIC: Benny Goodman and Swing, by JD

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 22 May 2026 05:58:44 +0000

“Creativity grows out of two things; curiosity and imagination”

- Benny Goodman.

Benjamin David Goodman was an American jazz clarinetist and bandleader, known as the “King of Swing”. His orchestra did well commercially. From 1935 until the mid-1940s, Goodman led one of the most popular swing big bands in the United States.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Benny-Goodman
https://www.bennygoodman.com/

Lionel Hampton and Benny Goodman - Stealing Apples (high quality)

Benny Goodman Quartet - Moonglow

King Porter Stomp - Benny Goodman 1985

Benny Goodman Trio (China Boy and Sheik of Araby)

12-min version of “Sing, Sing, Sing (With a Swing)” live @ Carnegie Hall, 1938

Labour law and "human-heartedness"

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 21 May 2026 12:50:05 +0000

Our current Prime Minister is fond of using law as an expression of his autocratic power. A recent government press release states:

Eleven foreign far-right agitators intent on coming to the UK to spew their extremist views have been blocked from entering the country, as the Prime Minister takes action to protect British communities from vile hate.

Note the intemperate emotive language: “spew” and “vile.” This is not merely cool-headed administration but propaganda. It goes on in similar tone:

… violent thugs who spew hatred on our streets will face the full force of the law.

Among the banned speakers are a Polish MEP and a member of the Belgian Parliament. This does not sit well with Starmer’s assertion to the US President and Vice-President last year that he is proud of our tradition of free speech:

We all remember the case of Lucy Connolly but the Europe to which the PM wants to draw nearer can be even harsher to dissidents. Last year a German pensioner was investigated for calling Chancellor Friedrich Merz ‘Pinocchio’ on social media. Under Article 188 of the German Criminal Code a politically damaging criticism can be punished by up to five years in prison.

In 2024 the European Union itself extended the list of EU crimes to “hate speech” and “hate crime”; the potential for stretching this to include expressions of anger aroused by the negative consequences of mass immigration is obvious. Nevertheless two months ago the EU Parliament voted for tougher measures against illegal migrants, with deportation to “return hubs” outside the bloc.

The thing about “reactionaries” is that they are often reacting to something. Where does the fault lie?

We are entering what may become an age of social instability and it brings to mind China’s “Spring and Autumn” period a couple of thousand years ago. During this time the great teacher Confucius (born “Kong Qiu”) lived and taught his principles, which are based on “ren,” empathic “human-heartedness.”

A different approach to his was “Legalism” whereby order should be maintained by incentives and draconian punishments. Master Kong observed:

“If the people be led by laws, and uniformity sought to be given them by punishments, they will try to avoid the punishment, but have no sense of shame. If they be led by virtue, and uniformity sought to be given them by the rules of propriety, they will have the sense of the shame, and moreover will become good.”

For Confucius social harmony is promoted by the personal example of individuals who are benevolent and have mastered their own passions.

Here Sir Keir fails, not only in his use of language in public messaging but shouting in the House of Commons and hitting the Speaker’s chair when reprimanded for his persistent failure to answer Opposition questions. If certain rumours are true his lack of self-control has also been expressed in other, grosser ways.

If the Kingdom is to be restored to peace and prosperity we shall need fewer damaging and divisive policies forced through in a tyrannical way, and more “ren” from our leaders.

FRIDAY MUSIC: Arvo Pärt, by JD

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 15 May 2026 06:00:00 +0000

This is the music of the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. It may not be to everyone’s liking but when I first heard it about 30 years ago it ‘grabbed’ me immediately and it gets better as I get older. It is certainly different, I’m sure you will agree.

Pärt was born in Estonia in 1935. He has composed music since the 1950’s, music which in Soviet-controlled country was alternately praised or banned, but was completely unknown in the West until the 1980’s.

In 1977, he wrote a trio of works that were to define his own style, and set his future course of composition. In that year he wrote the three works that made him famous in the West, the three works that are still regarded as his best are Fratres, Cantus for Benjamin Britten and Tabula Rasa.

“I have discovered that it is enough when a single note is beautifully played. This one note, or a silent beat, or a moment of silence, comforts me. I work with very few elements - with one voice, two voices. I build with primitive materials - with the triad, with one specific tonality. The three notes of a triad are like bells and that is why I call it tintinnabulation”- Arvo Pärt
https://www.good-music-guide.com/reviews/071_arvo_part.htm

Pärt – Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten – Norwegian Chamber Orchestra

Spiegel im Spiegel for Cello and Piano (Arvo Pärt)

VOCES8: The Deer’s Cry - Arvo Pärt

Arvo Pärt De Profundis

Tabula Rasa Part 1 “Ludus”

Revival: what horses can teach us

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 14 May 2026 06:00:00 +0000

A marvellous video tells how China is reversing the progress of a desert that was heading towards Beijing.

At first they planted great numbers of trees, which sucked water out of the ground until the water table sank so far the roots couldn’t reach and the trees died.

Then they tried introducing an ancient wild breed of horse - Przewalski’s. This stocky creature broke the barren crust of topsoil with its hooves, allowing rainwater to gather in puddles and seep into the lower ground. Plants came out of suspended animation. As the horses roamed they spread seeds carried on their hooves and in their dung. Insects colonised the greening area and a complex ecosystem began to re-form.

Isn’t this a metaphor for the failure of top-down bureaucratic planning of a command economy and the success, allowed the opportunity, of the “animal spirits” of private enterprise?

The vote-rigging that never was? (Birmingham)

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 13 May 2026 09:13:56 +0000

The final ward to declare its result in last Thursday’s local elections in Birmingham was Glebe Farm and Tile Cross. At stake were two council seats.

The Labour leader of Birmingham Council, John Cotton, was ousted. The two new councillors were Jess Ankrett (Reform UK) and Shehryar Kayani (Workers Party of Britain.)

It was close. There were two recounts on Saturday (no change announced) but on Monday (it is said) seven new ballots were discovered. Rumour had it that the margin between Kayani and Cotton was only six votes and the extra seven were all for Labour and would have returned Cotton. Here is the controversial former diplomat Craig Murray jumping on the bandwagon:

A Birmingham seat is being recounted for the third time.
The Workers Party won the first count by 6 votes. They won the second count by 6 votes.
Then the Returning Officer - who is of course an employee of Labour run Birmingham City Council - “Found” seven Labour votes that had gone astray.

Here is former Labour MP and now Workers Party leader George Galloway furiously responding to the allegation by “Losrafascartel”:

If we are cheated of this famous victory Legal Action will follow immediately @WorkersPartyGB

But the official return shows that although there was (ultimately, if not before the recounts) a six-vote gap it was between Kayani of the Workers Party and (third in the list) Satnam Tank of Reform. Had the new seven ballots all been for one or both Labour candidates it would not have made the slightest difference to the outcome:

It’s not been established who asked for the recount, but given the results it could easily have been on behalf of Reform.

These are feverish times. As I write we still don’t know whether the Prime Minister himself will stay or go.

It's not just about Starmer

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 09 May 2026 06:00:00 +0000

Even veteran journalists can get things hopelessly wrong: “In a democracy we get the politicians we deserve,” said the Daily Mail’s Andrew Neil last week.

This is not a democracy, it’s a constitutional monarchy. The franchise was extended in 1918 to prevent Communist revolution and since then there has been intense effort to misguide and distract the public via mass media.

“The people have spoken—the bastards” said a US Senate hopeful 60 years ago and when much later they spoke for Trump - twice - all hell was let loose. They simply don’t know what’s good for them. They have to be managed.

Early results from yesterday’s UK elections suggest that the Greens have split off votes from Labour and let Reform come through on the First Past The Post system. “But why don’t Labour enact electoral reform to stop this from happening?” asked the Guardian’s Owen Jones, but he opposed the Alternative Vote in the 2011 referendum because it might help a third party.

What matters to him and so many others is the outcome, not the process.

And if the outcome is the wrong one, the apparatchiks have to put it right. The country voted for Brexit; the politicians undermined it. There was a General Election to break the logjam. The Bill was passed perforce but the subversion continued. Now we have Labour pursuing a damaging “dynamic alignment” with the EU’s laws; if that follows the trajectory of our membership of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism we could all end up singing in the bath.

Some commentators think Starmer stands for nothing. Again this is completely wrong and misleads people into believing that getting rid of Sir Keir will solve our problems. He does have an agenda and it’s not just his; it is a continuation of the Left’s long-running program to destroy our “democracy” so completely that a Conservative government can never return. He has said so in terms:

“We’re trying not just to defeat the Tories, but to defeat their entire way of doing politics.”

In that same speech he then proposes to unite the country!

Starmer has picked up the baton from his mentor Blair. Emasculate the House of Lords, devolve power away from Westminster via a forest of quangos and surrender to EU rule-making, split the country into sub-nations and regions, amalgamate local councils into entities so large that they mean nothing much to the voters (especially when local TV and papers report so little.) Use mass immigration to promote “diversity” but not so much because diversity per se is valuable as it is a weapon to smash the British cultural unity that has taken centuries and blood-sodden fields to develop.

And of course abolish the monarchy, the obstacle identified at the end of the fiery right-on 1976 TV series “Bill Brand”; our unifying symbols must be destroyed, as before when Cromwell sold broke and melted the royal regalia. The first muted trumpet call of the current battle was on 17 July 2024 when the Lord Chancellor Shabana Mahmood turned her back on the Monarch after handing him his speech; that deliberate discourtesy was introduced by the Blair government back in 1998. The King blinked: he had not missed its import.

Everybody hates democracy. In the 1980s the Tory leader of Westminster Council introduced a scheme to sell off its council houses to build Labour out of the area. In the US there has long been gerrymandering by both sides to game the voting in their favour and the competition is intensifying, as Lionel Shriver discusses in this week’s Spectator magazine.

National harmony does not depend on unity of opinion. Every time someone says “hey gang, let’s all…” a fight begins. There is no “all”; peace is founded on a great number of issues where we agree to disagree. Unless we can get political and religious militants (of various kinds) to accept that then the “diversity” project will backfire dramatically.

Most of human happiness does not come out of debating rooms. It lies in personal relationships, work that does not smash them up with its demands, adequate comfort and security and if desired the opportunity to better oneself or one’s offspring through additional striving.

Where is a gardener government wise enough to plant, weed and stand back?

FRIDAY MUSIC: Duke Ellington, by JD

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 08 May 2026 10:02:54 +0000

“Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American pianist who was the greatest jazz composer and bandleader of his time. One of the originators of big-band jazz, Ellington led his band for more than half a century, composed thousands of scores, and created one of the most distinctive ensemble sounds in all of Western music.”

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Duke-Ellington

Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn - Take the “A” Train

Duke Ellington - Caravan

Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington “It Don’t Mean A Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing)”

Rockin In Rhythm

Duke Ellington Diminuendo And Crescendo In Blue

With those last two numbers you could almost say he helped to invent -rock and roll.

Will AI take over? by JD

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 05 May 2026 14:09:21 +0000

In this post JD argues that the threat of AI is overstated - but we wonder whether it may narrow the gap between the blue collar and the white?

“Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”
- from The Rock by T.S.Eliot
https://www.wisdomportal.com/Technology/TSEliot-TheRock.html

Where indeed? Were he alive today Eliot might have continued “and where is the information swallowed up by AI; Artificial Intelligence?”

AI is all over the news media. Huge amounts of money being invested (gambled?) on its potential.

We have been here before of course. In the 1930s Alan Turing was working on what he called Machine Intelligence. Continuing with that work he eventually came up with what became the Enigma machine. We have all heard of that because it was able to decipher the German secret communication codes and helped to bring an end to the second world war.
https://www.vectra.ai/blog/alan-turing-and-the-birth-of-machine-intelligence

AI consists of pure information which it is able to transfer between machines/computers. What it cannot do is perform physical tasks. All the speculation about AI taking over everybody’s job is just that, speculation or scaremongering.
As an example, let us suppose you are driving along and get a puncture in one of your tyres. How is AI going to help you get the spare wheel out of the boot and replace the wheel with the puncture? It can’t. Or when your car needs its annual service, is AI going to change the oil or the spark plugs? No of course not. So the motor mechanic’s job is safe, he will never be replaced by AI.

Another example is my garden fence which is leaning at a perilous angle after some high winds. What will AI’s contribution be to restoring my fence to the vertical? None whatsoever. So the fencing contractor’s job is not going to disappear any time soon.
I’m sure you can readily think of many examples of your own.

Iain McGilchrist FRSA is a British psychiatrist, philosopher and neuroscientist who wrote the 2009 book The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. In this video he explains how and why AI cannot become conscious because it is entirely parasitic. In other words it is dependent on information created by others. It has access to all of that information. AI will search and retrieve information according to what it is asked to retrieve. It will then display such information in the way it is asked to display or use it. But it will always require people to make use of the information. The machine that is AI cannot do anything without instructions from whoever is operating the machine; it cannot carry out any physical function. It is humans and only humans who are able to do that. Iain McGilchrist explains it much better than I can in this video.

Iain McGilchrist - Can AI Become Conscious?

There is another aspect to AI which is usually ignored by commentaters and that is the idea of computer chips being implanted into the brain in order to ‘enhance’ the brain’s capacity. I have already read about people who have done just that but I have seen no ‘progress reports’ telling us whether these implants have been successful or not.

The following video comes from Gregg Braden who was for a number of years a software designer working for the US government as well as for Cisco Systems and others. He explains the current situation and the pitfalls which lie ahead.

Artificial Intelligence vs Human Awareness | Gregg Braden

How top-down, big-picture political schemes ruin us

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 02 May 2026 15:20:19 +0000

Birmingham used to be called the City of a Thousand Trades. It had a large skilled workforce and a diversified industrial base, with many small businesses so that if one failed there were nearby competitors to take over.

In 1945 a new Government came in with Big Ideas. One was to provide more employment around the regions by restricting growth in areas that were already successful. The Distribution of Industry Act required central government permission to build or expand a factory by more than 5,000 square feet (465 square metres.) This forced development to be sited elsewhere.

The big-picture intention may have been good, but one consequence was that Birmingham was handicapped like a horse that wins too many races. The city where I live became over-dependent on a limited number of enterprises, especially car manufacture, and when global competition and economic recession hit we suffered.

China has learned from our ivory-tower political stupidity. Its industry clusters with their synergy have made the country a world-beater.

Now Britain has another high-handed grand-plan national administration determined to distribute wealth production, diluting and weakening our productive capacity. Add to that the back-to-Eden fantasy of high-cost and unreliable “sustainable” energy creation and we have a whole nation headed for the doldrums.

Like schools, Parliament need to send its Members on “work experience” before they presume to run the economy.

For more about the introduction and effects of Industrial Development Certificates please read this excellent article in the Birmingham Dispatch and/or watch the video below:

FRIDAY MUSIC: Skiffle, by JD

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 01 May 2026 08:51:37 +0000

Skiffle is a DIY, high-energy music genre blending folk, blues, and jazz, originating in 1920s America but surging in 1950s Britain. Popularized by Lonnie Donegan, it used inexpensive or homemade instruments like washboards and tea-chest bases, sparking a youth music craze that laid the foundation for the British Invasion and rock ‘n’ roll.

Originating as a form in the United States in the first half of the 20th century, it became extremely popular in the United Kingdom in the 1950s, where it was played by such artists as Lonnie Donegan, the Vipers Skiffle Group, Ken Colyer, and Chas McDevitt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skiffle

Charles McDevitt Skiffle Group Featuring Nancy Whiskey - Freight Train

VIPERS SKIFFLE GROUP (Live 1957) Rare / Song: PICK A BALE OF COTTON

Skiffle City Ramblers - Dr. Jazz

The Jive Aces Skiffle Combo presents: “Mama Don’t Allow”

Knobtown Skiffle Band: Knobtown Rag

Lonnie Donegan - Rock Island Line (Rockpop 1.4.1978)

This is good happy and impromptu music and cheers everyone up!

Not The PMQs - 29th April 2026

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 14:37:24 +0000

He’s awful but you can’t get rid of him.

Yesterday’s PMQs, which took place after some attempt to prorogue Parliament in time to cancel them were a symphony of sycophancy from the Labour backbenchers and Opposition was as usual drowned out by boasting and counterattack. The Speaker kept his counsel as far as the PM was concerned; only Iqbal Mohamed orating on Palestinian “genocide” was cut short.

We await the release of Mandelbrouhaha documents as per the Humble Address, or whatever remain unshredded after some spurious Great Tea Trolley Disaster; Starmer’s former henchman McSweeney has been slow-roasted in Parliament but so what; the trial of the “Ukrainian rent boy” arsonists (allegedly) has begun this week to a deafening silence from the mainstream media despite the apparent lack of a D-notice; yesterday a motion to refer the PM to the standards committee was voted down by his army of myrmidons.

His enormous majority in the House gave him absolute power in 2024 on a technicality - validated by one-fifth of the electorate, one-third of votes cast - and by Saint George he’s going to keep it.

In the 2011 referendum the two major parties, now deservedly moribund, colluded to howl down the chance of a better voting system because they were happy with Buggins’ turn at government as the people lurched from one sour disappointment to another. Now it’s “a plague o’ both your houses!” but we innocent Thebans must suffer a plague of misfortunes because of the malfeasance of the Great Ones.

Only disaster can save us.

But not just a disaster for Starmer. Even if he goes, the sickness stays.

It is a mind-virus: “affairs are now soul size.” We have to “squeeze the universe into a ball / To roll it towards some overwhelming question”:

“What is Man?”

Philosophy is not merely academic. Ideas kill.

If we define ourselves - our narrative - in the wrong way, calamity follows. For socialism the key issue is equality. A biography of Chairman Mao says that when he was told nuclear war would kill a third of humanity he replied, “Good, then there will be no more classes.”

We’re watching this obsession burn through our community now. Its logic is insane.

Individuals do not matter, only the masses, who are composed of individuals. Equality is the goal, but meanwhile an elite is needed to “educate” and lead the people. Democracy is an obstacle; it is the voice of the masses, but they are ignorant and excitable. They can be kept that way by biased schooling and the mass media.

Man’s only identity and justification for his existence is economic. The implications are lethal - here is the writer George Bernard Shaw:

Note that he said this in March 1931 when Britain was in the depths of the Depression and the unemployment rate was over twenty per cent.

Shaw was an early member of the socialist Fabian Society, which became interested in “eugenics”, a term coined by Sir Francis Galton to mean the genetic improvement of the human “stock.” That last word suggests the need for a controlling elite like that of farmers breeding cattle and indeed Sweden passed a law in 1934 that authorised the compulsory sterilisation of thousands of its citizens.

For all the talk of human rights, people do not matter. We are a collection of nothings who have no fundamental identity. Whatever self-concept binds us together must be destroyed - history, religion, culture, race. New Labour’s socialism is existentialist: we are, before we decide what we are, and the result of any such decision is an illusion.

Note by the way that although Sartre’s monumental work concluded that “Man is a useless passion” he advocated authenticity and courage - which are values. To be consistent he should have accepted that to be a lying, self-deluding coward is equally valid. He said freedom was purely a matter for individuals but became seduced by Marxism and during the May 1968 Paris riots he supported the student movement by arguing that freedom could be realized collectively.

What are the consequences of the nihilism that is plaguing Britain?

Now, any child can be killed in the womb, up to the moment of birth.

At the other end of life, there is “assisted dying,” supposedly for people predicted to die within a few months but in Canada and elsewhere we see already how the program may be extended; Shaw, thou shouldst be living at this hour.

The Bill to legalise “assisted dying” has fallen in the House of Lords, but campaigners are talking of using the Parliament Act to force it through. If this succeeds, it will the end of Upper House resistance in any matter; for the Commons, “The very firstlings of my heart shall be / The firstlings of my hand” as the Scottish tyrant put it. We will be driving a fast car without brakes or steering.

What is the purpose of our being alive between these two points? To pay taxes and validate the rule of our superiors, perhaps.

Mind Your Language! by JD

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 06:00:00 +0000

This post began life as a rumination on languages in general but my mind works in mysterious ways and it drifted off into wondering why and how English had become the world’s language.

For me my interest in languages began at school. We were taught French and then German. For some reason those were lessons which I enjoyed and found interesting while I was generally bored during other lessons. I have subsequently worked out that to learn a new language requires understanding and not just the memorisation of facts/information to be repeated during the end of term exams. Additionally there was something about languages that burrowed its way into my psyche.

After leaving school it was many years before I needed to use either of those, by now rusty, languages I had been taught by which time I had taught myself Spanish because I was working in Spain.

In my travels working in different parts of the world I have been called upon to deal with documents in six different languages, two of which I can’t speak. But somehow I’ve managed to navigate my way through it all with reasonable success (you can do anything if you put your mind to it.) In the process I now know that languages are strange things and it is very often difficult or impossible to make accurate translations from one to another; and that is before taking into account the problem of dialects/accents/slang etc. As an example I understand perfectly the meaning of the German word gegenüber but I couldn’t possibly translate it accurately into English.

Everywhere I went there were people who spoke English and often quite a lot of people. So how and why has that happened? I have seen and heard discussions on how the language has spread and the usual reasons are trotted out: the British Empire, the influence of Hollywood, the spread of English and American pop music etc.

But can I offer a different reason which has been overlooked and that is the Industrial Revolution which began in this country about 300 years ago and the mechanical and engineering innovations which followed were quickly developed and improved.
The rest of the world took notice and other countries were keen to share in this ‘new’ world. And this could be called the start of ‘the brain drain’ as British engineers and tradesmen took their skills to other parts of the world and where they went they took their language and culture with them as well as the new terminology associated with all those innovations.

In wondering about the spread of English this post was further extended to include some examples of how this ‘new’ world was assimilated into local cultures.
These examples are mostly from my own personal experience of things I have encountered on my travels.

First stop is Bilbao. Did you know there is a transporter bridge in Bilbao? It is a smaller version of the more famous one on Teesside. The story is that it was built by engineers and tradesmen from Sunderland and their influence can be seen in the local football team who are known as Athletic Bilbao. You will notice they use the English word in their name instead of the Spanish word Atletico. The club also received a complete set of football strips in Sunderland Football Club’s colours. Football is a working class sport and so those visiting workers would have been to see games there and during their time in the city would have become friends with the local supporters.

Across the Atlantic to South America where I worked for a year or so and the surprising discovery that there are hundreds of cricket clubs in the sub continent. There is even an international tournament with Brazil being the current champions.

And back to football again, one of the leading teams in Uruguay is Peñarol whose full title is Peñarol Athletic and Cricket Club. There is also a club called Liverpool, believe it or not and that is because in the 19th century and continuing into the 20th there was a regular arrival of merchant ships carry coal from the port of Liverpool in England.

Valparaiso in Chile is built on a hillside and so there are 22 funicular railways to help people cope with the steep hills. These railways were built over a number of years and they are identical to the similar railways built around the coast of the UK. They are even painted the same colour of red and white although I think they have been painted in different colours since my visit.

To this day there is a substantial British ‘colony’ living in the city. In 1892, the ‘Club de Deportes Santiago Wanderers’ was established, the oldest active sports club in Chile, founded by Chileans under British influence; in 1895, the Valparaíso Wanderers, consisting solely of English members, was formed although there was a name change to Santiago Wanderers at some point but I’m not sure when.

Another sport introduced by the British was horse racing and I recall going to the races every Friday evening in the neighbouring town of Viña del Mar. and introducing an Argentine colleague to the joys of occasional unearned income.

About an hour’s drive south from Valparaiso is Isla Negra the location of one of Pablo Neruda’s houses. Neruda was a Nobel Prize winner and is regarded as Chile’s national poet. The house is a sort of tourist attraction and is well worth a visit, not least for its splendid views of the Pacific ocean. When visiting the first thing you will see is a splendid old steam engine. It was built in Lincoln, England in 1865 by Robey and co. who were famous as builders of steam engines.

Inside the house I heard a tour guide explaining to a group of visitors that Neruda was a collector of ship’s figureheads “..including the one from the ship of the famous English pirate Henry Morgan.”

Argentina has or had the one and only branch of Harrod’s. It was closed in 1998 and there have been various attempts to re-open it. You can read a potted history of the store here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrods_Buenos_Aires .And we must mention the football because the two leading teams in Buenos Aires have English names; River Plate and Boca Juniors. The name River Plate was chosen because of an incident during the construction of Buenos Aires Port: one of the members had seen how the workers of Dique nº 3 left their duties for a while to play a football match. The boxes they were working with just said “The River Plate” (the word Dique in this context means embankment or sea wall.)

Also in Buenos Aires in the La Recoleta district there are British red telephone boxes designed by Giles Gilbert Scott. I cannot find any information on how and why they are there but they are a further example of British cultural influence.

While I was in Chile I was working for a German engineering company, one of their leading engineering companies in fact. I was told that all of their overseas work was conducted in the English.

And many years ago I was told by an American girl that airlines make inflight announcements in English because it is the language that most people would be likely to understand.

In compiling these stories of the spread of the English language and British culture I have concentrated on South America because it is somewhere I know reasonably well having worked there a few years ago; but also because it is relatively free from Britain’s imperial ambitions.

So it was left to British engineers, tradesmen, merchant seamen and traders of all kinds to leave a favourable impression of Britain and the British on the people of the sub continent. It must have been favourable otherwise they would not have adopted so readily our language and pastimes.

FRIDAY MUSIC: Clannad, by JD

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 07:49:09 +0000

Clannad were an Irish band formed in 1970 in Gweedore, County Donegal, by siblings Ciarán, Pól and Máire Uí Bhraonáin and their twin uncles Noel and Pádraig Ó Dúgáin.

“They have adopted various musical styles throughout their history.
There is a lot to be said about holding your counsel and taking the view that it’s best to let the music speak than to shout from the sidelines.

“It is fair to say that from their formation in 1970 in the Irish-speaking parish of Gweedore, County Donegal, Clannad took the wiser and less talkative route. “Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence,” are words attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, the man whose painting of Mona Lisa gave us one of the world’s most enigmatic smiles.”
https://www.clannad.ie/about-us/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clannad

Téir Abhaile Riú (Go Home With You, Now) - Clannad, 1976

Two Sisters

Clannad & Enya - An Tull (Musikvideo - SRF 1982)

Clannad - A Celtic Dream (Official Video)

Clannad “I Will Find You” live on Jools Holland 9th July 1993

Beautiful voices, both Moya and Enya.

The State of Us, by Wiggia

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 08:18:50 +0000

To start, a classic example of one of the reasons the West is in terminal decline; when government appointees can waste time on utter crap like this we know we are in the death throes of western civilisation:

Samantha Smith@SamanthaTaghoy

“MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+” The Canadian government just dropped this absolute monstrosity (and no, it isn’t satire).

1:33 AM · Apr 9, 2026 · 95.9M Views

9.59K Replies · 9.41K Reposts · 83.2K Likes

Nothing should surprise us any more. After all, they declare that a 5-year-old is apparently old enough to decide they’re the opposite gender but a 15-year-old is too young to use social media. The people in charge of this country have completely lost their minds.

The rise of the Greens is no surprise either. With all the parties failing to grasp what is fundamentally wrong in the country, with the possible exception of Rupert Lowe who currently can only loudly point out the obvious, the Greens have taken the space to supply a safe haven for all those virtual signallers that ‘care’ about things. The fact that the party has been taken over by complete lunatics somehow escapes scrutiny.

NHRN

We currently have a government and indeed the majority of the HoC filled with people of a standard that is so far below that which is needed in these troubled times, that I can’t see any future for the country unless a Churchillian figure emerges from nowhere and saves us. There is no one or no party that has any power that inspires anyone at the moment. A nation that along with Allies saved Europe during WW11 is rapidly becoming a backwater. We are not alone, Europe is in the same boat but I don’t really care about that in these times. Never have I heard so many people with negative doubts about the present and the future and the feelings of being betrayed at every turn by the powers that be.

With people like this, and she is not alone by any means, representing the public, what chance of any advancement do we have?

For months now the “Liebore” lot have been boasting about falling NHS England waiting lists. Apparently, the number on the waiting list fell by 80,000 in November, the last month the numbers were published. But how was that achieved when the same figures show a drop of 10% in operations and people seen in appointments?

And now this……

Concerned Citizen@BGatesIsaPyscho

🚨🇬🇧 UK National Health Service Meeting “We’ve lost almost 2 years of life expectancy” “It’s disappointing to see life expectancy decreasing the way it has” Wait what⁉️ What could’ve caused such a dramatic drop in life expectancy over a short period of time? Don’t answer

6:48 AM · Feb 17, 2026 · 22.1K Views

58 Replies · 237 Reposts · 636 Likes

I personally on another visit to the local hospital came across yet more nonsense in the way the trust is run. Two visits actually. The first required an ambulance; four hours after the initial call it arrived despite urgent calls in the meantime. On arrival at A&E a further four hours were spent in the car park awaiting a vacant bed in the emergency ward.

A chat with the ambulance crew revealed all : they are being used as an overflow ward in the car park. This means their main purpose, to get to people and take them to hospital is now a secondary requirement. They are well aware of this but cannot speak out for fear of losing their jobs! So they request that patients complain!

This system means that crews are stuck in the car park for hours and not out doing what we consider ambulance crews should do. It not only endanger lives but is a waste of manpower and dangerous to waiting patients. Who thinks these decisions are good practice?

A second item came to notice on my second visit, something that had caught my eye several times before but was not a priority at the time. This occasion resulted in a move to a ward in the evening. It is obvious that hospitals have become 9-5 operations and Monday – Friday, matching GP surgeries: it’s not a good idea to become unwell on a weekend in this country.

The change of ward meant a long journey through the corridors and up two floors. It became very obvious that the general silence was not because of a desire for quiet at night but because there was nothing happening. Why? A large number of wards were closed, no lights, no activity at all. This did not make sense when the same hospital has patients in corridors, so why?

It appears that when the Norfolk &Norwich hospital was built about fifteen years ago, replacing the old hospital in the city centre, it was as is usual in this country massively over budget. The trust could not afford the many alterations and improvements that were added to the original plan and Serco actually purchased the hospital and leased it back to the NHS trust.

Serco of course also provide all the services, so though the hospital operates under the NHS flag it does not actually own it.

Quite extraordinary that this situation exists, and naturally further extensions and improvements are announced but seemingly never finished within the time frame stipulated or the original budget. As they are PFI projects we should not be surprised that contractual ‘issues’ pushed the price up.

Still as with most things it is good to see that the NHS has got its priorities right…….

Doctors told to avoid phrases such as ‘raining cats and dogs’ and ‘the early bird catches the worm’ to avoid offending foreign patients

It is amazing that when anything is built in the public sector the cost and time frame for completion go out of the window. None of these problems ever arise if a new superstore is built and penalty clauses are part of the deal; perhaps, in fact I am sure, we would be better off if Tesco were put in charge of these projects.

Now it would be easy to state this is a one off, but apparently not as regards closed areas. My sister for instance attends two different west London hospitals and one of them has closed areas. How many others are there ?

I also had a long chat with a newly qualified nurse who was giving me details about those who qualify not being able to get jobs in the NHS as they prefer the cheaper labour they import. This gives rise to the false belief the NHS would collapse if they banned all immigrant staff; it wouldn’t as there is a large pool of qualified Brits waiting for the jobs, so another lie.

Mr Streeting of course like all before him is all mouth and trousers. So called improvements in waiting lists have been proved to be simple juggling acts with the figures and methods of calculation. His pledge of no more money without changes have been shown to be just words.

The NHS is at the point of being not fit for purpose in many departments. We all pay for this sub standard service and it is not lack of money or personnel, far from it with the latter, but unless someone gets a grip on it and makes real change and not cosmetic, we are in trouble. The NHS is now at the bottom in many areas of care compared with equivalent health care systems. The scare mongering that we will follow the American system is just that, scaremongering. It is all the other systems that are superior that should be studied and if an insurance model is proved to be better so be it.

Otherwise the decline will continue and we will resemble, as my earlier piece described in the local A&E for example, a scene from a third world country. The acceptance of corridor care in the NHS as the norm shows the way.

As light relief from all this we face a week of “he said, you said” in Parliament and everywhere else over the PM’s disastrous choice of Mandelson as UK Ambassador. He (Starmer) really is clueless but we will have probably to suffer more of him as the alternatives are worse. The state of us!

It’s good to know that our PM is on the ball, see this on the day the straits of Hormuz reopened, and he went to Paris to announce his ‘plan’, God help us:

I’ve just discovered through FOIs that Bracknell Forest Council has spent over £74,000 on translation services for Afghan arrivals since April.

Why is that level of translation needed when residents were told they had served our armed forces as translators?

I’ve also been asking the council, MoD and Home Office for months now how many actually served our armed forces, but they’ve refused to release the information.

What is going on here?

Why are translation services needed for translators?
How many of the Afghan arrivals actually served our armed forces?
And if not many, why was it implied most had?

Because right now it’s starting to look like the public’s admiration for our armed forces was played on to stop debate and push this policy through.

Bond markets react:

The highest they were during the Truss government was:
10-year - 4.3% (today 4.78%)
30-year - - 4.8% (today 5.49%)

Starmer, national sovereignty and the Ministerial Code

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 06:00:00 +0000

Since the Mandelson/Starmer matter questions are being asked about whether the Ministerial Code has been breached.

This prompted me to look at how the current PM changed the Code when he came to power, and one item jumps out. It relates to the extent to which international law and treaties may override our national sovereignty.

Paragraph 1.6 of the 2010 edition issued under the then new Con-LibDem coalition government read thus:

“The Ministerial Code should be read against the background of the overarching duty on ministers to comply with the law including international law and treaty obligations and to uphold the administration of justice and to protect the integrity of public life.”

In October 2015, following the General Election which returned a Conservative government under Cameron, the italicised words were omitted. Officially it was said not to be a substantive legal change but in that case why the change in wording?

In a letter to The Guardian newspaper the Treasury Solicitor Paul Jenkins said:

“As the government’s most senior legal official I saw at close hand from 2010 onwards the intense irritation these words caused the PM as he sought to avoid complying with our international legal obligations, for example in relation to prisoner voting.
“Whether the new wording alters the legal obligations of ministers or not, there can be no doubt that they will regard the change as bolstering, in a most satisfying way, their contempt for the rule of international law.”

According to Grok critics

“argued it was motivated by frustration within parts of the Conservative government — particularly Cameron himself — with certain international obligations, especially:
“The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and rulings from the European Court of Human Rights (e.g., on prisoner voting, deportation cases, or counter-terrorism).
“Broader tensions with international law in areas like military action, immigration, or treaty commitments.”

In November 2024 under the new PM Sir Keir Starmer the relevant paragraph was amended to read:

“The Ministerial Code should be read against the background of the overarching duty on ministers to comply with the law, including international law and treaty obligations, and to protect the integrity of public life.”

It remains the same in the 2025 edition.

It seems clear that Starmer wishes to see our sovereignty re-subordinated to supranational governance.

This is evidenced in the proposed new law to bring our legislation into “dynamic alignment” with EU law and implement it via “Henry VIII” powers so as to bypass Parliamentary scrutiny.

Sir Keir is the deliberate enemy of our liberty and independence.

How Poland saved us from Communism

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 12:09:00 +0000

The video below tells us something I hadn’t known and should have. In the summer of 1920 Lenin sent 200,000 soldiers into Poland with the objective of reaching Berlin - and spreading Communism beyond.

Help from the West was not whole-hearted.

Postwar Germany was very weak at this time. Only a year earlier thousands of its people had starved to death as the Royal Navy continued its blockade during the 1919 peace negotiations. The Left was stirring: Communist revolts were put down by the Weimar government but who knows where a successful Red invasion could have led?

In Britain also there was much socialist unrest. Urged by the British Communist leader Harry Pollitt, organiser of the Hands Off Russia campaign, dock workers in London prevented the loading of arms onto the SS Jolly George for Poland.

Russia also had its sympathisers in France - only a few months later the French Section of the Workers’ International voted to join Lenin’s Comintern. For political and other reasons the help France provided to Poland, though crucial as it turned out, was limited.

Lenin’s attempt failed because intelligence reached the Polish military that the enemy’s forces, split into two, had a weakly defended centre through which the Poles managed to drive and harry the supply lines in the rear.

Here’s to Poland and the 1920 Battle of Warsaw.

FRIDAY MUSIC: Supertramp, by JD

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 07:00:00 +0000

Supertramp emerged from the unlikely partnership of two contrasting musical minds: Rick Davies, a working-class pianist with jazz and blues roots, and Roger Hodgson, a classically-trained vocalist with an angelic tenor.

From their chaotic beginnings as “Daddy” in 1969 to becoming one of the most successful rock groups of their era, Supertramp crafted intelligent yet accessible songs that balanced Davies’s urban grit with Hodgson’s ethereal idealism.

In 1979, Paul McCartney was asked to name his favourite song of the year. He chose The Logical Song by Supertramp. For Roger Hodgson, Supertramp’s co-leader, it was the greatest of compliments. “Having been brought up on The Beatles,” he said, “it was wonderful to hear that Paul McCartney loved my song.”

Hodgson left the group in 1983 to purse a solo career. Davies died in 2025 at the age of 81.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supertramp
https://supertramp.com/home

Supertramp - The Logical Song (Official Video)

Supertramp Don’t Leave Me Now

Supertramp - My Kind Of Lady

Rosie Had Everything Planned - Supertramp (1971) Songwriters: Frank A. Farrell / Roger Hodgson

Babaji - Supertramp co-founder Roger Hodgson, Writer and Composer

Supertramp - It’s Raining Again

Cromwell returns: PMQs 15th April 2026

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 12:08:00 +0000

Sir Keir claims the right to govern based on a freak electoral result but since then has repeatedly shown his contempt for democratic accountability, not least at PMQs. This week after another Starmer peroration on Tory past history Speaker Hoyle was driven to tell him “Prime Minister, it is Prime Minister’s questions. We have got to concentrate.”

Some may think that Sir Lindsay’s intervention was partly a response to recent public comment on his own seeming reluctance to hold the PM’s feet to the fire but even so the latter had angry words for Hoyle, stomping off and furiously clouting the Speaker’s chair on his way out.

I suspect that Starmer’s question-dodging and tetchiness are because like other fanatics he has delegated his identity to an ideology, in this case a simplistic political one. To question his belief, his mission, is to threaten his sense of himself and it triggers aggression.

Leaders who are sure they are right are a danger to others. “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken,” wrote Oliver Cromwell to the Church of Scotland just before slaughtering hundreds in the Battle of Dunbar.

Cromwell himself had no doubt that he was God’s instrument. So having fought the King as a Parliamentarian he ended by turning on Parliament, becoming as great a tyrant as Charles I had ever been. He dismissed the House of Commons, made himself Lord Protector and for a time split Britain into ten regions, each governed by an appointed Major-General.

This suppression of the people’s national voice is echoed in Sir Keir’s strategy. He is proposing to use “Henry VIII powers” in a new UK-EU trade bill to enable “dynamic alignment” with European regulations, so bypassing the Commons as was the practice when we were in the EU.

Just as power is deliberately leached away from Westminster, so also is it being sucked from the people all around England. Each of the several planned “unitary councils” is intended to rule a population of about 500,000 - seven times the size of an average Parliamentary constituency! The 2024 White Paper calls it “devolution” but as far as the individual voter is concerned it looks more like a system of Ottoman governors.

What will be the chances of “throwing the rascals out”? Come Christmas 2017 the current Mayor of London will have held office longer than Margaret Thatcher’s record tenure as Prime Minister, yet he was last elected on a turnout of only 40.5% in 2024. We think we are a democracy but our universal adult franchise is less than a century old and the habit can easily wither away. We are subjects not citizens.

As to justice, Magna Carta (1215) was originally not for our sakes but for King John’s barons: serfs and commoners were not “free men” entitled to trial by jury! That extended interpretation came much later, under Edward III.

Like Cromwell, socialists are sure they know what is right. They are the modern version of “the godly” but they serve History instead of God. As with religious fanatics, for them all opposition comes of the Devil and there is no debating with him. If for example, someone dares to raise the issue of organised mass violation of women and girls, that must be dismissed as a “dog-whistle” to the supporters of evil. And if the Speaker of the House of Commons offers even a mild criticism to the righteous he must be attacked; there is no compromise to be had between Right and Wrong.

On the contrary: our liberty, peace and prosperity depend on not resolving many issues and agreeing to disagree. Starmer and his lethal absolutist certainty are a grave danger to the common weal. He has described himself as a “hard bastard” and our hope lies in his being only half right; else we should be headed for another civil war.