The PalArse of Westminster

Social Media Didn't Exist in 2105 According to Lucy Powell

2026-11-10T11:41:18.954+00:00

Seemingly social media didn't exist in 2015!

Surprised to learn from Lucy Powell that we “weren’t in the social media age” in 2015
— Kevin Schofield (@KevinASchofield) November 10, 2026

Two Questions For Lucy Powell

2026-11-09T12:57:12.447+00:00

1 What is a GSCE?

2 Why do you always turn your comments off?

As part of our once in a generation reforms to the curriculum, Key Stage 3 will get the focus it needs to be engaging, exciting, and richer so that more children participate and progress. To do this, schools should not routinely bring forward GSCE content and options into this important and distinct part of a child’s education. https://t.co/vdULSkSSA5
— Lucy Powell MP (@LucyMPowell) November 8, 2026

Government Turns Comments Off!

2026-11-06T12:34:30.396+00:00

If you're celebrating Bonfire Night, fireworks must end by midnight 🎆 https://t.co/fLzEjZAFZq
— GOV.UK (@GOVUK) November 5, 2026

These wankers have no desire to read the thoughts and comments of the "proles"!

Burnham's Non Existent 10 Year Plan

2026-11-05T17:26:07.954+00:00

It transpires that Burnham's much vaunted 10 year plan doesn't actually exits, he has pushed it back to some time next year.

It begs the question, why did Labour go to all the trouble of removing Starmer only to replace him with someone who is even worse?

Miliband and Burnham are Paralysed Pieces of Piss

2026-11-02T13:37:49.764+00:00

Answering your questions on the legacy of transatlantic slavery 👇 https://t.co/ZY4eNHH8de
— Ed Miliband (@Ed_Miliband) November 2, 2026

ENOUGH OF THE HISTORICAL LECTURES, POLITICAL POSTURING AND HANDS IN THE BRITISH TAXPAYER'S POCKET! WHAT ABOUT THE 17,000 BRITISH SAILORS WHO DIED FIGHTING SLAVERY?

There comes a point when political posturing becomes so breathtakingly hypocritical that it deserves to be called out in the strongest possible terms.

The latest discussion about Britain's historical involvement in slavery, involving Andy Burnham and Ed Miliband, is a perfect example.

Apparently, Britain should apologise for its historical role in the slave trade. We must acknowledge our shame, demonstrate our remorse and make all the appropriate noises to satisfy those demanding reparatory justice.

But, we're told, don't worry, British taxpayers won't be paying reparations.

Oh, really?

Because almost immediately afterwards comes talk of funding education, healthcare, poverty reduction, development programmes and debt relief for countries involved in the reparations debate.

So there won't be reparations, just British taxpayers funding a collection of initiatives that appear remarkably connected to the same demands?

What a convenient bit of political wordplay.

Call it investment. Call it development assistance. Call it international cooperation. Dress it up in whatever language makes it more palatable.

If British taxpayers are expected to pay, it is British taxpayers' money.

And before Burnham, Miliband or anybody else starts lecturing this country about its historical responsibilities, perhaps they should acquaint themselves with the ENTIRE history of slavery.

Because Britain did not simply participate in the slave trade. It also became one of the most determined forces in history in bringing it to an end.

And that part seems remarkably inconvenient for today's political narrative.

17,000 BRITISH SAILORS: WHERE IS THEIR APOLOGY?

Let's talk about the Royal Navy.

Following the prohibition of British participation in the slave trade in 1807, Britain established the West Africa Squadron to hunt down slave ships and suppress the trade.

This was not some comfortable exercise in political virtue signalling.

British sailors were dispatched to some of the most dangerous and disease-ridden waters in the world. They faced armed slave traders, violent confrontations, malaria, yellow fever and appalling conditions.

The Royal Navy itself published a figure of approximately 17,000 British sailors dead during the campaign over 52 years.

Seventeen thousand!

Let that number sink in.

These were real people. Not historical statistics to be casually discarded. They were husbands, fathers, sons and brothers.

They died in an operation designed to stop the trafficking and enslavement of human beings.

The squadron captured approximately 1,600 slave ships and liberated around 150,000 Africans.

And what recognition do these men receive in today's political discussion?

Where are the grand speeches about their sacrifice?

Where is the recognition of the enormous national effort involved?

Where is the acknowledgement that Britain spent decades committing ships, manpower and taxpayers' money to suppress the slave trade?

These men deserve to be remembered, not conveniently forgotten because their story complicates today's political narrative.

If we're going to apologise for Britain's past, perhaps somebody should also remember the British sailors who died trying to put an end to one of humanity's greatest atrocities.

AND WHO EXACTLY WAS SELLING THE SLAVES?

Here is another inconvenient historical fact that seems to get rather lost in the modern political debate.

African rulers, kingdoms, merchants and intermediaries were actively involved in capturing, trading and selling enslaved Africans.

This is not controversial history. It is extensively documented.

The Kingdom of Dahomey became heavily involved in the Atlantic slave trade. African commercial networks supplied captives to European traders. Prisoners of war, people seized in raids and others were sold into the trade.

European traders did not independently capture every person transported across the Atlantic. They purchased captives through established African trading networks.

Of course, European merchants, shipowners, plantation owners and governments played an enormous role. They financed, transported, bought, exploited and profited from the trade on a massive scale.

But why is there such reluctance to discuss the African rulers and merchants who participated?

Why does historical responsibility appear to become a one-sided conversation whenever reparations enter the political arena?

Are we really expected to pretend that African participation simply didn't happen?

Historical responsibility cannot be allocated according to whichever version of events is most politically fashionable.

If we are going to examine the past, examine ALL of it.

BRITAIN PAID £20 MILLION TO ABOLISH SLAVERY. THE TAXPAYER CARRIED THE BILL.

In 1833, the Slavery Abolition Act was passed.

The British Government committed £20 million in compensation to slave owners to secure abolition.

Not to the enslaved.

To the slave owners.

British taxpayers effectively financed compensation to those who owned human beings.

It was an enormous financial commitment, representing a substantial proportion of government expenditure at the time.

The associated borrowing was not finally cleared until 2015.

Think about that.

British taxpayers carried the financial burden of abolishing slavery for generations.

The Royal Navy then continued enforcing the suppression of the trade at considerable financial and human cost.

Yet today, we have politicians seemingly desperate to discuss what further financial obligations Britain might accept.

Have we completely lost our minds?

How many times must the British taxpayer be expected to pay for the sins of previous generations?

NO REPARATIONS, BUT WE'LL PAY FOR EVERYTHING ELSE?

This is where the political argument becomes particularly difficult to swallow.

Burnham says he does not support financial reparations being paid by today's British taxpayers.

Yet the discussion includes proposals for education, development assistance, healthcare, debt restructuring and poverty reduction.

Perhaps somebody should explain the difference in practical financial terms.

How much will these initiatives cost?

Where will the money come from?

Are these additional commitments?

Will they be permanent?

Who will oversee the spending?

And why should people struggling to pay their mortgages, rent, energy bills and taxes in Britain be expected to finance them?

The public deserves answers.

It is not enough to announce that reparations are ruled out while simultaneously discussing alternative arrangements involving public money.

That is not financial transparency.

It is political semantics.

If the Government believes these programmes are worthwhile, make the case for them independently. Do not attempt to smuggle potentially significant financial commitments into the debate under a different label.

British taxpayers are not an unlimited international credit facility.

SLAVERY STILL EXISTS. PERHAPS POLITICIANS SHOULD CONCENTRATE ON THAT.

And here's another extraordinary aspect of this debate.

Slavery hasn't disappeared.

It is happening today.

The International Labour Organisation, Walk Free and the International Organisation for Migration estimated that 49.6 million people were living in modern slavery in 2021.

Approximately 27.6 million were in forced labour and 22 million in forced marriages.

Human trafficking, forced labour, domestic servitude and exploitation continue across the world.

So where is the relentless political determination to eradicate slavery NOW?

Where is the same enthusiasm for tackling the people trafficking victims across borders, exploiting vulnerable workers and forcing people into lives of servitude?

Why are we so consumed by historical financial demands when millions of people are suffering from modern slavery?

If the principle is that slavery is abhorrent, then surely it should be abhorrent wherever it happens and whoever is responsible.

It should not be a selective historical argument used to generate political pressure and financial demands.

Perhaps our politicians should spend less time debating how Britain should apologise for the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and more time ensuring that people are not being enslaved in the twenty-first.

BRITISH TAXPAYERS ARE NOT PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

Let's get something absolutely clear.

Today's British population did not operate the slave ships.

They did not own the plantations.

They did not capture Africans.

They did not legislate to protect the slave trade.

They are not personally responsible for the actions of people who lived centuries before them.

And yet they are increasingly being spoken about as though they have inherited an unlimited financial liability simply by virtue of being British.

That is an extraordinary proposition.

Acknowledging historical wrongdoing is one thing.

Accepting perpetual financial responsibility for it is quite another.

There is no justification for politicians making vague financial commitments on behalf of millions of taxpayers without properly explaining the costs, obligations and intended outcomes.

And there is certainly no justification for presenting British history as though this country contributed nothing to ending the trade.

A FINAL WORD TO BURNHAM AND MILIBAND

If you want to apologise for Britain's historical involvement in slavery, that is a political decision.

But have the courage to tell the whole story.

Tell people about the African kingdoms and merchants who sold captives.

Tell people about the European merchants and plantation owners who profited.

Tell people about the British abolitionists who fought for decades to end the trade.

Tell people about the £20 million paid to slave owners by British taxpayers.

Tell people about the Royal Navy's West Africa Squadron.

Tell people about the thousands of British sailors who died enforcing abolition.

And tell people why, after all that history, today's British taxpayers should be expected to accept further financial commitments.

Don't give us carefully polished political statements.

Don't tell us there will be no reparations while discussing alternative ways of spending our money.

Don't lecture the British public about historical guilt while ignoring the sacrifices made by British people who helped end the trade.

And don't pretend that history began and ended with Britain's involvement in slavery.

Britain's history includes shame, but it also includes courage, sacrifice, abolition and an enormous national commitment to ending the slave trade.

The victims deserve to be remembered. The abolitionists deserve to be remembered. The Royal Navy sailors deserve to be remembered.

And today's British taxpayers deserve to be treated with some respect.

ENOUGH OF THE SELECTIVE HISTORY. ENOUGH OF THE POLITICAL POSTURING. AND ENOUGH OF MAKING THE BRITISH TAXPAYER FEEL THAT THEY MUST KEEP PAYING FOR HISTORY THEY DID NOT CREATE.

An apology is not a blank cheque.

Historical responsibility is not an unlimited financial liability.

And Britain should never be expected to forget the people who died trying to end slavery simply because remembering them makes today's political arguments rather less convenient.

End of Rome Level of Stupidity!

2026-10-29T12:41:43.882+00:00

🚨NEW: A UK bank chief executive, reacting to John Healey's decision to raise the bank's profit surcharge said: "Taxing the engines of growth to reduce VAT on gherkins is end-of-Rome level of stupidity" [@FT]
— GB Politics (@GBPolitcs) October 29, 2026

Let Them Eat Gherkins!

2026-10-27T12:55:12.006+00:00

Nosferatu the Chancellor has decided that we all need a "little breathing space", so he has decided to reduce the import tax on gherkins (and a few other products eg marmalade).

This will save people around £21 per annum.

Do not rush out and spend this all at once, for what Nosferatu gives with one hand he takes with the toher.

Beer will go up by 2p per pint in tomorrow's budget.

Prepare For 1974

2026-10-23T13:06:08.684+01:00

The government is making half hearted efforts to nudge us into preparing for power cuts, water shortages and other contingencies.

It is perfectly sensible and reasonable for people to have stockpiles of food, water, medicines and other essentials. However, I have a number of observations:

1 Why has it taken the government this long to issue this half hearted advice?

2 Many people can't afford to stockpile these items, what are they meant to do?

3 Three days is simply not long enough, there is no way a major power outage/water contamination etc will be fixed in that time.

4 Why have successive governments allowed our energy, water and communications infrastructure to become so vulnerable?

Tin hats everyone!

Burnham's Dead Cat Distraction Turns Into Damp Squid

2026-10-12T11:59:19.745+01:00

Andy Burnham’s Brexit Blunder: When Your Own Minister Undermines Your Russia Claims

Andy Burnham wanted to make headlines with his claims about Russian interference in the Brexit referendum. Instead, he has landed himself in an embarrassing political mess — because one of his own ministers has gone on television and appeared to pull the rug from under his argument.

Burnham, in a failed attempt to distract attention from the Manchester City funding scandal says Russia influenced Brexit. His own minister says Russia tried to interfere but failed. So who, exactly, are we supposed to believe?

That is not a minor difference in wording. It is the difference between claiming that a foreign power attempted to meddle in a democratic process and suggesting that it actually influenced the outcome. One is a claim about hostile activity; the other raises serious questions about the integrity of a historic referendum.

If Burnham is suggesting that Russia helped shape the result, the obvious question is where the evidence is. And if his own minister is saying that Russian interference was unsuccessful, Burnham needs to explain precisely what he means by claiming that the referendum was influenced.

He cannot have it both ways.

You cannot make a dramatic allegation about foreign interference, bask in the headlines it generates, and then expect the public to overlook the fact that your own side appears to be drawing a crucial distinction between attempted interference and actual impact.

The contradiction is the story. Burnham is making the politically explosive claim; his own minister is apparently narrowing it. Either Burnham has evidence that goes beyond the minister's account, in which case he should publish it and explain the discrepancy, or his language is running ahead of what has actually been established.

And if the minister's position is that Russia tried but failed, that hardly amounts to confirmation that Moscow influenced the referendum result.

This is precisely why politicians should choose their words carefully when discussing democratic legitimacy. Accusing a foreign power of attempting to interfere is serious enough. Suggesting that it influenced the outcome of a referendum is a much bigger claim, and it demands evidence to match.

Burnham now has some explaining to do. What exactly is he alleging? What evidence supports it? And why does the account offered by his own minister appear to stop short of the conclusion Burnham wants people to draw?

Until those questions are answered, the episode looks less like a devastating revelation and more like a political own goal.

If Andy Burnham wants to cast doubt on the Brexit referendum by invoking Russia, he needs to do more than make headlines. He needs to explain why his own minister appears to be telling a different story.

MIA!

2026-10-06T17:01:41.927+01:00

You’ll Need ID to Enter the Net, But Not the Country

2026-10-05T16:10:52.751+01:00

There is something deeply backwards about a world in which you can cross a national border without handing over your identity, but may soon need to prove exactly who you are just to go online.

Walk into a country and, depending on where you are coming from, you may be waved through with little more than a passport check.

Open a website, however, and increasingly the message is becoming:

Prove who you are.

Upload your ID. Verify your age. Confirm your identity. Authenticate yourself. Hand over another piece of the digital version of your life.

Welcome to the new internet.

It is being sold as safety. As protection. As responsibility. As a way to keep children away from harmful content, stop criminals, tackle fraud and make the internet a more trustworthy place.

Those are all worthy goals.

But there is a question nobody should be allowed to dodge:

How much of your identity should you have to surrender simply to participate in public life online?

Because the internet isn't some niche entertainment platform anymore. It is where we work, learn, shop, communicate, organise, publish, protest, research, debate and increasingly access essential services.

It is infrastructure.

And we are quietly turning that infrastructure into an identity checkpoint.

The internet is becoming a border crossing

For decades, one of the defining characteristics of the internet was that you could participate without necessarily revealing your real-world identity.

You could read an article.

Browse a forum.

Ask a question.

Research a sensitive subject.

Talk to strangers.

Publish an opinion.

You might use a username. You might remain anonymous. You might reveal your identity when you wanted to.

That wasn't a bug.

For many people, anonymity is protection.

It protects whistleblowers. Victims of abuse. Political dissidents. People exploring their sexuality. People asking embarrassing medical questions. Employees speaking about their employers. Citizens criticising powerful institutions.

It also allows ordinary people to separate their public identity from every single thing they have ever searched, watched, read or said.

That separation is disappearing.

The emerging model is brutally simple:

Before you get access, prove who you are.

And once identity becomes the price of admission, anonymity stops being a normal feature of the internet and becomes a privilege.

But we're doing this in the name of safety

And this is where the debate gets difficult.

Nobody seriously believes the internet should be a lawless playground.

Children should be protected.

Fraud should be tackled.

Sexual exploitation should be aggressively pursued.

Criminal networks should not be able to hide behind technology.

The problem isn't the objective.

The problem is the assumption that the answer to every online problem is to make every ordinary person more identifiable.

That's a remarkably blunt instrument.

It's the digital equivalent of saying that because some people drive drunk, everyone should have to surrender their fingerprints before getting into a car.

Security matters.

But so does proportionality.

Your identity is not just another password

The defenders of mandatory digital identification often talk about ID verification as though it were a harmless administrative step.

It isn't.

A password can be changed.

A credit card can be cancelled.

Your identity cannot.

Once an organisation knows who you are, that information can potentially be linked to what you do.

What you read.

What you watch.

Where you go.

What you buy.

Who you communicate with.

What you believe.

What you search for.

Maybe that information is never misused.

Maybe it is securely stored forever.

Maybe every organisation involved is perfectly competent.

Maybe nobody ever gets hacked.

Maybe no future government decides that information should be used for a different purpose.

Maybe.

History is not particularly reassuring about the word "maybe".

The dangerous part isn't today's policy

The most important question isn't necessarily what a digital ID system does today.

It's what it makes possible tomorrow.

Infrastructure has a habit of expanding.

A system created to verify someone's age can eventually become a system used to verify someone's identity.

A system designed for pornography can be extended to social media.

A system introduced to protect children can become a prerequisite for accessing other categories of content.

A database created for one purpose can become extraordinarily attractive to institutions with entirely different purposes.

The phrase "mission creep" sounds boring.

Until it happens to you.

And then there's the chilling effect

Imagine knowing that your identity is attached to everything you read.

Would you research certain subjects?

Would you visit controversial websites?

Would you read political material you disagree with?

Would you ask a question about mental health, sexuality, religion or addiction?

Would you participate in a protest movement?

Would you criticise your employer?

Would you publish an unpopular opinion?

Perhaps you would.

But perhaps you'd hesitate.

And that hesitation matters.

Freedom doesn't disappear only when someone kicks down your door.

Sometimes it disappears because people become afraid to open it.

We should be building privacy-preserving systems, not identity traps

There is a huge difference between proving something about yourself and handing over your entire identity.

You should be able to prove that you are over 18 without necessarily revealing your name, address, date of birth, passport number and entire digital identity.

You should be able to establish eligibility without creating a permanent record of everywhere you used that eligibility.

Technology can do this.

Privacy-preserving credentials, cryptographic proofs and other forms of selective verification offer a fundamentally different model.

The choice isn't simply:

No regulation or everyone shows their ID.

That's a false choice.

We can protect children without building a universal identity checkpoint.

We can fight fraud without making anonymity impossible.

We can enforce the law without turning every citizen into a pre-emptively identifiable suspect.

We can make the internet safer without making it less free.

The irony is almost impossible to miss

You can walk into a country as a stranger.

You can sit in a public space without first proving your identity.

You can buy a newspaper without presenting a government credential.

You can enter a library without uploading your passport.

But increasingly, the internet—the place where much of modern public life now happens—is being redesigned around the assumption that you should identify yourself before participating.

Think about how strange that is.

The physical world has spent centuries developing concepts like privacy, anonymity and freedom of expression.

The digital world is now being told to forget them.

We should be asking a much harder question

Not:

"Can digital ID make the internet safer?"

Of course it can.

Almost any surveillance system can make something safer.

The harder question is:

"What kind of internet are we willing to build in exchange for that safety?"

An internet where identity is the default?

An internet where anonymous speech is treated as suspicious?

An internet where access to information depends on passing an identity check?

An internet where private companies become gatekeepers to your digital identity?

An internet where governments can gradually connect the dots between who you are and what you do online?

That isn't a minor technical adjustment.

It's a fundamental redesign of the relationship between citizens, technology and the state.

And we should be arguing about it like one.

Because once the infrastructure is built, removing it will be infinitely harder than objecting to it now.

So yes, protect children.

Yes, fight criminals.

Yes, tackle fraud.

But don't sleepwalk into a world where the price of using the internet is proving who you are.

You may not need a passport to enter the country.

But if we're not careful, you might need one to enter the internet.

THE BUS CONDUCTOR IN CHIEF DISCOVERS THE GREAT INJUSTICE OF FLYING — WHILE GOVERNMENT TAXES MAKE IT MORE EXPENSIVE.

2026-10-02T11:54:11.854+01:00

You really couldn’t make it up.

Andy Burnham wants airlines to let children under 14 sit beside their parents for free and stop charging passengers for simple booking changes. Fine. Nobody sensible thinks families should be fleeced by ridiculous add-on fees.

But apparently we’re supposed to applaud this as some grand act of consumer liberation while the government turns the screws on the cost of flying through higher Air Passenger Duty.

The Treasury’s own assessment of the tax increases factors in people taking fewer flights. So the government is increasing the tax burden while explicitly accounting for the prospect that people will fly less.

And then along comes the political class, ready to pose as the champion of the hard-pressed holidaymaker because it wants airlines to stop charging parents extra to sit next to their own children.

Congratulations. You’ve made the booking process slightly less infuriating while making the actual holiday more expensive. What a triumph of joined-up thinking.

It’s the political equivalent of setting fire to someone’s wallet and then demanding a round of applause for finding them a fire extinguisher.

And let’s not pretend the wider drive towards net zero has nothing to do with the direction of travel. Aviation is being pushed towards decarbonisation through measures including the Sustainable Aviation Fuel mandate, while Air Passenger Duty adds another cost to flying.

If ministers want people to fly less for environmental reasons, have the honesty to defend that policy openly.

If they want ordinary families to enjoy an affordable holiday, visit relatives abroad or take their children somewhere beyond a wet fortnight in Britain, explain why government policy keeps adding to the bill.

What we don’t need is another politician posing for the cameras over airline admin charges while the bigger question of affordability gets buried beneath the publicity.

A few pounds saved on a seat-selection fee do not magically cancel out higher taxes on the flight itself.

This is modern political theatre in a nutshell: make the big costs harder to ignore, then announce a small concession as if you’ve personally rescued the nation.

Burnham can demand fairer treatment for passengers. That’s a perfectly legitimate argument.

But spare us the self-congratulation.

You don’t make flying affordable by celebrating cheaper seat selection while the taxman takes a bigger bite out of the ticket. That isn’t consumer protection. It’s political window-dressing at 35,000 feet.

The Burnham Bounce - 30yr Gilts Hit 6% For First Time Since 1998

2026-10-01T12:48:35.204+01:00

Like it or not, you can't buck the market!

The Government's Little List

2026-09-30T12:35:47.076+01:00

Think you can criticise government policy online without anyone taking notice? Think again.

A disturbing new report suggests that social media posts criticising the Government’s Prevent policy have been actively monitored, logged and investigated by officials.

According to documents obtained by the Metro, nearly 80 critical posts from X and Reddit were recorded by the Standards and Compliance Unit (StaCU), the body responsible for overseeing Prevent, between March 2024 and February 2025.

And these weren't allegations of terrorism or criminal activity. Some were simply people expressing criticism of Prevent — including complaints about how the programme operates and claims that its training is biased.

That raises a fundamental question:

When did criticising government policy become something the government needed to keep tabs on?

There is an enormous difference between investigating a genuine threat and building a database of citizens who have publicly disagreed with a government programme.

People should be able to say that a policy is wrong. They should be able to call it ineffective, biased, misguided or even complete bullshit, without wondering whether their comment has been copied into an official file.

This isn't about whether Prevent should be above criticism. Quite the opposite.

A democratic government should expect scrutiny.

It should welcome challenge.

And it should be able to defend its policies in public without quietly keeping records of the people who object to them.

The Government may have legitimate reasons for monitoring publicly available information in some circumstances. But monitoring criticism itself is a very different proposition.

If officials are systematically collecting and investigating posts simply because they challenge government policy, the public deserves answers.

Who is being monitored? Why? What information is being recorded? How long is it kept? Who can access it? And what happens to the people whose names appear in these databases?

Those aren't unreasonable questions.

They're the questions a free society should be asking.

Because the right to disagree with the Government isn't a privilege handed out by officials.

It's part of what democracy is supposed to mean.

Black Labradors and Country Pubs Are Far Right

2026-09-29T12:18:22.585+01:00

According to some cretinous Labour MP Jenny Riddell-Carpenter, warm ale, country pubs and black labradors are far right!

Yet, the internet never forgets, here is a tweet of her being far right a few years ago.

Cretin!

2026-09-28T12:18:29.203+01:00

The name of this cretin is Stella Creasy, MP for Walthamstow.

The Archbishop's Grotesque Failure of Judgement

2026-09-18T12:18:23.734+01:00

You really couldn't make this up. On the 25th anniversary of 9/11, the Archbishop of Canterbury handed a prestigious Church of England award to a Muslim cleric whose past comments about Osama bin Laden were already a matter of public record. Then, when someone finally noticed, she took the award back.

This is not a minor PR embarrassment. It is an astonishing failure of judgement and due diligence at the very top of the Church of England.

Dame Sarah Mullally presented the Hubert Walter Award for Reconciliation and Interfaith Cooperation to Pakistani cleric Hafiz Muhammad Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi on 11 September — the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The award was supposedly recognition of his “outstanding work as an ambassador of interfaith harmony in Pakistan”.

There was just one rather significant problem.

In 2007, Ashrafi publicly said that Osama bin Laden should be given the Islamic title Saifullah — “Sword of God” — describing him in the context of fighting for Islam. The remarks were reported internationally at the time by Reuters and AFP.

So how on earth did the Church of England not know?

This was not some obscure comment whispered in a mosque 20 years ago and uncovered by an internet sleuth. The remarks were public, reported by major international news agencies and concerned one of the most notorious terrorists in modern history.

Yet somehow nobody at Lambeth Palace appears to have thought: perhaps we should Google the bloke before giving him an award.

That is not a minor administrative error.

It is a colossal failure of due diligence.

And the timing makes an already extraordinary decision almost surreal.

This wasn't an award presented on some forgotten Tuesday in February. It was presented on 11 September, the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, including 67 British citizens.

Of all the days in the calendar, this was the day the Church of England chose to celebrate a man whose past comments about bin Laden subsequently forced it to withdraw the honour.

The symbolism could hardly have been more glaring.

The Church of England then compounded the humiliation by initially defending the award. Lambeth Palace said it recognised Ashrafi's “longstanding support for religious minorities in Pakistan, particularly the Christian community” and stressed the importance of interfaith engagement.

Fine.

Interfaith engagement matters.

Supporting persecuted Christians matters.

But neither requires the Church of England to hand out honours without first checking the public record of the person receiving them.

The Palace eventually folded after the controversy erupted, saying that “previous comments” had come to light and confirming that the award had been withdrawn.

That raises the obvious question:

Why did those comments have to “come to light” after the award had been presented?

They were hardly buried.

The National Secular Society has described the episode as evidence of “appallingly poor judgement and inadequate due diligence”. That criticism goes to the heart of the matter.

And this is not simply about whether Ashrafi's 2007 remarks should ultimately be characterised as an endorsement of bin Laden. His representatives dispute that interpretation. The Church itself clearly decided that the remarks were sufficiently serious to withdraw the award.

So why weren't they considered before the award was given?

That is the failure for which Dame Sarah Mullally must answer.

An Archbishop of Canterbury is not some junior administrator who accidentally put the wrong name on a certificate. The Church of England describes the Archbishop as its most senior bishop and as the figure who leads the Church's vision and direction across much of England.

With that office comes responsibility.

And when an organisation gives a prestigious award to someone, it is not merely honouring the recipient. It is putting its own name and reputation behind that person.

The Church of England did precisely that.

Then, once the embarrassing facts became impossible to ignore, it took the award back.

That is not accountability. It is damage limitation.

The most charitable interpretation is that Lambeth Palace was spectacularly careless.

The less charitable interpretation is that it was so desperate to demonstrate its commitment to interfaith dialogue that it forgot the most basic rule of institutional responsibility: know who you are honouring.

Either way, the Archbishop has a problem.

The Church of England cannot demand trust from the public while displaying such extraordinary carelessness over one of its own honours.

And it cannot credibly preach responsibility, discernment and moral leadership while expecting everyone to forget that it had to discover the recipient's record after putting a medal in his hand.

Dame Sarah Mullally should therefore resign.

Not because every controversial judgement requires resignation. Not because interfaith dialogue is wrong. And not because a person's past remarks can never be understood in context.

She should resign because the buck has to stop somewhere.

The Archbishop presented the award. The award was made in her name. Her institution failed to conduct — or at least failed to act upon — the most basic due diligence. The controversy became public. Only then was the award withdrawn.

If the Archbishop is ultimately responsible for the Church's most senior decisions, she should be prepared to accept responsibility for this one.

The Church of England has spent years telling everyone else about accountability. It is time for the Archbishop of Canterbury to practise it.

Resign.

Bus Conductor in Chief and Nosferatu Plead Ignorance Over Labour’s Financial Shambles

2026-09-16T11:18:48.815+01:00

🚨NEW: Chancellor John Healey's team claims that he and Andy Burnham didn't realise how bad Britain's fiscal position was before they got inside the Treasury

[@FT]
— GB Politics (@GBPolitcs) September 15, 2026

Which party was running the country before them then?

Burnham and Healey are Fucking Useless!

2026-09-15T12:36:19.776+01:00

Even if they did not have Treasury briefings before taking on their roles, they surely would have been aware of what the markets and finance professionals have been saying about the UK economy!

Or did they simply ignore the warnings?

Tourist Tax: Another Rip-Off That Will Drive Visitors Away

2026-09-14T15:13:39.508+01:00

Ministers call it a 5% levy. Tourists will see it as yet another tax on an already sky-high hotel bill — and the Treasury will even take VAT on the tax.

Britain has a tourism problem.

So naturally, the Government's answer is to make holidays more expensive.

Ministers want to hand local mayors the power to impose a new tax on overnight stays — dressed up in the soothing language of an “Overnight Visitor Levy”.

Don't be fooled by the jargon.

It is a tourist tax.

And the consequences could be disastrous for the very towns and cities it is supposed to help.

The great 5% con

We're told the charge could be around 5%.

Five per cent.

Sounds harmless, doesn't it?

It isn't.

Take a hotel room costing £100 before VAT.

Add a 5% tourist tax and the bill becomes £105.

Then comes the sting.

VAT is charged on the higher amount.

At Britain's standard 20% VAT rate, that means £21 VAT rather than £20.

The visitor therefore pays £126 instead of £120.

That's a 6% increase, not 5%.

So the Government takes a tax.

Then it takes VAT on the tax.

Tax on tax.

And somehow this is supposed to make Britain's tourism industry more competitive.

You couldn't make it up.

Britain's hotels are already taxed heavily

Here's the real scandal.

Britain already charges 20% VAT on hotel accommodation.

Across Europe, many countries recognise that tourism is highly price-sensitive and apply reduced VAT rates to hotels and accommodation.

Britain doesn't.

So a hotel in Britain can already face a 20% VAT burden while a rival hotel elsewhere in Europe may operate with a much lower rate.

Now politicians want to pile another percentage charge on top.

What happens next?

The hotel room gets more expensive.

The visitor thinks twice.

And the money that doesn't get spent in Britain gets spent somewhere else.

The tourist doesn't just buy a hotel room

This is where the Government's thinking falls apart.

A tourist isn't a walking hotel bill.

They spend money everywhere.

Breakfast in the café.

Lunch in the pub.

Dinner in the restaurant.

A taxi to the theatre.

A ticket to the attraction.

A few drinks.

A bit of shopping.

Maybe another night in the hotel.

That spending supports thousands of local businesses.

So when you make the hotel room more expensive, you aren't simply taxing hotels.

You're putting a tax on the entire visitor economy.

And visitors have choices.

If Britain becomes too expensive, they'll go elsewhere.

If one British town adds a 5% levy and the town down the road doesn't, why wouldn't the visitor compare prices?

Mayors get a new tax lever

And here's another nasty little detail.

There is no national cap on the proposed levy.

The Government may talk about 5%, but today's 5% could become tomorrow's 6%, 7% or more.

Once councils and mayors become dependent on the money, do we really believe they will voluntarily give it up?

Of course not.

A new tax has a remarkable habit of becoming a permanent tax.

And once the spending commitments are made, removing it becomes politically almost impossible.

“But other countries have tourist taxes!”

Yes.

And many of them have something Britain doesn't:

much lower VAT rates on hotels.

This is the bit supporters of a British tourist tax conveniently leave out.

You cannot compare one tax in isolation.

You have to compare the total price paid by the visitor.

A country can charge a tourist tax and still offer cheaper accommodation because its underlying VAT rate is lower.

Britain already starts with a 20% VAT rate.

Adding another tax and then charging VAT on that tax is hardly a recipe for attracting international visitors.

Who pays?

The Government will say the levy is paid by visitors.

But businesses know better.

The cost will either be passed on to customers or absorbed by hotels and guest houses.

If it is passed on, the room becomes more expensive.

If it is absorbed, margins get squeezed.

Either way, someone pays.

And when margins are already under pressure from wages, energy, food, insurance, business rates and other costs, telling hospitality businesses to absorb another hit is simply unrealistic.

The great economic irony

The Government says the money will be used to support local economies.

But what if the tax damages those economies?

What if visitors stay one night instead of two?

What if they choose a different town?

What if a family decides to holiday abroad instead?

What if a conference organiser chooses a cheaper destination?

What if a restaurant loses the customers who never made the trip?

The Treasury may collect a few pounds from every taxed room.

But the local economy could lose hundreds of pounds in spending that never happens.

You cannot tax your way to prosperity.

There is a much simpler answer

Want more money flowing into local economies?

Get more visitors.

Want more visitors?

Make Britain competitive.

Want Britain to be competitive?

Stop piling taxes onto the cost of visiting.

A lower rate of VAT on accommodation and hospitality would be a far more sensible starting point.

It would allow businesses to cut prices, improve facilities, invest and employ more people.

It would encourage visitors to stay longer.

And longer stays mean more spending across the local economy.

That is how you grow tourism.

Not by putting a “5%” sign on the hotel bill and pretending it doesn't matter.

Don't kill the goose that lays the golden egg

Britain's tourism industry is an enormous economic asset.

Hotels, guest houses, restaurants, pubs, attractions, theatres, shops, taxi firms and countless other businesses depend on visitors.

They don't need politicians to find another way of taking money from their customers.

They need politicians to get out of the way and let t

Advice To The Bus Conductor in Chief

2026-09-09T12:38:50.937+01:00

Without effective national security, you won't have social security!

Moronic Powell Posts Moronic Tweet

2026-09-08T16:05:21.813+01:00

The Education Secretary’s latest tweet is pure sloganeering dressed up as wisdom.

Lucy Powell, the UK Education Secretary, posted the other day: “I think education should be about what you can do, and not what you can’t do.” It was tied to her Observer piece pushing reforms that soften the focus on exams, expand practical elements in GCSEs, and shift away from what she and allies call a “one-size-fits-all straitjacket” or “exam factory.”

It sounds warm and inclusive. It is also utterly moronic as a guiding principle for education policy.

Education has always been about both. You cannot meaningfully expand what someone can do without rigorously identifying, confronting, and closing the gaps in what they cannot do yet. Reading, writing, arithmetic, scientific knowledge, historical understanding, and the ability to construct a coherent argument are not optional extras or elitist impositions. They are the foundations that make genuine agency possible. Pretending otherwise is how you get systems that celebrate “potential” while leaving large numbers of children unable to access proper further study, skilled work, or independent adult life.

The soft framing,“what you can do, not what you can’t”, is a classic progressive rhetorical move. It reframes high standards and honest assessment as negativity or exclusion. In practice it risks lowering the bar so that fewer people feel like failures, rather than equipping more people to clear a high bar. Countries and systems that actually deliver strong outcomes for broad groups of pupils do not pretend knowledge and skills are in conflict, or that rigorous testing is the enemy of talent. They insist on mastery of core knowledge and practical application. England’s relative strength in international comparisons did not appear by accident; it came from a sustained (if imperfect) push toward knowledge-rich curricula and higher expectations after years of drift.

Powell’s version risks the opposite: diluting academic content in the name of “relevance,” “belonging,” and “pathways for all,” while talking up vocational routes as if they magically solve the problem of weak foundational skills. Vocational and technical education is valuable. It is not a substitute for literacy, numeracy, and disciplined thinking. Students who leave school without those basics are not liberated by “what they can do”; they are constrained by what they still cannot.

A serious education secretary would say: we will relentlessly raise what every child can do by refusing to lower expectations about what they must master. That means honest diagnosis of weaknesses, high-quality teaching of the knowledge that unlocks everything else, and assessments that measure real competence rather than participation. Feel-good tweets that treat standards as the problem are not bold vision. They are an abdication of the hard part of the job.

Children do not need more slogans about potential. They need adults in charge who understand that the point of school is to close the gap between what is and what could be—through knowledge, practice, and accountability, not by redefining success downward.

The Army’s New Training Regime: Staring Sternly at Russia While Polishing the Barracks Floor

2026-09-04T12:22:12.901+01:00

In a bold display of strategic genius, the British Army has been ordered to pause “non-essential” training exercises to save a bit of cash. Live-fire drills, tank manoeuvres with Challenger 2s, exercises involving Apache helicopters—all the messy, noisy stuff that actually prepares soldiers for fighting—can largely wait. Units not immediately heading overseas or on standby get to sit tight. The pause is expected to last most of the year. Priority, we’re told, goes to the truly essential: lessons from Ukraine on drones and modernisation. Everything else is a “nice to have.”

This arrives at roughly the same moment the government continues to warn about the threat from Russia. The Kremlin has issued its usual dark mutterings about British targets. Defence chiefs have long flagged the need for readiness against a peer adversary. Yet the response is to mothball large-scale collective training for the Army’s main fighting formations so the books balance a little better this financial year. One source called it “absolutely devastating.” Former senior officers have used stronger language: short-sighted, scandalous, a national dereliction.

Picture the scene. Somewhere in Whitehall a spreadsheet is looking healthier by a reported £30 million or so. Meanwhile, the Iron Division—the unit you’d actually want if things got serious with Moscow—practises the ancient martial art of remaining in camp. Soldiers can still do individual skills, desktop exercises, and selected modernisation work. Just not the expensive business of operating together at scale with live ammunition and heavy metal. Nothing says “we are taking the Russian threat seriously” quite like cancelling the war games.

The official line is prioritisation and efficiency. Training informed by Ukraine continues. Deploying units keep training. The rest can wait until the money situation improves. It is the administrative equivalent of telling the fire brigade that, due to budgetary pressures, they should only practise with the hose when a building is already on fire. In the meantime, polish the engines and read the manual again.

This is not abstract. Armies that do not train collectively lose the ability to fight collectively. Crews get rusty. Commanders stop rehearsing the hard, chaotic parts. Muscle memory fades. When the government simultaneously talks up the threat and trims the preparation, the gap between rhetoric and reality becomes the real story. Russia does not pause its exercises because fuel or ammunition is pricey this quarter. It does not rebrand large-scale training as optional extras.

The political context makes it richer. The government is inching defence spending upward but faces relentless pressure to go further and faster toward 3 per cent. Past rows over the Defence Investment Plan, resignations, and warnings from the Chief of the Defence Staff about dialling back activity if day-to-day funding stays tight all form the backdrop. Cutting training now is the predictable result of treating readiness as a residual after other priorities have been met.

One can almost admire the consistency. If the threat is real, the training should be non-negotiable. If the training is negotiable, perhaps the threat rhetoric should be dialled down to match. Doing both at once—warning of danger while quietly parking the tanks—invites exactly the ridicule it is receiving. Soldiers did not join up to sit in camp for six or seven months practising frugality. Taxpayers did not fund an army so it could discover innovative ways to avoid using the training areas.

In the end, the decision is a masterclass in short-term accounting dressed up as prioritisation. Save the money this year. Hope the threat remains theoretical. And if it does not, explain later that the exercises were only “nice to have.” History is littered with armies that discovered, too late, that readiness is not a luxury item you can switch on when the invoice arrives. Britain appears determined to test the theory again, one cancelled live-fire exercise at a time.

Healey U Turns on Defence Spending

2026-08-28T11:47:32.325+01:00

Healey has u turned on his 3% defence spending pledge (made when he resigned as Defence Secretary under Starmer).

It is clear that resignation was done to bring down Starmer, in exchange for being given the role of Chancellor.

Healey's spineless u turn whilst certainly not benefitting the country, may also not benefit him. There is a possibility that Burnham calls a general election before the Budget. In the event Labour win, Burnham will sack Healey and put Miliband in the role.

Little shitweasel!

Home Orifice Wankers Fear The English Flag

2026-08-26T12:59:18.369+01:00

It seems that staff at the Home Orifice are afraid of the English flag.

Such is their fear, that the wankers running the Home Orifice have offered them 11 different mental health support services to help them cope with their fears.

Useless, pathetic wankers!