Background Rather like its contents, the government's Energy Security Strategy has an overarching theme of "better late than never" and contains a number of positives around the development and implementation of measures to mitigate against reliance on imported energy, whilst maintaining the nirvana of Net Zero by 2050. There are some bold commitme...
Outputs from Spring Statement In advance of the promised reveal of the government's energy plan this week, let's start with the positives from Rishi Sunak's Spring Statement. 5 whole years of VAT free purchases on solar panels, ground and air source heat pumps. Not in Northern Ireland of course but they seem to matter less than ever to the Conserva...
A few weeks ago, I saw a sign stuck to the plastic screen dividing me from a barista. To précis, electronic payment preferred, cash as a last resort. When I politely enquired as to why, I was told, albeit politely, that whilst it was not "due to COVID" (no sensible business is still using that schtick are they?) despite the transaction cost, it was...
United Kingdom rates of personal taxation are at their highest in over 70 years. They are set to increase further. Whether or not governments spend the money they raise wisely? That's another piece for another day but my overarching view is that individuals make better spending choices than "the state". This article examines the ways in which the T...
BackgroundIn one of the most egregious examples of the nefarious practice of fire and rehire, P&O Ferries sacked 800 workers via Zoom this week, without notice, attempting to replace them with agency workers on much lower pay and worse terms and conditions. By using security guards to escort hardworking employees forcibly and inhumanely off the...
Amidst the economic, political and humanitarian carnage this week, International Women's Day came and went. It was pointed out to me by a digital sage that Margaret Thatcher (latterly Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven), the first woman ever to become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is "never" (at least not to our mutual recollection), spoken of in...
The impact of loose monetary policy long after the financial crash reverberations had largely ended and repeated after the worst of the pandemic (creating the worst economic contraction for 300 years) had passed, is now taking its toll on inflation and interest rates. February saw a rash of economic metrics that when consolidated alongside other re...
Policy Paper Executive Summary Background The government claims to be pursuing a "Net Zero" CO2 policy; The UK produces just over half of its own energy, importing the reminder, which merely displaces where CO2 is produced and in fact increases it through importation. Current policy The UK government is facing a crisis of confidence in i...
The USA is bust. Not officially of course and as Francis Underwood (I know, it was Urquhart first but humour me) would say, "You could say that; I couldn't possibly comment". With Federal Government debt in excess of $30Trillion and debt servicing alone of almost $600Bn per annum, the country is ill prepared in every conceivable way for a protracte...
Millions of column inches have been filled with Partygate. When government imposes draconian measures on your civil liberties through legislation and then ignores them themselves, this is understandable and in the public interest, so more than "fair game". I have noticed however that Labour sleaze gets rather less attention. With Rachel Reeves and ...
Recently, I tweeted as below. It is not exhaustive, this is Twitter after all but it serves as a useful starting point for a piece I did not think needed to be written, such has been my own "compliance" in the con. Canada has full despotism. New Zealand is descending further into tyranny. Germany has been muzzled by Putin’s gas yet suppresses its o...
The campaign for a referendum on Net Zero appears to be gathering pace, with Nigel Farage openly discussing its evolution on his nightly GB News programme this week. Accepting the premise of global warming and the need to avoid the Earth's temperature overheating has become a settled issue for many but not all. Ground source heat pumps, electric ca...
With Westminster politics now on shutdown until 21st February, we can finally draw breath and reflect on the rise of Keir Starmer's standing as a future Prime Minister, not least in opinion polls when benchmarked against Boris Johnson. Starmer is enjoying a sustained period of Labour leading the Tories in the opinion polls, since their self inflict...
Sajid Javid's decision to pull back from forcing frontline NHS staff to be vaccinated or leave their jobs is a victory for the Workers of England Union, NHS100 and belatedly common sense. It is mendacious to claim that the evidence before the Health Secretary on COVID-19 is materially different to what was known in December 2021. Angelique Coetzee,...
Instinctively, I am sceptical about public inquiries and the like. Having lived long enough to see successive governments use inquiries as a means to avoid difficult questions "in the moment" and then avoid the same difficult questions when the findings of the inquiry are reported as "it is all in the report and we will learn the lessons from it", ...
Whilst Plan B restrictions are now lifted in England, the Coronavirus Act, which grants the government sweeping draconian emergency powers, inter alia lockdowns, vaccine passports, work from home orders and mask mandates remains live legislation until 25th March 2022 when it is due to be renewed or it will expire. The government could termina...
Big Tech, so long the natural bedfellow of Planet Woke may just be starting to see the impact of its commitment "to the cause" through a, let's be generous, "correction" in their stock market capitalisation (numbers of shares in issue x cost per share). The mighty Apple, the nerve centre of Silicon Valley wokeism became the first company in history...
It has been a week of melodrama in the latest instalment of the soap opera that is the Conservative & Unionist Party. Talk of a "pork pie plot", so called as the Rutland & Melton MP, Alicia Kearns, one member of the 2019 new intake of Conservative MPs was allegedly pivotal in it, was seized on by the mainstream media whose appetite for the ...
The cult of Wokeism, like Japanese knotweed is growing relentlessly and without radical surgery will consume all before it. The Marxist, identitarian left, unable to win at the ballot box, has instead hijacked British institutions with devastating results. The culture wars are real but largely only one side is fighting. Social conservatives must fi...
After over 28,500 migrants were officially processed after crossing the English Channel in 2021, evidencing the porous nature of our border protection against potential terrorists, it emerged in the run up to New Year that there is active consideration of parole for 92 actual terrorists. I have an alternative. How about letting them serve their ful...
DFor libertarians, it has been another alarming week as the political class continues to use emergency measures to control their populations and the COVID-19 narrative. In France, (absolutely not because there is a presidential race in April), Emmanuel Macron has admitted he wants to "piss off" his country's 5M unvaccinated, exacerbating the divide...
As relentless as Boris Johnson's demise, the boundaries of the ridiculousness of Wokeism continue to be pushed. At Durham University, the Chancellor faced calls to resign or be sacked by a tiny minority of students for allowing Rod Liddle a platform, despite him receiving a standing ovation for his speech, which leant substantially towards inclusiv...
Parliament is now in recess until the New Year. Unless of course the Prime Minister decides to impose further restrictions on the English population's civil liberties. Having already moved to (so called) Plan B COVID-19 restrictions, rumours abound at the time of writing that plans for a 2 week circuit breaker lockdown are well advanced. It has bee...
Well that escalated quickly. I have felt for a long time and said for a while that the Conservative & Unionist Party is now misnomered. Even I am staggered by the depths now being plumbed. The globalist, green, high tax, high spend, manifesto breaking agenda is not conservatism. It is now a CONINO party (Conservative in Name Only). Jeremy Corby...
With 5 months to go until France goes to the polls to elect their next president, the stalking horses have begun to fall, leaving behind 3 main challengers (including 2 women) to Emmanuel Macron: Marine Le Pen, Valérie Pecrésse and following unprecedented polling prior to confirming his candidacy, Éric Zemmour. Whilst all representing differen...
After a lengthy period of mediocrity (even to the point of substantial anonymity away from London) since winning the leadership of the Labour Party, Sir Keir Starmer's fortunes have taken a substantial upturn since the Owen Paterson debacle. Whilst Starmer with his forensic, albeit leaden footed questioning at PMQs has from time to time landed a bl...
As the sclerosis of wokeism spreads globally ever further and wider, let's take a whistle stop tour of some of the latest ridiculousness served up on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. US Democrats hate their own country, UK left follows The left of the American Democratic Party hates its own country. Where once it directed its ire at Donald Trump, ...
How many times have you been told, thought, heard or said "you can't say that"? As a minimum, with every passing month it will happen more and more to many of us. Comedians and authors are increasingly self censoring for fear of "offending" their audience. When did we lose the right to be offended? We rail against politicians not giving a straight ...
The very concept of the United Kingdom of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is multinational. As with any "coalition", there are tensions between states, not least due to historical disagreements but fundamentally the commonality of historic Anglo-Saxon Judeo-Christian values has made for a tolerant, inclusive nation. The United Kingdom...
