In their opening remarks the PM and the Leader of the Opposition both paid tribute to Lord Tebbit who died on Monday.
Mrs Badenoch said Tebbit had ‘helped to save our country from the chaos of the 1970s.’ She said that Sir Keir was ‘dragging us back’ to that era, what with ‘doctors’ strikes; tax bombshells; the wealthy leaving in droves.’
Kemi’s questions still need sharpening. When she said ‘In its manifesto last year, Labour promised not to increase income tax, not to increase national insurance and not to increase VAT. Does the Prime Minister still stand by his promises?’ Starmer simply replied ‘yes.’ Readers can work out for themselves the weaselly angles in that answer; not for nothing does the Mail’s Littlejohn call him “a complete and utter lawyer.”
Similarly Badenoch said unemployment has risen every month in the last year and Starmer said 384,000 jobs have been created. It is possible for both statements to be true; what has been clarified?
The PM spoke of ‘£120 billion of inward investment' into the UK but it is hard to find a breakdown of that figure. Is it investment that will provide a profit for us? For example, the US giant Blackrock has reportedly bought £1.4 billion-worth of UK houses - cui bono? As Harold Macmillan said in 1985, criticising the Conservatives’ privatization strategy: 'First of all the Georgian silver goes, and then all that nice furniture that used to be in the saloon. Then the Canalettos go.'
Starmer goes further, in the case of Chagos - he gives away the asset and then pays heavily for its use. On the strength of that Mauritius is cancelling its national debt and exempting 80 per cent of its employed from income tax. If he could do that here we’d all vote for him.
Instead there is talk of a wealth tax on the rich as mooted by Neil Kinnock and former Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford. The PM refused to be drawn on this, either by Badenoch or the Greens’ Adrian Ramsay. Qui tacet consentire videtur. Let’s see where a Denis Healey-like “squeeze” gets us. Will it apply to “property speculators” Blackrock?
It is not clear that the PM can distinguish between investment and charitable spending. He said the employers’ National Insurance increase was an “investment that […] went into the NHS.” Naturally we want the sick, injured and disabled to be supported, but how much of that yields a profit in the form of a return to taxable work?
Another difficult area is Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND), especially in the case of children. The PM said Labour had “invested an additional £1 billion in SEND.” Your correspondent has worked in SEND for years and the interventions are hugely expensive. Primary age children excluded from mainstream can be helped and then it often blows up when they progress to secondary schools where tolerance is limited because teachers have pressing goals to attain.
These causes are worthwhile but we have to be able to afford them. The country cannot get back on track if it continues to add foreign claimants on a massive scale. It may swell GDP but at what point will inward migration actually pay for itself? Astonishingly, Starmer asserted that “migration [is] coming down”; there must be some exceptionally subtle way to justify that. When Nigel Farage aired the issue he could scarcely be heard for barracking; his Reform colleague Lee Anderson raised this as a Point Of Order and the Speaker blandly replied that Farage “is capable of dealing with his own battles.”
The PM himself had said Reform had no reason to complain about immigration as they had voted against his Borders Bill - without revealing one of the devils in the detail: it “abolishes the Home Secretary’s power to remove asylum seekers to so-called “safe third countries.” That link refers to the possible legal objection of “refoulement” but it must be remembered that a sovereign UK Parliament can do anything it wants, provided the Bill’s wording is clear and explicit, notwithstanding any other law anywhere.
One way to save money is on justice for the wronged. Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru) told how a constituent who had been exonerated at retrial after five years’ imprisonment could not get compensation “due to a 2014 change to the law that requires those who have been wrongfully imprisoned to prove their innocence beyond all reasonable doubt. That is an almost impossible hurdle to overcome.” Sir Keir said he had “undertaken to look at it,” which is almost a non-promise.
The PMQs session segued into a further sinister development, the creeping plan to do away with jury trials. The Justice Minister Sarah Sackman told Robert Jenrick (Con) that in the interests of swift justice jury trials “will remain in place for the most serious cases.” We hear a progressive cutting-away coming, as with King Lear’s retinue.
Peter Hitchens is quite right to warn us as he does today. Having served on a jury your correspondent can confirm how important it is to weigh the evidence and arguments of witnesses, police and court officials in the minds of the jurors who are given the greatest responsibility and a derisory allowance for their time.
The Minister quotes Clause 40 of Magna Carta as saying “To no one will we…delay right or justice” but the debate needs to centre on Clause 39:
“No free man is to be arrested, or imprisoned, or disseised, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any other way ruined, nor will we go against him or send against him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.”
This does not specify a jury trial though in custom and practice that is what it has long been taken to imply. Once juries are largely done away with the system can drift towards bureaucratic efficiency - impatience in a gown.
If there is a court backlog perhaps it is because crime has proliferated owing to lax policies regarding policing and reluctance to prosecute, and sentencing that seems set to offer up to an 80 percent reduction in time actually served.
Evil grows out of anarchy, not out of just, prompt and firm rule. Have we not seen this with grooming gangs? And then when society feels itself under threat will come tyranny.
Long live Magna Carta.
Sunday, July 13, 2025
Friday, July 11, 2025
FRIDAY MUSIC: Billy Strings, by JD
Billy Strings is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, and bluegrass musician. In fact he is more than just Bluegrass, he started out playing 'heavy metal' and his current stage performances will also include a couple of Beatles songs. He has released four studio albums, with his album Home winning the Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album in 2021, an award he won again in 2025 for Live Vol. 1.
At just 32, Strings is the first acoustic bluegrass artist in a generation—22 years, to be exact—to land a record at No. 1 on the Billboard Top 100 Album chart: his burning 2024 LP, Highway Prayers. (The last to do it was the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, back in 2002.)
Strings’ success is surely a testament to his extraordinary guitar playing, his convincing vocal delivery and harmony-rich arrangements, and his high-energy performance style. But it’s equally rooted in his earthy, hooky songs, which transpose the world-weary yet whimsical and often homesick themes of classic bluegrass into distinctly modern contexts: hard drug addiction; the slow ruin of alcoholism; battles with negative self-talk. It’s why so many fans—some call themselves “Billy Goats”—refer to his music as their “daily bread.”
And the Strings phenomenon goes far beyond Nashville. His spring tour found him headlining arenas across the States and alongside Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan at the Outlaw Festival. Strings has also taken his post-psychedelic bluegrass gospel to sold-out crowds across Europe and is currently (July 2025) on tour in Australia.
https://acousticguitar.com/interview-billy-strings-electrifying-bluegrass/
https://www.billystrings.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Strings
Don't Think Twice - Billy Strings
At just 32, Strings is the first acoustic bluegrass artist in a generation—22 years, to be exact—to land a record at No. 1 on the Billboard Top 100 Album chart: his burning 2024 LP, Highway Prayers. (The last to do it was the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, back in 2002.)
Strings’ success is surely a testament to his extraordinary guitar playing, his convincing vocal delivery and harmony-rich arrangements, and his high-energy performance style. But it’s equally rooted in his earthy, hooky songs, which transpose the world-weary yet whimsical and often homesick themes of classic bluegrass into distinctly modern contexts: hard drug addiction; the slow ruin of alcoholism; battles with negative self-talk. It’s why so many fans—some call themselves “Billy Goats”—refer to his music as their “daily bread.”
And the Strings phenomenon goes far beyond Nashville. His spring tour found him headlining arenas across the States and alongside Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan at the Outlaw Festival. Strings has also taken his post-psychedelic bluegrass gospel to sold-out crowds across Europe and is currently (July 2025) on tour in Australia.
https://acousticguitar.com/interview-billy-strings-electrifying-bluegrass/
https://www.billystrings.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Strings
Don't Think Twice - Billy Strings
Billy Strings - While I'm Waiting Here | Live from the Mishawaka Amphitheatre
Billy Strings - Ramblin' Man | Allman Brothers Band Cover | St. Augustine, FL | 4-19-2024
Billy Strings - In The Morning Light (Official Video)
Billy Strings "Turmoil and Tinfoil"
Billy Strings - Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (Gordon Lightfoot Cover) Cary NC 4-19-2025
Saturday, July 05, 2025
Take It Back - PMQs 2nd July 2025
‘I heard you want your country back - f*ck that’, sang ‘Bob Vylan’ at Glastonbury.
He may be right. The easily-led middle-class crowd that cheered him don’t seem fit to take charge. Maybe it’s to do with how digital communication is shortening attention span. That affects the ability to think.
But not to doublethink.
The pop-goers joined in with Pascal’s slogan ‘deff, deff to the IDF’ since Hamas is running a PR campaign representing civilian collateral damage in Gaza as ‘genocide.’ Yet here in the UK Parliament is exposing the unborn, the old and the sick to deliberate, personally-targeted death. Where is the chanting against that?
The double standards also apply to influencers. Entertainers like Vylan and Kneecap will almost certainly not be jailed while despite American concerns Lucy Connolly may not be freed. Standup comedian Nicolas de Santo quotes an Italian saying: ‘The law is applied to one’s enemies and interpreted for one’s friends.’
Now let’s pass from the mosh pit to the bosh pit…
PMQs opened with Labourites cheering for the Prime Minister, whose welfare reform bill passed yesterday after numerous concessions to his rebels. Starmer’s many recent climbdowns and U-turns begin to resemble a sailor’s dance.
The first question, an invitation to Starmer to celebrate his Government’s achievements against child poverty, earned Paul Waugh (Lab) the Opposition leader’s award of ‘toady of the week’ to much laughter.
Sir Keir and Kemi then exchanged views on his failure to rein in benefit costs and the Conservatives’ past record. The anticipated consequences of the Bill’s weakening were not only economic but political. Kemi said Reeves was ‘a human shield’ for his incompetence - the French might say his ‘fuse’ as she next asked whether Reeves ‘would be in post until the next election.’
The Chancellor, already looking miserable, wept as the PM dodged the question and the newspapers noted how the pound fell in response to Reeves’ distress. One might have expected the markets to soar at the prospect of a new tenant at Number Eleven; perhaps they prefer even a sure-fire slump to uncertainty.
The Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey pointed out the unfairness of the revised Bill’s approach to Personal Independence Payments, whereby existing claimants could continue as before but new ones might not qualify. The PM prevaricated, using the ongoing Timms review of PIP as his excuse.
Later, Adrian Ramsay (Green) asked whether Starmer would consider scrapping the two-child benefit cap and the cuts to universal credit for the ill and disabled. The PM countered with the Greens’ unfunded £80 billion General Election tax commitment and, despite their advocacy of ‘change and clean power’, their consistent opposition to infrastructure projects.
Also Victoria Collins (Lib Dem) mentioned a constituent who was ‘set to lose the PIP that they rely on for work’ and had lost a carer through this uncertainty. Starmer referred once again to the Timms review and generalised about reform.
Davey followed up with the issue of the proposed ‘Hillsborough law’ that would impose ‘a legal duty of candour, and for the secondary duty needed to make it practical and effective for investigations and inquiries.’ He said that victims of numerous public scandals feared the law would be watered down. Labour’s Kim Johnson, next on, echoed that concern and said her Party colleague Ian Byrne MP would seek to introduce ‘the real Hillsborough law’ after PMQs. Would the PM back it?
Starmer replied to both questioners that he would support the candour requirement but needed time to ‘get it right.’ Readers may reflect on the implications for the future national ‘grooming gangs’ enquiry, which must also be on the PM’s mind.
Olivia Bailey (Labour) noted the Government’s £15 billion investment in the Atomic Weapons Establishment and its prospects for employment and ‘national security.’ A propos that last, Robert Jenrick MP has said on Twitter/X (June 26) that in 2001 Starmer defended pro bono a woman who had broken into UK/US air bases 500 times. Had Starmer won that case it might have set a precedent giving a legal defence to the Palestine Action actvists who caused sigificant damage to planes at RAF Brize Norton.
Since, allegedly, Starmer took no fee then contrary to Downing Street’s assertion he was not obliged to take the case as per the Bar Standard Board’s ‘cab rank rule’; Jenrick has written to the PM to demand he corrects the record.
Does this voluntary assistance show that Starmer is anti-British, asks the 'Black Belt Barrister.’ Does the Ship of State have a destructive shipworm gnawing at its keel?
Another odd aspect of the Brize Norton break-in is that according to former diplomat Craig Murray the vandalised Voyager refuelling aircraft are owned not by the RAF but by a hedge fund using ‘a chain of seven cutout companies.’ Murray goes on to say ‘it is plain that the private companies are also providing the RAF ground crew.’ What?
In his reply to the SNP’s Stephen Flynn asking whether the public should believe Starmer’s promise to ‘end the chaos’ the PM berated the SNP’s record on health and said (for the third time today) that his Government had delivered four million extra NHS appointments. Full Fact offers a more nuanced analysis and comparison with recent years under the Conservatives.
Steff Aquarone (Lib Dem) asked about the threat of closure to a convalescence facility in Cromer. The PM gave a vanilla answer about reform to and investment in the sector generally.
Farms, the family farm tax (FFT), solar and nuclear energy
The Conservatives’ Harriet Cross asked for a U-turn on the FFT and received another generalised reply about the Budget’s funding for farming and the ‘road map’ without touching on the eco policy complexities.
Btw one farm unlikely to be ruined by Labour’s inheritance taxes is Worthy Farm which has hosted Glasto since 1970. Sadly not all farmers can have such opportunities and exploit them.
Cross’ Party colleague Dame Karen Bradley was concerned about the conversion of good agricultural land for solar farms and battery storage facilities. The PM attempted to argue for both and that renewables would reduce consumers’ energy bills.
Charlotte Nichols (Lab) welcomed the Government’s industrial strategy and asked how it would support the nuclear sector. Starmer promised a ‘golden age’ of nuclear including Sizewell C and small modular reactors. We have to hope it will come about.
David Taylor (Labour) welcomed the Government’s commitment to build more houses. His constituency of Hemel Hempstead was looking at a Garden Communities scheme for 11,000 new homes. The PM said Labour was supporting 47 locally-led garden communities (it seems Green Belt land cannot escape the consequences.)
Shadow Foreign Secretary Priti Patel asked an Urgent Question on ‘ratification of the UK-Mauritius treaty on the future sovereignty of the British Indian Ocean Territory.’
FCO Minister Stephen Doughty said the deal has secured the base on Diego Garcia ‘well into the next century’, glossing over the fact that the ICJ’s ‘world court’ ruling is merel advisory and not binding on the UK and so the expensive concession was not necessary.
Was this another nibble of the shipworm?
Doughty attempted to act long-suffering (‘disappointed by the tone’) about the many questions Dame Priti has previously submitted on the subject. He said primary legislation would be brought forward in due course.
However Dame Priti noted that ‘Labour has breached the parliamentary conventions and denied the House a meaningful debate and vote on ratification’ as per the CRaG (Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010) process for ratifing treaties.
Doughty leaves us with yet another impression of the condescending arrogance of power.
We want our country back.
He may be right. The easily-led middle-class crowd that cheered him don’t seem fit to take charge. Maybe it’s to do with how digital communication is shortening attention span. That affects the ability to think.
But not to doublethink.
The pop-goers joined in with Pascal’s slogan ‘deff, deff to the IDF’ since Hamas is running a PR campaign representing civilian collateral damage in Gaza as ‘genocide.’ Yet here in the UK Parliament is exposing the unborn, the old and the sick to deliberate, personally-targeted death. Where is the chanting against that?
The double standards also apply to influencers. Entertainers like Vylan and Kneecap will almost certainly not be jailed while despite American concerns Lucy Connolly may not be freed. Standup comedian Nicolas de Santo quotes an Italian saying: ‘The law is applied to one’s enemies and interpreted for one’s friends.’
Now let’s pass from the mosh pit to the bosh pit…
PMQs opened with Labourites cheering for the Prime Minister, whose welfare reform bill passed yesterday after numerous concessions to his rebels. Starmer’s many recent climbdowns and U-turns begin to resemble a sailor’s dance.
The first question, an invitation to Starmer to celebrate his Government’s achievements against child poverty, earned Paul Waugh (Lab) the Opposition leader’s award of ‘toady of the week’ to much laughter.
- Welfare reform and the Chancellor’s future
Sir Keir and Kemi then exchanged views on his failure to rein in benefit costs and the Conservatives’ past record. The anticipated consequences of the Bill’s weakening were not only economic but political. Kemi said Reeves was ‘a human shield’ for his incompetence - the French might say his ‘fuse’ as she next asked whether Reeves ‘would be in post until the next election.’
The Chancellor, already looking miserable, wept as the PM dodged the question and the newspapers noted how the pound fell in response to Reeves’ distress. One might have expected the markets to soar at the prospect of a new tenant at Number Eleven; perhaps they prefer even a sure-fire slump to uncertainty.
The Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey pointed out the unfairness of the revised Bill’s approach to Personal Independence Payments, whereby existing claimants could continue as before but new ones might not qualify. The PM prevaricated, using the ongoing Timms review of PIP as his excuse.
Later, Adrian Ramsay (Green) asked whether Starmer would consider scrapping the two-child benefit cap and the cuts to universal credit for the ill and disabled. The PM countered with the Greens’ unfunded £80 billion General Election tax commitment and, despite their advocacy of ‘change and clean power’, their consistent opposition to infrastructure projects.
Also Victoria Collins (Lib Dem) mentioned a constituent who was ‘set to lose the PIP that they rely on for work’ and had lost a carer through this uncertainty. Starmer referred once again to the Timms review and generalised about reform.
- Governmental transparency
Davey followed up with the issue of the proposed ‘Hillsborough law’ that would impose ‘a legal duty of candour, and for the secondary duty needed to make it practical and effective for investigations and inquiries.’ He said that victims of numerous public scandals feared the law would be watered down. Labour’s Kim Johnson, next on, echoed that concern and said her Party colleague Ian Byrne MP would seek to introduce ‘the real Hillsborough law’ after PMQs. Would the PM back it?
Starmer replied to both questioners that he would support the candour requirement but needed time to ‘get it right.’ Readers may reflect on the implications for the future national ‘grooming gangs’ enquiry, which must also be on the PM’s mind.
- Defence
Olivia Bailey (Labour) noted the Government’s £15 billion investment in the Atomic Weapons Establishment and its prospects for employment and ‘national security.’ A propos that last, Robert Jenrick MP has said on Twitter/X (June 26) that in 2001 Starmer defended pro bono a woman who had broken into UK/US air bases 500 times. Had Starmer won that case it might have set a precedent giving a legal defence to the Palestine Action actvists who caused sigificant damage to planes at RAF Brize Norton.
Since, allegedly, Starmer took no fee then contrary to Downing Street’s assertion he was not obliged to take the case as per the Bar Standard Board’s ‘cab rank rule’; Jenrick has written to the PM to demand he corrects the record.
Does this voluntary assistance show that Starmer is anti-British, asks the 'Black Belt Barrister.’ Does the Ship of State have a destructive shipworm gnawing at its keel?
Another odd aspect of the Brize Norton break-in is that according to former diplomat Craig Murray the vandalised Voyager refuelling aircraft are owned not by the RAF but by a hedge fund using ‘a chain of seven cutout companies.’ Murray goes on to say ‘it is plain that the private companies are also providing the RAF ground crew.’ What?
- NHS
In his reply to the SNP’s Stephen Flynn asking whether the public should believe Starmer’s promise to ‘end the chaos’ the PM berated the SNP’s record on health and said (for the third time today) that his Government had delivered four million extra NHS appointments. Full Fact offers a more nuanced analysis and comparison with recent years under the Conservatives.
Steff Aquarone (Lib Dem) asked about the threat of closure to a convalescence facility in Cromer. The PM gave a vanilla answer about reform to and investment in the sector generally.
Farms, the family farm tax (FFT), solar and nuclear energy
The Conservatives’ Harriet Cross asked for a U-turn on the FFT and received another generalised reply about the Budget’s funding for farming and the ‘road map’ without touching on the eco policy complexities.
Btw one farm unlikely to be ruined by Labour’s inheritance taxes is Worthy Farm which has hosted Glasto since 1970. Sadly not all farmers can have such opportunities and exploit them.
Cross’ Party colleague Dame Karen Bradley was concerned about the conversion of good agricultural land for solar farms and battery storage facilities. The PM attempted to argue for both and that renewables would reduce consumers’ energy bills.
Charlotte Nichols (Lab) welcomed the Government’s industrial strategy and asked how it would support the nuclear sector. Starmer promised a ‘golden age’ of nuclear including Sizewell C and small modular reactors. We have to hope it will come about.
- Housing
David Taylor (Labour) welcomed the Government’s commitment to build more houses. His constituency of Hemel Hempstead was looking at a Garden Communities scheme for 11,000 new homes. The PM said Labour was supporting 47 locally-led garden communities (it seems Green Belt land cannot escape the consequences.)
- POST PMQs - Chagos raises its head again
Shadow Foreign Secretary Priti Patel asked an Urgent Question on ‘ratification of the UK-Mauritius treaty on the future sovereignty of the British Indian Ocean Territory.’
FCO Minister Stephen Doughty said the deal has secured the base on Diego Garcia ‘well into the next century’, glossing over the fact that the ICJ’s ‘world court’ ruling is merel advisory and not binding on the UK and so the expensive concession was not necessary.
Was this another nibble of the shipworm?
Doughty attempted to act long-suffering (‘disappointed by the tone’) about the many questions Dame Priti has previously submitted on the subject. He said primary legislation would be brought forward in due course.
However Dame Priti noted that ‘Labour has breached the parliamentary conventions and denied the House a meaningful debate and vote on ratification’ as per the CRaG (Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010) process for ratifing treaties.
Doughty leaves us with yet another impression of the condescending arrogance of power.
We want our country back.
Friday, July 04, 2025
FRIDAY MUSIC: Nicki Wells, by JD
I think these are all her own compositions apart from Black is the colour which is an old Scottish ballad.
“There was always music around the house,” she recalls of her upbringing. Her English father, whose own troubadour nature led to a university friendship with folk icon Nick Drake, would play his favourites – Randy Newman, Bob Dylan – while her Swiss-French mother appreciated the intricate compositions of John Lennon and Kate Bush. Wells first began writing her own songs aged six, then, when the family moved to the Cotswolds when she was 10, got into Singer-Songwriters. “I wanted to be a singer,” she admits with a laugh. Aged 16, she was offered a choice between the renowned Brit School or the prestigious McDonald College in Sydney. Choosing Australia, she flew to the other side of the world, staying with family friends, and immersed herself in the city’s rich local music scene.
"It was around this time that she stumbled upon the music of Nitin Sawhney.“His melding of East and West made complete sense to me,” Wells says. This artistic appreciation was returned around the time when she studied at the Academy of Contemporary Music, where she was introduced to Sawhney by award-winning producer Pete “Boxsta” Martin. “Nitin came into the studio and I sang an ancient Sanskrit hymn,” she recalls. “He asked me to do a gig with him that ended up being 10 years of touring and all kinds of work… that was basically my university.”
https://www.nickiwells.com/about
Nicki Wells - You're Alright Kid (Official Music Video)
“There was always music around the house,” she recalls of her upbringing. Her English father, whose own troubadour nature led to a university friendship with folk icon Nick Drake, would play his favourites – Randy Newman, Bob Dylan – while her Swiss-French mother appreciated the intricate compositions of John Lennon and Kate Bush. Wells first began writing her own songs aged six, then, when the family moved to the Cotswolds when she was 10, got into Singer-Songwriters. “I wanted to be a singer,” she admits with a laugh. Aged 16, she was offered a choice between the renowned Brit School or the prestigious McDonald College in Sydney. Choosing Australia, she flew to the other side of the world, staying with family friends, and immersed herself in the city’s rich local music scene.
"It was around this time that she stumbled upon the music of Nitin Sawhney.“His melding of East and West made complete sense to me,” Wells says. This artistic appreciation was returned around the time when she studied at the Academy of Contemporary Music, where she was introduced to Sawhney by award-winning producer Pete “Boxsta” Martin. “Nitin came into the studio and I sang an ancient Sanskrit hymn,” she recalls. “He asked me to do a gig with him that ended up being 10 years of touring and all kinds of work… that was basically my university.”
https://www.nickiwells.com/about
Nicki Wells - You're Alright Kid (Official Music Video)
The Italian Key - Sigh by Nicki Wells
Nicki Wells - Black is the Colour (cover)
Nicki Wells - Never will
Durgati Harini - Nicki Wells
Nicki Wells - La Neige
Saturday, June 28, 2025
Mind the shop! - PMQs 25th June 2025
As last week the PM was absent, leaving the Deputy Prime Minister (DPM) to mind the shop.
Sir Keir was rubbing shoulders with other NATO leaders at the Hague. He took this opportunity to advertise the procurement of a dozen American jets adapted to carry nuclear weapons. Under what circumstances would such weapons be launched from an F-35 fighter? Perhaps the Ukraine’s President Zelensky clarified that when he met Starmer in London ahead of the summit.
The BBC reports that their use would ‘require the authorisation of Nato's nuclear planning group as well as the US president and British prime minister.’
Blogger Simon Webb speculates that there may be a hidden agenda, to do away with our submarine-borne nuclear deterrent, whose Trident missiles are under the UK’s sole control. Add that to giving away the Chagos Islands and lightening border controls at Gibraltar - is it possible to detect a pattern, of letting us become weaker and ill-guarded?
Which brings us to this PMQs session. Labour’s Calvin Bailey made a show of bridling at Reform’s Richard Tice’s criticism of the commanding officer at Brize Norton, where Palestine Action activists (soon to be defined as terrorists) entered the site unchallenged and caused tens of millions of pounds’ worth of damage to RAF planes. Who was minding that shop?
Ms Rayner said Tice’s comments were ‘even more disgraceful’ than the attack itself. Her astonishing nonsense should be read in contrast with what an ex-Army officer has to say on the subject. Imagine if Argentine agents had disabled our refuelling planes during the Falklands war, causing Vulcan bombers to plummet into the Atlantic post-mission - which their pilots were ready to do, if necessary.
Labour’s Bayo Alaba invited Ms Rayner to boast about the Government’s plans for defence spending. They would drive jobs and prosperity, she said.
How has that worked out for those at the sharp end? Since this is Armed Forces Week it is worth looking at what sometimes happens when Mr Atkins reverts to being ‘Tommy’:
Rebecca Long Bailey (Lab) reminded the House how elderly military veterans harmed by nuclear weapons testing had had the results of their medical tests suppressed; the DPM said ‘we’ would look into it. Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru) told how permanently injured former members of the armed services were harassed with frequent repeat disability assessments; the DPM thanked him for raising the case. Cameron Thomas (Lib Dem) said the Ministry of Defence had never accepted liability for the ‘various cancers, crippling illnesses and deformities’ caused to service personnel and their descendants by exposure to nuclear testing on Christmas Island in 1957; the DPM referred him to the Minister for Veterans (Alistair Carns MP.) Can somebody in the shop come to the counter more quickly, please?
The crisis that we are approaching as a nation has stemmed from both Parties’ failure to attend to business, to know the fundamentals. As a Question Time audience member said two years ago, neither Party was fit to run a whelk stall.
Let us ‘gently’ (to use a popular Labour bully-word) suggest some principles for running the country:
Where MMT-supporting economists such as Steve Keen and Richard J Murphy are in agreement with MAGA is in holding that a sustained foreign trade deficit is a threat, because it mean progressively giving our assets (and so control) to outsiders.
We are an advanced economy and our competitive edge in foreign trade is in services, which almost but not quite compensate for the negative balance in goods trading. The latter would be helped if we were not hobbled by ‘green energy’ and Net Zero ideas.
So what we need is a highly-skilled workforce. Boosting our population with the import of cheap labour may increase GDP but will make us poorer per capita; and given the Welfare State will add to our economic burden, at least to start with.
Second generation immigrants may benefit from our education system and may be encouraged by their elders to take maximum advantage of such opportunities, but in an economy under strain they may simply be crowding out indigenous (if we may call them that) youngsters. So it is that the bottom tier of underachievers is largely composed of white working-class boys, cemented into failure by lack of aspiration at a time when it is needed. Do schools really have to focus on minority sexual obsessions and class/racial victim-consciousness when children should be learning useful skills? Why do more schools not adopt Katharine Birbalsingh’s Michaela School as their model?
Labour came in with a different agenda. One was further devolution, a plan that may have been intended to ensure the Conservatives would never regain power. The Tories have managed to do that without outside help; their shooting-gallery leadership machinations seem to have been steered not so much by the ‘men in grey suits’ as by men in gitis.
Now it looks as though Gordon Brown’s devolution master plan is on the back burner; we need another layer of local government princelings like another hole in the head. This comes as a relief to Plymouth, for one (too late for London, though.)
However the Tories’ Neil O’Brien now told the DPM that the expansion of cities such as Leicester into outlying areas was unwanted; she gave him a blethery answer which appeared to boil down to ‘we are getting on and doing it’ and yah boo sucks.
Meanwhile the economic (and associated political) breakdown continues. Labour whip Vicky Foxcroft has resigned over the issue of proposed benefit cuts and some 120-plus Party MPs seem set to rebel. The Lib Dem’s deputy leader also declared her party’s opposition to slashed personal independence payments and carer’s allowance.
This additional financial pressure on poorer households is made more acute by the rise in housing costs:
Will no-one in either major (legacy?) Party mention the elephant in the room? What do they imagine will happen if this continues? Do they not see what is happening already? While deploring the ‘recent disorder on the streets of Northern Ireland’ Belfast’s Gavin Robinson (DUP) spoke of the Windsor framework and the need for sovereign control of immigration.
Who is running the shop?
The DPM and her opposite number (Sir Mel Stride today) exchanged banter about leadership changes but Andrew Snowden (Con) took it further, asking ‘who she would get rid of in the coming reshuffle’ and naming much of the Government’s front bench.
What is needed is not so much a reshuffle as a big pile of discards.
Or even, in this game of political Canasta, two whole new packs.
Sir Keir was rubbing shoulders with other NATO leaders at the Hague. He took this opportunity to advertise the procurement of a dozen American jets adapted to carry nuclear weapons. Under what circumstances would such weapons be launched from an F-35 fighter? Perhaps the Ukraine’s President Zelensky clarified that when he met Starmer in London ahead of the summit.
The BBC reports that their use would ‘require the authorisation of Nato's nuclear planning group as well as the US president and British prime minister.’
Blogger Simon Webb speculates that there may be a hidden agenda, to do away with our submarine-borne nuclear deterrent, whose Trident missiles are under the UK’s sole control. Add that to giving away the Chagos Islands and lightening border controls at Gibraltar - is it possible to detect a pattern, of letting us become weaker and ill-guarded?
Which brings us to this PMQs session. Labour’s Calvin Bailey made a show of bridling at Reform’s Richard Tice’s criticism of the commanding officer at Brize Norton, where Palestine Action activists (soon to be defined as terrorists) entered the site unchallenged and caused tens of millions of pounds’ worth of damage to RAF planes. Who was minding that shop?
Ms Rayner said Tice’s comments were ‘even more disgraceful’ than the attack itself. Her astonishing nonsense should be read in contrast with what an ex-Army officer has to say on the subject. Imagine if Argentine agents had disabled our refuelling planes during the Falklands war, causing Vulcan bombers to plummet into the Atlantic post-mission - which their pilots were ready to do, if necessary.
Labour’s Bayo Alaba invited Ms Rayner to boast about the Government’s plans for defence spending. They would drive jobs and prosperity, she said.
How has that worked out for those at the sharp end? Since this is Armed Forces Week it is worth looking at what sometimes happens when Mr Atkins reverts to being ‘Tommy’:
Rebecca Long Bailey (Lab) reminded the House how elderly military veterans harmed by nuclear weapons testing had had the results of their medical tests suppressed; the DPM said ‘we’ would look into it. Ben Lake (Plaid Cymru) told how permanently injured former members of the armed services were harassed with frequent repeat disability assessments; the DPM thanked him for raising the case. Cameron Thomas (Lib Dem) said the Ministry of Defence had never accepted liability for the ‘various cancers, crippling illnesses and deformities’ caused to service personnel and their descendants by exposure to nuclear testing on Christmas Island in 1957; the DPM referred him to the Minister for Veterans (Alistair Carns MP.) Can somebody in the shop come to the counter more quickly, please?
The crisis that we are approaching as a nation has stemmed from both Parties’ failure to attend to business, to know the fundamentals. As a Question Time audience member said two years ago, neither Party was fit to run a whelk stall.
Let us ‘gently’ (to use a popular Labour bully-word) suggest some principles for running the country:
It is time to reconsider economic basics and their implications for society. If the proponents of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) are right, public debt is not so scary as the Treasury, the Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility would have it. If we need more money for productive projects we can create it by fiat; if we attain (near) full employment and the economy begins to overheat money can be sucked back out of the system by taxation.
- While being prepared to defend ourselves, avoid unnecessary entanglement in foreign conflicts. Two world wars - and we initiated our entry into both - have nearly ruined us beyond recovery.
- Guard our borders, and guard against enemies within.
- Find well-paid work for our people.
Where MMT-supporting economists such as Steve Keen and Richard J Murphy are in agreement with MAGA is in holding that a sustained foreign trade deficit is a threat, because it mean progressively giving our assets (and so control) to outsiders.
We are an advanced economy and our competitive edge in foreign trade is in services, which almost but not quite compensate for the negative balance in goods trading. The latter would be helped if we were not hobbled by ‘green energy’ and Net Zero ideas.
So what we need is a highly-skilled workforce. Boosting our population with the import of cheap labour may increase GDP but will make us poorer per capita; and given the Welfare State will add to our economic burden, at least to start with.
Second generation immigrants may benefit from our education system and may be encouraged by their elders to take maximum advantage of such opportunities, but in an economy under strain they may simply be crowding out indigenous (if we may call them that) youngsters. So it is that the bottom tier of underachievers is largely composed of white working-class boys, cemented into failure by lack of aspiration at a time when it is needed. Do schools really have to focus on minority sexual obsessions and class/racial victim-consciousness when children should be learning useful skills? Why do more schools not adopt Katharine Birbalsingh’s Michaela School as their model?
Labour came in with a different agenda. One was further devolution, a plan that may have been intended to ensure the Conservatives would never regain power. The Tories have managed to do that without outside help; their shooting-gallery leadership machinations seem to have been steered not so much by the ‘men in grey suits’ as by men in gitis.
Now it looks as though Gordon Brown’s devolution master plan is on the back burner; we need another layer of local government princelings like another hole in the head. This comes as a relief to Plymouth, for one (too late for London, though.)
However the Tories’ Neil O’Brien now told the DPM that the expansion of cities such as Leicester into outlying areas was unwanted; she gave him a blethery answer which appeared to boil down to ‘we are getting on and doing it’ and yah boo sucks.
Meanwhile the economic (and associated political) breakdown continues. Labour whip Vicky Foxcroft has resigned over the issue of proposed benefit cuts and some 120-plus Party MPs seem set to rebel. The Lib Dem’s deputy leader also declared her party’s opposition to slashed personal independence payments and carer’s allowance.
This additional financial pressure on poorer households is made more acute by the rise in housing costs:
‘In 1968, housing costs constituted 9% of average disposable incomes for households in the poorest quarter of the population; this rose to 26% in 2015 before falling to 21% in 2021. Even after accounting for housing benefit, the poorest households spent 19% of their income on housing in 2016, the latest year for which these data accounting for housing benefit are available.’Labour’s Debbie Abrahams called for more affordable housing, and the DPM talked about Labour’s investment in this area. However on current net immigration trends the pressure on housing will not lessen even if Ms Rayner’s building target (1.5 million houses) is met. Sir Oliver Dowden (Con) spoke of ‘family houses being converted into houses in multiple occupation, leading to a surge in antisocial behaviour and parking problems.’
Will no-one in either major (legacy?) Party mention the elephant in the room? What do they imagine will happen if this continues? Do they not see what is happening already? While deploring the ‘recent disorder on the streets of Northern Ireland’ Belfast’s Gavin Robinson (DUP) spoke of the Windsor framework and the need for sovereign control of immigration.
Who is running the shop?
The DPM and her opposite number (Sir Mel Stride today) exchanged banter about leadership changes but Andrew Snowden (Con) took it further, asking ‘who she would get rid of in the coming reshuffle’ and naming much of the Government’s front bench.
What is needed is not so much a reshuffle as a big pile of discards.
Or even, in this game of political Canasta, two whole new packs.
Friday, June 27, 2025
FRIDAY MUSIC: Nitin Sawhney, by JD
Nitin Sawhney is a British musician, producer and composer. His work combines Asian and other worldwide influences with elements of electronica and often explores themes such as multiculturalism, politics, and spirituality.
Sawhney has scored for and performed with orchestras, and collaborated with and written for Paul McCartney, Sting, the London Symphony Orchestra, A. R. Rahman, Brian Eno, Sinéad O'Connor, Jacob Golden, Anoushka Shankar, Jeff Beck, as well as many other well known names in the world of popular and classical music. Performing extensively around the world, Sawney has achieved an international reputation across multiple artistic media.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitin_Sawhney
https://www.nitinsawhney.com/
Nitin Sawhney - Breathing Light
Sawhney has scored for and performed with orchestras, and collaborated with and written for Paul McCartney, Sting, the London Symphony Orchestra, A. R. Rahman, Brian Eno, Sinéad O'Connor, Jacob Golden, Anoushka Shankar, Jeff Beck, as well as many other well known names in the world of popular and classical music. Performing extensively around the world, Sawney has achieved an international reputation across multiple artistic media.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitin_Sawhney
https://www.nitinsawhney.com/
Nitin Sawhney - Breathing Light
Nitin Sawhney - Homelands
Nitin Sawhney - The Immigrant Live (1998)
Nitin Sawhney - Down The Road [Official Music Video] ft. YVA, Dhruv Sangari, Nicki Wells
River Pulse (Live) - Nitin Sawhney with Anoushka Shankar
Nadia - Nitin Sawhney feat. Nicki Wells & Ashwin Srinivasan, Coke Studio @ MTV Season 2
Sunday, June 22, 2025
Systematic abuse of trust - PMQs 18th June 2025
Grooming gangs gain the trust of their victims and then abuse them.
It seems they are not the only ones. On Wednesday, immediately before PMQs began, Mims Davies MP (Con) asked Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson:
‘Will the Minister confirm that those in their ivory towers in Whitehall can now be compelled to give evidence under oath on their actions and assumptions—including, vitally, senior civil servants, former Crown Prosecution Service employees, and previous Directors of Public Prosecutions?’Phillipson replied, ‘As the Home Secretary set out on Monday, anyone found to have been responsible for covering up or hiding vile crimes of child sexual abuse must and will be prosecuted.’
Similarly when announcing Sir Keir’s decision to call a statutory inquiry into organised rape gangs, a No 10 spokesperson said that it will go beyond merely considering the perpetrators:
‘By setting up a new inquiry under the inquiries act with statutory powers to compel witnesses, the local authorities and institutions who fail to act to protect young people will not be able to hide and will finally be held to account for their action.’Nevertheless there is scepticism about the depth of the new investigation, whose remit has not yet been made clear. The gangs in question tend/ed to operate in Labour-controlled authorities and Baroness Casey’s just-released report says that those who could have taken action earlier stayed their hand fearing accusations of racism and worrying about stoking community tensions. A full examination might reveal serious dereliction of duty by local police, social workers, councillors and constituency MPs.
Properly conducted, it could even lead into Whitehall itself. For example, as long ago as 2011, says Dominic Cummings, then at the Department of Education. Rotherham Council was asking the Department to help suppress revelations by The Times newspaper about sexual abuse and trafficking of children. To his credit Cummings and his boss Michael Gove resisted but Cummings says there were officials who were willing to take the other side.
The mainstream media, still read and watched by trusting millions, have also colluded. Two years ago Guardian columnist Owen Jones dismissed the grooming gang allegations - presumably in good faith but blinded by his political prejudices; now he denies that that he had said so. The BBC’s Emily Maitlis - that distinctive haircut in search of a fully-informed and impartial brain to sit on - recently smeared Rupert Lowe MP to his face as ‘probably racist’ for pointing the finger at Pakistani Muslims; what will she say now that Baroness Casey’s report has been published?
If as seems to have been its approach up to now the Labour Party places party above country it will wish to limit the terms of these fresh hearings. However we are now in the court of public opinion also. As YouTube commentator June Slater says, ‘the cat is out of the bag.’
Mr Lowe, who set up a crowdfunded independent inquiry when it became clear that the Government was trying to fudge things with locally-based and non-statutory explorations, now says he will continue with the project despite the PM’s U-turn. He will be looking to catch whatever the official inquiry tries to exclude.
Other disturbing aspects may come to light. The official failure to protect the young women may have had additional motivations besides fears of social and political embarrassment. If ‘Clarissa’ who wrote to ‘Granniopterix’ is telling the truth we could be uncovering a parallel system within the gangs of drug dealing and corruption; big money and tight mouths.
Claiming to be a victim of British Pakistani rapists in the early Seventies, ‘Clarissa’ alleges that Pakistani gangs were at that time also running drugs into Heathrow with the connivance of baggage handlers and ‘probably customs officers as well.’
Trust in our public institutions is in danger of breaking down. Full disclosure could be highly explosive.
And so to PMQs. ‘Macavity’ Starmer was not there: though returned from the G7 summit in Canada he was too busy meeting some footballers to face the music in Westminster’s “tribal shouting place.”
His role was taken by Deputy PM Angela Rayner, facing shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp for the Opposition. Their exchanges focused on the impending inquiry.
Philp said the victims he had met yesterday demanded that it be ‘independently led, has full statutory powers, and covers all 50 towns affected, including Bradford. They will also only have confidence in it if those who covered this up are prosecuted, foreign perpetrators are all deported, survivors are closely involved, and it is set up before the summer recess.’
Ms Rayner promised only the first two points - and to implement the Jay report - and thanked him ‘for his tone, and for putting the survivors and victims at the heart of his question.’ To some this might sound like ‘don’t look here, look over there.’
Then we had discussion of Sir Keir’s smearing campaigners as ‘jumping on a “far-right bandwagon”’ which Rayner spun as ‘specifically about Tory Ministers who sat for years in Government and did absolutely nothing about this scandal.’ We moved on to the boats, Rwanda and so on. Philp accused the Deputy PM as having a ‘brass neck’ and ‘cheek’; she is certainly tough.
Speaking of tone, Rayner or her scriptwriters have adopted Sir Keir’s bully-phrase ‘I gently say’ - she used it with three different people here. Just imagine what she might be like if she chose to!
After all the ‘point scoring’ Sarah Champion (Lab) pertinently raised the issue of rape gang victims being denied Government compensation ‘on bizarre technicalities.’ The Deputy PM said the three year time limit for civil court claims would be abolished and mentioned other measures to support survivors.
Support for staff and pupils at Bishop Challoner (independent) school - to shut because of the school fees VAT imposition - was not forthcoming: ‘taxpayers in this country should not be subsidising tax breaks for private schools.’ There is no tax relief on school fees and wealthy parents subsidise the State school system through their taxes without - until now - accessing places in it for their children; but we have another four years of this Government ahead and they have an overwhelming majority in Parliament; it is quite easy for a leadership to be tough under these circumstances. One wonders why Starmer makes any concessions at all; perhaps it is because the Party is looking beyond his reign.
Israel featured once again in this session and there needs to be some clarity in the public’s mind about what that nation faces.
Regarding Iran, Iranian-born activist Elica le Bon explains to ‘Triggernometry’ that among Shia Muslims there is a prophecy that when ‘the last drop of blood of Israel falls’ the twelfth Imam - hidden for over a thousand years so far - will return and establish permanent peace and justice. The sooner every Jew has been killed, the sooner will come the long-desired Millennium.
To this end Iran has sponsored terrorist movements against Israel, in Lebanon, Gaza and elsewhere. But if it can manage to make a nuclear-tipped missile its theocratic leadership will have no compunction about launching it at the Israelis.
Retaliation does not matter to the ardent faithful; what is death here - inevitable anyway - compared with forever in Heaven, to which martyrdom is a short cut? To understand the sensual delights of that Heaven, watch this video by Gaza Islamic scholar Ahmad Khadoura. What young man could resist such a vision?
In Gaza Hamas rules. Their 1988 Covenant quotes the Prophet as saying (Article Seven):
‘The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.’Hamas’ later Charter of 2017 appears less anti-semitic. But even Wikipedia notes:
‘While some welcomed it as a sign of pragmatism and increased political maturity, and a potential step on the way to peace, many others dismissed it as a merely cosmetic effort designed to make Hamas sound more palatable while changing nothing about Hamas' underlying aims and methods.’Even in this Charter it says (Point 20): ‘Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.’ If there was any doubt, the atrocities of October 7 2023 have dispelled it.
‘Father of the House’ Sir Edward Leigh (Con) raised the issue of illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank ‘which is simply leading to radicalisation and desperation throughout the region’ and Ms Rayner agreed that they were ‘appalling and completely unacceptable.’ Nevertheless she repeated the official British line calling for a ceasefire, the release of hostages (the taking of whom is forbidden under international law), resumption of aid into Gaza and the ‘two-state solution.’
Our secular Western politicians think they can impose secular solutions on a red-hot religious movement. Unless and until Islam has the Reformation called for by apostate Ayaan Hirsi Ali, we face in its extreme adherents deadly and implacable opponents of worldly Western values.
Let us demonstrate those values by cleaning house here with a full inquiry - several may be needed - and reinstating the rule of law without fear or favour.
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