Criticising Sir Keir is like firing children’s sucker-tipped arrows at a battle tank.
When the Opposition leader spoke of inflation, higher taxes and unemployment he shot out the usual smoke shells of how much Labour was spending to ‘fix the country,’ playing Summer Santa as the Chancellor’s careworn head continued to nod. He then accused Badenoch of ‘talking the country down’ and resumed learning the lines in his folder, only looking up mildly as she clarified that she was ‘talking the Prime Minister down.’
Kemi asked about possible taxes on pension contributions, reminding us how Starmer’s own pension had been uniquely boosted by an Act of Parliament; the PM would not be drawn on the first point and ignored the second.
Later, the Tories’ Lincoln Jupp said ‘I can see why you call these sessions Prime Minister’s questions and not Prime Minister’s answers, Mr Speaker’ to cries of ‘more!’ but his topical cricket analogy (‘more pace and less spin’) was easily brushed off.
Also for the Conservatives, Graham Stuart ironically congratulated Starmer on his first year in office and compared the Labour manifesto to a popular book, The Salt Path, in that both were ‘a total pack of lies.’ The PM added another fib when he said it was the reason for his Party’s ‘landslide victory.’
In his opening remarks Starmer had his own ammunition to lob in the form of the Afghan scandal, in which a data breach under the previous Government had necessitated a rescue operation to give asylum to some 24,000 Afghani soldiers who had cooperated with our armed forces. This hugely expensive blunder had been kept secret since 2023 by the use of a ‘super-injunction’ - the first time the Government has employed one to cover its embarrassment and to hide the truth even from MPs. Before PMQs had begun the Speaker said ‘this episode raises significant constitutional issues. I have therefore asked the Clerks to consider whether any lessons need to be learned from this case.’
The first lesson, already well learned, is that we have two dying Parties vying to control a restive populace riven by conflicts of identity and loyalty which mass immigration has exacerbated.
Much of this has arisen from British military adventurism. As Sir Edward Leigh said on Tuesday and was quoted by Peter Hitchens today:
‘What an appalling mess, but part of the original sin was our intervening militarily and then scuttling out. On a wider point, may I take it that we have learnt our lesson and have got over the liberal imperial itch of the Cameron and Blair eras to intervene militarily in ungovernable countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya?’
LibDem leader Ed Davey promised his Party’s support if the PM decides to pursue a public inquiry into the affair. He went on to deplore the rise of antisemitism in this country yet also the ‘scenes’ from Gaza and Israel’s plan to ‘lock the whole population of Gaza into what is effectively a giant prison—a plan that would clearly amount to ethnic cleansing.’
Later, Labour’s Imran Hussein built on Davey’s Gaza comments, almost shouting as he said ‘Israel is starving Palestinian children… killing Palestinian children… genocide.’ Readers will be aware, not necessarily from the mainstream media, that there is more than one side to these stories. The PM agreed that alleged incidents needed to be investigated and reiterated his position that the hostages had to be freed, civilians protected and more aid sent into the Strip.
Other old wounds continue to fester. Colum Eastwood of the SDLP asked Starmer to reconfirm that ‘no murderer [from the Troubles in Northern Ireland] would be immune from prosecution.’ The PM replied that the last Government’s 2023 Act (protecting soldiers and other security personnel) had been struck down (by Northern Ireland’s High Court and Court of Appeal) as unlawful (as being incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.) He promised to create ‘a secure, transparent system.’ We shall see; Starmer’s comment ‘This is a complicated issue and we have to get it right’ may imply a lengthy delay. Meanwhile this is another complication made by our accepting the ECHR.
For the Conservatives Sir Desmond Swayne reminded us that ‘Jack Straw told us that the Human Rights Act 1998 places on us no expectation that we will remedy a declaration of incompatibility issued by a court, so the Prime Minister is wrong to say that the legacy Act is struck down. His own proposals, which open the door to compensation to Gerry Adams and place in jeopardy our own servicemen, present enormous difficulty to those of us who have served.’ The PM contented himself with rehearsing what he had said to Colum Eastwood.
Were he to play ‘Just A Minute’ Sir Keir might often have the hooter for repetition and deviation.
Our Government’s wish to tighten its grip on us citizens was helped by Paul Waugh (Lab Co-op) who said ‘we need to speed up the roll-out of digital IDs’ so that we could tackle ‘the menace of illegal working, particularly by illegal migrants from Iran and Iraq in bogus barber shops and fake vape shops.’ Starmer was pleased to agree.
This was the last PMQs of term. Honourable Members refrained from throwing their caps into the Thames, signing each other’s blouses and shirts and coating everyone with flour and egg. The fun of ruining the country will recommence in September.
Saturday, July 19, 2025
Friday, July 18, 2025
FRIDAY MUSIC: Hollow Coves, by JD
Hollow Coves is an Australian indie folk band formed in Gold Coast, Australia in 2013. The band consists of vocalists and guitarists Ryan Henderson and Matt Carins.
The pair recorded music in a garage that was uploaded just before they parted ways to Canada and England. The music became popular on Spotify in a very short amount of time which resulted in immediate fame and record deals. They decided to stay where they were living, but recorded and wrote songs long distance using online resources.
Officially formed in 2013, they released their first EP "Drifting" in October 2014 and now both reside in Queensland.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Coves
Hollow Coves - Coastline (Lakeside Acoustic Session)
All of this new music I have found recently has one thing in common and that is many of the songs have millions of views which means they all have large fan bases; in fact they have another thing in common, they are completely ignored by the 'music business' as well as radio and TV. So I can just about forgive YouTube for all the adverts.
The pair recorded music in a garage that was uploaded just before they parted ways to Canada and England. The music became popular on Spotify in a very short amount of time which resulted in immediate fame and record deals. They decided to stay where they were living, but recorded and wrote songs long distance using online resources.
Officially formed in 2013, they released their first EP "Drifting" in October 2014 and now both reside in Queensland.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Coves
Hollow Coves - Coastline (Lakeside Acoustic Session)
Hollow Coves - Blessings (Official Music Video)
Hollow Coves - Patience (Live Acoustic Session)
Hollow Coves - Anew (Live in Melbourne)
Hollow Coves - These Memories (Official Music Video)
Hollow Coves & Oskar Schuster - These Memories (Piano Rework
JD adds:
All of this new music I have found recently has one thing in common and that is many of the songs have millions of views which means they all have large fan bases; in fact they have another thing in common, they are completely ignored by the 'music business' as well as radio and TV. So I can just about forgive YouTube for all the adverts.
Sunday, July 13, 2025
Back to the 70s - PMQs 9th July 2025
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.
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.
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
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