Thursday, October 22, 2026

Gas flare-up in Parliament

Yesterday the Speaker of the House of Commons furiously reprimanded the Government for telling the news media about the North Sea “Jackdaw” gas drilling approval before announcing it in the House. This is not the first time that Hoyle has taken Labour to task for arrogantly sidelining Parliament and therewith the electorate. The Mail’s Quentin Letts described the telling-off as volcanic. Watch the explosion from 12:48 here: https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/cbcb29bd-5303-42c8-97de-a2cd2fc79386?in=12:48:19

As a result of this breach of protocol environmental activists were protesting outside the Department of Energy even before the official announcement in the Debating Chamber:

That was a bit quick, wasn’t it? Interesting demographic, too.

At least they weren’t setting fire to the city, unlike in France - so polluting!

But don’t they realise that there is more than one path to Net Zero? While we hope to power the nation one day solely with “clean” energy we have to keep the lights on and fossil fuels are needed during the changeover.

Perhaps they truly don’t understand. And why should we expect them to, when much of the news media and the Government fails to make that case?

Is yesterday’s policy announcement a tacit admission that however imperfect our democratic system may be it does matter after all? A population sitting in the cold and dark eating bread sandwiches and baked beans straight out of the can is unlikely to vote for a Labour Party that put them in that position.

Unfortunately this unlikely to be much of a boost for the Conservative Opposition. When they were in power they had ample opportunity to repeal the 2008 Climate Change Act and chose not to. Kemi Badenoch said in March last year that Net Zero by 2050 is not achievable and in the following October the Party finally pledged to ditch the Act. Too late? And they have still not been forgiven for other matters; they may wait in vain for “Buggins’ turn.”

Is the Jackdaw gas decision a signal that Labour is growing up and becoming commonsensical, or is it a misleading flirt preparatory to going to the polls while the parties of the Right are inadequately prepared and fighting each other?

Friday, October 16, 2026

FRIDAY MUSIC: The Platters, by JD

Another helping of nostalgia and why not, real singers with excellent singing voices.

The Platters, an American vocal ensemble, were one of the foremost singing groups of the early days of rock and roll and also often associated with the doo-wop style. They were managed by songwriter Buck Ram, who was taken with Williams’s dramatic soaring voice and had the singer form a group around himself in 1953 in Los Angeles.

Ram wrote or co-wrote some of the Platters’ biggest hits, including “Only You (and You Alone)” (1955), “The Great Pretender” (which topped the pop and rhythm-and-blues charts in 1956), and “(You’ve Got) The Magic Touch” (1956).

The Platters sustained their career by specializing in rock-and-roll renditions of old big-band hits, notably “My Prayer” (1956) and “Twilight Time” and “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” (both 1958). The group also appeared in two rock-and-roll movies, The Girl Can’t Help It and Rock Around the Clock (both 1956).

Williams left the Platters in 1961, but during the late 1960s, with Turner as the lead vocalist, the group achieved moderate success with soul-style hits. The history of the Platters, however, is primarily associated with the early days of rock and roll. The group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Platters
https://theplatters.com/about/

The Platters - Only You, And You Alone (1955) 4K

The Platters - The Great Pretender (1959) 4K

The Platters - My Prayer- Lyrics

The Platters - Remember When

The Platters - Smoke Get In Your Eyes - Lyrics

The Platters - Twilight Time - Lyrics

Sunday, October 11, 2026

Public Execution and Public Unrest

The mass murderer Nidal Hasan is to be executed by firing squad on 3 December. It is likely to be a swift and certain death unlike the recent botched administration of lethal injections to Christa Pike, now discharged from hospital and returned to Death Row.

The controversy in Hasan’s case is the proposal to livestream the shooting, though President Trump is said to be having second thoughts about it.

Journalist Peter Hitchens advises us against watching, because of the (im)moral effect on spectators. He quotes Charles Dickens’ witnessing a double hanging in 1849 and the shameful behaviour of the public.

Blood lust seems to be part of the human psyche; it is the basis of much of our entertainment. How many fictional violent deaths do we see and read about? Does that increase our homicidal tendencies? Yet even in societies that did not have books movies and TV there was plenty of war and murder in real life.

One motive for the State to worry about carrying out judicial killings in public is self-preservation. The people might begin to question the State’s right to kill.

The last woman to be burned at the stake was Catherine Murphy in 1789, as France exploded in revolution a few miles away. Less than four years later the captive French King was guillotined, together with his wife. It gave rulers pause for thought.

Five decades after Murphy’s execution Parliament rejected the Chartists’ first petition for democratic representation in July 1839 and arrested local leaders of the movement in Newport. A mass uprising there three months later was put down with lethal force, resulting in scores of civilian deaths and casualties. The three ringleaders were convicted of high treason and sentenced to the prolonged and grisly penalty set for that offence. However the British Government feared a political backlash and widespread popular unrest so the penalty was soon commuted to transportation for life to Tasmania. That was the last time hanging, drawing and quartering was used as a form of capital punishment.

But now a State agenda of war, costly energy and disruptive levels of mass immigration is being imposed on a resentful populace and tensions have increased once more. What will make the Crown in Parliament listen?

"History has taught me, that RULERS are much the same in all ages & under all forms of government: they are as bad as they dare to be," said the poet Coleridge in a letter to his brother George (c. 10 March 1798).

Friday, October 09, 2026

FRIDAY MUSIC: Dmitri Shostakovich, by JD

 Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich (1906 - 1975) was a Soviet composer and pianist who became internationally known after the premiere of his First Symphony in 1926 and thereafter was regarded as a major composer. Shostakovich achieved early fame in the Soviet Union, but had a complex relationship with its government. His 1934 opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk was initially a success but later condemned by the Soviet government, putting his career at risk.

Shostakovich’s reputation has continued to grow after his death. Scholarly interest has increased significantly since the late 20th century, including considerable debate about the relationship between his music and his attitudes toward the Soviet government.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Dmitri-Shostakovich
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitri_Shostakovich

Dmitri Shostakovich - The Second Waltz

Nicola Benedetti: Shostakovich’s Romance The Gadfly Suite, Live in The Greene Space

Waltz no.6

Dmitri Shostakovich - Piano Concerto No. 2 - II. Andante

Wednesday, October 07, 2026

Eventually... by Wiggia

 


As Milton Friedman said ““You cannot simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state. “

That of course was before the numbers racked up enough for the same immigrants to become a political as well as religious threat which is where we are now in the West.

There is nothing new about the threat that Islam and mass migration will cause the West eventually if nothing is done and soon.

Recent events have highlighted the trend to appease the Muslim vote and keep it within Labour. This is already a lost cause. The mealy-mouthed words spouted by Left politicians to somehow stay onside of their immigrant constituents are painful to see and hear; this is one of many cringe-worthy efforts by Labour MPs with slim majorities to hold the tide back. Pathetic.

“A little less than two years ago, West Midlands Police used social media to make an important announcement. Not to issue an appeal for witnesses to a crime or advice on public safety, but instead to declare that a number of prayer mats and hijabs had been purchased “to go in our police vehicles” so that “our Muslim colleagues and public will have access to these when they are needed”.”

Somali vs. overall: • 268 per 10k in prison (highest ethnicity) • 64.6 arrests per 1k vs 12 (Britons) • 72% in social housing vs. 17% • 47.1% Economically inactive vs. 24.7%

Performative Humanitarianism.

Halifax…….

And back in 2018 we were warned about the underlying reasons for all this.

Can’t keep the NHS out of the loop: instead of using the trained nurses and surgeons we the tax payers have funded, the NHS brings in cheap labour from third world countries as a saving, then this wheeze is floated or maybe judging by the current insanity of Chagos and the reparation syndrome it is true, we have no money yet ever more is found for foreign shores.

https://spectator.com/article/labour-pps-floats-billions-in-nhs-recruitment-reparations/

The lack of scrutiny that went with the coup from Andy Burnham was off the scale, nothing of his past was questioned in the media and he lies like Starmer.

On top of all that I and others have laid out about Burnham is the latest on the Manchester City affair: outside of the football it is alleged that Burnham was involved in giving the UAE first dibs in contracts over land deals. It is amazing that virtually nothing has been said in the MSM about this and all the other dubious activities and proven failures before he waltzed into No10.

He must also have given the green light to the lockdown in Gosport and the extraordinary scenes there of a huge organised effort to bring in unwanted illegal migrants and shower largesse on them. Next time you have to wait for hours to get an ambulance remember this, a long line of them at a moment’s notice in case someone got wet on the way here. It was so well organised in advance one cannot but believe the government is involved in the migrant crisis; this has to stop.

The illegal migrants it is noted are now arriving unnoticed on our shores, it is said. This has been going on for years, many reports of landings on the East coast some by speedboats and even light aircraft as well as the continuing use of lorries all point to governments various that have no intention of stopping migration; in fact the latest “safe routes” plan will only increase it. What is really going on? Reports of aircraft landing at night with transponders turned off at Manchester and Liverpool airports enhance the theory that it is all deliberate.

I saw this tweet today, I agree with every word.

Piecing together the Home Office changing its bio from protecting “British citizens” to protecting “vulnerable people”, alongside what’s happening in Portsmouth Harbour, paints a deeply concerning picture. There are no coincidences.

I wanted to use this next picture as a bit of light relief. It shows the two leading candidates for “TT” Starmer’s old seat - you know, the one he said he would not leave. Where are we as a nation that ends up with this, two inadequates who could not run for a bus, literally, but one will become an MP. Needless to say neither has had a proper job unless making boobs bigger through hypnosis or turning up once to a council meeting in six months can be considered work. Despair is too kind a word.

I believe Labour were going to select the one in the middle, but too much lunch time prosecco meant a slip of the pen.

Dave (David Paulden is Zack Polanski’s birth name) will lose and be replaced by the one on the left and the Greens will become the first Islamic party in Parliament. The end of tree-hugging then, nothing green about them now.

Tuesday, October 06, 2026

War and the Big Picture 2: The Map Man

In the previous post on this subject we saw how Britain was keen to join in the great conflict of 1914, despite General Foch, then chief of France’s War College, rejecting (in 1910) our offer of military assistance and Germany looking for our neutrality (in 1912) in return for their not enlarging their fleet to rival ours.

Pace Foch’s stubborn pride, when King Edward VII toured Europe in 1908 the French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau told him

“When the time comes when France needs help, England’s sea power will not be enough... Napoleon was beaten at Waterloo, not Trafalgar.”

The King went on to visit the Russian Czar and the German Ambassador reported to Kaiser Wilhelm that Edward desired peace. The Kaiser wrote on the report:

“Lies. He wants war. But I have to start it so he does not have the odium.”

The 1839 Treaty of London provided that excuse.

As early as 1906 Colonel Repington, on behalf of our War Office, met the French military attaché in London, Major Victor Huguet and sought a confidential assurance that France would not be the first to violate Belgian neutrality as such an act would force Great Britain into the field to defend its obligations under the Treaty.

Eight years later on July 31, 1914, British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey dispatched identical notes to both France and Germany asking if they would engage to respect the neutrality of Belgium. The French agreed the same day but the Germans declined, their Foreign Secretary stating that a reply would reveal their military campaign plan.

Bingo.

But why? Why did we want to pitch in?

It was going to be about more than historic Franco-German rivalry.

Clemenceau saw it as not only an issue for wider Europe but an existential issue for his country. On 5 May 1914 his newspaper l’Homme Libre stated in an editorial

“One would have to be deliberately blind not to see that the [German] lust for power, the impact of which makes Europe tremble each day, has fixed as its policy the extermination of France.”

Gallic excitability and overstatement fogs the lens: Berlin’s real objective was an invasion of Russia and Germany needed to secure her western border first and fast; crossing Belgium was to be the quick way. With France not annihilated but subjugated Germany could then turn East.

So the big picture as we saw it was, as when we had fought Napoleon, stopping anyone becoming master of Europe.

But the even bigger picture was the struggle for, or prevention of, mastery of the whole vast Eurasian landmass.

Which leads us to a damp and dreary day in London, at the Savile Row headquarters of the Royal Geographical Society. There, on 25 January 1904, a distinguished geographer called Halford Mackinder gave a lecture that some say established him as the father of geopolitical theory.

The next post will discuss this in detail.

………………….

As before, here we have drawn on early chapters of Barbara Tuchman’s meticulous study “The Guns of August.” 

Sunday, October 04, 2026

Colour Supplement: Reports from the Rear, by JD

My local Working Men’s Club used to show feature films once a week and they were usually about a year after being shown in the cinemas. This was in the early 1970s and it proved to be very popular. There was a man came with a 16mm projector and two maybe three reels of film. When a reel ended it was lights up for a ‘beer break’ while the following reel was loaded and then the film would start again.

One day he brought what was probably the ‘most offensive’ film of all time; Blazing Saddles, a spoof of the Western genre by director Mel Brooks which pokes fun at everyone and everything. Mel Brooks also had a starring role in the film. In case you are unfamiliar with the plot “A corrupt governor grants a reprieve to an African American convict if the condemned man agrees to serve as sheriff of a small Western town, believing that new sheriff will only live long enough to serve the needs of the governor and his nefarious railroad-baron backer.” It is certain that Brooks would never be allowed to make a film such as that today!

The man with the projector visited various Clubs in the area and he was obviously familiar what would appeal to his audience. I had already seen the film in the local cinema and it was a chance to enjoy it again.

And so we watched and laughed and then it came to this famous scene with cowboys sitting around a camp fire feasting on plates of beans -

You can no doubt guess the reaction, lots of working men with a couple of beers inside started laughing then tears of laughter turned into howls of laughter which must have been heard outside so loud was it.

It just so happened that this scene came at the end of a reel and the ‘buzz’ continued through the ‘beer break’ and on into the next reel and on, with many more funny scenes adding to the fun until the end of the film.

I would say that was undoubtedly one of the most enjoyable nights I have had in the Club, and there have been more than a few.

The set up for the films was in the Concert Room which is now known as the Functions Room The film shows ended many years ago and one of the things the room is now used for is dancing. Real dancing, i.e. ballroom dancing as in waltz and quickstep etc and it has been proved to be very popular. How times change. It also shows how the Club Committee is in tune with the members and know what will be popular and this is how and why the Club is thriving while pubs everywhere are mostly dying on their feet.

We need more laughter to counteract the dismal everyday news bulletins!