Labour law and "human-heartedness"

Our current Prime Minister is fond of using law as an expression of his autocratic power. A recent government press release states:

Eleven foreign far-right agitators intent on coming to the UK to spew their extremist views have been blocked from entering the country, as the Prime Minister takes action to protect British communities from vile hate.

Note the intemperate emotive language: “spew” and “vile.” This is not merely cool-headed administration but propaganda. It goes on in similar tone:

… violent thugs who spew hatred on our streets will face the full force of the law.

Among the banned speakers are a Polish MEP and a member of the Belgian Parliament. This does not sit well with Starmer’s assertion to the US President and Vice-President last year that he is proud of our tradition of free speech:

We all remember the case of Lucy Connolly but the Europe to which the PM wants to draw nearer can be even harsher to dissidents. Last year a German pensioner was investigated for calling Chancellor Friedrich Merz ‘Pinocchio’ on social media. Under Article 188 of the German Criminal Code a politically damaging criticism can be punished by up to five years in prison.

In 2024 the European Union itself extended the list of EU crimes to “hate speech” and “hate crime”; the potential for stretching this to include expressions of anger aroused by the negative consequences of mass immigration is obvious. Nevertheless two months ago the EU Parliament voted for tougher measures against illegal migrants, with deportation to “return hubs” outside the bloc.

The thing about “reactionaries” is that they are often reacting to something. Where does the fault lie?

We are entering what may become an age of social instability and it brings to mind China’s “Spring and Autumn” period a couple of thousand years ago. During this time the great teacher Confucius (born “Kong Qiu”) lived and taught his principles, which are based on “ren,” empathic “human-heartedness.”

A different approach to his was “Legalism” whereby order should be maintained by incentives and draconian punishments. Master Kong observed:

“If the people be led by laws, and uniformity sought to be given them by punishments, they will try to avoid the punishment, but have no sense of shame. If they be led by virtue, and uniformity sought to be given them by the rules of propriety, they will have the sense of the shame, and moreover will become good.”

For Confucius social harmony is promoted by the personal example of individuals who are benevolent and have mastered their own passions.

Here Sir Keir fails, not only in his use of language in public messaging but shouting in the House of Commons and hitting the Speaker’s chair when reprimanded for his persistent failure to answer Opposition questions. If certain rumours are true his lack of self-control has also been expressed in other, grosser ways.

If the Kingdom is to be restored to peace and prosperity we shall need fewer damaging and divisive policies forced through in a tyrannical way, and more “ren” from our leaders.

Revival: what horses can teach us

 A marvellous video tells how China is reversing the progress of a desert that was heading towards Beijing.

At first they planted great numbers of trees, which sucked water out of the ground until the water table sank so far the roots couldn’t reach and the trees died.

Then they tried introducing an ancient wild breed of horse - Przewalski’s. This stocky creature broke the barren crust of topsoil with its hooves, allowing rainwater to gather in puddles and seep into the lower ground. Plants came out of suspended animation. As the horses roamed they spread seeds carried on their hooves and in their dung. Insects colonised the greening area and a complex ecosystem began to re-form.

Isn’t this a metaphor for the failure of top-down bureaucratic planning of a command economy and the success, allowed the opportunity, of the “animal spirits” of private enterprise?

The vote-rigging that never was? (Birmingham)

 The final ward to declare its result in last Thursday’s local elections in Birmingham was Glebe Farm and Tile Cross. At stake were two council seats.

The Labour leader of Birmingham Council, John Cotton, was ousted. The two new councillors were Jess Ankrett (Reform UK) and Shehryar Kayani (Workers Party of Britain.)

It was close. There were two recounts on Saturday (no change announced) but on Monday (it is said) seven new ballots were discovered. Rumour had it that the margin between Kayani and Cotton was only six votes and the extra seven were all for Labour and would have returned Cotton. Here is the controversial former diplomat Craig Murray jumping on the bandwagon:

A Birmingham seat is being recounted for the third time.

The Workers Party won the first count by 6 votes. They won the second count by 6 votes.

Then the Returning Officer - who is of course an employee of Labour run Birmingham City Council - “Found” seven Labour votes that had gone astray.

Here is former Labour MP and now Workers Party leader George Galloway furiously responding to the allegation by “Losrafascartel”:

If we are cheated of this famous victory Legal Action will follow immediately @WorkersPartyGB

But the official return shows that although there was (ultimately, if not before the recounts) a six-vote gap it was between Kayani of the Workers Party and (third in the list) Satnam Tank of Reform. Had the new seven ballots all been for one or both Labour candidates it would not have made the slightest difference to the outcome:

It’s not been established who asked for the recount, but given the results it could easily have been on behalf of Reform.

These are feverish times. As I write we still don’t know whether the Prime Minister himself will stay or go.

It's not just about Starmer

Even veteran journalists can get things hopelessly wrong: “In a democracy we get the politicians we deserve,” said the Daily Mail’s Andrew Neil last week.

This is not a democracy, it’s a constitutional monarchy. The franchise was extended in 1918 to prevent Communist revolution and since then there has been intense effort to misguide and distract the public via mass media.

“The people have spoken—the bastards” said a US Senate hopeful 60 years ago and when much later they spoke for Trump - twice - all hell was let loose. They simply don’t know what’s good for them. They have to be managed.

Early results from yesterday’s UK elections suggest that the Greens have split off votes from Labour and let Reform come through on the First Past The Post system. “But why don’t Labour enact electoral reform to stop this from happening?” asked the Guardian’s Owen Jones, but he opposed the Alternative Vote in the 2011 referendum because it might help a third party.

What matters to him and so many others is the outcome, not the process.

And if the outcome is the wrong one, the apparatchiks have to put it right. The country voted for Brexit; the politicians undermined it. There was a General Election to break the logjam. The Bill was passed perforce but the subversion continued. Now we have Labour pursuing a damaging “dynamic alignment” with the EU’s laws; if that follows the trajectory of our membership of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism we could all end up singing in the bath.

Some commentators think Starmer stands for nothing. Again this is completely wrong and misleads people into believing that getting rid of Sir Keir will solve our problems. He does have an agenda and it’s not just his; it is a continuation of the Left’s long-running program to destroy our “democracy” so completely that a Conservative government can never return. He has said so in terms:

“We’re trying not just to defeat the Tories, but to defeat their entire way of doing politics.”

In that same speech he then proposes to unite the country!

Starmer has picked up the baton from his mentor Blair. Emasculate the House of Lords, devolve power away from Westminster via a forest of quangos and surrender to EU rule-making, split the country into sub-nations and regions, amalgamate local councils into entities so large that they mean nothing much to the voters (especially when local TV and papers report so little.) Use mass immigration to promote “diversity” but not so much because diversity per se is valuable as it is a weapon to smash the British cultural unity that has taken centuries and blood-sodden fields to develop.

And of course abolish the monarchy, the obstacle identified at the end of the fiery right-on 1976 TV series “Bill Brand”; our unifying symbols must be destroyed, as before when Cromwell sold broke and melted the royal regalia. The first muted trumpet call of the current battle was on 17 July 2024 when the Lord Chancellor Shabana Mahmood turned her back on the Monarch after handing him his speech; that deliberate discourtesy was introduced by the Blair government back in 1998. The King blinked: he had not missed its import.

Everybody hates democracy. In the 1980s the Tory leader of Westminster Council introduced a scheme to sell off its council houses to build Labour out of the area. In the US there has long been gerrymandering by both sides to game the voting in their favour and the competition is intensifying, as Lionel Shriver discusses in this week’s Spectator magazine.

National harmony does not depend on unity of opinion. Every time someone says “hey gang, let’s all…” a fight begins. There is no “all”; peace is founded on a great number of issues where we agree to disagree. Unless we can get political and religious militants (of various kinds) to accept that then the “diversity” project will backfire dramatically.

Most of human happiness does not come out of debating rooms. It lies in personal relationships, work that does not smash them up with its demands, adequate comfort and security and if desired the opportunity to better oneself or one’s offspring through additional striving.

Where is a gardener government wise enough to plant, weed and stand back?

How top-down, big-picture political schemes ruin us

 Birmingham used to be called the City of a Thousand Trades. It had a large skilled workforce and a diversified industrial base, with many small businesses so that if one failed there were nearby competitors to take over.

In 1945 a new Government came in with Big Ideas. One was to provide more employment around the regions by restricting growth in areas that were already successful. The Distribution of Industry Act required central government permission to build or expand a factory by more than 5,000 square feet (465 square metres.) This forced development to be sited elsewhere.

The big-picture intention may have been good, but one consequence was that Birmingham was handicapped like a horse that wins too many races. The city where I live became over-dependent on a limited number of enterprises, especially car manufacture, and when global competition and economic recession hit we suffered.

China has learned from our ivory-tower political stupidity. Its industry clusters with their synergy have made the country a world-beater.

Now Britain has another high-handed grand-plan national administration determined to distribute wealth production, diluting and weakening our productive capacity. Add to that the back-to-Eden fantasy of high-cost and unreliable “sustainable” energy creation and we have a whole nation headed for the doldrums.

Like schools, Parliament need to send its Members on “work experience” before they presume to run the economy.

For more about the introduction and effects of Industrial Development Certificates please read this excellent article in the Birmingham Dispatch and/or watch the video below:

Not The PMQs - 29th April 2026

He’s awful but you can’t get rid of him.

Yesterday’s PMQs, which took place after some attempt to prorogue Parliament in time to cancel them were a symphony of sycophancy from the Labour backbenchers and Opposition was as usual drowned out by boasting and counterattack. The Speaker kept his counsel as far as the PM was concerned; only Iqbal Mohamed orating on Palestinian “genocide” was cut short.

We await the release of Mandelbrouhaha documents as per the Humble Address, or whatever remain unshredded after some spurious Great Tea Trolley Disaster; Starmer’s former henchman McSweeney has been slow-roasted in Parliament but so what; the trial of the “Ukrainian rent boy” arsonists (allegedly) has begun this week to a deafening silence from the mainstream media despite the apparent lack of a D-notice; yesterday a motion to refer the PM to the standards committee was voted down by his army of myrmidons.

His enormous majority in the House gave him absolute power in 2024 on a technicality - validated by one-fifth of the electorate, one-third of votes cast - and by Saint George he’s going to keep it.

In the 2011 referendum the two major parties, now deservedly moribund, colluded to howl down the chance of a better voting system because they were happy with Buggins’ turn at government as the people lurched from one sour disappointment to another. Now it’s “a plague o’ both your houses!” but we innocent Thebans must suffer a plague of misfortunes because of the malfeasance of the Great Ones.

Only disaster can save us.

But not just a disaster for Starmer. Even if he goes, the sickness stays.

It is a mind-virus: “affairs are now soul size.” We have to “squeeze the universe into a ball / To roll it towards some overwhelming question”:

“What is Man?”

Philosophy is not merely academic. Ideas kill.

If we define ourselves - our narrative - in the wrong way, calamity follows. For socialism the key issue is equality. A biography of Chairman Mao says that when he was told nuclear war would kill a third of humanity he replied, “Good, then there will be no more classes.”

We’re watching this obsession burn through our community now. Its logic is insane.

Individuals do not matter, only the masses, who are composed of individuals. Equality is the goal, but meanwhile an elite is needed to “educate” and lead the people. Democracy is an obstacle; it is the voice of the masses, but they are ignorant and excitable. They can be kept that way by biased schooling and the mass media.

Man’s only identity and justification for his existence is economic. The implications are lethal - here is the writer George Bernard Shaw:

Note that he said this in March 1931 when Britain was in the depths of the Depression and the unemployment rate was over twenty per cent.

Shaw was an early member of the socialist Fabian Society, which became interested in “eugenics”, a term coined by Sir Francis Galton to mean the genetic improvement of the human “stock.” That last word suggests the need for a controlling elite like that of farmers breeding cattle and indeed Sweden passed a law in 1934 that authorised the compulsory sterilisation of thousands of its citizens.

For all the talk of human rights, people do not matter. We are a collection of nothings who have no fundamental identity. Whatever self-concept binds us together must be destroyed - history, religion, culture, race. New Labour’s socialism is existentialist: we are, before we decide what we are, and the result of any such decision is an illusion.

Note by the way that although Sartre’s monumental work concluded that “Man is a useless passion” he advocated authenticity and courage - which are values. To be consistent he should have accepted that to be a lying, self-deluding coward is equally valid. He said freedom was purely a matter for individuals but became seduced by Marxism and during the May 1968 Paris riots he supported the student movement by arguing that freedom could be realized collectively.

What are the consequences of the nihilism that is plaguing Britain?

Now, any child can be killed in the womb, up to the moment of birth.

At the other end of life, there is “assisted dying,” supposedly for people predicted to die within a few months but in Canada and elsewhere we see already how the program may be extended; Shaw, thou shouldst be living at this hour.

The Bill to legalise “assisted dying” has fallen in the House of Lords, but campaigners are talking of using the Parliament Act to force it through. If this succeeds, it will the end of Upper House resistance in any matter; for the Commons, “The very firstlings of my heart shall be / The firstlings of my hand” as the Scottish tyrant put it. We will be driving a fast car without brakes or steering.

What is the purpose of our being alive between these two points? To pay taxes and validate the rule of our superiors, perhaps.

Starmer, national sovereignty and the Ministerial Code

Since the Mandelson/Starmer matter questions are being asked about whether the Ministerial Code has been breached.

This prompted me to look at how the current PM changed the Code when he came to power, and one item jumps out. It relates to the extent to which international law and treaties may override our national sovereignty.

Paragraph 1.6 of the 2010 edition issued under the then new Con-LibDem coalition government read thus:

“The Ministerial Code should be read against the background of the overarching duty on ministers to comply with the law including international law and treaty obligations and to uphold the administration of justice and to protect the integrity of public life.”

In October 2015, following the General Election which returned a Conservative government under Cameron, the italicised words were omitted. Officially it was said not to be a substantive legal change but in that case why the change in wording?

In a letter to The Guardian newspaper the Treasury Solicitor Paul Jenkins said:

“As the government’s most senior legal official I saw at close hand from 2010 onwards the intense irritation these words caused the PM as he sought to avoid complying with our international legal obligations, for example in relation to prisoner voting.

“Whether the new wording alters the legal obligations of ministers or not, there can be no doubt that they will regard the change as bolstering, in a most satisfying way, their contempt for the rule of international law.”

According to Grok critics

“argued it was motivated by frustration within parts of the Conservative government — particularly Cameron himself — with certain international obligations, especially:

“The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and rulings from the European Court of Human Rights (e.g., on prisoner voting, deportation cases, or counter-terrorism).

“Broader tensions with international law in areas like military action, immigration, or treaty commitments.”

In November 2024 under the new PM Sir Keir Starmer the relevant paragraph was amended to read:

“The Ministerial Code should be read against the background of the overarching duty on ministers to comply with the law, including international law and treaty obligations, and to protect the integrity of public life.”

It remains the same in the 2025 edition.

It seems clear that Starmer wishes to see our sovereignty re-subordinated to supranational governance.

This is evidenced in the proposed new law to bring our legislation into “dynamic alignment” with EU law and implement it via “Henry VIII” powers so as to bypass Parliamentary scrutiny.

Sir Keir is the deliberate enemy of our liberty and independence.

How Poland saved us from Communism

The video below tells us something I hadn’t known and should have. In the summer of 1920 Lenin sent 200,000 soldiers into Poland with the objective of reaching Berlin - and spreading Communism beyond.

Help from the West was not whole-hearted.

Postwar Germany was very weak at this time. Only a year earlier thousands of its people had starved to death as the Royal Navy continued its blockade during the 1919 peace negotiations. The Left was stirring: Communist revolts were put down by the Weimar government but who knows where a successful Red invasion could have led?

In Britain also there was much socialist unrest. Urged by the British Communist leader Harry Pollitt, organiser of the Hands Off Russia campaign, dock workers in London prevented the loading of arms onto the SS Jolly George for Poland.

Russia also had its sympathisers in France - only a few months later the French Section of the Workers’ International voted to join Lenin’s Comintern. For political and other reasons the help France provided to Poland, though crucial as it turned out, was limited.

Lenin’s attempt failed because intelligence reached the Polish military that the enemy’s forces, split into two, had a weakly defended centre through which the Poles managed to drive and harry the supply lines in the rear.

Here’s to Poland and the 1920 Battle of Warsaw.

Cromwell returns: PMQs 15th April 2026

Sir Keir claims the right to govern based on a freak electoral result but since then has repeatedly shown his contempt for democratic accountability, not least at PMQs. This week after another Starmer peroration on Tory past history Speaker Hoyle was driven to tell him “Prime Minister, it is Prime Minister’s questions. We have got to concentrate.”

Some may think that Sir Lindsay’s intervention was partly a response to recent public comment on his own seeming reluctance to hold the PM’s feet to the fire but even so the latter had angry words for Hoyle, stomping off and furiously clouting the Speaker’s chair on his way out.

I suspect that Starmer’s question-dodging and tetchiness are because like other fanatics he has delegated his identity to an ideology, in this case a simplistic political one. To question his belief, his mission, is to threaten his sense of himself and it triggers aggression.

Leaders who are sure they are right are a danger to others. “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken,” wrote Oliver Cromwell to the Church of Scotland just before slaughtering hundreds in the Battle of Dunbar.

Cromwell himself had no doubt that he was God’s instrument. So having fought the King as a Parliamentarian he ended by turning on Parliament, becoming as great a tyrant as Charles I had ever been. He dismissed the House of Commons, made himself Lord Protector and for a time split Britain into ten regions, each governed by an appointed Major-General.

This suppression of the people’s national voice is echoed in Sir Keir’s strategy. He is proposing to use “Henry VIII powers” in a new UK-EU trade bill to enable “dynamic alignment” with European regulations, so bypassing the Commons as was the practice when we were in the EU.

Just as power is deliberately leached away from Westminster, so also is it being sucked from the people all around England. Each of the several planned “unitary councils” is intended to rule a population of about 500,000 - seven times the size of an average Parliamentary constituency! The 2024 White Paper calls it “devolution” but as far as the individual voter is concerned it looks more like a system of Ottoman governors.

What will be the chances of “throwing the rascals out”? Come Christmas 2017 the current Mayor of London will have held office longer than Margaret Thatcher’s record tenure as Prime Minister, yet he was last elected on a turnout of only 40.5% in 2024. We think we are a democracy but our universal adult franchise is less than a century old and the habit can easily wither away. We are subjects not citizens.

As to justice, Magna Carta (1215) was originally not for our sakes but for King John’s barons: serfs and commoners were not “free men” entitled to trial by jury! That extended interpretation came much later, under Edward III.

Like Cromwell, socialists are sure they know what is right. They are the modern version of “the godly” but they serve History instead of God. As with religious fanatics, for them all opposition comes of the Devil and there is no debating with him. If for example, someone dares to raise the issue of organised mass violation of women and girls, that must be dismissed as a “dog-whistle” to the supporters of evil. And if the Speaker of the House of Commons offers even a mild criticism to the righteous he must be attacked; there is no compromise to be had between Right and Wrong.

On the contrary: our liberty, peace and prosperity depend on not resolving many issues and agreeing to disagree. Starmer and his lethal absolutist certainty are a grave danger to the common weal. He has described himself as a “hard bastard” and our hope lies in his being only half right; else we should be headed for another civil war.

It will all be fixed, eventually...

The first part of the tweet below shows the way forward:

People are rightly getting tired of the doom-mongers. If the gloomy prophets are right then what is the point of continuing to follow them? Those of working age who can make a new life abroad should do so - there are signs that this is happening already. The rest of us should hoard provisions and prepare defences.

Given the people who are now running the country and those who want to replace them it does seem that things are going to get worse before they get better. However, our gibbering in fear and anger merely generates income for the clickbaiters.

Instead we need to look past the crises to how the problems will be solved, for they will be, one way or another.

The hard way is simply for disaster to overtake us and for the survivors to rebuild.

If we want to avoid that we should continue to take an interest in national politics so that the destruction is less and the turnaround can start earlier.

To give us hope here are a couple of examples of how even a terrible situation can be rectified with intelligent analysis and systematic effort.

The first - and it’s worth watching - is about a farmer in Iowa who bought an additional forty acres of apparently dead ground. His neighbours loaded up with debt to buy more good land and new machines and were caught out when the President blocked grain exports to Russia and the Treasury boosted interest rates from nine to eighteen per cent. Our hero avoided the dangers of financialisation and spent several years improving the soil before growing a commercial crop. His business survived when thousands around him quit or were bankupted:

The second is about a 250-year plan to restore the great Caledonian forest from its tiny remnants - not just the trees but the whole ecosystem, from micoorganisms in the soil to wild animals and birds attracted back to the resources of the woods:

Like the farmer in the first video we need to start by working out what needs fixing and in what order. Here’s a bit of a list:

• Securing cheap, reliable and plentiful energy

• Balancing our national budget by rebuilding our industrial base and reforming the welfare state

• Increasing our ability to grow food locally

• Strengthening our national defences against foreign enemies

• Dealing with threats from internal enemies - terrorists and revolutionaries

• Suppressing crime and public disorder

• Preserving our freedoms and our ability to influence those who govern us

The energy question is fundamental and highlights the difficulty we have with governance. Any fool can see that we need extra fossil fuels to cover our transition to sustainable EROI-positive energy security (nuclear, hydro etc), yet the fool in charge cannot see it!

As to farming, the Government should abandon trying to destroy it with taxation and instead punt in money to make it more productive.

As an example of what can be done consider the work of the inventor James Dyson who has developed a farming system that grows strawberries all year round, generates heat from waste and avoids the use of poisonous agricultural chemicals: https://www.dyson.co.uk/discover/sustainability/farming/dyson-farming-on-bbc-rick-stein-food-stories

To conclude, time will resolve all our problems, brutally if we are stupid.

And there is so much time ahead! Perhaps five billion more years before the Sun consumes the last of its hydrogen fuel, though long before that it is expected to continue steadily burning hotter to the point where Earth cannot support life. Elon Musk’s plan to colonise Mars may keep us going.

As to sustainable energy the former American Archdruid imagines that in the fullness of time we shall have another carboniferous age to make new oil and gas - though we likely shall not be around to benefit from it: https://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-09-05/the-next-ten-billion-years/

It’s all a question of temporal perspective.

Starmer At Bay: PMQs 25th March 2026

Last week’s session was truly awful, the PM completely ignoring Badenoch’s six direct queries and shouting about Nick Timothy and Iran. Even the Speaker was moved to say “I am not responsible for the answers, but this is certainly not Opposition questions.”

We got the same again this time, as the Opposition leader repeatedly tried to get a commitment to fresh drilling in the North Sea. Starmer responded with a mixture of counterattacks and attempts to offload the issue as per legislative protocol onto the Energy Secretary. When Badenoch told him he was PM and could make that decision today Sir Keir put his fingers up to his lowered brows (12:08:15).

If there is one U-turn we need it is on energy policy, the keystone of our economy. The PM blames war and claims “the only way forward is to go further and faster on renewables.” If in a hole, keep digging.

Starmer’s Government refuses to be properly accountable to Parliament and, through our representatives there, at last to us. Barrister and constitutional expert Steven Barrett’s view is that such refusal amounts to contempt of Parliament.

The PM’s bluster was directed at more than Mrs Badenoch. His stalling and aggression when replying to Nigel Farage’s question on “smashing the gangs” triggered a walkout by the Reform squad.

Last week there were three Points of Order in which Conservatives tried to get the Speaker to rule on whether Ministers could be compelled to answer questions. This time the Father of the House Sir Edward Leigh put another one on the same subject and Sir Lindsay again explained that he could not force responses without compromising the independence of the Chair.

Nor is this problem limited to PMQs exchanges. In today’s Points of Order Andrew Snowden (Con) complained of the Cabinet Office’s failure to answer two of his letters within deadline.

Matters, not just fingers, are coming to a head. There is an almost Cromwellian arrogance in Starmer’s approach to the “Mother of Parliaments.” One or the other may ultimately have to say “In the name of God, go!” Roll on, May seventh!

Speaking of which, there may be a Lib Dem straw in the wind. When the PM attempted to bat away responsibility for energy decisions in the direction of Ed Miliband the LD leader supported him, saying that was indeed the legal position. Mrs Badenoch told him “Stop sucking up, Ed.”

Davey didn’t go to Eton but he seems to know about “oiling.” Perhaps he calculates that in the next General Election even more people will turn to his party under the illusion that the Lib Dems are a safely middle of the road outfit (not so crazy as the Greens, at any rate.) So, is he putting down his marker for a Labour-Lib Dem coalition in 2029?

Nailing The Jelly: PMQs 18th March 2026

If you can’t nail a jelly to the ceiling you can catch it in a bowl.

Kemi Badenoch has recently grasped the power of relentless persistence and yesterday used all her six questions to trap Starmer into a blatant display of truth-dodging that has lit up the MSM as well as the internet.

KB (1): … did he personally speak to Peter Mandelson about his relationship with the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein before appointing him as our ambassador to Washington?

PM: … mistake … process … Iran …

KB (2): … did he speak to Peter Mandelson about that [Epstein] before the appointment? Yes or no?

PM: … Mandelson was asked questions and gave untruthful replies… Iran…

KB (3): … The Prime Minister told us on the record that he “believed the lies” that Mandelson told him, but if he did not speak to him, how can he say that?

PM: The process is clear… [KB] appointed Nick Timothy… [who] said last night that Muslims praying in public [was] an “act of domination”… she should sack him.

KB (4): We can only assume that he did not speak to Peter Mandelson. [Starmer] left the questioning… to two of Mandelson’s closest friends, one of whom was also friends with a convicted paedophile. Asking those questions should have been his job. Why did he fail to do his duty?

PM: … shadow Justice Secretary … Muslims … Even Tommy Robinson … [Badenoch] is too weak and has absolutely no judgment.

KB (5): … The Prime Minister knew that Mandelson had kept up a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein… had been warned about appointing Mandelson. He claims he was lied to. Mandelson had twice been fired for dishonesty, so why did the Prime Minister believe Peter Mandelson over the vetting documents?

PM: … Hindus … Jews … Christians … Muslims praying … the Tory party has a problem with Muslims -

[Interruption.]

Mr Speaker: Order. May I just say that I am not responsible for the answers? I just have to say that.

KB (6): … [Starmer] appointed Peter Mandelson, but did not bother to ask the questions. If he cannot be straight with the House on something as simple as this, why should we believe a word he says about anything?

PM: [Badenoch] said we should rush into war … NATO … Greenland … Iran … failure to condemn and sack -

[Interruption.]

Mr Speaker: Order. I repeat that I am not responsible for the answers, but this is certainly not Opposition questions.

PM: - the shadow Justice Secretary for the poison and division that he spreads. It is turning out to be quite a month for the Leader of the Opposition who claims that she never makes any mistakes.

Minutes later:

Andrew Snowden (Con): Every week, the Prime Minister comes to the Chamber and reads out this pre-scripted nonsense that bears no resemblance to the questions that he is actually asked… So I ask him again: … did he speak to Lord Mandelson personally before appointing him as ambassador to the United States?

PM: We have set out the process … Opposition Members do not want to talk about the war … Nor do they want to talk about the shadow Justice Secretary saying that Muslims are not welcome to pray in Trafalgar Square. The Leader of the Opposition should remove him from the Front Bench, or I suspect he will be sitting up on the Reform Bench next.

**************************

This sh*tshow generated multiple POOs (Points Of Order).

Sir Julian Lewis (Con), Paul Holmes (Con), Sir John Hayes (Con) all asked in various ways what could be done to make Ministers give answers relevant to the questions put.

The Speaker refused to be drawn, saying that the first was not a Point Of Order, the next had “a real weakness… because there is an assumption that the person knows the answer” and Sir John was “just continuing a debate that I think I have already given the answers to.”

Dawn Butler (Lab), MP for two decades and former Gordon Brown PS loyally used a Point Of Order to help the PM muddy the waters by asking whether it brought Parliament into disrepute when Badenoch stated (according to Ms Butler) it was “following British values to attack Muslims praying.”

That was a distortion: nobody denies the general right of Muslims to pray, which they can and do anywhere if it does not seriously inconvenience others; but the shadow Justice Secretary had described (not in Parliament) a mass Muslim prayer event in Trafalar Square as “an act of domination” and in PMQs Badenoch had stated he was “defending British values.” For Muslims there is no discontinuity between religion and politics. That event was certainly not the first assertion of their political strength and will equally surely not be the last. A Justice Secretary’s brief includes dealing with issues of public order. The local elections on May 7th will give us plenty to discuss.

Mr Speaker: “This is an important point: we need tolerance, and it is about respecting one another. You have put your point on the record, but I am not going to enter into a debate. I will leave it at that for the moment.”

Some are beginning to think that Sir Lindsay Hoyle, former Labour MP for Chorley and himself the son of a Lancashire Labour MP may be, despite his habitual and commendable defence of Parliament’s privileges and traditions, overly reluctant to persuade the PM to be fully honest with the Opposition.

But Starmer’s habitual contempt for PMQs protocol was so outrageous on this occasion that we wonder whether he can continue in office even as far as May 7th.

If he does, and more, perhaps we are lost instead.

Drinker's Diet

From “History Defined”:

In the 1600s, some monks in Germany only drank beer and water during their 40-day fast for lent. They concocted an “unusually strong” brew, full of carbohydrates and nutrients.

In 2011, a journalist attempted to re-create their fast. He lost 25 pounds during the ordeal.

Fom “Empires Unchained”:

The beer the monks developed for this purpose still exists and is still brewed by the same institution.

The Paulaner brewery in Munich traces its origin directly to the Minim friars of Neudeck ob der Au, who began brewing their Salvator doppelbock in the 17th century specifically as liquid sustenance during Lenten fasting.

The name Salvator reflected its quasi-sacramental purpose.

When the monastery was secularized in 1799 during the Napoleonic reorganization of Bavaria, the monks’ brewing operation was sold off and eventually became one of the founding breweries of what is now a major commercial operation.

The strong dark bock style they developed for religious austerity became so popular with Munich’s secular population that other breweries copied it, the suffix “ator” on any German doppelbock name, from Optimator to Celebrator, is a direct commercial tribute to the monks’ fasting beer.

A brewing tradition invented for self-denial became one of the most commercially imitated beer styles in Germany.

And you can still get it; whether you should is another matter. Another example of Not Safe For Work?

Hannah Spencer's Maiden Speech

Her clothes got all the MSM comment, but then so did Disraeli’s flamboyant dress. We could do with some brightening up in Parliament to offset the soberly-clad, dangerous dullard of a PM who bores and bullies us.

Her speech, delivered on International Women’s Day, is quite charming. and gives recognition to men also:

Four weeks ago today, I was in college, a plumber learning how to plaster, and today I am in Parliament as an MP. Being here is the honour of my life, but I do not want this to be unusual or exceptional. I truly believe that anyone doing a job like mine should get a seat on these Benches.

Where I am from, we are taught to look after each other, to look out for each other, to stick up for each other and to stick together—to see each other as human. I am so proud of that humanity and that people in Gorton, Denton, Burnage, Levenshulme, Longsight and Abbey Hey feel that way too. It is in our blood and in our bones—we see each other as human.

Where I am from, we give a nod to the statue of Emmeline Pankhurst. We remember the farm worker and seamstress Hannah Mitchell, the trade unionist Mary Quaile and the mill worker Annie Kenney—and, of course, Elsie Plant, who is from just down the road from me and who I named one of my beautiful greyhounds after. I think of these brilliant women a lot, and especially today as we debate International Women’s Day.

I think of many others, too, from pits, slums and factories; the women who changed the system so that I could be here; the women of colour whose names we will never know because history did not bother to recognise or remember them. But we do today, because without their struggle, their fight and their determination to stick together, none of this could be possible. It is bittersweet to recognise these brilliant people but to be reminded that we still need to try to be them.

The constituency that elected me is the 15th most deprived in the country. It has suffered decades of neglect and broken promises. We see that every day right in front of us, in the litter and fly-tipping, the state of housing, the struggle for a job you can build a life on, the filthy and polluted air, and the reduced life chances—the sheer unfairness of it all.

My constituency has been hit hard by the ongoing cost of living crisis. None of this is fair, none of it is right and none of it happens by accident. So I very much share my predecessor’s strong commitment to tackling health inequalities and putting local people and all our communities at the heart of decision making. That is how we begin to turn things around, to give people agency and a genuine chance of a better today and a better tomorrow.

To the girls I saw photos of, going to school on International Women’s Day dressed as Hannah the Plumber, with their overalls and spanners, and the trademark hair. To the 10-year-old boy at HideOut who rock-climbed an incredibly high wall with me, saw me become suddenly very terrified of how far up I was, and said, “Don’t ever give up. And if it’s scary looking down then just look at what’s in front of you.”

To the women in my life who have had my back and fought for equality alongside me. To the men I work with—especially the lads on my plastering course, who dealt very well with my new-found spotlight in the middle of our training. To those men who will suffer the effects of this unequal society through their mental health. To the veterans I know who were willing to risk everything, and came home and found that society was turning its back on them.

To the white working classes, who are always lumped into one group and never appreciated. To everyone who will have nowhere to sleep tonight, or will barely exist in a cold, damp and insecure home. To my trans siblings who get blamed for everything. To the Muslims everywhere, who are constantly, and often violently, scapegoated. To the disabled people who cannot access the world because of structural inequality that is completely fixable. To the people of colour, who have to work harder at everything.

I do not always get it, and I will not say that I always understand it, but what I do know is what it feels like to be looked down on, to be let down and left behind, to be less worthy because of something about me. Our struggles may be different, but our humanity is the same. We always stick together, we always fight for each other, and that is what I want us to take forward from International Women’s Day, and to do that every single day.

The cleaners, bus drivers, nursery workers, foster carers, home carers, unpaid carers, teaching assistants, bin collectors, warehouse workers, delivery drivers, school dinner staff, lollipop wardens, supermarket workers, posties, library staff, kitchen porters, farm workers, mechanics, ground workers, scaffolders, electricians, plasterers and plumbers—we deserve to be here; every single one of us. And I will make space for you to come and join me, to get to have your say.

From the bustle of Longsight market, the many Irish pubs in Levy, Sue’s chippy, and Tony at California Wines in Gorton, to the amazing young people at HideOut, the best hash brown butty at Cafe Plus in Denton, and the women-led social enterprise at Dahlia Café on Burnage Lane—you are the best of our brilliant communities. I want to put Gorton and Denton on the map by championing the positives about our community: the spirit, the warmth, the grit, and the way we help each other out every single day. Whether it is our neighbours where we live, or our siblings in places like Afghanistan, Gaza, Sudan and Iran—wherever we are, we deserve to live freely as the human beings that we all are.

We do things differently in Manchester, and it makes me proud every single day. Now I want to make Abbey Hey, Levenshulme, Burnage, Longsight, Gorton and Denton proud of me. Thank you so much for putting your faith in this plumber and newly qualified plasterer. Together, we can make hope normal again, and we will look after each other, whoever we are, because where I am from, that is just what we do.

Naturally her membership of the Green Party is a concern, what with its odd leader “Zack Polanski” (né David Paulden) and its constituency of seeming incompatibles, but how could she - how could anyone now - possibly have joined Labour?

Satanism is not a new moral panic

The internet is fizzing with demonisation of senior US political figures as the Epstein files are leaked. There are fantastic allegations of perversion and even cannibalism. Here in the UK it is possible to believe that our Prime Minister actually works to harm our country in several ways.

Can all this be simply the hysteria of ninnies?

Yet forty years ago Michael Bentine published a novel whose foreword reads in part:

I have been pondering for many years on my own encounters with the forces of evil during war and peace… newspaper headlines about drug smuggling, satanism and corruption in high places show daily that the kind of events described here are all too probable.

Bentine was a firm believer in the paranormal and yet was nobody’s fool. He was at the liberation of Belsen in 1945 and saw Hell there; like William Blake he believed heaven and hell are states of the human soul, but not merely that. Here he is in discussion with Bishop Richard Holloway (BBC1, 19 August 1988):

Either the spiritual cross-currents now flowing so vigorously are baloney or they’re not; if not, they scare me. There are reports of increased church attendance and conversions (ex-Muslim then atheist Ayaan Hirsi Ali adopted Christianity in November 2023.)

Evil may be a real force and if so blasé sophistication may not be enough to counter it.

Hannah Spencer - plumb lucky?

Jealous eyes are cast on the new MP for Gorton and Denton. The Daily Mail digs away at how this relatively young (34) plumber has come to co-own property “worth over £1m.” Apparently her mother helped her buy her first house ten years ago so that got her on the ladder early by today’s standards; and it also helped to have a (now ex-) partner who must earn well as a professional biochemist.

But Hannah’s acceptance speech touching on the poor rewards of hard work was not hypocritical. Many of those who voted for her will be putting in long hours in their small businesses and wondering when they will break through to the good times.

Part of her success may be down to “working as a specialist in heat pumps” where the profit margin is big. Google’s AI says an installed heat pump costs “an average of around £12,500 for a standard 3-bedroom home” ChatPT says an air source inverter costs US$1,200-2,500 to manufacture - say under UK£2,000 at the top end.

If supplying and fitting costs a further £3,000 (would it be as much as that?) the Government’s £7,500 subsidy would appear to be “pure gravy” as PG Wodehouse would say. Plenty there to share with a skilled employee, assuming Spencer was not running her own show and taking the lot. This is another case of the State being happy to burn taxpayers’ money to ride a hobby horse.

But fair play to Hannah for having the wit to exploit it. She was less likely to become a demi-millionaire just from unblocking toilets.

Vote for War

A repost from 2021:

Outside St Mary’s Church in Totnes stands a rough stone war memorial. At the foot of the cross are named over 100 men killed in the Great War, including three men from one family and two from another, in a town of fewer than 6,000 souls.

Who voted for the slaughter to begin? Nobody. The electorate comprised 5.2 million men (some 60% of all adult males, and no women at all), but they were not consulted. Instead, the order was given by King George V at a Privy Council meeting in Buckingham Palace attended by only two court officials and Lord Beauchamp. As historian AJP Taylor explained https://global.oup.com/academic/product/english-history-1914-1945-9780192801401?cc=gb&lang=en& , this reflected ‘a general view that war was an act of state, if not of prerogative, with which ordinary citizens had little to do.’

By 1918, after nearly a million British servicemen had died (with another c. two million permanently disabled) https://historicengland.org.uk/research/inclusive-heritage/disability-history/1914-1945/war/ , it was thought that the people might be entitled to more of a voice.

The Home Secretary introduced the Representation of the People Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representation_of_the_People_Act_1918#Background saying that the war

‘has made it, I think, impossible that ever again, at all events in the lifetime of the present generation, there should be a revival of the old class feeling which was responsible for so much, and, among other things, for the exclusion for a period, of so many of our population from the class of electors.’

Nevertheless, while the Act extended the vote to all men only some women qualified - about 40% of them. The rest had to wait until 1928 to be included. Universal adult suffrage in Britain has yet to celebrate its centenary.

Even modernised democracy didn’t stop the repeat use of the royal war-making prerogative in 1939; and it remains to this day the constitutional position for the United Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_parliamentary_approval_for_military_action .

While we complain about minor infringements of our personal freedom, the government reserves the right to kill us (and the people of other nations) wholesale, so long as some pretext can be found that circumvents Nuremberg principles. ‘Gandalf’ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9569815/You-looked-like-Gandalf-Tony-Blair-admits-lockdown-mullet-mistake.html bounced us into war with Iraq, and ‘Dodgy Dave’ https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/on-this-day-dennis-skinner-thrown-out-of-the-commons-after-calling-cameron-dodgy-dave-263883/ only desisted from bombing Syria because he chose to ‘respect’ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23892783 a Commons majority opposing it.

The US Constitution attempted to restrain the Executive with a specification that it should be Congress that declares a war. Despite the country being almost continuously involved in armed foreign conflicts since its foundation, that declaration has been made only eleven times, the last in 1942 https://history.house.gov/Institution/Origins-Development/War-Powers/ . The use of the notion of ‘authorisation’ has allowed this power, like so many others, to drift towards the Chief Executive, and in any case the next Big One may happen so suddenly that there will be no need for a call-up before a general incineration begins.

The US President’s nuclear football is ever at hand; Britain is now stocking up with more atomic weapons https://www.economist.com/britain/2021/03/18/britain-is-adding-nukes-for-the-first-time-since-the-cold-war ; the winds blow around the old granite cross. And we have the vote.

Fresh Garbage: PMQs / Chagos 25th February 2026

The PM gave us the usual stuff today.

Edward Argar (Con): Would Starmer scrap impending business rate changes?

PM [effectively]: …

Mrs Badenoch, LOTO (repeatedly): Would he cut interest rates on student loans?

PM [effectively]: …

Fleur Anderson (Lab): Would Starmer remain committed to the Equality Act?

PM: Natch. And [irrelevantly again] would Nigel Farage apologise for what one of his Party said (“she should be shot”) about Bolsover’s Natalie Fleet (Lab)? [The Speaker has recently told off Sir Keir for asking the Opposition a question, but hey, who cares?]

Farage: What about the right of Chagossians to live on their land?

PM: “So the hon. Gentleman has neither the decency nor the backbone to condemn a death threat against a Member of this House.” Reform’s Gorton and Denton candidate denies non-whites can be English and “has been endorsed by Tommy Robinson.” Vote Labour tomorrow. [As for Chagos, his reply was: …]

I have just bought a copy of “Punch & Judy Politics: An Insider’s Guide to Prime Minister’s Questions.” Sir Keir regularly turns the baby of a serious question into sausages and his nasal twang is already halfway to being a swazzle. How we long for the day when we can have politics for grown-ups.

More interesting was the next session, Farage’s “Urgent Question” about Diego Garcia / Chagos.

The relevant Minister should have been the Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper but she was returning from the USA; in her stead was Hamish Falconer, PUSS for foreign affairs and more specifically the Middle East. In rugby terms he had been given a “hospital pass,” (says my wife.) James Cartlidge (Con) noted Falconer’s deflections and said ”Surely we should have a Minister in front of us who can answer our fundamental legal questions on the treaty.”

Falconer betrayed the pressure he felt under by twice addressing Farage directly (“you”) which of course should be the (Madam Deputy in this case) Speaker, who picked him up on it.

For pressure there was. Four different MPs asked him about Article 298 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which says in part:

a State may… declare in writing that it does not accept any one or more of the procedures… with respect to one or more of the following categories of disputes: […]

(b) disputes concerning military activities, including military activities by government vessels and aircraft engaged in non-commercial service…

Father of the House Sir Edward Leigh noted the “apparent” discrepancy between answers given on 22 May 2025, when it was said that without a quick resolution on Diego Garcia HMG would run into problems with international law, and written answers given on 4 and 12 February 2026 that acknowledged this opt-out. He gave notice that he would table an Urgent Question on this discrepancy for Monday.

The earlier role of Jonathan Powell was also an issue - he may have been given confidential information on the “deal” before his appointment as special envoy to the British Indian Ocean Territories. Ben Obese-Jecty (Con) had previously asked about it re Chagos and a reply was due 12 February but not received as of even date. “One can assume that a response will be forthcoming very quickly,” said a stern Madam Deputy Speaker.

Nor was it just the Conservatives who turned up the heat. Labour’s Graham Stringer quoted the Labour manifesto on protecting the British Overseas Territories and “defending their sovereignty and right to self-determination” - but noted that the Chagossians had not been consulted. The Lib Dem spokesperson Dr Al Pinkerton also supported Chagossian rights.

There was a further complication, said Farage, in that the Maldives might be about to launch a counterclaim on Chagos via the ICJ .

However much Falconer harped on eleven previous rounds of discussion on Diego Garcia and Farage’s stunt trip to the Chagos Islands, it was clear that the matter remains far from settled.

Thank goodness Parliament is still capable of holding Government to account. What was the point of capturing the Crown in 1689 if all it achieved was to allow the Prime Minister carte blanche? We need another John Dunning, he who said in 1780 “The influence of the Crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished”; but this time to address the shogunate that has taken over from the monarch.