WEEKENDER: The Future - A Stateless World? by Wiggia

The recent elections in the USA resulted in Trump sweeping the board, this despite the impression given in all the media that Harris was going ahead in a tight race to the White House. As with so much these days the direction the media wish to take us is not necessarily that which is a true reflection on what is actually happening.

That in itself is a worrying trend. There was a time when the media was fairly impartial in its opinions, now not nearly so much: like everything else it is divided into entrenched camps.

This is not only giving endlessly false readings on events but in many cases it feels, rightly, that opinion is being driven by vested interests.

A good example of that was the unanimous push of government advice during Covid, regardless of any misgivings from many of a different opinion who were completely sidelined.

To a degree one can understand why the dead tree press would obey. The sales of newspapers are but a fraction of a few years ago and many titles are struggling to stay alive, never mind relevant.

The pouring of huge amounts of government money into advertising would make anyone think twice about bucking the trend and losing all that ‘gifted’ revenue.

Elsewhere the feeling with hindsight is that there was a lot of leaning on individuals and corporations to toe the official line and the ‘nudge’ unit did its part in orchestrating all this.

A comment by Pat Condell on X summed up the current thinking among governments and elites at this moment in time:

“The European Union is a model for the planned borderless world run by an unaccountable politburo. Its core purpose is to eliminate the countries of Europe and transform a diverse continent of sovereign nations into a single homogenous political bloc governed by a committee of unelected bureaucrats fronted by a cosmetic rubber stamp assembly.”

Despite the vision of remainers that all who voted for Brexit were knuckle-dragging morons who should not be allowed to vote on anything, many of us shared this view of the EU then and it has been reinforced since Brexit.

We are beginning to see the scales falling from the eyes of many, but not yet enough. This statement has much in it which should be refused but still few in power even acknowledge what is going on yet alone raise doubts and reasoned argument…

“Canadian citizen receives a standing Ovation after laying out Klaus Schwab’s plan to enslave the world: https://x.com/i/status/1848610733980062118”

Another small taste of what certain politicians regard as the future for us. This has been erased since but was archived by someone who believed it would stand the test of time:

“Remember that time when Hillary Clinton introduced her friend GeorgeSoros and his interest to get involved in US elections? The Internet sure doesn't. Why? Because it has been wiped from existence for the most part. Turns out I found a copy of the file I had archived years ago: https://x.com/i/status/1851690476463628780”

So many paths lead back to Davos; even our new PM has said he prefers Davos to Westminster:

Is he saying that our own democracy is a poor substitute for the elites of Davos? If he is then he has no right to be in the position he now finds himself in, he is a fraud; but then most of them are. Of the current incumbents, the front bench has only one person who has ever worked in the real world for a living, and that one has jusr resigned for a fraudulent crime in the not so distant past. Are any of the others suited to the positions they are hold or are given? As the years pass ever fewer have worked in the private sector in any capacity. This does not bode well.

But then we knew that. His pre-election pledge that the NHS would not receive any more money without reform was ignored like everything else, and a consultation is to be commenced on the reforms that will likely, as with all consultations and inquiries, outlast the government’s tenure.

David Icke is not for me usually a go-to person, yet here he nails it re the farming shut down that appears to be happening simultaneously all over the west.

https://x.com/i/status/1852870877144113446

Back to the NHS. Endless adverts appear telling us that breakthroughs are occurring in the treatment or cure of various diseases, new testing procedures should be insisted on and again all are rightly advised to get tested and pop down immediately to see their GP…

I cannot see all this money spent on advertising as any more than a distraction to the fact that the NHS is failing in many areas and very little will be achieved while waiting lists for standard procedures stretches out into, in many cases a time when the patient will be gone. Perhaps this is the plan; it is a fact that the last six months of anyone's life is the most expensive for the NHS should they need care.

Perhaps the assisted dying bill being presented to Parliament is part of the planned process to eliminate old people before they become a burden on the state.

My own views on this aspect of medical care (sic) have been aired on here in detail, so I won’t be going over old ground, but just a point: the ‘end of life bill ‘ before Parliament and which has just been passed, has no mention of the fact that lives are ended in hospitals and care homes on a regular basis with none of the ‘safety’ provisions that are being put before Parliament in this private member’s bill. That is happening and to say the situations are not comparable is a lie in many cases. It leaves a huge loophole in the law that can be, as during Covid, be exploited. Those responsible for that lawful murder have walked away untouched with their gold-plated pensions intact, and now that ability to end life has been extended.

Old people have very little future to look forward to. They have been discarded or are being so little by little. This once great nation has currently, despite all the bluster to the contrary, probably the worst pensions in the so called advanced western nations, and the withholding of the Winter Fuel Allowance was a deliberate mean act to a group who if they were still workng would be classified as existing well below the poverty line.

These are people who have done more than their bit for this country, paid their taxes, are crapped on from above and are now being told their lives have no value as they are a drag on the State.

And the lies, the endless lies… this from someone who claims there is an imaginary black hole in the finances, yet manages to find billions for nonsense schemes in Africa, public sector wage increases, billions for illegal migrants who get free private health care and free heated hotel rooms plus plus plus…

Can’t say she never acted!

What the hell has happened to us as a nation when this bleak and unholy future is all that can be offered?

WEEKENDER: Energy, by Wiggia

Why is it that so many of the promoters of green policies and in particular purveyors of climate change are so stereotypical in the way they speak and promote their ideology? The examples below are typical and now we have the Edstone in charge of the nation’s energy supply and our net zero ‘obligations.’ None of it bodes well for the future of this country.

Ed Miliband is one of the eco loons who frequent the TV screens and spread the ‘save the planet’ gospel on a regular basis. Needless to say like all of them they have skin in the game, running an eco audit firm. He also tells porkies as well as spouting nonsense such as this:

https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/environmental-activist-says-we-should-give-up-pets-to-save-planet-b2183768.html

He is also of the ‘give up meat for the same reasons’ brigade as well as the usual ‘cycle everywhere and don’t drive a car.’

Not quite sure how they will get anyone else to give up cattle. Somehow I think Argentina and India for different reasons will say no - and as we speak an offshoot of the green movement has introduced bison into wildest Kent, and they are thriving; a clash of ideologies is imminent, and I put money on the bison.

The ‘don’t drive’ comment is interesting. Only a few weeks ago in one of his interviews he stated he had never owned a car, yet only two weeks previously on the same program he proudly stated he had managed to go a whole year without driving his car? The car he had never owned? Or like so much else he made it up.

Meanwhile whilst talking about cars he stated a few days ago that EV sales were up something like 26%. The truth is somewhat different. Overall the market relies on subsidies for sales, but it is not just the inflated price of these vehicles but the lack of infrastructure, as with everything else, and the belief, rightly that any price advantages of today will disappear when EVs become the majority vehicle of choice as our green governments hope they will: the lost fuel tax that EVs represent can not be sustained ‘as any fule kno.’

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/electriccars/article-13390757/UK-car-sector-downgrades-EV-sales-expectations-2024-public-demand-plummets-EVs.html

Other facts come to light as the number of these EVs gains a foot in the market place: their propensity to simply carry on burning should they catch fire, and the fact that should an accident damage the battery, meaning a total write off, means insurance quotes have ballooned out of all recognition in the last couple of years to cover the costs; this of course affects all types of vehicles. Not only should Milliband not be allowed anywhere near the control of the UK’s energy but he is also a danger to the food industry. In fairness to him he could have been distracted when spellbound by Greta Thunberg along with others of equal persuasion:

 



It’s good to know that our energy policies are in such good hands. He has indeed returned, putting out the most condescending video, treating all as five-year-olds:

https://x.com/i/status/1837781253992419453

There seems to be no end to these loons. Jim ‘jail the deniers’ Dale, a comedy turn who when challenged as to what his qualifications were by someone who had them in spades, mumbled eventually that he had several years as a meteorologist. It seems that in a later interview he mysteriously claimed to have obtained qualifications. Yet these people want climate change to be accepted on their terms; any other opinion even when backed by the ‘same’ science is immediately slammed as a form of heretic nonsense.

Below is a good example:

dailysceptic.org/2024/10/18/scientists-find-no-change-in-global-warming-rate-since-1970-despite-hottest-year-ever-in-2023/

Had he been arpound at the same time Jim Dale could also have been a stand-in for Jimmy Durante…

And finally there is Dale Vince who has made millions out of government subsidies and as is typical with all these zealots talks rubbish. His claim that wind now accounts for 46% of the load base is reliant on the wind actually blowing. Again when confronted with the fact that the wind is not reliable he said we can overcome the odd day the wind does not blow…

The odd day…

As can be seen from a typical graph of the wind blowing over a calender year there are more days when the wind hardly blows at all than any over 40% peaks. Still he has done very nicely out of it.

It is easy, very easy to be cynical with such people promoting all that needs to be done in order to meet the targets for the mythical net zero, but when we are lied to by these cultists, for that is what they have become it is difficult (beyond the desire to clean the planet up e.g. cleaning rivers) to see most of it as anything other than a giant scam. As with Covid any dissent is rubbished, and look how many so-called conspiracy theories are coming true in that area. The presumption that so many factors are indicating the end of the world is simply not true, the list of predictions that never happened lengthens by the year. It’s time to get real on all this.

For if climate change is happening as it has over the millennia then nature will win. Sitting on the beach at Brighton like Canute saying ‘go away’, or shutting down power stations or throwing paint over Van Gogh's paintings will not make a jot of difference.

WEEKENDER: The degrading of the Olympic Games, by Wiggia

 

My original thought was I felt sorry for the organisers and participants at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in gay Paree. After watching for some time my mood changed to one of NGAF based on what I saw.

Difficult to know what was the intention of all this but it has nothing to do with sport unless of course Paris is being lauded as some sort of capital of perversion.

 
https://x.com/i/status/1816931037055775055

As a young child in simpler times I used to love the Olympics and remember my father taking me one day to watch the games at Wembley. The only person that sticks in my mind was the ‘Flying Housewife’ Fanny Blankers – Koen winning one of her four gold medals, but that was in more enlightened times when an Olympic gold really meant something other than an opening to wealth creation.

But inevitably the games became professional as the eastern block and others did not play fair and actual amateurs stood little chance against government sponsored athletes and government approved drug programs, not just the eastern block either.

As a track cyclist in the late fifties and sixties I was more than aware of the drug problem my sport had then and still has, though to be fair the testing in the sport today is almost non stop which is more than can be said for many other sports.

I did compete abroad a couple of times, and in those days even Olympians had to pay for travel in some sports, but few minded as the fact one was representing the country was reward enough. Not a lot of support then in fact virtually none; today for the current background team:

https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/getinvolved/article/20181114-about-bc-static-British-Cycling-Talent-Development-Team-0?c=EN

The above was non existent in those days, never mind nutritional experts and help in all areas of mind and body on hand. It was as with so much a very different world.

Yet looking back I have more respect for the few successes we had then as they were against the odds, very much a case of surmounting difficulties that today would not be countenanced..

The going professional era changed all that in the Olympics and world championships in all other sports. Sponsorship pulled in money and the world of sport changed. Much was good as the artificial amateur was confined to the dustbin of history and everyone knew where they stood.

But back to the Olympics. This edition as with all has had its downsides, probably more than others recently, apart from the dreadful, on so many fronts, opening ceremony. Whole teams have been seeking hotel accommodation to avoid the cardboard beds, the supplied vegan meals have been supplemented with supplementary foods flown in in some cases, the Australians had a ton of meat flown in for instance, and several triathletes have become ill after competing with the merde in the Seine, and we have a boxing competition that has been totally hijacked by a couple of men fighting women, a ridiculous situation that should have been sorted in all sports long ago, only the woke agenda in some hierarchies of sporting institutions keep this nonsense alive.

There have been reams written about this subject, but in the end in a contact sport particularly, it is not only an advantage but dangerous, and of course you never see the reverse with women wanting to compete in male sport, I wonder why .

And to top it all the IOC seem determined to dilute the games by expanding into areas that are difficult to see as legitimate sports, such as break dancing? Strange rock climbing competitions, surely no rope should be allowed for realistic reasons, skateboarding at a time when the craze for skate parks for kids is waning and they become white elephants, BMX cycle racing which does not involve a lot of pedalling and the riders should grow up and ride proper bikes, downhill racing known as ‘gravity’, Golf, please, kite surfing where the only physical attribute is to gain weight that gives more speed, pie eating medals, trampoline etc etc.

There have and still are sports that have little in the way of promoting inclusion and diversity as is so popular these days. The equine events are hardly likely anytime soon to be seen in African countries are anywhere else, they are hugely expensive and confined to mainly rich western societies. They have their own championships anyway, so called new team events that involve numerous mixed men and women events by nature favour countries that have a depth of talent like the USA, smaller countries can never put together a team of equals from such limited resources.

They seem intent on diluting the games so a gold medal is within reach for all regardless of worthiness. Many will disagree with me but I would like the games to get back to basics, it is primarily a track and field event and so it should be.

I am not anti Olympics, far from it but it is straying far away from the original ideals and including what many would call ‘mickey mouse’ sports or what were recently leisure activities does the organisation and sport no favours.

More!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! by Wiggia

The more they get the more they waste…

Currently we are getting more of everything that is bad for us. How that will evolve over the coming months and years can only be guessed at. The ones who tell us otherwise, are still adding to the never ending pile of unnecessary legislature and administration all of which has little or no effect on everyday life and despite never ending assurances has no bearing on any progress. In this miserable downhill world, more is added daily to help with our demise. Surely things are not that bad? Well convince me otherwise.

Starmer offers us change. Where have I heard that before and has anyone ever meant it or achieved it?

Between December 2023 and March 2024 the number of public servants increased by 27,000. Will we see a cull as needed? And likewise in the NHS bureaucracy, our gay health minister in waiting, I mention his sex choice because before he barely scraped home in Ilford he managed to get his gay boyfriend on the candidate list, as did many others like Sue Gray’s son now an MP. Nothing really changes does it Keef? Favours, narcissism, nepotism all are still rife in politics.

At the same time Michael Gove, remember him after 14 years in government? suggests cuts: ‘Michael Gove joins a think tank, recommends civil service be slashed.’ He always was good for a laugh.

Just in…

More taxes, as expected. Total denial by the Labour Party in the run up to election day that taxes will go up on top of the current record level we already pay, but they have no money. The country is bankrupt. all that is left are areas that can be regarded as non taxes on paper but in reality are. Get ready after the honeymoon period, if there is one this time, for the likes of fuel duty pay per mile, new forms of council charging. They will try to not use the word ‘tax’, yet it has been said in the past that politicians would tax the air that we breathe if they could - but they are, the ULEZ scheme does just that in London, soon to be followed by councils everywhere who are bereft of any original ideas other than paying themselves inflated salaries to run quite large organisations badly, see Birmingham, London etc etc.

Our local council is reducing payments to the genuinely disabled. This is the same council as with all others who quietly put thousands of asylum seekers aka economic illegal migrants into rented accommodation at our expense. Here in leafy Norfolk it seems every bus stop has a migrant waiting to taken into town while using their free mobile phones. I am sure that Keef will smash the gangs and stop all this nonsense pronto, for he has spoken.

Will the new government do anything about the water companies other than agree that they can fleece the public even more as monopolies who put dividends ahead of providing a decent commodity and service? Of course re nationalising has ben mentioned and who will pay for that? The working public silly, same with the railways should they go this route.

But with the debt mountain we have there is no money other than extra raised from tax on everything.

Even with their backs to the wall pre voting day Boris is wheeled out to save the nation and the party, party first of course, more lies from a serial liar come from him during his speech.

I really can’t be bothered to dissect his diatribe. This from the man who must be the first leader to annexe part of his country, N Ireland, in order to get a poor deal from the EU; that alone should see him never returning and worse to politics, and yet the nodding donkeys love him, God help us.

Did David Cameron’s ‘bonfire of the quangos’ ever achieve anything? Initially it was believed 180+ quangos had been abolished but further investigation found new ones had sprung up and many others had been moved into existing ones and expanded. This was repeated in 2015 and then Rees-Mogg had another bite in 2022. None have achieved any visible decline and there are now more than ever disguised as companies or outsourced and privatised,

The seemingly ever increasing desire for devolved areas and yet more government has resulted in what exactly? Can anyone point to any improvements in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland? All that has been achieved is further layers of government and bureaucracy with the accompanying costs which are not small. Not content with that more layers are suggested by forming yet more mayoral roles across the country in areas and cities.

More mayors are wanted according to our rulers. All that will come of that will be more and bigger offices full of more people shuffling papers and demanding we pay more to keep the whole thing afloat. All this watering down of Westminster’s responsibilities gives the powers that be the ability to shrug off responsibility when things go wrong, the classic ‘not my fault guv’ rather like the attitude when dealing with the EU that they can’t wait to go back to.

Naturally all parties promise the earth in election run ups, little of substance ever emerges on the statute books.

Perhaps they should change the regulatoryexemption that political parties get with advertising. The fact that only political advertising is exempt from the legal requirement of the Advertising Standards Authority should a client make a claim means that anything said or promised in print is just words.

More seats in Parliament: Labour as with the previous government has gained enormously by our ridiculously biased first past the post system, though unlike with Brexit you will not have those same baying mobs demanding another referendum (because they lost in a record turn out) calling for the same when Labour got a smaller percentage of the vote than Jeremy Corbin did but ended up with 411 seats. Sadly proportional representation is just as flawed because ‘populist’ parties are so often squeezed out as undesirable by coalitions, so expect more of the same.

Is there a solution. Probably not one that would solve all the faults of the two systems used by most countries. The days of a “fair fight” for representing us are long past. Any method that keeps any incumbent in power is now fair game. By contrast the Swiss have a hybrid that though not perfect does allow the people to say no or yes occasionally.

Meanwhile in the Netherlands …

https://x.com/i/status/1804084121477554618

Btw, if our politicians can go back 50 years to prosecute our soldiers in Northern Ireland, then there should be no problem going back twenty years and prosecuting the politicians responsible for Iraq.

Our new leader has started as he intends to carry on in this as he resolves the migrant crisis…

https://www.amren.com/news/2024/07/starmer-appears-on-bangladeshi-tv-after-illegal-migrant-comments-spark-backlash/

Expect more Lords appointments soon. They will need an overflow building to accommodate all these extra Lords and the Exchequer will have to find even more money to look after all the freeloaders that sign in and then go home.

How long have both parties when in power spoken of reforming the Lords, with no intention of doing anything as it suits the current system of government. Unless of course it is about something sensible such as solving the migrant crisis: ‘that’s different!’

Change, eh, Mr Starmer?

WEEKENDER: The Strange World of Wine Buying, by Wiggia

It’s that time of the year again, en primeur is upon us in the strange world of wine.

Recent facts about over-production, changes in drinking habits and a wider world supply base of wine have finally come together and brought to a shuddering halt the ever rising price for top of the range wines, as in some countries vineyards are being grubbed up sold off and vignerons getting out of the business altogether. This has been in the offing for some years. A change in the drinking habits particularly of the young has meant that certain areas started to grub up vineyards some time ago; the sherry region in Spain started the process a while back when the bulk sherry market collapsed, it resulted in the bigger outfits changing over to producing still wine.

How long that will be sustainable is anyone's guess with an already overloaded market. The grubbing up of vineyards has affected many countries not just France, Australia and the USA: South America and others are also going this route with governments paying owners to leave the land fallow or plant other crops.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/karlsson/2024/04/25/troubled-times-for-wine-in-2023-global-production-and-consumption-shrinking/?sh=4cff81a72d25

This is no different to other agricultural products that are affected by changing markets, weather and the pound in your pocket, but somehow wine is viewed differently by the cognoscenti, though even they are now being influenced, at the moment in a good way, by falling prices in the strange world of ‘en primeur’.

Wiki gives as good a definition of en primeur as anyone:

“En primeur or "wine futures", is a method of purchasing wines early while the wine is still in the barrel. This offers the customer the opportunity to invest before the wine is bottled. Payment is made at an early stage, a year or 18 months prior to the official release of a vintage. “

The above is of course a complete scam. Who pays in advance for a product that is not even in bottle let alone ready to drink? The trade of course: growers, negotiants and sellers make much of the system as a way of getting , if you are lucky, hard to acquire wines, and those desirable small output ‘luxury’ wines for drinking when mature. Burgundy tops the list and ticks all the boxes in that respect.

Well yes, those small output sites that fit the description have for years been able to name their price and en primeur has become the only way of getting your hands on a few bottles of the supposed elixir. I have to confess, in the past I also fell for this scam and did so with the knowledge that hopefully the increase in prices over time would benefit my bank balance as well as having some luvly stuff (with luck) to sup in my dotage.

Didn’t quite work out like that. Despite having some excellent vintages and the best Chateau wines that I could afford they didn’t really fulfill the investment side. There is an index published monthly of wine movements, yes really, like the Footsie, so you can track the increases or decline in value of your stock in bond.

Cases in bond do not have the charge of taxes against them. You only pay that on taking the wine out of bond; but although they are kept in optimum conditions you do have to pay for the storage and over time that also adds to the cost per bottle or case.

The origins of en primeur can be read here…….

https://www.winespectator.com/articles/the-origins-of-en-primeur-14777

If you read the above you will understand the origins and why it was installed. Sadly all that went by the way side after the ‘82 vintage which despite every year being the 'vintage of the decade', ‘82 was probably the vintage of the century, usual disclaimers.

Many purchased the wines in large quantities and several notable wine lovers or greedy bastards depending on how you view them, made a killing some years later - I’m looking at you Andrew Lloyd Webber as a prime example - selling off their excess purchases for several millions of profit at auction.

The Châteaux having seen their wines selling at much inflated prices upped their own initial prices under the old adage of ‘we will have some of that’ and for a couple of decades that is what happened at every annual announcement of the new vintage. Even poor vintages gained which is puzzling to anyone outside of the world of wine.

During this period the Châteaux in their eagerness to maximise profits even came up with a further wheeze by releasing the new wine in tranches; depending how the first tranche sold they would adjust the price of the second and even third tranche upwards - trebles all round!

So I decided to keep a few choice bottles at home and sell the rest. What with losses and gains I just about ended even, but there is another side to the whole process few ever mention.

Experts (!) will tell you that and admit maturity in wine is informed guesswork. When the wine is bottled by the producer it is for him the finished article, but these experts will try and define what is a likely date for the wine to be at optimum drinking, its 'drinking window.'

Some will mature faster and some take a lot longer, in some cases almost a lifetime. It becomes a lottery. The same experts do tastings at intervals during the wine's life to see how it is progressing, many wine lovers do the same and each failure to open a ‘ready to drink bottle’ means what is left in your case has had the price jacked up. This procedure can often take several bottles which makes en primeur even more expensive and to be frank a pointless exercise, other than proving you have more money than sense.

It is not unusual to read of a wine that has an age of twenty years being still not ready and needing five to ten more, though of course they still do not know, it is still an educated guess.

There was a time when experts were thin on the ground, but not these days. I well remember the first Masters of Wine:it was a real accolade for people to attain, many at the time I could name and all of them could fit into a phone box. Now there are, at last count, 416 worldwide, along with assistants and ever larger numbers of wine critics and experts such as sommeliers, writers and just plain wine lovers; the field is saturated with opinion, what to believe?

The same experts base their findings on cask samples, wine that has not been bottled and often not in the final blend on a points system invented by the American critic Robert Parker. This assumes a perfect wine to be worth 100 points out of a 100, but for a start the scoring begins at 50 and why has never been explained to my satisfaction.

Plus of course all the wine samples tasted come from known sources, they are tested in the cellars of the producer, and reputation is everything in the rarefied world of cru classe wines, so inevitably marks will be based on reputation as well as what is in the glass.

You can add to that no taster could explain from a sample if it was tasted blind what the difference was between a 97 and 98 point wine, it really isn’t feasible but has become part of wine folklore.

I had a personal example of a wine that was given to me by a happy client many years ago. On completion of the job he asked me about my wine collection - he knew nothing. When I presented him with a not insubstantial bill he said he had a gift for me as he was pleased with the outcome.

To my amazement he presented me with a case of Chateau Lafite. Bloody hell I thought, even in the eighties this was not cheap.

There was sadly a catch: he had gone to a very well known established wine merchant's in the city and told them what he wanted to buy, not knowing anything. They managed to sell him a case of one of the worst vintages by Lafite probably since the war:1972, one of several during that period that were below par, described by one of the few people I ever took notice of in wine,(the late Michael Broadbent, the taster for Christies auctions who had probably tasted more top class Bordeaux than anyone alive at the time) as ‘drinkable.’

You can gather by all this that I am more than cynical when an expert tells me this is another vintage of the decade, but people are taken in by this annual blurb and lay out not inconsiderable sums to get on the fine wine ladder, but not for a large part of the production it seems. Good.

START THE WEEK: More Pointless and Unaccountable Local and not so Local Authorities, by Wiggia

As with all other bad news these days, there is a daily drip feed of governmental nonsense fed to the masses. Birmingham council, now bankrupt through their own mishandling and inadequacy have issued a statement on how they intend to go forward; naturally there is no mention of anyone or group being held responsible for the financial disaster that has befallen on Birmingham, as is the pattern in all government layers no one is ever responsible for anything.

Commissioners, intervention and improvement

In September 2023 the council issued 2 Section 114 notices as part of the plans to meet the council’s financial liabilities relating to equal pay claims and an in-year financial gap within its budget.

Michael Gove, Secretary of State for the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities appointed commissioners to exercise certain functions of the council as required and begin the improvement journey for Birmingham City Council.

We need to find over £250 million worth of savings over the next 12 months and there will be considerable changes as a result for residents.

Challenging decisions lie ahead, we need to get our finances back on track to a healthy position and implement a programme of improvement – a reset must start now, beginning with the 2024/25 budget.

An improvement journey has begun on the path to become a financially sustainable and well-run council.

Ah, an ‘improvement journey’ a new phrase from the inadequates who cannot run a bath never-mind a local authority; still, a change from ‘lessons will be learned.’

Meanwhile a new twist to our local (Norwich, UK) Northern Distributor Road saga. It has taken ten years to get this far; in China the whole road would have been completed in a month, yet still the bats seem to be winning over people, the new estates north of the road are getting outline planning and thousands of people will event.ually if this road is not completed. be using two small village routes to connect to the A47 It is madness and as usual the costs have skyrocketed. Also it gives time for the Greens and the eco zealots to find other ways of delaying the project and ruining inhabitants' lives while favouring a few bats that will move as they did when we lived in Suffolk under another scheme that they tried to stop using the bat plan. It is already a watered down project but will still give respite to the rat runs of which there are only three.

Planners and highways need to co operate on these projects rather than pretend they do. The time lag before any action is taken is measured in decades in this country and all parties blame each other. It was always thus.

https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/24292060.norwich-western-link-report-critical-council-bat-surveys/

We have a new Police & Crime Commissioner - you know. the position that pays a £100k + a year for someone who we don’t want, don’t need. don’t know but is foisted on us. This time along with national politics the vote swung to Labour and a woman named Susan Taylor won. Her CV was so short it needed a magnifying glass to find. Evidently she was a local councillor, not in the area which allows her to stand.

‘Anyone who is a member of staff of a local council that falls wholly or partly within the police area in which the election is to be held - including anyone employed in an organisation that is under the control of a local council in the police area for which the election is to be held. ‘

So not local then, and apart from being a member of a road safety group, no real job and nothing that could be vaguely aligned with police or crime.With an office costing £1 million a year it will be yet another burden for the tax payer with no justification for its existence.

The turnout was 21% and she got under half of that, so less than 10% of the electorate voted for this pointless position.It is the same nationwide; why do they persist in keeping it going, why?

Up north something that many said would happen, not politicians of course, has happened: a Trojan horse Islamist disguised, badly, as a Green candidate won a council seat.If this had been a product presented as a Green candidate they would be charged with misrepresentation; and are the Greens that desperate to get onto councils.Maybe they are as this shows……..

 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-3182303/Video-Green-Party-councillor-shouts-Allahu-Akbar-elected.html

Still they have plenty of backup: the fragrant Melissa Poulton, described by a Conservative MP as a bloke in a wig, I couldn’t possibly comment, but the Greens do seem to attract a larger share of the ‘unusual’ than the other parties… the leader of the Greens Caroline ‘several homes’Lucas is the MP for Brighton, yet the bins are not emptied and travellers set up camp on seafront green spaces with full permission.

Our local Green candidate reminds me of a certain Alfred E Neumann of MAD magazine fame…

Perhaps it is all getting too much for me and I read t0o much into it all, if not we are all doomed, doomed I tell ya!

I often along with many others wonder why we put up with the pathetic overpaid and under qualified public servants - in France for instance a liberal spraying of public offices with merde does not go amiss. This story of jobsworths from Cambridge County Council is self explanatory: an annual flower display giving a lot of pleasure to the inhabitants of Chatteris, not the most glamorous towns, has had this year's flower display reduced by the council on health and safety grounds. The last paragraph from the council spokesman is one of the most condescending utterances put out in the public sphere. The spokesman should instead of the now defunct award winning hanging baskets be replaced by the same spokesperson hung by his own proverbials.

A Cambridgeshire County Council spokesperson said: "It's great seeing the creative ways that communities across the county make use of streetlights with festive displays.

"As streetlights are directly connected to the local power grid, to ensure everyone's safety any group wishing to display items from a streetlight needs to get in touch with the council so we can make sure essential independent safety training is completed for everyone's wellbeing.

"We look forward to hearing from Chatteris in Bloom."

 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ck5k38lje2yo

Another local council affair has been branded as ‘vexatious’ by the council involved. I have no knowledge of the niceties but much is self evident and an auditor upheld 27 0f the complainant's 32 complaints. As so often with local councillors, not unlike more senior politicians, when the going gets tough they look for reasons to silence or ignore the complainant. This you can read here…

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/weasenham-whinger-david-fairchild-says-he-won-t-be-silenced-by-parish-council-s-new-vexatious-complaints-policy/ar-BB1lYCqY

and make your own mind up if he has a point or is just a meddler with time on his hands.

Having crossed swords with a local councillor a few years ago over a speed camera issue on our then rat run village street, I can appreciate the frustration when one sees nothing being done, in my/our case after the money had been provided and the action approved, and ridiculous replies follow unanswered questions.

I was accused of pestering the said councillor over the matter despite only sending two. yes two emails over an eighteen month period. When I suggested that if he considered being pestered at that level as being too much for him he might be better employed elsewhere an answer was not forthcoming.

After I moved, the speed cameras were installed ten years later , but on a long village street they installed them over a short stretch each side of a pinch point, and they have no legal right to even fine anyone however fast they are driving, so the whole episode was a total waste of £60k that could have been used more productively elsewhere.

When it was pointed out the error of the placement they replied (not to me) that the village had after a long period of demanding something was done ’got what they wanted’ and the matter was closed.

You really couldn’t make it up, why do we have these incompetents in any form allowed to make decisions on anything?

George Carlin was right when he said they can’t blame me for voting for a wrong un, as I don’t vote. I have joined that ever growing club.

PS the councillor I had a spat with has retired and his place has been taken by a woman who has never had a proper job and now her husband is now a councillor despite the fact he has never worked and has ‘health problems.’ What could possibly go wrong!

It is good to know that at the top things are different, our elected members are on top of issues that affect us all and can be relied on to put in their views on these matters on our behalf, or not as the case might be…

From X: 

  - Just about sums up our political class.

WEEKENDER: WHO Climbdown, by Wiggia

Via Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/UsforThemUK/status/1782352331863941537

UsForThemUK 🌟

@UsforThemUK

‼️Updated IHR Amendments Just Published‼️

A HUGE VICTORY FOR NATIONAL DEMOCRACY, FREE SPEECH AND HUMAN RIGHTS

A briefing to follow, and link to the text below. Headlines here:

Massive climb down from the WHO Working Group on almost ALL substantive concerns that we and others have raised over the past 18 months.

🎯 The WHO’s recommendations remain non-binding. Article 13A.1 which would have required Member States to follow directives of the WHO as the guiding and coordinating authority for international public health has been dropped entirely.

🎯An egregious proposal which would have erased reference to the primacy of “dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms” has been dropped. This proposal marked a particularly low water-mark, and should never have been suggested.

🎯Provisions that would have allowed the WHO to intervene on the basis of a mere ‘potential’ health emergency have been dropped: a pandemic must now either be happening or likely to happen, but with the safeguard that to activate its IHR powers the WHO must demonstrate that coordinated international action is necessary.

🎯Proposals to construct a global censorship and ‘information control’ operation led by the WHO have been dropped.

🎯A material dampening of the expansionist ambitions of the WHO: provisions which had proposed to expand the scope of the IHRs to include “all risks with a potential to impact public health” (e.g. climate change, food supply) have been deleted. The scope now remains essentially unchanged, focussed on the spread of disease.

🎯Explicit recognition that Member States not the WHO are responsible for implementing these regulations, and bold plans for the WHO to police compliance with all aspects of the IHRs have been materially watered down.

🎯Many other provisions have been diluted, including: surveillance mechanisms that would have given the WHO a mandate to find thousands of potential new pandemic signals; provisions which would have encouraged and favoured digital health passports; provisions requiring forced technology transfers and diversion of national resources.

The published document is only an interim draft, to be put before the IHR Working Group during this week’s final negotiations, so it could yet change.

That said, on the basis of this draft this is a profound victory for people power over unaccountable technocracy.

https://apps.who.int/gb/wgihr/pdf_files/wgihr8/WGIHR8_Proposed_Bureau_text-en.pdf

Never forget the Covid inquiry is due to finish in 2026. It is just not a long time away but a deliberate ploy to avoid awkward and legitimate questions actually making the headlines, or hoping that by then anyone who was accountable will be long gone or forgotten; no one will be held to account for the mandatory nonsense that caused and is causing deaths for years.

Sweden for instance has had an inquiry and the result last year. Why do we believe that it needs so much time here? Only the lawyers gain financially, everyone else pays for a pointless exercise in legalise.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1786284247029797274

I have said it before, if inquiries were to become an Olympic event we would be top of the medals table.

What is equally worrying is the lack of response to the WHO statement from a government that judging by the silence is not concerned about a decision on something that was deemed so important they put the petition against it out to grass. One can only take it that they have become so inured during our membership of the EU to having laws and rulings made for them.

Perhaps we can now focus on getting our politicians weaned off becoming ‘global young leaders’ under the direction of the benign uncle Klaus, who makes the whole thing sound like cub scout badge attainment.

The trouble is I do not trust either of these organisations to stop in their progressive ideals, any more than I trust Lord Cameron to stop travelling around the world making statements about ‘we must’ and ‘we will’ at every opportunity on behalf of, well himself.

His renegotiation skills are as we know legendary……….

We are going through difficult times, but I am pretty sure with safe hands like those below at the wheel, things can only improve….. 

‘Meet Jared Bernstein, Biden’s chief economic advisor:’

https://twitter.com/i/status/1786388681764250053