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.

Direct Democracy? No: AV

Many people feel that the political system isn’t working for the people; that the major parties agree with each other too much and against our interests.

But is ‘direct democracy’ the answer?

It was practised in ancient Athens, where all the voters (free men) could be accommodated in the assembly and hear the arguments. They were a small, homogeneous electorate and faced the consequences of their decisions, collectively and personally; especially as to warfare, which is why they had physicians to keep them healthy and trainers to keep them fit and skilled in fighting. As slave-owners they were experienced in organisation and command, and had ample leisure to discuss political and philosophical ideas. What was their average IQ, one wonders?

All this does not map well onto our present circumstances.

There was a weakness even in Athenian democracy. Then, as later in Rome, one of the most valued skills was oratory. While Socrates was executed for using logic to reveal socially subversive truth, Gorgias the public persuader lived to 108, becoming so wealthy that he had a solid gold statue made in his honour. However the greatest orator Demosthenes convinced Athens to resist Philip and Alexander, thereby nearly getting his city razed, like Thebes; he ended as a fugitive, killing himself to escape Macedonian revenge.

Today, the game is still a persuasion process. British voters are balloted on the basis of opinions offered them by the mass media, who also curate the facts. Journalists who investigate too conscientiously risk incarceration in a maximum security jail.

It is also a mistake to think that because our representatives are jointly against us on certain issues, their opposition among the people is united. Allowing the populace to determine multifarious policies would be a recipe for Bedlam, especially in matters where the feeling in some factions runs very strongly, as for example re ‘Palestine.’

However, there are times when the people should have a determining voice. Brexit was one, and just see the response of our governors and administrators! Had Lord Cameron foreseen the outcome he would surely not have offered the choice; as it is, the Establishment has worked assiduously to vitiate the instruction we so impertinently gave them.

Another occasion is when initiating national military conflict. My MP refused to agree with me that the 12 January UK/Ukraine ‘Security Agreement’ was tantamount to a declaration of war on Russia. Maybe subsequent developments could alter her opinion, for Cameron again, now Foreign Secretary, told Ukraine (3 May) that they should feel free to launch the missiles our country has given them into Russian territory, which they have not been slow to do, so making ourselves a target for retaliation. Traditionally war is a royal prerogative, but in an age when defeat may entail not merely a change of ruler but the incineration of the subjects I would argue that we have a right to be consulted.

Curiously, citizens seems less interested in democracy when it is closer to them: the turnout in local elections is lower than that nationally. Sadiq Khan has been re-elected to the mayoralty of London despite presiding over soaring violent crime while proving himself an enthusiast for Net Zero and turning Londoners into each other’s censors. His validation is based on a minority of votes cast, themselves constituting a minority (40 %) of the electorate. Perhaps voting should be compulsory, as in Australia.

Yet does everyone have the capacity to participate meaningfully? According to Professor Peterson, ten per cent of the population have an IQ lower than 83, a level that US military research concluded made them useless for training. That’s not to say that intelligence precludes idiocy, if some of our students and the banner-waving element of their middle-class elders are anything to go by.

There is also the question whether people can be counted on to vote for what benefits the country as a whole, rather than themselves. Much thought goes into constructing policies designed to gain the support of those who are more likely to vote and be influenced by considerations of personal gain or the reduction of factors that frighten or irritate them.

Likewise the political parties seem motivated more by their desire to survive than to serve, which is why Labour became ‘intensely relaxed’ about the rich and the Conservatives failed to conserve national assets such as the postal service.

Nevertheless some kind of electoral reform is indicated. Diversity may be a strength but only if it is underpinned by something that holds us together.

That something could be what was rejected in 2011: the alternative vote. The referendum was influenced by the two main parties who feared a diminution of their own support in favour of what (mistakenly?) the electorate perceived as a middle-ground choice, the Liberal Democrats.

It is worth revisiting that system because of a growing sense that the current arrangements lack popular legitimation. When I looked into General Election data I found that in 2005 out of 650 Parliamentary seats only 220 were won by candidates who enjoyed an absolute majority of votes cast; and in 2010, only 217 seats. How many of even those few earned the support of more than half of the total of registered voters?

It is all very well saying how things should be and building political castles in the sky; what will drive change is the politicians feeling the carpet move under them. When mayors and devolved-assembly leaders and unelected globalist Prime Ministers become micromanaging petty tyrants riding exotic hobby-horses and their voters break up into mutually severely antipathetic factions they will need to point to a process that validates them better than what we have now.

They will also need to do more to encourage voter participation, if they wish to stave off anarchy, which is what will happen as apathy and a sense of helplessness turn into movements for direct action. The self-gluers and art-gallery soup-throwers need to be shown that they most emphatically do not have public support.

Abstention is a dereliction of duty; so is ‘None Of The Above’ which if it disqualified all the candidates on the ballot paper would merely result in the well-supported political protégés being parachuted into other constituencies.

We need more choice. Yet without AV even this could be gamed. Our (is it too much to say treacherous?) Tory Party is undermined by the Reform Party, and (ditto?) Labour by George Galloway’s Workers Party Of Britain; First Past The Post could end with even smaller percentages for the victorious candidates. Splitting and tactical voting could be key strategies, as in the 1990s when fakers put themselves up for ‘Literal Democrat’, ‘Conversative’ and ‘Labor’; or when Nigel Farage agreed not to contest Conservative seats in 2019.

With AV the losers in earlier rounds see their votes pass on (if indicated on the form) to winners until at last one candidate has a genuine (50% + 1) overall majority.

Ah, say the critics, but you’ll end up with a handful of minority parties and coalitions. To which we respond, on the issues that affect us most we seem to have a uniparty already; and the parties who wished to be major would work harder to occupy the centre ground, rather than use a FPTP landslide as an excuse for constitutional revolution, as ACL Blair did in 1997 with his 43.2 per cent support (* 71.3 % turnout = 30.8 % of total registered voters.)

It could be a cure for licensed dictatorship and wild top-down enthusiasms.

FRIDAY MUSIC: Cuba, by JD

Last weekend Bruce Charlton posted this old TV ad for Guinness - 

Yes, I remembered it but not for the dancing man with his giant glass of the black stuff. It was the instantly recognisable music of Perez 'Prez' Prado. I was going to build a post around that but then I was thinking of all the other latino bands in a similar style and so it has evolved into a Cuban/Purto Rican music born from the slightly seedy and dubious Havana night life of the fifties prior to the Castro revolutionof 1959. The nightclubs have long gone but the music lives on and appears to be thriving again in the US.

"In the 1920s, superwealthy Americans began to vacation in Havana during the winter months. The Depression and World War II brought a lull to the fast action. By the late 1940s and early '50s, however, Havana had ramped up its nightclub business to meet the demands for entertainment, gambling and vice. Movie and recording stars as well a celebrated writers visited and roosted there.

"During this period, American organized crime moved in to operate Havana clubs, racetracks and casinos, primarily to launder money obtained illegally in the States. Corruption, payoffs and exploitation became the norm as organized crime paid off the police and government officials. All of this activity and abuse at the expense of average Cubans ultimately led to the Castro revolution and regime in January 1959."

You can read more here of how Havana became a suburb of Las Vegas -

https://www.allaboutjazz.com/news/havana-big-bands-late-and-3950s/

This is the original, I think, by Cuban band leader Perez 'Prez' Prado from 1958

Perez Prado - Guaglione (1958)

PEREZ PRADO - CHERRY PINK AND APPLE BLOSSOM WHITE 1955

"Cuba no Aguanta Más" Arturo Sandoval

Tito Puente • “El Mambo Diablo” • LIVE 1963 [Reelin' In The Years Archive]

......and bringing things right up to date this is the incomparable Sheila E, The Percussion Queen!

Sheila E. - Bemba Colorá ft Gloria Estefan & Mimy Succar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheila_E.

The joyful exuberance of these musicians is the polar opposite of the politicians whose only function appears to be to spread misery and fear, angry apes playing 

"such fantastic tricks before high heaven

As makes the angels weep; who, with our spleens,

Would all themselves laugh mortal.”

Eurosingalong, by JD

Having listened to Leo Kearse on GBNews this evening (11 May) talking about the events inside and outside the venue in Malmö, I wonder if this is a suitable response and/or acceptable commentary on the current eurosingalong farce?

.... from the days when life made more sense and when a song contest was about singing -

This is the UK entry for 1961; The Allisons, 'Are You Sure' (finishing second)

ESC 1961 15 - United Kingdom - The Allisons - Are You Sure?

After this year's Eurovision Song Contest's self righteous extra-curricular performers and their noisy farce perhaps we need a Eurojoke contest in which the competitors all shout and insult each other.....

Something like this for example -

FRIDAY MUSIC: Asleep at the Wheel, by JD

"Founded in 1970, Asleep at the Wheel has been part of the American roots music landscape for more than 50 years. Although the band got its start on a farm in Paw Paw, West Virginia, Asleep at the Wheel became a cornerstone of the Austin, Texas scene upon its arrival in 1973. Inspired by Western swing and honky-tonk country, the band has accrued 10 Grammy Awards. In the fall, a career retrospective recorded with the current lineup -- and a few special guests -- will carry the band back onto the road, where they’ve remained a staple for five decades."

https://www.asleepatthewheel.com/#homepage-section

Asleep At The Wheel - "Hot Rod Lincoln" [Live from Austin, TX]

Asleep At The Wheel Performs "Bump, Bounce, Boogie" on The Texas Music Scene

Asleep At The Wheel - Route 66 (Live in Studio 1A)

Asleep At The Wheel - Cherokee Maiden

Asleep at the Wheel - 'Half A Hundred Years'

Taboom! When will nuclear war become normalized?

Unless there is a swift change of direction, we shall soon enter an age of atomic wars. When the first tactical nuclear weapon has been used it will break the 79-year-old taboo.

‘I thought at first I was still reading Littlejohn,’ said my wife as she read the next Mail printout I gave her today - the one reporting Moscow’s furious reaction to David Cameron’s 3 May authorisation for Ukraine to use British-supplied missiles inside Russian territory.

Do our leaders truly understand what they are doing? The last UK Prime Minister to have served in the Armed Forces was James Callaghan, who ended his premiership 45 years ago. The present one and his former-PM Foreign Secretary have not, as my late ‘Forgotten Army’ father-in-law would have said, seen so much as an angry char-wallah. Yet they seem determined to endanger the people of this country, risking Russian retaliation on our own soil.

Britain’s ‘escalation’ as the Kremlin has put it merely extends an official strategy. On 12 January Rishi Sunak signed an ‘Agreement on Security Co-operation’ with the President of Ukraine which states that we are jointly ‘determined to end forever’ Russia’s attacks and are committed to ‘Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity within its borders, which have been internationally recognised since 1991.’ In last Friday’s visit Cameron also pledged £3 billion a year in aid to Kiev for ‘as long as it takes.’

Britain is not alone in this. France agreed a ‘security cooperation’ pact with Ukraine on 16 February, ratified by the Assemblée Nationale on 12 March. The preamble echoes ours in asserting that Russia’s aggression was ‘unprovoked’ and committing France to helping Ukraine restore her 1991 borders and to deter ‘any future aggression.’

Both outsiders appear to be doing even more than offering money, matériel and moral support. Allegedly UK special forces were seen inside Ukraine over two years ago. On Saturday (4 May) former US Assistant Deputy Secretary of Defense Stephen Bryan reported that France has now sent combat troops in-country; this was officially denied by the French though Brussels-based commentator Gilbert Doctorow says the first detachment was sent over a month ago and Russia has already killed seven Légionnaires there.

Where will it end? At what point do we cross the line from NATO faux-neutrality to open warfare with Russia?

War has been this country’s unnecessary and ruinous love since 1914. According to Peter Hitchens’ tweet a month ago, the Anglo-Belgian 1839 Treaty of London ‘absolutely did not oblige Britain to go to war’ and ‘Great Britain had already committed itself to the war before a single German boot trod the soil of Belgium.’

Similarly we used Poland as our pretext for entering World War Two. We had previously given verbal assurances to the Polish government but only made a formal treaty on August 25, 1939, six days before the Germans invaded their country. The Secret Protocol made it clear that Germany was specifically and exclusively the ‘European Power’ we committed ourselves to oppose.

On 29 January I wrote to my MP about Sunak’s 12 January pact, calling it a ‘de facto declaration of war, war with the world’s most heavily-nuclear-armed State’; to her credit she took the trouble to reply (on 7 March), saying:

‘I don’t think that this is a de facto declaration of war between the UK and Russia. It is an agreement for the UK to support Ukraine’s operations to restore their sovereign boundaries. From my reading, it is consistent with the Opposition’s policy towards the conflict and support for Ukraine’s freedom and sovereignty, which translates into protecting the eastern borders of NATO and Europe from Russian aggression.’

I think she is wrong, it goes much further than mere arm’s length ‘support’; but if I am right it is possible that one or both of us may not be around much longer for me to tell her so. Sixty-three years ago, on 2 July 1961, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev told UK Ambassador Sir Frank Roberts six atom bombs could 'put Great Britain out of action' - and nine, for France. Armaments have progressed since then.

Declaring war is by tradition a royal prerogative, but now that it could result in the complete annihilation of our people surely we should have the right to be formally consulted. Since we had a referendum on exiting the EU, could we please have one on this matter?

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

FRIDAY MUSIC: Orpheum Madams Jazz Orchestra, by JD

Orpheum Madams are Hungarian although finding information about them is not easy. The following 'blurb' is translated from the brief description with the first video.

"What happens when the actors and singers of the Móricz Zsigmond Theater and the jazz-loving musicians of Nyíregyháza get together for a joint project? Orpheum atmosphere with peaceful melodies through the songs of György G. Dénes, Mihály Eisemann, Alfréd Márkus and others, full of hits without which there would be no Hungarian theater history, and without which Hungarian music history is unimaginable! But if two singers (Dézsi Darinka and Nyomtató Enikő) and four musicians (László Ignácz - clarinet, Zoltán Karap - guitar, Simon László - double bass, Csaba Papp - drums) have already been given, then the best-known gypsy swing and bossa nova hits cannot be left either out of the repertoire."

This is their web page if that is any help!

https://orpheum-madams5.webnode.hu/

Orpheum Madams - It Don't Mean A Thing

Orpheum Madams - Sweet Georgia Brown

Orpheum Madams - Oh, Lady Be Good & Yardbird Suite

Orpheum Madams - Sympathique (Je ne veux pas travailler)

Orpheum Madams (spot)

Humza - out but not down?

The shameless race-hustler Humza Yousaf has now resigned from his post as First Minister of Scotland, having left the country suffering under one of the worst pieces of legislation in living memory.

Since he is so keen on ethnic quotas let's remember that Scotland is about 96% white. So DEI-type fairness would require a non-white First Minister for no more than four years in this century. Yousaf has had 13 months; there's scope for another two years and eleven months'-worth and then, going by his principle, that's it until 2100.

But is it about race? 

If it's about religion - is the Hate Crime law really aimed at putting blasphemy (in Islamic terms) on the books? - then since Muslims represent 1.45% of the Scottish population Yousaf has spaffed away most of the 17.4 months of his co-religionists' premiership quota for this century. 

If it is only about race, would Yousaf welcome a non-white Christian as First Minister? There are over 4,000 Filipinos in Scotland; the Philippines is 86% Roman Catholic (with another 8% in other sects.) Yet Catholics are outnumbered 3-1 among Christian Scots and my late mother-in-law vividly remembers the prejudice against Catholics there when she was a young woman. So, no go, at least for a genuflecting Filipino.

If it's not religion-exclusionary and the skin quota has been satisfied, how about a Protestant, even if  [pronoun] is 'disgustingly white'? Maybe the SNP made a mistake when it marginally rejected devout 'Wee-Free' Kate Forbes in favour of  'Useless Yousaf' after 'wee Jimmy' Nicola Sturgeon stepped down last year. Instead it opted for a special-pleader (a) for his religion, under the cover of race, and most of all (b) for himself.

Perhaps we are seeing well-meaning liberalism being used against itself by a tiny minority, but if stirred by an expert stirrer, potentially a very divisive and extremely intransigent one. Can you unite a country with deep ideological fault lines?

We probably do not need to worry about Yousaf's future career. If  the allegedly corrupt Ursula van der Leyen can nevertheless become President of the European Commission then if the Scots finally lose their minds, secede from the UK and join the EU the sky's the limit for a ranting mountebank like Useless.

WEEKENDER: Getting Old? by Wiggia

1997: a job well done, never forget.

There is undoubtedly a growing tendency to dismiss older people as an expensive nuisance. This shows in all manner of ways, from the legalised killing during the Covid pandemic and the still current issuing of unnecessary DNR orders as I have explained in detail in another piece.

There is no doubt that old people do make demands on the health service as age starts to eat into their bodies and minds. It was always thus. The same can be said at the other end of the life span as mothers and babies make up a constant stream at any doctor’s surgery; their needs are no less important than the elderly some would say as they are the future so they get preference. In a world of finite resources this may be a choice we have to make, but killing people is not a choice that should be included, yet it certainly is.

It is not just in healthcare where older people are beginning to realise they have been ‘selected’ for special treatment. Consider the ongoing row over state pensions where when questioned a minister recently stated that with the ‘triple lock’ our pensions are now a median in Europe: he lied, they are still low compared with almost all equivalent western societies, and the triple lock is not the golden bullet they make it out to be more as more pensioners are having to pay tax on their pensions as they, through fiscal drag come into higher income brackets and pay tax again on money they have already paid tax on through their lives. There is also the fact that millions do not get the full pension rise, but politicians don’t like to hear facts when they are telling their audience how wonderful things are now for older people.

Can we afford it? Amazing how we can afford anything that will put any government in a good light, or grease the palms of all those underlings that serve them; that is usually only so they spend/waste more money on something that does nothing for the nation as a whole and sod all for the elderly or anyone else.

I am not going to expatiate here about the appalling quality in so many areas and layers of government that we currently have in abundance. I have done that to death.

In other spheres the elderly are also coming under attack. The recent rise in car insurance has hit the elderly very hard, yet this sector is the safest bet for insurance on the road, so why charge them around 40% plus more in one year? You don’t get an answer to that question just a statement as to increasing costs of car repairs and non insured drivers (a million according to police estimates at the last count.) All this has pushed up the costs and premiums, but that does not answer the question as to why the safest and the group with the least claims should pay this huge rise, other of course than the fact that as with all insurance or utilities the elderly are the least likely to switch, not that it would make any difference in this case that as the insurers have all jacked up their premiums in line with one another… cartel, anyone?

Have you noticed that advertising directed towards the elderly has all the hallmarks of a scam? Pages in the Daily Mail for instance have adverts that show goods and services for the elderly and infirm that never have a price attached!

Page after page has items such as adjustable chairs, sofas and bathroom aids, never mind the stairlift ads and the mobility aids that never have a retail price for comparison purposes. A column I came across by chance a few months ago on the MSE money saving expert site, had a thread of dozens of disgruntled potential customers who had complained about the same non pricing problem; the stock answer from several of these firms was their product was bespoke and therefore being tailored to each customer individually meant the pricing was fluid.

Not really good enough, as any car purchased has a catalogue of extras all priced and the standard model the same. It really is to suck in the unsuspecting into the world of silly discounts should you have the temerity to question the price. One comment said he had phoned on behalf of his father for one of these adjustable chairs and been quoted £4k; when he spluttered that was exorbitant they halved the price on the phone without a quibble; even at half it is a rip-off.

That is just one of hundreds saying similar things about these goods aimed at the elderly, rather like insurance where the elderly are the least likely to query their large annual increase. They are seen as a group to be taken advantage of.

We come to the biggest plunderers who believe that all older people have untapped wealth: the government. Who can forget Gordon Brown and his raid on pension funds that brought in billions, the biggest betrayal of a group in this country by any chancellor, and despite shouting the odds on this despicable act did the Tories reverse it? Oh no, they quietly shunted into the siding of things to tackle later, much later.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1082511/Browns-17-000-tax-raid-EVERY-private-pension--value-cushy-public-sector-schemes-soars-1trillion.html

Now we hear an incoming Labour government, promising to right the ills of the incumbent party should they win the coming election (such a choice we have!) will have no money to carry out their ‘promises’ as the country is bankrupt in all but name, and have hinted at a repeat of this infamous raid on funds. Bereft of ideas and with huge public debts and clueless leadership, they are coming again for the one group who will not be outside Parliament with thousands threatening outside. No, they are coming for the elderly. They will start by withdrawing winter fuel allowances and build from there, mark my words, and you can guarantee the one group who will not have to give up anything will be the gold-plated ring-fenced pension recipients in the political and public sector classes.

Never forget, we the private sector who pay taxes pay for the public sector wages pensions and all. Those who claim they pay into their pensions from their salaries are correct but we pay or have paid those salaries and therefore those pensions, but only the private sector gets raided.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/personalfinance/labour-is-going-to-war-on-pensioner-wealth/ar-AA1nfB0s

FRIDAY MUSIC: Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway, by JD

 Molly Rose Tuttle is an American vocalist, songwriter, banjo player, guitarist, recording artist, and teacher in the bluegrass tradition. She is noted for her flatpicking, clawhammer, and crosspicking guitar prowess.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molly_Tuttle

You may notice Molly's shaven head in one of these videos. This is not a 'fashion statement' because she has Alopecia Areata. Here she tells her story of living with the condition -
https://www.mollytuttlemusic.com/alopeciaareata

Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway - Nashville Mess Around (Official Video)


Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway - El Dorado (Live)


Molly Tuttle - Where Did All the Wild Things Go? (Live)



Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway - Crooked Tree (Live at the Station Inn)


Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway - San Joaquin (Live)

FRIDAY MUSIC: The Oldtime String Band, by JD

The Oldtime String band was originally formed as a musical backdrop to a documentary about the cow-painter, Ruud Spil https://ruudspil.com/

Both the musicians and the audience enjoyed it so much that the band is now on a stampede.

The Oldtime Stringband not only plays Bluegrass and Old-Time music but is also inspired by American folk music from the 1940's and modern music with an Old-Time feel.

The Oldtime Stringband is:

Shelly O'Day : Vocals, guitar, autoharp, Cajun-triangle
Ton Knol : Guitar, mandolin, vocals
Ruud Spil : Banjo, vocals
Nico Druijf : Upright bass, vocals, singing saw
Lidewij de Vries : Fiddle, vocals


The Oldtime Stringband - Going Across the Mountain (Frank Proffitt)


The Oldtime Stringband - Run Mountain (J.E. Mainer)


The Oldtime Stringband - Our Town (Iris Dement)


The Oldtime Stringband - Cotton Mill Girl (Lester Smallwood)


The Oldtime Stringband - Angeline the Baker

FRIDAY MUSIC: The Beatles, orchestral versions, by JD

There have been lots and lots of cover versions of Beatles records, some good, some not so good. As far as I know there have been close to 2000 covers of Yesterday (according to Wiki) so the total number of covers of the Fab Four's back catalogue is anyone's guess. They were extremely popular in case you had forgotten and their music music has been adapted for orchestras around the world, inspired by The Beatles themselves who often used an orchestral backing to their songs. So here are just a few of those orchestral cover versions.

[LIVE] Beatles - YESTERDAYCello + Orchestra Version

Here, There And Everywhere - Orquestra Ouro Preto

Beatles - Eleanor Rigby e Strawberry fields forever

Here Comes the Sun - The Beatles | Joshua Bell and From the Top

The Beatles - Now And Then | Epic Orchestra