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?

FRIDAY MUSIC: Lake Street Dive, by JD

 More hidden gems. Here are Rachael Price (vocals) and Bridget Kearney (double bass) who together with (irregular) backing musicians are known as Lake Street Dive.

"Lake Street Dive is an American multi-genre band that was formed in 2004 at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. The band's founding members are Rachael Price, Mike "McDuck" Olson, Bridget Kearney, and Mike Calabrese. Keyboardist Akie Bermiss joined the band on tour in 2017 and was first credited on their 2018 album Free Yourself Up; guitarist James Cornelison joined in 2021 after Olson left the band. The band is based in Brooklyn and frequently tours in North America, Australia, and Europe."

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

https://www.lakestreetdive.com/

 Lake Street Dive - Call Off Your Dogs [Official Video]

Lake Street Dive - "You Go Down Smooth" (eTown webisode #601)

Lake Street Dive - Hypotheticals [From Phantom Studios]

Lake Street Dive - Good Together (Official Music Video)

Lake Street Dive in the Studio: Rachael Price Sings "What I'm Doing Here" In One Complete Take

GE 2024: A Close Shave

How Jess Phillips MP nearly lost Birmingham Yardley

There was something in the air as we walked to the community centre to cast our votes. The polling station staff were unusually energised and cheerful. Asian women electors were coming and going.

We had almost decided not to vote at all. Our constituency is by tradition ultra-safe Labour. In 2019 Electoral Calculus put Jess Phillips’ odds of winning at 99%; this time, after boundary changes, 96%:

The forecast underestimated two factors: Nigel Farage lately taking the reins at Reform, and a Muslim bloc galvanised by what it sees as ‘genocide’ in Gaza.

Peter Hitchens had alerted us to Gordon Brown’s proposals for further emasculating Parliament, urging us to hold our noses and vote for anyone at all who stood a chance of stopping Starmer’s Labour.

On the face of it, Jess’ expected margin of victory was so great that she would win even if it halved. A flyer from the LibDems said they offered the best chance of defeating her; I didn’t believe it.

However the vehemence of Muslim feeling nationally about Palestine suggested to me that the new contender running under the flag of George Galloway’s Workers Party might prove interesting. I toyed with the idea of opting for him to lessen Labour’s joy, but I couldn’t do it. Galloway’s policy promoting a unitary Palestinian state may be simple idealism, but it threatens a bloodbath. Millions of Gazans have the Jew-hatred common to Muslim worshippers, but have had it intensified by the long, slow-burning conflict with their next-door neighbour and also by a disgraceful Hamas education system that fans the flames through the curriculum. After the open warfare following 7 October 2023, what peaceful coexistence could there possibly be?

Since there seemed no chance of successfully voting against Labour here, I could back Reform with a clear conscience, hoping that it might send a message to all three major parties about the people’s dissatisfaction with their Europhilia and complete failure to stop massive-scale immigration.

The pollsters were wrong. If my wife and I had chosen the Workers Party man, and 692 others had done the same, Jess Phillips would now be out. It could have happened so easily, because the turnout was only 49% (Wikipedia says 50.3%, possibly counting spoiled ballot papers.) 700 votes out of 35,000 abstainers - just two per cent of them - would have been more than enough. As Tony Benn warned Parliament in 1991: ‘Apathy could destroy democracy. When the turnout drops below 50 per cent., we are in danger.’

By apathy he meant despair of dismissing the government using democratic means. We have managed that; what we cannot do is appoint an acceptable alternative, at least one that I and millions of others would like to have. On crucial matters - e.g. the EU, what to do about Covid - we have had no proper Opposition to voice our concerns.

Benn went on to warn of two other dangers. One was riot which ‘has historically played a much larger part in British politics than we are ever allowed to know.’ This year’s ‘pro-Palestine’ demonstrations in London, which also featured a degree of intimidation, had a flavour of barely-restrained riot and the police appeared to control them very gingerly, certainly not as firmly as they did counter-protestors.

The other peril named by Benn was nationalism - something positively encouraged by New Labour’s regional devolutions, and on a smaller scale inherent in the further plans that Starmer tasked Brown with designing - how long before Yorkists fight Lancastrians again?

Yet now that the UK’s Muslims account for six per cent of the population, the most pressing challenge presented by over-zealous group identity has taken an ideological form.

Enter Jody McIntyre, a British convert to Islam who first visited Gaza in 2009.

Here is the flyer we received some days before the election - it was personally addressed - so we had a copy each; the printing bill must have been great. Look at the skill demonstrated in its composition:

How many of the problems he mentions can be laid at Jess’ door, or blamed on Birmingham’s Labour council, or on the national Labour Party? What could McIntyre do to make things better?

The killer point - it’s classic rhetorical technique - is saved for last: ‘funding wars overseas.’ Some might read that as including Ukraine, but surely the main thrust is at Jess’ membership of the Parliamentary group Labour Friends of Israel, as his Twitter/X feed shows:

As the national press has noted, the declaration of Jess’ victory was accompanied by unpleasant behaviour - booing and the chanting of Palestinian slogans. During her speech, McIntyre was shaking his head and when she came to shake hands with her rivals he declined (see third clip on that link.) This may seem small potatoes but the refusal of losers to concede graciously strikes at the heart of the democratic system.

McIntyre has since gone further:

This road leads ultimately to woe and blood. Britain has suffered from intransigent absolutists before: Henry VIII enforcing his Church of England, Mary Tudor determined to reinstate Catholicism, Cromwell the Puritan dismissing Parliament and ruling as Lord Protector. If we followed Bible fundamentalists we would still be burning witches today.

Most Muslims in this country - at least, those who have been here long enough to appreciate the benefits of a fairly well-ordered society - live quietly, look after their families and pursue their business interests.

However recent arrivals from much more violent and intolerant societies - ones that set little store by literature other than their holy scripts - are another matter.

So too is an element of the young who even though born here are excited by the opportunity to get power and status quickly using the potentialities of Islam. Think of Shamima Begum, abandoning the restricted life of a schoolgirl and dutiful daughter in favour of marriage to a heroic jihadi in Syria: with a single bound she was one up on her mother! On 13 September 2011 at a Birmingham school where I taught part-time, I was confronted by a trio of teenage Asian boys, whose leader was exceptionally bright; speaking for all of them he said ‘What happened on Tuesday, Sir - good, innit?’ How do you like that ‘Sir’ by the way - bearing in mind he was vocally contemptuous in every lesson?

The Muslim wife of our neighbour has expressed an interest in reading and learning more about her faith. There must be many like her here - just doing the right thing in daily life without getting into all the detail of their religion. Like the neglected underbrush that resulted in catastrophic fires in California, Portugal and Australia, they await a spark of controversy such as Gaza to set our politics alight.

What fools our representatives - especially on the Left - have been, celebrating diversity without considering any consequences other than annoying their political opponents! Let them read and fully understand what is in the Koran and Hadiths.

Conflict is not inevitable, if we stand strong for our values. Harun al-Rashid, the Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad and the mighty Western emperor Charlemagne exchanged precious gifts. Yet give way too easily and it will be as Osama bin Laden said: ‘When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse.’

Liberalism has to be defended as stoutly as any hotheaded dogma. It begins with free speech, mutual respect and a firm hand with those who seek a short way to power.

Lords reform: a suggestion

Yet again the issue of first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting comes to the fore. In my constituency the support for the Labour Party is traditionally overwhelming and so my vote has no effect.

Advocates for proportional representation (PR) are told it’s a bad idea because it likely results in no party getting an overall majority. Yet the latter stages of the 2024 General Election has seen desperate attempts to minimise Labour’s margin of victory for fear of radical constitutional change planned by Starmer and Brown.

Another argument for the status quo is that it preserves the personal link between an MP and his/her constituents. Yet modern voting seems to be about parties and party leaders, almost like a US Presidential election. Great MPs like the late Frank Field have lost out when they have tried to stand as independents because of some issue of principle.

Meanwhile we see a House of Lords in a scrappy state after New Labour’s tinkering - and it’s still (in some cases) a place to put people who’ve been generous donors or reliable party stooges.

In a wild moment Tony Benn called for creating a thousand new peers and then abolishing the peerage. If this implied doing away with a second chamber altogether it could have meant disaster: imagine a dominant political party that could enact laws fast and without revision.

So why not have the best of both - FPTP and PR?

Keep the constituency system as it is, with its flaws but also with the connection to an individual representative. Replace the House of Lords with a Senate of 100 - which is sufficient for the USA, a nation five times larger - whose seats are filled according to party affiliation?

The electorate would have two votes, as they do already in Scotland and Wales. One would be for their local candidate for the Commons, the other would be for the party whose philosophy they found most attractive. Look at the 2024 results above and see under ‘vote share’ for how this year’s Upper House could be constituted. Labour, seemingly almighty in the Commons, would have to get its legislation through the revising chamber with the support of some other parties - which might not be taken for granted on particular issues. Even now a Conservative/Reform bloc representing 38% of the total would be a formidable opposition to Labour’s 34%.

Would this be a better balancing system?

FRIDAY MUSIC: Swiss Dixie Jazzer, by JD

 I have no idea who they are and their web page has very little information on it plus it is in German. But...... I like their style. Perhaps they all had proper jobs once upon a time and decided that playing jazz was more fun: hence the Mid Life of their name?
 
Swiss Dixie Jazzer “SDJ”:

"Stage presence with closeness to the audience is our trademark, atmospheric and enjoyable joy of playing is our companion.

"Our repertoire ranges from old-time jazz, Dixie and swing – peppered with Latin, funk, folk music and everything else that spontaneously comes to mind."
https://www.swissdixiejazzer.ch/

Dixieland One Step - Midlife Jazzband / Swiss Dixie Jazzer

De Seppel - Midlife Jazzband / Swiss Dixie Jazzer

Swiss Dixie Jazzer "Sweet Emma"

Royal Garden Blues - Midlife Jazzband / Swiss Dixie Jazzer

Swiss Dixie Jazzer "Jumpin' at the Woodside"

The need for a constitutional referendum

Four years ago Sir Keir Starmer asked Gordon Brown to plan “the biggest ever transfer of political power out of Westminster and into the towns, cities, and nations of the UK.”

This may sound good but it isn’t. Far from ushering in a golden era of democracy it attacks what may be our country’s most precious possession, the ability to hold power to account.

For ironically, people are less interested in local politics than national affairs. The turnout in the 2019 UK General Election was 67.3% but in 2021 that for English local elections was only 35.9%. Partly this may reflect our sense that many key decisions are taken in Westminster; also, the news media tell us more - or opine more - about MPs than about our local representatives.

Yet Starmer’s planned devolution rollout may, perhaps unintentionally, offer the prospect of a proliferation of petty tyrannies inadequately validated by the will of the people.

Take the Mayor of London for example. Sadiq Khan has just begun his third term, on the basis of a 40% turnout and 43.8% of ballots in his favour. His power is founded on just over one in six of registered voters yet he feels entitled to restrict or tax civilian movement in the name of climate change and even tell Londoners how they may speak to their ‘maaates.’ He is in many respects king of 600 square miles of territory and nine million subjects.

And unlike other mayors he cannot easily be deposed, not even by a referendum following petition. His position is rather more secure than that of the Prime Minister.

Speaking of tenure, let us turn to the Welsh Assembly. On 5 June the Senedd leader Vaughan Gething, a ‘close ally of Sir Keir’, lost a vote of no confidence but instead of resigning burst into tears and refused to step down. If James Callaghan had taken the same approach in 1979 this would be a very different world indeed.

For more extreme despotism look at Scotland. The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill introduced in 2020 by the then Justice Minister Humza Yousaf and now in force applies not just to banners and vocal utterances in public but to private conversations in the home and ‘websites, email, blogs, podcasts etc.’ The police can use a warrant to burst into your house; if convicted you may be imprisoned for up to seven years, depending on the category of offence.

Yousaf’s speech introducing this Bill is infamous for his racialist tone. Scotland had nine ancient tribes and there are still some 140 clans, maybe far more; yet all he could see in this diversity was white skin. The fact that 95.4% of Scots identify as white did not lessen his insinuation of being unfairly held down by prejudice. North of the border, let no-one dare suggest otherwise, in any form. Where is Mel Gibson bawling ‘freedom!’ to his fellow Scots when they need him? Alba gu bra!

This is what we face: the spread of high-handed pseudo-democracy like an epidemic of measles.

But Starmer faces a difficulty in pursuing this project, if he insists on so doing. We may hold that an electoral victory for Labour, whatever the margin, is insufficient to authorise such a major constitutional change. This dead rat is not made palatable by throwing it into the manifesto stew, not that any government considers itself irrevocably committed to the whole cauldron of promises it makes in such documents.

The EU issue shows us the way. In the last General Election before accession to the ‘single market’ the 1970 Labour Government’s manifesto said ‘We have applied for membership of the European Economic Community and negotiations are due to start in a few weeks' time’ and the Conservatives’ said ‘We believe that it would be in the long-term interest of the British people for Britain to join the European Economic Community.’ Some choice!

So in we went, under Heath; and when Wilson returned to power in 1974 he felt the need to reconfirm the decision by means of a referendum, held in 1975. The Labour brochure howled that it was all about ‘FOOD and MONEY and JOBS’ (capitalisation sic) and reassured us (‘Fact No. 3’) that ‘The British Parliament in Westminster retains the final right to repeal the Act which took us into the Market on January 1, 1973. Thus our continued membership will depend on the continuing assent of Parliament.’ How could we lose? The Conservative brochure ‘Yes To Europe’ similarly painted the positives for remaining and the fearsome unknowns of leaving.

Yet leave we did at long last, much to everyone’s surprise - that is, everyone who was anyone. It turned out that the lifeboat on the Euranic was more than a courtesy detail.

So, two referenda on an issue where we had the freedom to exercise our choice. Unfortunately Parliament and Whitehall have since acted like a barrister who having received the client’s express instruction has instead colluded with the prosecution against his interests. Can it come as another surprise to find that the people have chosen to dispense with their attorney?

Yet if there is to be a Conservative Party for the future, it is needed now more than ever, when constitutional changes are in prospect that seem intended to be irrevocable. The Starmer/Brown proposals are not about taking power away from Westminster, but from the people. Without our specific approval through a referendum they cannot proceed under any pretence of a mandate.

SUNDAY SUPPLEMENT: Election special, the cynic's guide!

The Bonzo Dog Band - No Matter Who You Vote For The Government Always Gets In (lyrics)

Monty Python’s Election Night Special

Neil Innes - Lie Down and Be Counted, Innes Book of Records

This is from Neil Oliver's YouTube channel posted earlier this week in which he desribes the slow process of his 'political awakening' from being a trusting and somewhat naive or even gullible citizen and realising that he and we can no longer trust or believe our politicians nor any of our institutions such as the  NHS or the Post Office (as we have seen recently) and how those same politicians can only be regarded as our 'enemy' who wish us harm.

Neil Oliver: Buckle up - more psyops are coming your way!

I agree with Neil Oliver but my own awakening began much earlier, more than 50 years ago:

It was in the early Seventies and I was in a small department store in town when another customer came in with what appeared to be his 'entourage' his minions or hangers-on. This new customer had a very loud voice and all I could hear from him was "I thought I came across very well" From this I surmised that he had just come from the BBC studios which were just a short walk away. He was dressed not flamboyantly but, shall we say, unusually. He had a long Crombie style overcoat with  a large astrakhan collar and a hat to match. And large bristling unruly sideburns. "I thought I came across very well" he kept on saying as if to reassure himself. I later found out that he was Rhodes Boyson MP. My first encounter with a real live politician. I was not impressed.

My second encounter with an MP was many years later. I was coming out of my local newsagent with a clutch of Sunday newspapers and I saw somebody getting out of a taxi by the bus stop and I thought "That looks like our local MP" and indeed it was our MP. He then started walking and I followed on after him, not out of curiosity but because he was heading in the general direction of my house. "I wonder where he is going and why did he not get out of the taxi at his destination?" Very strange behaviour. He proceeded along the main road and followed it round a long bend and then it dawned on me... This was Remembrance Sunday and he was heading for our local British Legion Club. From there he would lead the parade of ex-servicemen, Scouts, Guides etc to the local Church for the service of Remembrance. Seeing such sly behaviour from my local MP. I was not impressed. Boyson was Conservative and my local MP, now retired, was Labour.

There have been other more direct encounters with local Labour Councillors in more recent years and they were even less impressive than the aforementioned MPs. In fact it is my opinion they are the most mean spirited and spiteful characters I have had the misfortune to meet!

Well, that's my opinion. You may agree or disagree as you choose.

"We Are About To Elect A Government Nobody Wants." 

- Dr David Starkey speaking earlier this month: