And Hermer’s characterisation of historical events is in any case cobblers, of course. International law did not stop the actual honest-to-goodness Nazis first time around; American industry and Soviet manpower did that. The idea that if only we had had the ECHR in 1933 all of the unpleasantness of World War Two and the Holocaust could have been avoided is, to put it politely, absurd. One doesn’t constrain a belligerent regime through an ‘international rules-based system’; one does it through force, or the threat of it.
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June 4th, 2025 | 20 comments - (Comments are closed)
 In Ms Harvey’s universe – occupied by the likes of Corrêa do Lago, Greenpeace and the UK’s very own ‘Mad Ed’, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero – the science is settled, the energy transition is an imperative and decarbonisation will not only save the planet from an impending environmental catastrophe but also bring about economic growth and prosperity. Harvey’s article hinges on the tired assertion that the science of climate change is settled, with a ‘97% consensus’ among scientists that human activity drives catastrophic global warming. This figure, derived from John Cook’s 2013 study, has been debunked repeatedly for its methodological flaws — most notably by scholars like David Legates, who found that only a tiny fraction of the studied papers explicitly endorsed the catastrophic narrative. June 3rd, 2025 | 26 comments - (Comments are closed)
Triggered by the political shocks of Brexit and Donald Trump’s election, the EU Commission launched a campaign to reassert control over Europe’s political narrative. Central to this is the rhetoric of ‘hate speech’ and ‘disinformation’, framed as threats to democratic stability. The Commission presents these programmes as public-interest research initiatives, but they constitute a form of soft authoritarianism, enshrining speech codes and narrowing acceptable opinion through bureaucratic manipulation. This is a top-down, authoritarian, curated consensus where expression is free only when it speaks the language of compliance established by the Commission. The Digital Services Act (DSA), which should be relabelled as the ‘Digital Surveillance Act’, is the crown jewel of this strategy. The legal framework enables the EU to regulate online speech under the guise of protection. The MCC Brussels report underlines a disturbing fact: the Commission spends 31 per cent more on narrative control than on research addressing cancer, despite cancer causing nearly two million deaths annually in Europe. This prioritisation signals that Brussels fears the cancer of free speech more than the disease. Public funds are being funnelled unaccountably into a disinformation narrative designed to shape, limit and manage the terms of public debate. May 28th, 2025 | 16 comments - (Comments are closed)
My point is: to anyone who understands the reality of Putin’s regime, the idea that he has “gone CRAZY” and is killing people is… well, CRAZY. Vladimir Putin is in power and retains power precisely because he has always been someone who is prepared to lie, manipulate and kill to achieve his objectives. That is literally what the KGB trained him to do. In his post criticising Putin, Trump went on to add: “I’ve always said that he wants ALL of Ukraine, not just a piece of it, and maybe that’s proving to be right”. Finally, it seems, our American friends are beginning to understand who they are dealing with. – Konstantin Kisin (£) May 27th, 2025 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
The biggest reduction we ever enjoyed in our electricity costs was after the newly privatised electricity industry installed gas power stations across the UK. It halved our electricity costs. The biggest increase we’ve ever seen was after the Government imposed “green” ideology on the electricity industry. It has tripled our electricity costs so far. So as with every statement made by the UK Government about energy, this one is wrong. Shutting down our oil and gas exploration, and increasing taxes on existing production, makes us poorer. May 18th, 2025 | 4 comments - (Comments are closed)
There’s an old saying in policing, usually uttered after the latest scandal or disaster: ‘The public get the police they deserve.’ It reflects how police officers feel about the elites who set their rules of engagement, as well as the occasionally capricious public they serve: whatever the police do will be criticised by somebody. Which, probably, is as it should be; policing isn’t a popularity competition. If a police officer is performing their duties properly, ‘somebody’ is going to have their day ruined. That ‘somebody’ used to predominantly be criminals. Sadly, that’s no longer the case. Yet still, I wonder, What did we, the British people, do to deserve the police we have now? Read the whole thing. May 17th, 2025 | 33 comments - (Comments are closed)
Last year the UK Met Office was shown to be inventing long-term temperature data at 103 non-existent weather stations. It was claimed in a later risible ‘fact check’ that the data were estimated from nearby well-correlated neighbouring stations. Citizen super sleuth Ray Sanders issued a number of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to learn the identity of these correlating sites but has been told that the information is not held by the Met Office. So the invented figures for the non-existent sites are supposedly provided by stations that the Met Office claims it cannot identify and are presumably not recorded in its copious computer storage and archive. May 12th, 2025 | 18 comments - (Comments are closed)
In Britain, in 2025, whether or not you should be able to criticise a religion, mock its practices, burn its texts, is an alarmingly live issue. And when I say ‘a religion’, you know which one I’m talking about. This debate has lit up again this week, following the charges brought against Hamit Coskun for burning a Koran outside the Turkish consulate in London in February. His one-man protest against the Islamist turn of Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been chalked up as a religiously motivated public-order offence, drawing the condemnation of shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick and causing an X feud between two MPs. Rupert Lowe – the member for the Very Online right – condemned our backdoor blasphemy laws, while Adnan Hussain – one of the so-called Gaza independents who rode a wave of sectarian, anti-Israel bile into parliament at the last General Election – accused Lowe of singling out Muslims under the guise of freedom of speech. May 9th, 2025 | 30 comments - (Comments are closed)
Before it’s possible to suggest a solution to a problem, it’s necessary to grasp the root cause of the problem itself. A sort of Reverse Chesterton’s Fence exercise. So, what has gone wrong? As we never tire of repeating it’s the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 and successors. That is, for the past 78 years we’ve had that coherent national plan. With a long term vision. Run by the Rolls Royce minds of the Men in Whitehall who know best. Which is how we’ve ended up with the output we’ve got, something that would disgrace a Trabant factory. As it is national control of planning – the TCPA really does define who may build what where, is the nationalisation of land use – that is the problem then the solution is to get rid of what caused the problem. Blow up the TCPA, proper blow up – kablooie. May 3rd, 2025 | 27 comments - (Comments are closed)
Renewables don’t risk blackouts, said the media. But they did and they do. The physics are simple. And now, as blackouts in Spain strand people in elevators, jam traffic, and ground flights, it’s clear that too little “inertia” due to excess solar resulted in system collapse. Also… here.
April 29th, 2025 | 42 comments - (Comments are closed)
The actual argument being made is that British actors, tax breaks, directors, scriptwriters, lovely Cotswold villages (and in the case of Bridgerton, the street outside my flat) are just such wonderful places to film, film with, that prices are rising. Therefore we’ve got to subsidise all this. The only reason we listen to fuckwits like this is because they’re pretty. Now, honestly, hands up. Who has ever known a pretty bird, handsome man, who can actually think? Even, actually has the base data to be able to think with? No, no, it’s not that the leavening of IQ and looks equals out over genes. Quite the opposite. Dullards in the sense of actual cretins and morons tend not to look good either. But the good looking have never had to think now, have they? So, they don’t. April 28th, 2025 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
Apple is doing the public a service in challenging the government on this important matter of principle. Encryption enables more than just ‘secure’ communication – it ensures freedom from government snooping, too. That’s why privacy and freedom of expression have long been considered mutually reinforcing rights. Encryption protects not only personal data, but also the ability of journalists and human-rights activists to operate without fear of surveillance or reprisals. Compelling companies to pre-emptively weaken those protections risks chilling users’ ability to communicate freely, share sensitive information or challenge the powers-that-be. LOL Remember this? April 24th, 2025 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
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