We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
The motion titled ‘Abolish Landlords’ was supported by a large majority of members at the party’s conference in Bournemouth on Sunday.
The motion has now become party policy, though leader Zack Polanski is not obliged to adopt the specific wording.
On Friday, PoliticsHome reported that the policy motion was being put forward, which sets out five steps the Greens would take to outlaw landlords.
Starting with rent controls and abolishing Right to Buy, a future Green Party-led government would also tax landlords via business rates on Airbnbs and double taxation on empty properties.
Under the proposals, the party would also end Buy to Let mortgages and give councils the Right to Buy when landlords sell properties, when the property doesn’t meet insulation standards, or when a property has been vacant for more than six months.
Carla Denyer, Green MP for Bristol Central, sought to stress that despite the motions “eye-catching” title, “it does not actually ‘abolish’ landlords”.
Neat. If the Greens get into coalition with Labour, they can say while introducing this policy, “Too late to complain now. It was clearly stated to be our policy back in 2025.” And when the policy goes the same way as every other attempt at rent control (as even they have some inkling it will), they can say “Doesn’t count, ‘coz we had our fingers crossed.”
Two Jewish people have died in a car ramming and stabbing attack at a synagogue in Manchester.
The attack came on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish religious calendar, and is being treated by police as a terror incident.
Police say they know the identity of the attacker, who was shot dead by armed officers at the scene.
I, too, wonder what happened, and I’m not just talking about the name of today’s attacker. Britain did not used to be like this.
I have seen many condemnations of this act of terror from prominent Muslims and other supporters of the Palestinian cause. I think most of them are sincere. But they must confront the fact that hatred of Jews has long been commonplace among British Muslims and is now rampant.
From another angle, it has also long been commonplace to mock those who say that their “thoughts and prayers” are with the victims and the bereaved whenever there is a mass murder. I do not share this view. If you pray, please pray for the congregation of Heaton Park synagogue tonight. And whether you pray or not, think about them. Think about what we can do to protect British Jews in a country that they once thought would be a safe haven.
Unlike many, I do not think that censorship of hate speech – note the absence of scare quotes – will help. When I was growing up there was no censorship and nor were there any guards outside synagogues. Let the people who recently chanted “From Manchester to Gaza, globalise the Intifada” be heard. Let them hear themselves.
Public support for digital IDs has collapsed after Keir Starmer announced plans for their introduction, in what has been described as a symptom of the prime minister’s “reverse Midas touch”.
Net support for digital ID cards fell from 35% in the early summer to -14% at the weekend after Starmer’s announcement, according to polling by More in Common.
The findings suggest that the proposal has suffered considerably from its association with an unpopular government. In June, 53% of voters surveyed said they were in favour of digital ID cards for all Britons, while 19% were opposed.
In February, outside the Turkish consulate in London, a man set light to the Koran. On seeing this, a Muslim man shouted, “I’m going to kill you”, and violently attacked him with a knife.
The first of those two men was convicted three months ago of a religiously aggravated public order offence, and is now living in hiding, having been warned by police that there are several credible threats to his life. But what about the second man, the one with the knife? The one who later told police that he’d merely been trying to “protect my religion”? What happened to him?
Well, here’s your answer. At Southwark Crown Court on Tuesday, he was spared prison. All he got was a 20-week suspended sentence, 150 hours of unpaid work, 10 days of rehabilitation activity, and a bill for £150 in court costs.
I know I’m not alone in feeling that this punishment was possibly a touch on the lenient side. As the Free Speech Union put it: “Had a knife-wielding white male pleaded guilty to attacking a Muslim for breaching a Christian blasphemy code, you can bet your bottom dollar he would have gone to prison.”
The prime minister believes it would help crack down on illegal working and modernise the state, according to senior figures in government.
The practicalities of the scheme will be subject to a consultation, which will also look at how to make it work for those without a smartphone or passport.
The previous Labour government’s attempt to introduce ID cards was ultimately blocked by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition.
But earlier this month, Sir Keir said he thought the debate had “moved on” since then, adding: “We all carry a lot more digital ID now than we did 20 years ago”.
“We all carry a lot more digital ID now than we did 20 years ago.” So we do, and that means we all have available a variety of independent digital means to prove our identity that are not subject to the danger of putting all our eggs in one government-made basket. Twenty years ago – well, 22 years ago to be precise – I made a post called “A law-abiding person has nothing to hide?” in which I listed some situations in which a law-abiding person could indeed be harmed by having their identity known by local or national government, or by whoever hacks into the government database, or by whoever gets their mate in the police to do a search for them. Has the passage of two decades made any of those scenarios, or the other scenarios suggested in the comments to the post, cease to apply?
I think the consequences of this will be very bad.
There will be even more Muslim terrorism worldwide. It evidently works.
There will be more use of tactics like taking hostages and livestreaming murders and torture for political effect by non-Muslim groups and states, too. These tactics evidently work.
Those people who think that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians still won’t get to see what actual genocide looks like, but Israel will be more willing than before to kill Palestinian civilians in order to destroy Hamas. Israel has lost a major motive for restraint.
The less likely it is that Israel will defeat Hamas, the more it is in its interests to use other, cruder methods to deter and/or physically prevent future attacks from Gaza. These methods could include annexing some or all of the territory and expelling the inhabitants, or finally flooding the entire network of tunnels with seawater, only this time with no concern for ecological damage. The ecological damage would be the point. It is hard to secretly build military infrastructure in a barren desert, or to hide among civilians in a depopulated land.
Contrary to Sir Keir’s main motive for doing it, his government’s recognition of Palestine will cause even more British Muslims to change their vote away from Labour in favour of Islamic identitarian parties. As Osama bin Laden said, “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse.”
This formation of an explicitly Muslim power bloc will in turn cause even more non-Muslim British people to move from merely opposing further Muslim immigration to Britain (that sentiment is already practically universal) to wanting to get rid of the Muslims already here.
I do not wish for any of this. I just think it is what is likely to happen.
Police have become embroiled in a free speech row after officers told a cancer patient to apologise for a social media post.
Deborah Anderson, an American citizen living in Slough, was confronted by an officer from Thames Valley Police after someone complained about an offensive Facebook post.
The police did not divulge which post had been the subject of the complaint.
The mother of two, who is undergoing chemotherapy treatment for cancer, was told that if she did not apologise for the comments she could be interviewed at the police station.
Ms Anderson, a vocal supporter of Donald Trump and a member of the Free Speech Union (FSU), refused and said the officer’s time would be better spent investigating serious crimes such as burglary.
Thames Valley Police later dropped the case after the FSU instructed lawyers.
However, the incident has reignited the debate over how far the police should intervene in social media spats.
The issue came into focus earlier this month when Graham Linehan, the Irish comedy writer, was arrested by five armed officers at Heathrow Airport over comments he had posted on X about a transgender activist.
Sir Mark Rowley, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, has since said the police were in an impossible position when it came to such matters and called on the Government to provide greater clarity within legislation.
[…]
Ms Anderson was visited at home by a single officer in June and informed that Thames Valley Police had received a complaint about her.
In a video shared by the FSU, the officer said: “Something we believe you have written on Facebook has upset someone.”
Ms Anderson then asked: “You’re here because someone got upset? Is it against the law? Am I being arrested?”
The officer confirmed that she was not being arrested and explained: “My plan was that if it was you who wrote the comment, you could just make an apology to the person.”
Ms Anderson replied: “I am not apologising to anybody, I can tell you that.”
The officer told her: “The alternative would be that I would have to call you in for interview.”
Ms Anderson then asked the officer: “Are there no houses that have been burgled recently, no rapes, no murders? … Then why aren’t you out there investigating those?”
Lord Young of Acton, general secretary of the FSU, said: “Watching this video, it’s as if the police have become schoolteachers, intervening in petty squabbles. Since when has it been their job to ask people to apologise?
“Except instead of threatening you with detention if you don’t, they’re threatening you with arrest. It’s both comical and deeply sinister – carry on 1984.
A spokesman for Thames Valley Police said: “In June, we received a report from a person who felt threatened by comments directed at them online.
“Following engagement with both parties, no arrests were made and no further action was taken.”
If Plod the Prefect comes round to “engage” with you, do what Ms Anderson did and stand your ground. The chances are good that they will back off. Even if they don’t, you will have kept your self-respect.* This is the alternative.
*Another way to preserve your self-respect in these times is not to join the police. No officer should have to endure this type of deliberately humiliating hazing ritual.
Jeremy Corbyn has just released an “urgent message” claiming today’s membership launch for ‘Your Party’ routed to an unauthorised domain and “legal advice” is now being taken. Which is odd, because Comrade Sultana told everyone to sign up using that very domain this morning…
“URGENT MESSAGE TO ALL YOURPARTY.UK SUPPORTERS
This morning, an unauthorised email was sent to all yourparty.uk supporters with details of a supposed membership portal hosted in a new domain name. Legal advice is being taken. That email should be ignored by all supporters. If any direct debits have been set up, they should be immediately cancelled.”
It appears that Sultana and Corbyn have now split.
“Whatever happened to the Popular Front?”
“She’s over there.”
The Bank lacks tools and legitimacy to tackle inflation. Labour should transfer that role to a new Inflation Control Office, which could use taxes, price controls and even rationing to lower inflation. Then Reeves should change the Bank’s mandate, radically: to support the economic policy of the government, not the City.
As a means to “save” Keir Starmer’s government, I am not convinced by the rationing bit. True, price controls are nearly always popular – until tried. But the people’s cry of “We want an Inflation Control Office to stop us buying things!” is heard only in Ann Pettifor’s dreams. I would advise less rich food late at night.
The Danish presidency of the EU is currently working to gain support for the CSA regulation, which will open a backdoor to all Europeans’ phones in an attempt to trap and track down criminals who share sexual abuse material with children.
If the CSA regulation is voted through, police and judicial authorities will be able to access encrypted communication services such as WhatsApp and Signal – and thus the private communications of many millions of Europeans.
A leaked document from the European Council states that this will be done through client-side scanning . The technology works by scanning images, video and text on the user’s device before sending and encrypting them, including with the help of AI.
[…]
The CSA regulation was taken off the agenda of the EU Council of Ministers in June 2024 due to the risk of mass surveillance of EU citizens and a concern that the law could represent a setback for freedoms.
But two months later, the Minister of Justice [Peter Hummelgaard] stated to TV 2 that “we need to break with the completely erroneous perception that it is every man’s right to freedom to communicate on encrypted messaging services, which are used to facilitate many different serious forms of crime”.
Our now former Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Angela Rayner, had a long history of denouncing Conservative politicians for tax avoidance. Yesterday she had to resign for not paying enough Stamp Duty. This was not because she accidentally wrote the wrong figure on the cheque – showing my age, there – it was because she engaged in a complicated tax avoidance scheme uncovered by the Daily Telegraph:
Angela Rayner saved £40,000 in stamp duty on her new seaside flat after telling tax authorities it was her main home, The Telegraph can disclose.
The Deputy Prime Minister is understood to have removed her name from the deeds of her house in Greater Manchester a few weeks before buying an £800,000 seaside flat in Hove, East Sussex.
The changes enabled Ms Rayner to avoid paying £70,000 in stamp duty, which would have been applicable if Hove was her second home. Instead, she is thought to have paid £30,000 in stamp duty, saving her £40,000 in the process.
But she has also told Tameside council in Manchester that her constituency house remains her primary residence and informed Brighton and Hove council that her apartment there was a second home for council tax purposes.
There were some other financial shenanigans to do with a trust fund for her disabled son going on as well, but they are secondary to the main point.
I am always saying “incentives matter”. All human history demonstrates that in the long run, they do. But all human history also demonstrates that in the short run, they frequently don’t. Angela Rayner was a left-wing Housing Minister whose public speeches often denounced other MPs for legally avoiding – let alone illegally evading – tax. One would have thought that she would have foreseen that unfriendly eyes were going to scrutinise her own payment of a property tax, and would have arranged her affairs accordingly.
Yesterday the Green Party announced that Zack Polanski (who used to say he could enlarge women’s breasts by the power of his mind) had been elected as its new leader. The party also announced that “two high-profile local councillors had been elected as co-deputy leaders. One of these deputies is Mr Mothin Ali, formerly a local councillor in Leeds. If he is a dab hand at the mental embiggening of ladies’ boobs, he has not mentioned it, but he has said other things that might prove equally controversial.
The video to which I link was posted by “Howli! Now” in May 2024, with the title “Leeds city council member Mothin Ali shares thoughts on events of October 7th” and the caption, “Mothin Ali is the Green Party councilor who shouted ‘Allahu Akbar!’ as he was elected to the Leeds city council. This is what he had to say on October 7th:”
The video includes an automatically generated transcript. I “cleaned up” some obvious errors in that transcript to produce what follows:
So, right at this very minute Israel has launched one of the biggest attacks against the civilian population that we’ve seen for many years. Now they’re going to use the pretext of the fightback by Hamas fighters – or supposedly Hamas fighters – this morning.
Now, remember the situation in Palestine and especially the situation in Gaza: it’s an open-air prison, it’s the biggest concentration camp the world has ever seen, millions of people have been rounded up into a tiny area. They’re living on top of each other, they’ve been – they’ve been forced to live off scraps that the international community sometimes donates to them.
Now, the dignity of a indigenous population we haven’t seen being stripped away in this way, just like the Europeans did to the Native Americans, or, um, how the Europeans did throughout the colonies. Remember Israel is a colonial, settler-colonial, occupier. It’s been trying to erase the history and trying to erase the legitimacy of a native population – every single person, every single people have a right to fight back, every single people have a right to live free of occupiers.
That includes people who are brown, that includes people who are Muslim, that includes people who are Arab. Just because they’re brown and Arab doesn’t mean that they don’t have a right to fight back. You saw the Western support for Ukraine when they fought back against Russia. Palestinians have equal right if not more. They’ve been under occupation for over 70 years, they’ve literally been wiped off the map. They talk about wiping Israel off the map, they’ve wiped Palestine off the map, they’ve put millions of people into refugee camps. They use the pretext of rockets and they use the pretext of people resisting an occupier to further destroy a civilian population and any prospect of a Palestinian home state. They talk about a land free for the Israelis – what about the land for the Palestinians? You’ve taken it all. You’ll see the Western media support Israel, you’ll see Western propagandists on the media presenting some kind of victim narrative. They’re not victims they’re occupiers, the colonialists, they’re European colonialists, it’s one of the last European colonies in the world and that’s why they, the European people, don’t want to let it go.
They use the weapon of anti-Semitism so effectively that anyone who criticizes Israel is labelled an anti-semitic. We see through those lies, we see through that propaganda. People of the world stay strong: support Palestine, support the right of indigenous people to have freedom and to fight back against occupiers.
Edit: I got so involved in doing the transcript that I forgot the whole point of the post. It is this: I support Mr Ali’s right to justify terrorism, not least because I want to know what people like him are saying. But given that Hamas was proscribed as a terrorist organisation in 2021, meaning that, in the words of the gov.uk website, “members of Hamas or those who invite support for the group could be jailed for up to 14 years”, when can we expect Mothin Ali to be treated as Graham Linehan was?
Second edit: On a different tack, these lines from Mothin Ali’s speech jumped out at me this morning:
It’s been trying to erase the history and trying to erase the legitimacy of a native population – every single person, every single people have a right to fight back, every single people have a right to live free of occupiers.
Leaving aside the question of whether Jews or Arabs have the better claim to be regarded as “the native population” of Israel, has it never occurred to Mothin Ali that the arguments he uses above to justify Palestinians violently attacking Israelis could also be used to justify White British people violently attacking British Muslims?
The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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