The Gaelic Revival.

 

They used to say that the Gaelic language spoken in parts of Scotland was a dying language because so few people spoke it. It seems to have been spoken mainly in the west of Scotland and among people of the Western Isles.

Some years ago, I used to read copies of the West Highland Free Press, that were given to me by a lady who was from the Isle of Skye. That paper wasn't published in Gaelic but in English. I remember reading an article where a registrar in Scotland had refused to enter a child's name on a birth certificate because it was in Gaelic. It caused a bit of a fuss with some people suggesting that the registrar must've been a dastardly Sassenach, but it's very likely that the registrar was a Scot.

On another occasion, the newspaper posed a question that I found highly amusing. The newspaper asked how do you know when two people are speaking in Gaelic? Answer: They're the ones that are covered in spit. That sounded more like a Scottish joke to me because most English people have never heard the language spoken and are not familiar with the Gaelic language.

I also remember reading how iodine tablets had been given out to people on the Isle of Skye which sounded ominous to me, because this is usually done when there is a danger of exposure to radiation. There is a nuclear submarine base on Skye and it is thought that coolant discharged into the sea from these submarines may be radioactive. The lady from Skye showed me a Bible that was printed in the Gaelic language and reminded me of the similarities between the Irish native language and the Gaelic of the Scots.

Nowadays, there seems to have been a renewed interest in the Gaelic language and one of the fastest growing areas for the Gaelic language, is in Edinburgh. In parts of Wales, it is compulsory for children to be taught the Welsh language even though it's not likely to be of much use to you outside of Wales.

I think it is important to protect native languages and culture because it tells us a lot about the history of a people, even though much of this culture and tradition, might be of recent invention. There's little doubt that what many people think of as quintessentially Scottish, is derived from the imagination and writings of Sir Walter Scott in the 19th century and the romantic influence of Queen Victoria. Old Gaelic was the language of Macbeth even though he probably spoke Latin as well.

At the time of the Jacobite wars between England and the supporters of the young pretender, Bonnie Prince Charlie, in the 18th century, the redcoat English soldiers would often refer to the Scots as the people of the Irish tongue. Many Scottish clansmen and Scots fought on both sides. After the Battle of Culloden, the English tried to ban all aspects of Gaelic Scottish culture including the language and dress, but they never succeeded.

The politics of hypocrisy.

 

Labour's Anglican Business Secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, has said that taking gifts, tribute, and hospitality, from wealthy donors like Waheed Alli, are not the perks of the job of a British politician, but are part of the job of being a politician. In 2016, Reynolds said that his Christian faith had led him to resign as Shadow Transport Secretary under Jeremy Corbyn.

Curiously, when Labour was in opposition, it took a rather different point of view when it came to politicians taking freebies. Sir Keir Starmer-oid constantly criticised Boris Johnson for taking freebies off wealthy donors like Lord Bamford, the owner of JCB, and demanded to know who had paid for Boris Johnson's wallpaper in Downing Street. Labour was incensed that Lord Bamford had paid towards Boris Johnson's wedding reception.

Many honest and decent people would disagree with Reynolds. They think that there's something squalid, bent, or even corrupt, about politicians taking freebies off wealthy individuals. British people cannot stomach cant and hypocrisy even when it's peddled by spurious holy rollers like Jonathan Reynolds.

 If Sir Keir Starmer-oid is to be remembered for anything, it will be as the best UK prime minister that money could buy. When a wealthy individual like Waheed Alli is clothing you and your missus and giving freebies to many of your cabinet colleagues, you've got to ask yourself why he's doing it and who is really running this country? In politics, people's perceptions mean everything.

 

Dale Vance - Conflicts of Interests?

 

Dale Vance

Labour donor and green entrepreneur, Dale Vance, says that he wants to talk to the Labour government about scrapping compulsory meat and dairy in school meals in England.

Personally, I wouldn't want vegan meals foisted on myself or my children but I believe children should be given a choice.  Vance who has gifted more than £5m to Labour, says that vegan meals are healthier and better for the environment. But is that true?

It's by no means certain if vegan meals are much healthier for children, or adults. A vegan is someone who doesn't eat food derived from any animals but lives on a plant-based diet. Most UK medical practitioners would recommend that you eat a balanced diet. It is known that vegetarians can be at risk of vitamin deficiency, but most Hindus are vegetarian.

We know that the Irish peasant once subsisted on the lumper potato. Although this must have been a rather boring diet, it was a perfectly healthy one. Apparently, the potato and the skin, is high in nutritional value. By all accounts, the only thing the Irish cottier needed to add to his diet of potatoes was butter milk.

Vance is campaigning for an end to the farming of animals which he believes is the biggest driver of the climate crisis. He told a fringe meeting at the Labour Party conference that his company 'Devil's Kitchen', already supplies vegan meals to 'one in four' primary schools.

It sounds to me like Vance has a vested business interest in lobbying for vegan meals to made available in schools. Selling and promoting vegan meals has made him a multimillionaire. Is this why he's donating money to Labour and why he thinks farm animals are driving the so-called 'climate crisis'? 

Labour split over plans to cut pub opening hours in Britain.

 

Angela Rayner

We've been told by Labour's obese Business Secretary, Angie Rayner, who has admitted to a weakness for raves, vaping and cocktails, that Britain now has the most working-class prime minister and working-class cabinet in a generation.

In opposition, Sir Keir Starmer-oid (KC), a former state prosecutor and Trotskyist, said he would be a light touch prime minister who didn't want to tell people how to lead their lives. He pledged to “tread more lightly” on the lives of voters. But in just over eleven weeks, we're now seeing how controlling, venal, inept and authoritarian, Starmer's Labour government is.

Labour appears to be mired in sleaze and in hock to wealthy capitalists and hedge fund dealers who circle Westminster handing out free clothing and hospitality to Labour cabinet ministers as well as the Prime Minister and his wife.  With his bans and proscriptions on dissenters, there's more than a touch of the Maximilian Robespierre about Comrade Starmer-oid.

The Labour government now wants to crack down on junk food advertising, to weigh people at work and ban people from smoking outside pubs and in pub beer gardens. As a record number of UK pubs close on a weekly basis, Labour is now considering closing pubs early and introducing minimum unit alcohol pricing that will increase the price of alcoholic drinks to control alcohol abuse. This will lead to further pub closures and job losses.

Labour's health minister, Andrew Gwynne, who has been a career Labour politician for most of his adult life, and who now represent Denton & Gorton, has said that Labour are "not the fun police" or a "super nanny", but the case for introducing such measures was both moral and economic. He said that Britain's poor health was "morally reprehensible" and that the NHS hasn't enough money to cope with rising demand.

On Tuesday, Labour's Pat McFadden, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, vowed to "table an emergency resolution" to stop any motion aimed at closing pubs earlier. Speaking on the BBC Today programme, McFadden said that pubs were a great part of the British tradition and that Labour had no plans to change pub opening hours in that way. Emma McClarkin, the chief executive of the British Beer and Pub Association, said that she welcomed Mr McFadden's move to deny the rumours and that it was a huge relief that the Idea of restricting pub opening hours, had been squashed.

Sir Keir Starmer-oid's squalid and sleazy Labour government, have said they want to grow the British economy but they don't seem to have much of an idea about how to do it. Labour's mixed and confusing messages over policy and endless talk of doom and gloom and tight and painful times that lie ahead, are undermining both business and consumer confidence and diminishing economic activity and putting jobs at risk. 

Charles Dickens and his influence on English morals.

 

Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens was 25 years old when Queen Victoria ascended to the throne in 1837. There's no doubt that many of us are aware of grinding Victorian poverty because of the books of Charles Dickens and that Dickens, has had a profound influence on English morals and values. To this day, we can recognise Dickensian English types like Seth Pecksniff and John Podsnap. But Dickens had his critics and some critics thought that Dickens was excessively sentimental and lacked intellectual rigour and depth.

George Orwell wrote a very good essay on Dickens and was clear that Dickens was not a socialist or revolutionary and neither was he on the side of the mob or trade unionists. He was more concerned with moral improvement rather than political reform. His heroes are not social reformers but ordinary people who make a simple commitment to decency. Orwell says that his general attitude was that it is "Useless to change institutions without a change of heart..." Orwell argued that Dickens must have been aware that many of the problems in society were caused by the structural inequalities caused by Britain's social class system and capitalism but he really fails to address this. Dickens always seems to resort to introducing the benevolent capitalist-type like the Cheeryble brothers, who come to the rescue or the wealthy John Jarndyce, whose main goal in life is to do good for others. Nevertheless, Dickens was a social critic and satirist and many of his books attack such things as the workhouse, the legal system, bureaucracy and the system of education in Britain.

John Ruskin seems to have been greatly impressed with 'Hard Times', one of Dickens's shorter novels. Among other things, this novel is an attack on 'Utilitarianism' and its ideology as represented by the schoolmaster Thomas Gradgrind who is morally blind and only interested in facts. I think Hard Times is probably the only Dickens novel that really addresses the issue of the class struggle but it's clear that Dickens, is on the side of Stephen Blackpool, who is shunned by his fellow workers because he refuses to join the union. Bitzer, who is a former pupil of Gradgrind's school of rationalist education, works in Josiah Bounderby's bank and spies on his fellow workers. He's a kind of prototype early Thatcherite. Mrs Sparsit, who is originally from an aristocratic background but has fallen on hard times, is now Bounderby's housekeeper. She's s only a simple widow woman but like Margaret Thatcher, she believes that the labouring classes must be conquered.

'Bleak House' is considered a 'Condition -of- England novel and I think Dickens' novel 'Our Mutual Friend', is also another good novel. John Ruskin coined the term 'illth' which was the underside of wealth. It refers to the damage that change leaves in its wake - the human cost of so-called progress. Dickens's novels show what statistics miss or disguise and what life was actually like for many millions of English people living in the most prosperous and advanced economy in the world. In Dickens's day it was paradise for 30,000 and hell for 30 million.

Reynolds defends Sir Keir Cadger and Lady Victoria Sponger taking freebies!

 

Labour's deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, says that she doesn't believe that she broke Parliamentary rules when she stayed five nights buckshee at Lord Waheed Ali's luxurious New York flat with her 'soulmate' and swain, Sam Tarry. Rayner declared only £1,250.00 for staying for five nights at the luxury apartment in Manhattan. Rayner told the BBC interviewer Laura Kuenssberg that all MP's are on the take and accept freebie gifts from wealthy donors. She told Kuenssberg that donations had been "a feature of our politics for a very long time", with all MPs accepting gifts. When asked if Lord Alli had received anything from her in return for his donations, Rayner said: "I promised nothing and gave him nothing in return."

Angie and the chancellor Rachel 'Freeze' Reeves, also received freebie clothing which they declared as "office support." The Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, has also defended donations that she received from Lord Alli.

The Labour prime minister Sir Keir Cadger and his wife Lady Victoria Sponger, have also received tens of thousands of pounds of freebie clothing from Lord Alli as well as designer spectacles. The couple have also received free tickets to Taylor Swift concerts and free tickets for Arsenal football matches. Sir Keir has been criticised for failing to declare on time, many of the free gifts and donations the he's received, even though he promised to restore honesty and probity into British politics.

Lord Alli is so generous with his largesse and bounty that you would think that he was a fairy godmother or was running a benevolent society. But we all know that you don't get as rich as Lord Alli by giving your money away. As they say, he owes pays the piper calls the tune.

While sleazy and greedy Labour MPs are being given luxury goods by wealthy benefactors like Lord Alli, they've just voted to make Britain pensioners poorer by taking their winter fuel allowance off them. All three Tameside MPs including Angela Rayner have expressed support for the measure and voted in favour of means-testing the winter fuel allowance.

Business Secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, the MP for Stalybridge & Hyde, defended Sir Keir taking over £100,000 in gifts and donations since December 2019 including £698-worth of Coldplay tickets in Manchester. Reynolds told Times Radio that accepting 'hospitality' "is not a perk of the job, it's part of the job." He added that hard-working politicians were entitled to "a bit of relaxation." 

Is government debt a good or bad thing?

 

The national debt is in Japan is approximately 9.2 trillion dollars or 263% of GDP. Compared to Japan, Britain's national debt pales into insignificance. Yet, the Japanese economy, is the fourth-largest in the world and the country is far richer than Britain. Japan is also a more developed country than Britain with a far better public transport system. 

America is one of the most indebted countries in the world but as one of the most powerful economies in the world.  Despite these levels of debt, I don't think that either Japan or the U.S. are likely to go bankrupt. What matters is whether debt is serviceable i.e. can it be paid back. Economists talk of good and bad debt. Some countries do default on their debts as Russia did in August 1998.

Austerity might be one way of reducing debt but it also damages the economy. Inflation also reduces government debt because it increases the price level and reduces the real value of government debt. But inflation also brings economic problems as it increases the cost of living for consumers and the value of currency diminishes. Another way to reduce debt is by growing the economy because this increases tax revenues and reduces the relative debt burden. This is what Britain did at the end of WWII. In 1946, UK debt stood at 240% of GDP, but the government didn't impose austerity measures. 

I think people should avoid comparing governments with the way in which a family household or a small business is run. Many pension funds invest in government debt by buying government bonds which pay interest. While it might be wise for family households to pay off their debt, it isn't necessarily good for the economy if all consumers did the same thing. It would reduce aggregate demand because people would be spending less. One person's spending is another person's income. If the British government suddenly decided to pay off all its debts, it would crash the economy because it would have to withdraw £1.6 trillion of money from use in the economy.

Britain can't really run out of money because it can always print it, create it electronically, coin it, and issue it. The money is fiat money, a currency that is not backed by a commodity such as gold or silver. But printing more money doesn't necessarily increase economic output, it just puts more money into circulation. If consumers are able to demand more goods but economic output remains the same, firms will increase prices and this will cause inflation.  Britain also as sovereign control over its money supply because it's not in a currency regime like the Euro. If an individual, family, or small business owner started to print their own money, they would be locked up.

 

Sir Keir Starmer - "King of the Cadgers!.

 

Sir Keir Starmer

The Labour peer, Lord Waheed Alli, has been in the newspapers quite a lot in the past few weeks because of his financial donations to the Labour Party and to Keir and Victoria Starmer.

Lord Alli, who is estimated to be worth around £200m, is said to have donated tens of thousands of pounds' worth of suits and spectacles to the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and £5,000 worth of clothes and personal shopping, for his wife Lady Victoria Starmer. The Prime Minister has also declared £20,400 for "accommodation" from Lord Alli who owns an £18 million penthouse in Covent Garden and a property in Kent. These properties and office space in London, owned by Lord Alli, have also been used to host meetings of Sir Keirs team.

On the night of the general election on July 4, Sir Keir chose to be at Lord Alli's Covent Garden penthouse with family members and close aides to watch the exit polls announcement where a buffet was made available.

A recent analysis has revealed that Sir Keir has declared more free tickets and gifts than any other major party leader in recent times, amounting to more than £100,000 since December 2019. The Labour MP Lucy Powell, has declared gifts of £40,289.00 since 2019. Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister, is also known to have benefitted from fashion donations. Declarations show that she accepted £2,200-worth of free clothing from the brand ME-EM.

The Conservative opposition who are no strangers to sleaze and cronyism, have questioned Sir Keir's approach to accepting gifts and largesse from wealthy individuals and businesses. Tom Tugendhat who wants to replace Rishi Sunak as the Conservative Party leader, told the journalist Sophy Ridge, that MPs are offered a lot of gifts and free tickets, but "a lot of us decline politely." He added:

"I've been invited to many different events...And you know, you've got to make a decision. Does it look right? Does it smell right? Pass the sniff test, frankly...The question is why are people offering him (Keir Starmer), so many freebies."

Sir Keir Starmer has suggested that he will continue to accepts gifts from Lord Alli. On Monday, Starmer said in Rome, that it would be "pushing it a bit far" for him to banned from receiving hospitality gifts.

It's A Wonderful Life (1946) - Frank Capra.

 

It's A Wonderful Life

It's a Wonderful Life, directed by Frank Capra, starring James Stewart as George Bailey and Lionel Barrymore as Henry Potter, is one of my favourite films. Despite the film's general popularity to this day and it being a Christmas classic, Ayn Rand, the author of the pro-capitalist novel Atlas Shrugged, told the FBI that Frank Capra's film 'It's a Wonderful Life', was Communist propaganda.

George Bailey, owns a small buildings and loans business in Bedford Falls, New York. George isn't really an anti-capitalist, because he believes in a kind of moral capitalism, which sounds like an oxymoron to me. We might call it compassionate capitalism. George is basically a decent man who is on the side of the working man. The arch villain of the film, Mr Potter, is portrayed as a grasping and greedy and conniving capitalist banker who wants to put George Bailey out of business. When uncle Billy, misplaces $8,000 dollars of the firm's money in Potters bank and can't remember where he left it, George finds himself facing financial ruin, scandal and possibly jail. Unable to find the money, Bailey wishes he'd never been born and considers committing suicide but the prayers of his friends and family reach heaven, and his guardian angel, called Clarence Odbody, is assigned to save George in order to earn his wings.

Clarence sees flash backs of George's life and shows George what would've happened had he not been born. He wouldn't have been able to save his brother Harry from drowning. Uncle Billy was institutionalised when the firm went bust. Mary never married and has become an old maid and his mother doesn't know him. Bedford Falls has been renamed 'Pottersville' and is full of callous people and sleazy venues. George begs for his life back and is granted his wish.

Like all good films, this one also has a happy ending. George's wife Mary and uncle Billy, have rallied the townspeople of Bedford Falls who have donated enough to replace the missing money which Potter is hiding in his bank. Among the donations, George finds a copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer a gift from Clarence, who has inscribed: "Remember, no man is a failure who has friends."

I read Atlas Shrugged many years ago. Rand's novel, published in 1957, depicts a dystopian United States brought down by excessive regulation and government interference and collectivisation. This society is portrayed by Rand as having embraced mediocrity in the name of social egalitarianism. The hero of the book, John Galt, is a philosopher and inventor, who secretly organises a strike of the world's creative leaders to bring about the collapse of bureaucratic society.

The book was controversial when it was published. In America in the 1950s, and was criticised for its amoral tone and advocacy of self-interested rugged individualism and selfishness. Although Rand denied that she was influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche, the book is very Nietzschean in its tone. Rand's supermen, are the heroic capitalists like John Galt, the railroad tycoon Dagny Taggart, Hank Rearden, a steel barren and Ragnar Dannesjkold, a kind of inverted Robin Hood, who steals from the poor to give to the rich. All of them are depicted like Atlas, holding the world aloft on his shoulders.

Although Rand despised altruism and the welfare state, in later life she finished up on social security and Medicare. Today, Atlas Shrugged is considered the Bible of the American Congress and its hero John Galt, is a cult figure of the Tea Party. Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, became one of the members of Rand's inner circle. 

Leading psychologist says Trump's talent for manipulating half-belief is second to none.

 

Donald Trump

I knew of the 'Rashomon Effect' but I didn't realise that it was also the name of a film. The concept refers to the way in which individuals have competing realities and interpret events in different ways. Donald Trump is not only a compulsive liar, but he's also a dangerous demagogue, prone to using the 'Big Lie' and then imposing it on the American public.

Did Trump really believe that he won the 2020 U.S. election and then it was stolen from him? He's lost every legal challenge in the U.S. courts on this issue. Before the Presidential election in 2020, I remember Trump saying that he might not recognise the result. He's now saying that if he loses in November, there will be a bloodbath, and conversely, that if he wins the election, there will be no more elections. One psychologist said that the answer to the question of whether Trump really believes he won the 2020 Presidential election, is neither yes nor no, but yes and no.

In Psychology Today, Nancy Rosenblum, characterized Trump's approach as 'solipsistic reality'. She says Trump is only capable of embracing a version of reality based on what his own self seeks and needs, even though it may be far removed from accepted standards of evidence. Trump makes things up and comes to believe partially in his own lies. Once Trump created the Big Lie about the 2020 U.S. election, he had to maintain the falsehood, it was part of what Rosenblum calls the "narrative necessity." She says that Trump's talent for socially manipulating half-belief is second to none.

Some years ago, I watched an interview with Trump's former butler, Anthony Senecal, at Mar-a-Lago. He said Trump would tell guests that the tiles in his daughter Ivanka's room, were made by Walt Disney. He also made the same claim in a book. It was a great story, but totally untrue. "Who cares?" Trump laughed, according to his butler.

Trump is a liar, but he's consistent and it doesn't seem to damage him politically. Nor did being found guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records by a New York jury. Despite his mendacity and crookedness, Trump has managed to become the chosen Republican nominee for President. Opinion polls have shown that Trump, a convicted felon, is more trusted on the economy, foreign policy, and immigration, than either Kamala Harris or Joe Biden. Nevertheless, his opinion poll lead has been narrowing since Harris became the official Democratic Party candidate for the U.S. Presidency.

Since Trump's abysmal performance in the debate with Kamala Harris, he's now ruled out any further debates with her before the U.S. Presidential election in November. I'm hardly surprised that he's afraid to debate with Harris because she wiped the floor with him. When Trump claimed that Haitian immigrants were eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio, Harris pissed herself laughing and so did many Americans. The moderators told him that they'd fact checked the allegation with the authorities in Springfield, who couldn't confirm, what Trump had alleged. Trump then accused the moderators of being biased in favour of Kamala Harris, who he accused of being a 'Marxist' like her father. 

Some thoughts on Karl Marx.

 

As Marx said himself, he didn't invent 'social classes' or the 'class struggle' because that can be found in the writings of the ancient Greeks like Aristotle and Plato. Marx's genius was that he was able to knock these various different ideas - French politics, German and Greek philosophy and English economics, into a coherent philosophy.

It was Marx's belief that material conditions determine consciousness. As I understand it, what Marx is saying is that the way in which a society organises its economic system - its infrastructure - determines the type of social relations that exist in that society and also its 'superstructure' i.e. its legal, political, and cultural system. There seems to be a great deal to be said in favour of this. The ancient world had slaves, the feudal world had serfs, and capitalism created a proletariat. All these societies also had ruling classes who organised things to maintain the status quo. As Marx said, the history of all hitherto existing societies is a history of class struggle. For Marx this is what drove social change.

What is problematic about Marx's philosophy is the belief that somehow history follows inevitable laws of social development. There seems to be little room for agency or spontaneity. If Lenin, hadn't arrived in Petrograd in April 1917, there may well have been no October revolution. Marx didn't rule out a Russian revolution in spite of the fact that it wasn't really a capitalist society but largely a feudal society. He seems to have thought that a revolution in Russian wouldn't be sustainable without the support of other European socialist countries. Contrary to Marx's predictions, most revolutions have occurred in peasant societies and not capitalist societies.

Is it also the case that materialist conditions determine consciousness? What really comes first - the infrastructure or the superstructure or do the two things interact?  There doesn't seem to be a great deal of evidence that there was a sudden change in the way in which the economy was organised in Biblical Palestine when Judeo Christianity arrived on the scene or the Renaissance in medieval Florence. Similarly, the way in which the ancient Greek world was organised doesn't seem to have changed much throughout the centuries even though it's a period when great thinkers and ideas flourished.

Richard the Lionheart

 

Richard the Lionheart

The Plantagenet, King Richard I, was born in Oxford (Beaumont Palace) in 1157. His father Henry II, had been born in Le Mans, France. His mother, was Eleanor of Aquitaine.

There is a hidden plaque commemorating this event to be found on the corner of Walton and Beaumont Street in Oxford. It is opposite Worcester College and close to the Ashmolean Museum and the Randolph Hotel. I believe it was erected by Alan Brown, a former Vice-Provost of Worcester College. The plaque was hit by a vehicle in 2003.

Richard ruled England as King for ten years but was hardly ever in England. The Lionheart is criticized for showing a lack of interest in England during his reign. He spent much of his time fighting crusades in the Holy Lands or in France. When he was absent from England, his mother generally ran the administration with her counsel.

They say Richard spoke no English but French and Occitan, a language very similar that spoken in Catalonia. He's reputed to have said that he didn't like living in England because it was cold and always raining, but England was just one of many territories under his thumb. His wife and Queen, Berengaria of Navarre, never set foot on English soil during her marriage even though she was the Queen of England. He spent a year in captivity in Austria being held for ransom. He died after being shot with a crossbow bolt in his left shoulder in March 1199 while he was attacking a castle in France. The wound wasn't considered fatal but gangrene set in and he died aged 41.

The lad that shot King Richard, was a Limousin boy referred to as Pierre Basile. They say that before he died, Richard ordered that Basile suffer no punishment, but his orders were ignored and Basil was flayed alive and then hanged. The lad had claimed that he shot King Richard in revenge for him killing his father and two brothers. 

Labour to give £600m to Ukraine to help with its energy needs.

 

The Labour rebels who abstained or voted against cutting the winter fuel allowance, are to face disciplinary action says former Trotskyist, Comrade Starmeroid.

Starmeroid's hideous and ghastly Labour government, say that the country can't afford to keep Britain's elderly population warm. Labour's austerity Chancellor, Rachel 'Freeze' Reeves, has said, "If we cannot afford it, we cannot do it." Who is she trying to kid? Labour have already announced that they're going to give £11.6bn to developing countries in foreign aid to help them cope with climate change.

David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, has just announced that the Labour government is to give £600m to the Ukraine to help with its "humanitarian, energy, and stabilisation needs."

You couldn't make this up! You would've thought that charity begins at home, but not under low-life Labour. Starmeroid has been in power a for just over eight weeks and already it's like watching the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. What a dummy!

Communism and the Conservatives.

 

Revolutionary Communist - Baroness Fox of Buckley

Maggie Thatcher was as phoney as her accent. What became known as "Thatcherism', in the early days, was largely down to the influence of a former Jewish Communist Party member called Alfred Sherman, who had fought with the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. He was expelled from the Communist Party for 'Titoist devationism' and later joined the Conservative Party. Sherman co-founded the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) in 1974 with Sir Keith Joseph and Margaret Thatcher. Sherman provided Maggie with the strategy for winning the Tory leadership and for winning the general election in 1979. He also supplied her with plenty of ideas.

Munira Mirza, who was head of policy in Boris Johnson's Conservative government, had also been a member of the Trotskyist, Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP). She co-authored the 2019 Conservative Party manifesto. In 2020, Boris Johnson nominated Claire Fox for a peerage. She's now Baroness Fox of Buckley. Foxy, had also been a member of the RCP from her student days at Warwick University and was a regular writer for the RCP magazine, 'Living Marxism'. Foxy had been opposed to the institution called the House of Lords and had wanted to abolish it. She was also a supporter of the IRA and had defended the IRA's action in carrying out the Warrington bombings that killed two children. She later joined the Brexit Party and became an MEP with Nigel Farage. I doubt that Boris Johnson would've have known Claire Fox, but Mirza certainly knew her.

Both Foxy and Mirza, were acolytes of the Hungarian Marxist academic, Frank Furedi, who founded the RCP and was the godfather of the cult. Furedi also had links with the CPS, and had written publications for the right-wing think-tank. The English journalist, George Monbiot, described the RCP as "entryists" who enter an organisation to take it over. They were rather like the parasitic wasp, Glyptapanteles, whose females inject their eggs into living caterpillars and feed on their body fluids.

Monbiot says that from being a Trotskyist splinter group in the 1970s, the RCP has swung from the distant fringes of the left to the extremities of the pro-corporate libertarian right and has colonised, crucial sections of the British establishment. Many leading RCP members, who once wrote for Living Marxism, now write for the right-wing British press. They also write for the pro-Israeli anti-environmentalist, Euro-sceptic, online magazine, called Spiked. 

Tameside Labour MPs vote to cut the winter fuel allowance for Britain's pensioners!

 

in the one party state of Tameside, all three Tameside MPs, Angela Rayner, Jonny Reynolds and Andrew Gwynne, voted to rob Britain's pensioners of their winter fuel allowance and to make them poorer.

It has been reported in the press that Angela Rayner is now after scrapping the 25% council tax discount for single people who live alone. Expect to see more means-testing of welfare benefits including the state retirement pension, free bus passes and prescriptions. The means-testing of the winter fuel allowance for Britain's pensioners, is just a foot in the front door.

Labour's Chancellor, Rachel 'Freeze' Reeves, has said that Labour will be tougher than the Tories when it comes to cutting welfare spending and that Labour is not the party for people on state benefits, but the party of people in work. We've had New Labour and now it's low-life Labour under Rayner and Sir Keir Starmer-oid. These scallywags could crawl under a snake's belly wearing a tall hat.

Blair calls for a crackdown on social media!

 

Tony Blair

Tony Blair, the 'Devil Incarnate', is calling for restrictions on what people can say on social media.

Any journalist can tell you, that there are already plenty of laws that restrict free speech in Britain, so why do we need any more laws? We've already seen 'keyboard warrior's' sent to prison for what they said online during the recent riots. Many of these were jailed for stirring up racial hatred online or inciting violent disorder. We're also seeing journalists being arrested in Britain for making online comments about the deaths and destruction in Gaza.

Many politicians and even journalists, are pissed off at the way in which social media has broken down barriers and given people a voice to influence public opinion. King Henry VIII, was opposed to translating the Bible into English because he thought it would give every pot boy an opinion. William Tyndale, who was the first to translate the Bible into English, thought that every ploughboy should be able to read it and he was burnt at the stake for doing so.

I find it laughable to hear a politician like Lindsay Hoyle, tells us that "Misinformation can be dangerous." Blair misled and lied to the British people in order to drag us into a phoney war against Iraq at the behest of the Americans, following the 9/11 attacks. Blair introduced a Freedom of Information Act, and later declared that it was the worst political decision he'd ever made.

I think some politicians should be locked up for the dangerous misinformation that they spread and the dangerous rhetoric that they use, to inflame public opinion. These dirty dogs, pour fuel on the fire to stir up the people for their own political purposes and ends. The job of a responsible politician should be to curb the instincts of the mob and not to exploit it.

The pro-hanging, populist politician, Lee Anderson, who was formerly the Conservative MP for Ashfield, was suspended by the Conservative Party, when he claimed that 'Islamists' had got control of the mayor of London. He provided no evidence to substantiate this scurrilous and ridiculous allegation. The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, described his remarks as "pouring fuel on the fire of anti-Muslim hatred."

The Tory peer, Baroness Warsi, accused the Conservative Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, of using dangerous "racist rhetoric" that put British Asian families at risk. Braverman had claimed that grooming gangs had a "predominance" of British Pakistani males, who hold cultural values totally at odds with British values. Baroness Warsi said that Braverman "was tarnishing a whole community" by focusing on British Pakistanis, who were a "small subset" of perpetrators in a context of half a million children a year being sexually abused.

A 2020 Home Office study, that Braverman must have been aware of, had found that offenders in child grooming gangs "are most commonly white", based on data from just under half of all police forces.

In 2023, the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), ruled that the claim made by the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, that UK child grooming gangs were "almost all British-Pakistani men" was misleading. IPSO instructed the Mail on Sunday to publish a correction to an opinion piece written by Suella Braverman in April 2023. A source close to Ms Braverman, called the IPSO ruling "perverse."

Politicians have always used inflammatory and divisive racist language to further their own political ends. I remember the headmaster, Peter Griffiths, who was elected the Conservative MP for Smethwick (north-west of Birmingham), in the 1964 General Election, using the racist slogan, "Vote Liberal or Labour and get a n….r  for a neighbour." The Labour leader, Harold Wilson, called Griffith's, a "Parliamentary Leper."

This sort of language would shock many of us today, but it was quite common to hear this kind of language expressed in 1960s Britain. Birmingham was a bit like Birmingham Alabama for racism and segregation. It wasn't unusual to see lodging houses displaying a sign in their window which said: "No Blacks, No Dogs, No Irish!"

Labour's own research suggested that up to 4,000 elderly people could die if the winter fuel allowance is ended.

 

Baroness Ros Altmann

Baroness Altmann, the former pensions minister, has said that the decision to cut pensioners winter fuel allowances, is one of the worst political decisions that she's ever seen. The Crossbench peer, is to table a Parliamentary motion, to kill off the Labour government's plan to target the allowance only on people who claim Pension Credit.

In 2017, Labour's own research, suggested that up to 4,000 elderly people could die if the winter fuel allowance was cut. Despite these warnings, the Labour government did not carry out any impact assessment that this measure might have on the elderly, before making the announcement that they were to means-test the winter fuel allowance.

Pensioners are now facing an increase in energy prices of 10% between October and December, when they will be losing their winter fuel and cost of living payments. The prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer-oid, recently said that many pensioners don't need the winter fuel allowance.

It has been estimated that around 10m UK pensioners will lose the winter fuel allowance because of means-testing. The cut is being imposed when the UK economy had the fastest-growing economy in the G7 in the first half of this year. Despite the good economic news, Starmer’s newly elected Labour government have struck a sombre tone on the economy, warning of a £22bn ‘black hole’ in public finances, and a tough and painful budget in October.

Rayner supports picking the pockets of Britain's pensioners.

 

Angela Rayner

Angela Rayner, the Labour Deputy Prime Minister and the MP for Ashton-under-Lyne, has said that she supports scaling back the Winter Fuel Allowance (WFA), for British pensioners and she's defended her government taking money off the elderly. It has also been reported in the press that Rayner, may be planning to scrap the single person’s council tax reduction of 25% for people who live in their own.

During a recent interview on BBC Breakfast, Rayner, was reminded by BBC Breakfast host Naga Munchetty, of past tweets that she'd made attacking the Tories for planning to hit pensioner benefits. In 2017, Rayner had criticised the then prime minister Theresa May, for raids on pensioner benefits that were never implemented. In the run-up to the 2017 General Election, the Conservative government of Theresa May, had proposed making the WFA a means-tested benefit and Rayner had defended the principle of universalism. At the time, Labour's shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, had said the move risked killing around 4,000 pensioners.

This unpopular policy has now been adopted by the Labour government and some 10 million British pensioners are now likely to lose their WFA. Many of these would've been Labour voters. In defending her shifting stance on the WFA, Rayner told BBC Breakfast that her government had to be "fiscally responsible" and that because Liz Truss had crashed the economy, she has had to change her principles. Rayner said that Labour had "protected the most vulnerable pensioners" by ensuring that those claiming Pension Credit, would still get the WFA. She said that Labour had also extended the household support fund which is provided by local authorities.

Around 2.2 million households in Britain are eligible for Pension Credit but it's estimated that around 880,000 don't claim it, because they're often unaware that they are entitled to it. The process of claiming Pension Credit, can also be daunting. Age UK, have said that completing the 22-page form to get Pension Credit and answering 243 questions, would "pose a challenge for many."

As for the Household Support Fund, most people will be unaware of it and won't even know how to claim it. It's one of Britain's best kept secrets. The fund which is administered by local authorities makes limited financial help available to vulnerable people and each local authority, has different criteria for eligibility.

Starmer's Labour government haven't been in power very long, but already it's like watching the dying days of the Roman Empire. Starmer-oid seems more concerned about the price of Oasis tickets than freezing pensioners who will now have to choose between heating and eating.

As for Angela Rayner and her 'principles', she reminds me of Groucho Marx, who famously said, "Those are my principles, and if you don't like them...well, I have others." I always thought that Rayner had more faces than the town hall clock and was completely disingenuous. The former care worker and trade union rep for the trade union UNISON, who describes herself has being a socialist but on the "soft left", and who claims to have been dragged up on a council estate in Stockport and fed dog food by her disabled mother, has finished up picking the pockets of Britain's elderly pensioners. This is where the Parliamentary Road to socialism leads to. You threaten to squeeze the rich until the pips squeak and then you finish up shafting the poor.  It's likely that under Starmer's and Rayner's hideous Labour government, pensioners and those on state benefits, are going to get a lot poorer.

Labour have repeatedly said they're not a political party for people on state benefits. They assert that they are the party for people who are in work. In 2017, Rachel 'Freeze' Reeves, who was then shadow minister for Work & Pensions said that Labour would be far tougher than the Tories when it came to cutting welfare spending. She claims that the country can't afford to pay the WFA and it will save the government £1.5bn. Yet, Starmer's Labour government have announced that they will be donating £11.6bn to developing countries to help them cope with climate change.

Happy School Days.

 

The English primary school that I attended in the 1950s and 1960s, was very good. We learned to read phonetically and learned our twelve times table by rote - habitual repetition. The school had a small library and I was taught how to play chess. We were also shown the process of photography and the school set up a dark room. We were also taught how to bake cakes. I was also introduced to origami, the Japanese art of paper folding.

Sometimes there were school trips and during the summer, we had cricket matches. We were also introduced to acting and drama by a female teacher. Many of these school activities were not part of any curriculum but we're done on the initiative of the teacher.

I never sat an 11+ examination because I think it might have been suspended and it was never clear to me, who decided which child went to the grammar school or which child went to the secondary school. A lad who I know, who went to the same primary same school as me, was of the opinion that if your father wore overalls, you weren't going anywhere. I think he was probably right, but many kids who went Grammar school, from working-class backgrounds in the 1960s, never went on to university.

The secondary school that I attended in the mid-1960s, was vastly different. It was like being in Borstal. Many of the teachers taught you nothing and we're a waste of taxpayers' money. Many were ex-national servicemen and sadistic brutes. We were constantly told, "Right you lot! Copy what's written on that blackboard and don't interrupt me for the next hour." Talk about getting money under false pretences.

I've often found many school teachers slightly odd if not psychologically disturbed. The head teacher Mr Gryce, in the 1969 film Kes, is fairly typical of the state secondary school teachers of that era. He's severe and abusive and displays signs of deep-rooted psychological damage. They basically treated working-class lads as imbeciles and factory fodder.

What secondary school really knocked into me, was intense dislike of school teachers and an intense dislike of authority. I've been a recusant for most of my adult life. Poor Billy Casper was destined for the coal pit, just like his bother Jud.

Some reflections on what it means to be English.

 

The English are known for their stupidity and hypocrisy. They're also known for being suspicious or impervious to new ideas. They also value eccentricity and like having hobbies such as Morris dancing, stamp collecting, boozing, fishing and pigeon racing. Napoleon, thought that the English were a 'perfidious' race of people and a nation of shopkeepers.

Thankfully, I can't think that a country like England, could produce an Adolf Hitler or a Benito Mussolini. We're really not a nation of power worshippers or power lovers, nor do we treat anybody in a uniform, like a tin God. George Orwell said that soldiers don't goose-step in England, because they're afraid that people will laugh at them. Yet, Oswald Mosley, had his British Union of Fascists, dressed up in the garb of Italian fascists giving the Nazi salute, as they marched through the streets of London, singing the Horst-Wessel Lied, the anthem of the German Nazi Party. It never seemed to occur to Mosley, how unpatriotic this would appear in the eyes of many English people.

At one time, the English didn't like standing armies, policemen, factories, or government's telling them how to live their lives. There was no such thing as gun laws in Victorian England or a drugs policy. In Liberal England, elections were generally riotous and expensive affairs, because electors had to be bribed. Politicians on the hustings often had dead cats and insults thrown at them. Politics, was far more honest in those days of rotten and pocket boroughs, because everybody knew that it was bent. The Duke of Portland's government of 1807-9, abjured the labels 'Whig' and 'Tory' altogether, and simply called themselves, "the friends of Mr. Pitt."

We've had would-be dictators in Britain and there are English people who are sympathetic to Fascism and the Nazis. But, both Oswald Mosley (BUF) and John Tyndale (NF), sounded like Shakespearean actors when they spoke. There was something rather clownish and ridiculous about both of them.

The English aren't really a political people because they generally dislike politics and politicians. They basically don't trust the bastards and think that they're in politics to line their own pockets, and they're right.

The American, Bill Bryson, makes some very interesting observations about the English and the English way of life, in his books. Goethe, said that the English were 'complete men', even when they being 'complete fools'. The American, Ralph Waldo Emerson, felt than "no nation was ever so rich in able men" (as England), but added that they had a "saving stupidity." I think we can learn a lot from what foreigners think and say about us. 

Starmer vows to tackle issue of ticket pricing following Oasis furore.

 

Noel and Liam Gallagher

Watching the Labour government under Sir Keir Starmer-oid, is rather like watching the dying days of the Roman Empire. After being the Prime Minister, for two months, he referred to Rishi Sunak, as the Prime Minister, five times at PMQs.

Starmer-oid, may be showing the early signs of dementia, but I think, that it's more likely, that he'd much prefer to be the leader of the opposition than the Prime Minister. Leading this country is not like prosecuting a murder trial. Starmer is a very boring and uninspiring man. He completely lacks any charisma whatsoever and seems to be totally out of touch, with what people really want. He seems to be more concerned with Oasis ticket prices than slashing the winter fuel allowance for state pensioners.

Not long ago, Starmer was calling for Roger Waters concerts to be axed in Britain, because he claimed he "clearly espoused antisemitic views." No wonder his public approval ratings are plummeting.