Is Keir Starmer deluded? Is he leading a flying saucer cult?

 

Keir Starmer-oid is a first-class burk. Donald Trump has just thrown Vladimir Putin a lifeline and sold the Ukrainians down the river. Trump has thrown a bucket of shit over most European leaders who supported the Ukraine and has humiliated them.

Although Trump has pulled the plug on the Ukraine and aligned himself closer to Putin and Russia and accused the Ukraine of provoking the war with Russia, Starmer doesn't accuse him of betrayal or being a Kremlin asset or propagandist, but says that he's changed the global conversation on the war in the Ukraine and presented an opportunity to end the war with Russia. Starmer has brushed aside tensions between Europe and the U.S. claiming that he trusts Donald Trump and wants Britain's "special relationship" with the U.S. to go from "Strength to Strength."

Keir Starmer's position is a classic case of what the psychologist Leo Festinger, called 'Cognitive Dissonance'. Festinger studied a flying saucer cult called the "Seekers" who believed that they would be rescued from earth- which according to a prophecy was facing a world ending flood- by a flying saucer, on an appointed date. When the flying saucer didn't arrive and the prophecy failed, they strengthened their beliefs in the face of contradictory evidence. They adjusted their beliefs to alleviate discomfort caused by conflicting information.

The British prime minister would now have us believe that Trump's capitulation to Vladimir Putin has presented an opportunity to end the war in the Ukraine when it's likely to have emboldened the Russians by making NATO and Europe look weak and vacillating. Britain's perception of itself as a world leader, exceeds its pocket book and power.

Since leaving the E.U., Britain has become isolated in Europe and its global influence has become greatly diminished and the Americans know this. This is why Starmer has to suck up to the Americans and the unhinged Donald Trump. NATO looks as effective as a chocolate fireguard and Trump has left Europe's leaders in total disarray. Starmer's "special relationship" with the U.S. is laughable.

Stockport granny gets Stasi-like police visit after criticising local councillor on social media.

 

Helen Jones

What happened to free speech in this country? It seems to be seriously under threat in Britain. Is Britain becoming an authoritarian Stasi-like East German police state under Starmer's Labour government? Increasingly we are seeing members of the public being investigated by the police for comments they have left on social media. 

Helen Jones, a 54-year-old grandmother from Stockport says she was left feeling scared and intimidated to post on social media after she was visited at home by two plain clothes police officers after making a comment about a councillor involved with the 'Trigger Me Timbers' group. Helen, a school administrator, called on a councillor to resign after she had read some of the vile and disgusting messages that had been posted by the group. The police told her that they were acting on a complaint of harassment but wouldn't say who had made the complaint.

Although Helen was told by the officers from Greater Manchester Police (GMP) that she had committed no crime, she told a national newspaper:  "It was actually quite scary. It made me think I best just keep quiet for the rest of my life, because you just can't say anything these days."

Being a journalist today in Britain is also becoming increasingly perilous. This is the latest in a string of incidents where the police have investigated people for their social media posts. The newspaper columnist Allison Pearson, of the Daily Telegraph and the feminist writer Julie Bindel, have both been investigated by the police for expressing comments and opinions on social media.

I know of some pro-Palestinian activists who have been arrested and charged with terrorist offences for tweets posted on Twitter, now called X. Others have been arrested and locked up for merely sharing a post on Facebook.

Duncan Smith, the former Conservative Prime Minister, described the police action as 'pathetic' and called them the "thoughtless thought police", adding: "It's a waste of police time. It's absurd that they went to speak to her. They should have dismissed it on the spot."

Toby Young, director of the Free Speech Union, said: "This is typical of the weird authoritarian atmosphere that has grown up in Britain since Sir Keir Starmer took control. Good luck persuading GMP to send two police officers to your house if you're burgled or your car is stolen." 

We already have laws on defamation and now we seem to have the Orwellian thought police investigating thought crime and thought criminals. 

 

Trump sells out Ukrainians but Starmer praises him for creating an opportunity to end war with Russia.

 

Sir Keir Starmeroid

Who voted for this clown Starmer-oid? Keir Starmer's Labour government are a complete embarrassment - a joke. They couldn't run a whelk stall.

Donald Trump has just poured a big bucket of shit over the Ukraine and other European leaders in NATO and Starmer is now sucking up to the oaf. Trump has made them look ridiculous, weak and ineffectual. In a sickening and hypocritical speech to an international summit on supporting Ukraine in Kyiv, Starmer claimed that Trump has "changed the global conversation" on the Ukraine and "created an opportunity" to end the war.

What Trump has done is capitulate to the Russians and thrown the Ukrainians under a bus. He entered into direct talks with the Russians and excluded the Ukrainians and other European leaders from those talks. Vladimir Putin must be rubbing his hands with glee to have such a valuable asset and useful idiot as Donald Trump, in the White House. It is yet another instance of Donald Trump throwing the Russian president a lifeline and humiliating Europe's leaders.

Although America is in NATO, Trump has accused the Ukrainian's of provoking the war with Russia and called Volodymyr Zelenskyy a "dictator without elections." Ukrainian elections are suspended under martial law which has been in place since Russia's full-scale invasion of the country was launched in February 2022. Some officials in the Trump administration have even said that the best thing for Zelenskyy to do, is to flee to France.

Only a number of weeks ago, Starmer pledged to give the Ukraine £3 billion in annual aid until 2030 and yet Labour says the country can't afford the winter fuel allowance for its old age pensioners. He was also proposing to send British troops to the Ukraine. There has even been talk of reintroducing conscription in Britain. Yet Parliament was recently told that in the event of Britain going to war, munitions would be exhausted within ten days.

Last December, Starmer said in his Mansion House speech that he didn't believe that Trump would pull the plug on the Ukraine and now he's praising him for having done that by claiming that Trump has changed the global conversation on the Ukraine. Neither the Ukraine or Europe’s leaders, are part of this global conversation.

A former Trotskyist and Marxist, who supports "Zionism without qualification", Starmer is renowned for being able to turn on a dime and for his ability to break any pledge or promise that he makes. When Trump was running for the U.S. Presidency he made it perfectly clear that if he was elected President, he would seek to end the war in the Ukraine.

Britain seems to be run by a bunch of invertebrates and incompetents who are terrified of standing up to Donald Trump. The country is a vassal state of the U.S. It makes you wonder who is the biggest threat to Britain's interests - Trump, Putin, or Starmer's Labour government. It looks like we may be beginning to see the end of the Trans-Atlantic alliance with the U.S. and possibly NATO, as America becomes more protectionist, isolationist and nationalist.

Labour MP jailed for punching constituent.

 

Mike Amesbury MP

Labour thug, Mike Amesbury, who was Angela Rayner's former parliamentary advisor, has been jailed for ten weeks for assaulting a constituent in Frodsham last October. Amesbury pleaded guilty to assaulting 45-year-old Paul Fellows. Amesbury, 55, who represents Runcorn and Helsby as an independent MP, was taken to the cells immediately and an application for bail was refused.

Before working for Angela Rayner, Amesbury was the Executive Assistant to the Labour Group on Tameside Council. Amesbury's wife, Amanda Amesbury, is the Director of Children's Services at Warrington Borough Council. She was formerly Head of Service for Children's Services at Tameside Council.

When journalists contacted Amesbury at his home to speak to him about the video footage of him punching Paul Fellows, Amanda Amesbury, responded with "piss off." Press reports have claimed that before the attack on Mr. Fellows, Amesbury had spent the afternoon drinking with friends.

According to press reports, Amesbury will continue to receive his £91,000 MPs salary while he languishes in jug.

 

Wetherspoon's have just increased their prices but now say that prices are likely to rise again in April.

 

Tim Martin - CEO of J.D. Wetherspoon Ltd

A pint of hand pumped cask beer in the Wetherspoon's that I use has just gone up by 15 pence. A pint of Abbot Ale has increased by 11 pence. Prices in Wetherspoon's pubs vary in different locations and prices have been increasing steadily over a number of years.

 If you increase business costs like increasing the National Minimum Wage and N.I., this has to be paid by someone and it’s s ultimately the consumer who cops for it. However, Wetherspoon's increased its prices in late January 2025 and the increase in the NMW and N.I. doesn't take effect until April.

 I'm told that Tim likes to get in early. He's also been saying that Wetherspoon's prices might have to increase again in April. It looks like Tim wants another bite of the cherry and is putting hay in the hayloft. This is likely to drive more people into the supermarkets to buy much cheaper beer.

Moscow is quietly funding Europe's far-right parties to destabilize Europe.

 

It's surprising how popular the Russian nationalist Vladimir Putin is among far-right political parties in Europe. It must have something to do with the amount of Russian money that has been donated to far-right political parties to try and destabilize Europe.

Russian money helped to finance Marine Le Pen's presidential campaign in 2014. Austria's far-right Freedom Party (FPO), are known to have received money from a Russian spin doctor in exchange for introducing certain proposals in the national parliament. The Russian FSB have cultivated ties with the far-right Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) party and gave instructions to an AfD member of parliament to try and derail or delay deliveries of German battle tanks to the Ukraine.

In 2014, Nigel Farage who leads the populist right-wing Reform UK party, declared that Vladimir Putin was the world leader that he most admired.

Tories say Labour's Business Secretary spent more than a decade pretending to be a solicitor.

 

Walter Mitty - Jonathan Reynolds MP

Labour seems to be full of Walter Mitty's like Jonathan Reynolds, who descend into flights of fancy by embellishing their Job histories and CV's.

Reynolds, who is Labour's Business Secretary, had repeatedly claimed that before becoming an MP, he had been a solicitor. But he never actually finished his training contract with the Manchester law firm Addleshaw Goddard and was therefore a trainee solicitor and not a qualified solicitor. 

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), who protects the public against bogus solicitors and can strike solicitors off, wrote to Reynolds in January calling on him to 'stop claiming that he was a solicitor' in his LinkedIn profile. In 2014, Reynolds told the Commons that he had worked as a solicitor in Addleshaw Goddard's Manchester branch before running for Parliament.

It is a criminal offence for anyone to call themselves a solicitor if they are not on the official register. Under Section 21 of the Solicitors Act 1974, it is illegal for any unqualified person to take or use "any name, title, addition or description" implying they are qualified to acts as a solicitor.

Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary and Reform UK, are now calling for Reynolds to be sacked. In a statement to The Telegraph, Mr Jenrick accused the Business Secretary of spending more than a decade "pretending to be a solicitor" pointing out that his claims were not limited to his online CV. He has also urged the SRA to investigate Reynolds "with a view to prosecuting."   The Tories have also written to Sir Laurie Magnus, Sir Keir Starmer's ethics adviser, urging him to investigate "potential breaches of the ministerial code."

The revelations made about Reynolds and the Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who is also alleged to have embellished her own CV claiming that she worked as an economist at the Bank of Scotland between 2006 and 2009, have raised more questions about the probity and integrity of Sir Keir's Cabinet.

 A Labour source told The Telegraph that "The Business Secretary engaged fully and corrected this administrative error immediately." It has also been claimed that Jonathan Reynolds does not manage his LinkedIn profile and this was an 'inadvertent error." As Jonathan Swift famously said, "Where falsehood flies, truth comes limping after it."

 

Mandelson avoids commenting on whether President Zelenskyy is a 'dictator'.

 

Peter Mandelson

Labour's national security adviser Jonathan Powell has said that job of the UK ambassador to America, is to get as far up the arse of the White House as you possibly can. Is this why Peter Mandelson was chosen for the job?

The U.S. President Donald Trump, who some have accused of being a 'Russian Asset', has just pulled the plug on the Ukraine and in doing so, has made NATO and other European leaders look ridiculous. They've all been left with egg on their face. Trump has entered into direct negotiations with Vladimir Putin to end the war in the Ukraine.

Russia invaded the Ukraine in February 2022 and has occupied parts of the country since 2014. Neither the Ukraine or European leaders have been invited to the talks and have been side-lined. When the UK Ambassador to the U.S. Peter Mandelson was asked about Trump's accusation that President Zelenskyy of the Ukraine was a "dictator" he refused to respond but said that Trump had made an interesting speech and he was looking forward to Sir Keir Starmer's visit to the U.S. Some members of Trump's administration are less diplomatic and have described Mandelson as a 'moron'.

Since leaving the E.U., Britain has become a much more diminished nation in terms of global influence and the Americans know it. Britain is a country that prostrates itself before the Americans because it believes that it is in Britain's national interest to do so. Parliament was recently told that if Britain was to enter a full-scale war, munitions would run out within ten days. Nevertheless, Starmer wants to send British troops to the Ukraine and there is even talk of reintroducing military conscription in Britain. What could possibly go wrong?

Baroness Harman says the 'Trigger Me Timbers' group are not fit to hold public office.

 

Harriet Harman

The former Labour MP and government minister, Harriet (Baroness) Harman, believes that Andrew Gwynne and other followers of his WhatsApp group ' Trigger Me Timbers', are not fit to hold public office. The former Labour MP and minister said: "I think if you have racist thoughts and you've got anti-Semitic beliefs, and if you've got contempt for the people you're supposed to be representing, you shouldn't be an MP."

Eleven councillors in Tameside, Greater Manchester, have now been suspended by the Labour Party over the 'Trigger Me Timbers' scandal including the former Labour council leader Ged Cooney, who is alleged to have passed information to the press. Gwynne's wife Alison, who is a Tameside Councillor, was also suspended by the Labour Party.

Starmer ready and willing to send British troops to the Ukraine.

 

Keir Starmer

The UK Parliament have just been told that in the event of war, the British army would run out of munitions within ten days. Last spring, the number of British army troops dropped below 73,000 for the first time since the Napoleonic era. Yet the Labour Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer-oid is saying that he's ready and willing to deploy British troops to the Ukraine if that becomes necessary.

The U.S. President, Donald Trump, has just pulled the plug on NATO and the Ukraine and entered into direct negotiations with the Russian president Vladimir Putin, to bring the war to an end in the Ukraine. Trump has also signaled that U.S. security support for Europe is to be scaled back. Neither NATO member countries or the Ukraine were consulted about this.

Foreign ministers of both Russia and the U.S. will meet in Saudi Arabia on Monday to start talks about a peace agreement. The Ukraine has not been invited to the negotiating table nor have the leaders of European countries. An emergency meeting has also been called by the French president Emmanuel Macron. The French president wants a Europe-led peacekeeping force in Ukraine. Whether European countries would be prepared to commit troops as part of an international peacekeeping force in sufficient numbers is questionable. Some estimates have suggested that 100,000 troops would be needed.

Donald Trump seems to be carving out a new world order that side-lines Europe and NATO in favour of a closer alignment with Russia and America. Trump has been accused of brokering a Munich-style appeasement agreement with Russia. The former Conservative prime minister, John Major, accused Trump of "cuddling up" to Putin and warned that "tinpot" dictators would be emboldened if Russia was allowed to keep Ukrainian territory seized by force.

 

Trump pulls the plug on the Ukraine. Is NATO now a dead duck?

 

In December 2024, the Labour Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer-oid, gave his first big foreign policy speech at the Lord Mayor's Banquet at Mansion House. In that speech Starmer-oid said that he didn't believe that the U.S. President, Donald Trump, would abandon the Ukraine or pull the plug on the Ukrainians. Although Britain is supposed to have no money for the pensioner’s winter fuel allowance, Starmer-oid pledged £3bn a year in aid to the Ukraine until 2030.

Although the Ukraine is not a member of NATO, America is a member. Trump had already made it perfectly clear that if he was elected the U.S. President, he would end financial and military aid to the Ukraine and use his influence to bring the war with Russia to an end. This is exactly what he's now done or is trying to do, in some kind of Munich appeasement agreement with Vladimir Putin, which some think will make the world a more dangerous place. Without consulting other NATO members or the Ukrainians, Trump has entered directly into negotiations with Russia and Vladimir Putin. Before any meeting has taken place, Trump has already declared that he thinks it highly unlikely that the Ukraine will ever be a member of NATO or get back its pre-2014 territory now under Russian occupation. He also thinks that the Ukraine can't win the war. Starmer-oid has said that he wants the Ukraine to join NATO.

Russia is facing severe economic problems and is having to use North Korean troops in the Ukraine, but without American military and financial aid, the Ukraine can’t win any war. Trump has said that apart from an interest in extracting mineral resources from the Ukraine, the U.S. has no military or strategic interest in the Ukraine and is more interested in China and the Asian continent. Trump sees the Ukraine has a problem for Europe and has said that one day, the Ukraine may become part of Russia. The Americans see China as the biggest threat to their global interests and Russia and China are allies.

Starmer-oid and NATO have been left with egg on their face and made to look ridiculous by Trump. They think that any deal done with Putin is likely to encourage Russia to invade other countries and to make NATO look weak. NATO always claimed that it was merely a defensive organisation, but it was always about furthering American global interests and domination throughout the world which was underpinned by American military power. Take that away, and NATO is about as effective as a chocolate fireguard. NATO is probably now a dead duck as America under Trump, doesn't think much of it. Trump thinks that western Europe gets defence on the cheap because it relies on American military might.

I always saw Putin's invasion of the Ukraine has mainly revanchist, an attempt to regain lost Russian territory and status, rather than a NATO proxy war has claimed by many Kremlin apologists. Putin had initially claimed that Russia had launched a special military operation into the Ukraine to de-Nazify the country. Russia does have military strategic interests in the region and in particular, the Crimean region, which it annexed in 2014 without much opposition from NATO countries. Many Ukrainians who live in the eastern part of the country do identity with Russia.

There's an interesting interview between Tucker Carlson and Vladimir Putin, where Putin is asked if NATO expansionism towards the east had led Russia to invading the Ukraine. At the outset, Putin laughed and dismissed this out of hand. He then gave Carlson an history lesson about the historical links between Russia and the Ukraine. In short, Putin does not recognise the Ukraine as a sovereign and independent country even though a majority of Ukrainians voted for that following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s.

Sectarian socialism: The infantile disorder that plagues the English left.

 

Royston Bull (second from the left)

There's a great deal of voter dissatisfaction with the two-party system of politics in Britain (Labour/Tory) and the beneficiaries of this are likely to be Nigel Farage and Reform UK's brand of right-wing populism. Farage recently said that all politicians are wankers but at least Reform UK are honest about it.

As the left in Britain have become more obsessed with identity politics and less with class politics, it has become more socially irrelevant to the lives of many working-class people. Identify politics has taken social-class out of the equation and is less concerned with equality, redistribution, and the class struggle. That's why many corporate bodies buy into it and are happy to promote it. The English left is well known for being fractious and sectarian socialism is the norm in Britain. Some 57 varieties of socialist, communist and Trotskyist groups, vie to be the vanguard of a non-revolutionary proletariat.

I remember some years ago writing an article about a Trotskyist nutter called Royston Bull, who was a former member of the Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP). Bull was rather like the malevolent journalist Quintus Slide of the 'People's Banner', who appears in Anthony Trollope's Palliser novels. He edited a magazine with the grand name of the Economic and Philosophic Review (E&PR), which was basically just a rant on paper. From the safety and comfort of his living room, Bull would often verbally threaten and harass his political opponents and detractors via his scurrilous publication.  Bull rose to the dizzy heights of vice-president of Arthur Scargill's SLP before he was 'voided' by the SLP when they realised just how big a nutter he was.

My article was about how Royston Bull had expelled the Greater Manchester political activist John Pearson, from his branch of the SLP. The way John described his expulsion to me sounded like the Salem Witch-Hunt in Arthur Miller's play 'The Crucible'.

 

Sectarian socialism: The infantile disorder that plagues the English left.

 

There's a great deal of voter dissatisfaction with the two-party system of politics in Britain (Labour/Tory) and the beneficiaries of this are likely to be Nigel Farage and Reform UK's brand of right-wing populism. Farage recently said that all politicians are wankers but at least Reform UK are honest about it.

As the left in Britain has become more obsessed with identity politics and less with class politics, it has become more socially irrelevant to the lives of many working-class people. Identify politics has taken social-class out of the equation and is less concerned with equality, redistribution, and the class struggle. That's why many corporate bodies buy into it and are happy to promote it.

The English left is well known for being fractious and sectarian socialism is the norm in Britain. Some 57 varieties of socialist, communist and Trotskyist groups, vie to lead a non-revolutionary proletariat.

I remember some years ago writing an article about a Trotskyist nutter called Royston Bull, who was a former member of the Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP). Bull was rather like the malevolent journalist Quintus Slide of the 'People's Banner', who appears in Anthony Trollope's Palliser novels. He edited a magazine with the grand name of the Economic and Philosophic Review (E&PR), which was basically just a rant on paper. From the safety of his living room, Bull would often verbally threaten and harass his political opponents and detractors via his scurrilous publication.  Bull rose to the dizzy heights of vice-president of Arthur Scargill's SLP before he was 'voided' by the SLP when they realised just how big a nutter he was.

My article was about how Bull had expelled the Greater Manchester political activist John Pearson, from his branch of the SLP. The way John described his expulsion to me sounded like the Salem Witch-Hunt in Arthur Miller's play 'The Crucible'.

Labour sets up 'Council on Islamophobia'. Are government intending to reintroduce the offence of blasphemy?

 

Angela Rayner MP

It looks like Angela Rayner and Labour are trying to reintroduce blasphemy laws through the back door in order to woo the Muslim vote which has deserted them, because of their slavish support for Israel's genocidal campaign in Gaza.

Angela Rayner and her department now plan to create a council on Islamophobia which will create more noddy jobs for politically correct dipsticks. I don't favour intolerance or bigotry but I think this will lead to more incidents like Batley Grammar School, Charlie Hebdo and the murder of the French school teacher Samuel Paty, who was beheaded by a Muslim fanatic because he felt that he'd offended the prophet when he was teaching a class. It will also lead to a crackdown on free speech and more censorship.

Although Britain is largely a secular country, we should bear in mind that many people who hold Christian beliefs have been hounded and persecuted in this country and elsewhere, because they would not subscribe to trendy beliefs in transgenderism as they felt it was contrary to scripture. Although their principles and beliefs should be respected and protected by law, Labour have not risen to their defence. As G.K. Chesterton once said, "Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions." As J.S. Mill tells us, "The enemy of individuality is the despotism of custom."  We must resist the tyranny of fashion. 

 

Ex-Tameside council leader Ged Cooney suspended amid Labour WhatsApp scandal.

 

Councillor Ged Cooney

Ged Cooney, the former Tameside Council Labour leader has now been suspended from the Labour Party for allegedly sharing information about the 'Trigger Me Timbers' What's App Group with media outlets.

Councillor Cooney claims to have told regional Labour officials about the group over a year ago. Labour have denied this and say they acted decisively when they became aware of racist, sexist and anti-Semitic comments made by the group. The Tories have also put forward a motion of no confidence in the Labour appointed leader Councillor Eleanor Wills. 

 

Brave New Digital Merry Go Round - by: Andrew Wallace.

 

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has come to increasing prominence in recent years, inserting itself into the ‘everyday’ for modern living in such a manner that it has impoverished our imagination for a pre-internet life. Whilst older members of the population may demonstrate some reticence in part about getting on board with these new digital modalities, the young have been exposed at the outset. Public services have picked up the gauntlet for tech evangelism as we are all increasingly enjoined as digital customers to go ‘paperless’, with regards to banking, utilities, council services and the NHS. This is not without controversy and contestation regarding the wider motives of digital governance and surveillance capitalism. In theory smart app technology such as Patient Access (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_UK) provide a valuable alternative route to accessing a range of frontline GP health services and prescriptions and help to automate routine administrative functions, thereby avoiding onerous telephone queues or the need for in-person appointments.Real-world complications however wait in the wings. The Patient Access app and desktop site (https://www.patientaccess.com/) comes courtesy of EMIS Health which is in the vanguard of all those controversial private company partnerships within the NHS.

As with all smart app technology there is the burden of ‘digital literacy’ which necessitates an intermediate level of savviness for those who are co-opted into using these routes. Periodic hardware upgrades become mandatory, constant innovation usually means smart apps have a short shelf-life of a few months before they are updated and patched to accommodate the latest innovations and iron out software glitches and security issues. The Patient Access app has been revised in recent months to incorporate new security protocols. Online verification has been given centrality for safeguarding of sensitive information against cybercrime. A new age of digital Darwinism presents in an online ecology of malevolent actors, scammers and traffickers to terrorists and hostile foreign governments.  Verification protocols have traditionally taken the form of passwords.  Online access will only be granted by following a formidable assault course that tests the fatigue and endurance of each individual. Patient Access previously required third-party verification protocol (in the form of a six-digit SMS text) on top of email and password login. This was revised in recent months by prompts to move to verification by yet another smart app! Without specifying which particular ‘authenticator’ app to use (ideally the Microsoft one), we are left to try out a variety of apps from the online smartphone stores. Many of these apps are problematic, packed out with lots of diverting adverts which means they are very difficult to navigate without accidently pressing on the wrong part of the touch screen which easily results in downloading unwanted and potentially harmful software. Luckily for me I used the aforementioned Microsoft authenticator app which is advert free and relatively simple to use. Not so lucky for my Dad when we accidently downloaded the wrong app which refused to play ball. I spent the next several hours trying to fix this with several possible solutions including uninstalling and reinstalling each app in turn. Needless to say, all attempts remained gloriously futile. Dad returned to his local surgery to explain the problem wherein another staff member spent yet another wasted hour trying to salvage said app and concluded that individual codecs attached to this account had been inadvertently compromised, necessitating a grand reset from the remote technicians behind the curtains of EMIS. This saga was not satisfactorily resolved for a number of months and is surely another testy testimony to the dystopian realities of navigating important public services by remote technologies.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_UK)

Kendall's benefit bashing - by: Andrew Wallace.

 

The Labour party is very much back in its right wing ‘comfort zone’ of framing working age welfare benefits with recourse to ‘scroungers’ and those taking the ‘Michael’ (Nevitt, 2025). Only five months ago Liz Kendall promised that Labour would avoid the blame culture of her Conservative predecessors in their incessant anti welfare salvos and “divisive rhetoric that blames people and doesn’t support them…I know people worry about this, but I want to say, we are on your side. We are not going to write you off and blame you. We take our responsibilities seriously. We’re going to bust a gut to give you the support you need to build a better life” (Kendal cited by Savage, 2024). However, Leicester Liz and Chancellor Reeves caveat such support in the ‘knowledge’ that the welfare bill as it currently exists and future projections are ‘unsustainable’. This is a political argument and arguably a specious one at that although that will have to be more fully unpacked in a separate article.

 It was always ridiculously naïve to expect that Kendall and others of her ilk would keep to the script. Morrison (2024) suggests there were ‘disquieting signs’ that Labour politicians speak with forked tongue as official policy positions constantly invoke authoritarian measures for those individuals who are felt to be insufficiently compliant. This delicate dance of the progressive language of inclusion sits rather uneasily against the muscular macho diktats of blunt state coercion, felt to be an essential bolthole in placating the militant figure of a dour hard pressed taxpayer.

 And so it proved eminently predictable that Leicester Liz would eventually go full Clinton – you can never be too tough on welfare. The gift that keeps on giving or an itch that cannot be ignored, Labour politicians find themselves time and again invoking the same historical anti-welfare tropes that were once largely the preserve of the right wing. Kendall knows full well her interventions are within keeping to the idea of a ‘hostile climate’ for working age welfare. That a not insignificant coterie of claimants (usually careful to avoid precise figures) are deemed to be taking the ‘Michael’ is of great utility by delegitimising welfare payments and bolstering stigmatisation. That these things exercise us so far more than corporate misdemeanours, when the former is but a minor monetary fraction of the latter is an enduring mystery of human psychology and is a sobering reminder as to the limitations of fraternity.

 Maybe the real ‘mickey’ takers are politicians strutting round as if they actually constitute a legitimate government on the basis of 20% vote share. Without a democratic mandate, these scroungers exhibit psychopathic levels of narcissism and self-entitlement. The public would be advised to refrain from giving the likes of Leicester Liz (see Jaffer, 2024) any future handouts, as doing so is likely to continue to foster a pathological dependency culture.

Jaffer, K (2024) ‘Labour minister Liz Kendall is urged to refund taxpayer money used to heat her second home - after axing £300 winter fuel payment for millions of pensioners’

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14146375/Labour-minister-Liz-Kendall-urged-refund-taxpayer-money-heat-4million-Notting-Hill-home.html

(Accessed 11 February 2025)

Morrison, James (2024) ‘Getting Britain to work without blaming ‘scroungers’ – can Starmer change the narrative?’

Available at:

https://theconversation.com/getting-britain-to-work-without-blaming-scroungers-can-starmer-change-the-narrative-244779?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR1muXNf7l26nyC0mLRHtjkXELdRcaKJiyzkdTq9DuPxErZWhAkDYfjxQwk_aem_GyEpMaH9Z8pR6ofm6RmbOQ

(Accessed 11 February 2025)

Nevett, J (2025) ‘Some on benefits are 'taking the mickey', says minister’

Available at:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq5gpyv4dnwo

(Accessed 11 February 2025)

Savage, M (2024) ‘It’s time to end blame culture over benefits bill, says Labour minister’

Available at:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/aug/17/its-time-to-end-blame-culture-over-benefits-bill-says-labour-minister?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR3mOemd2Iw7csfC2Ync3_C9DwTQXBCwyQ2AsCyZPzb2xSDuX_1y2OIB2AA_aem_dy9GqrXpHrBFqe5vzM_n5A

Labour was told about ‘vile’ WhatsApp group more than a year ago, says Tameside councillor.

 

Oliver Ryan MP

Former Tameside councillor, Oliver Ryan MP, has now been suspended by Labour for leaving obnoxious messages on WhatsApp. Ryan, is believed to have left around 2,500 messages on the WhatsApp 'Trigger Me Timbers' group which the Labour Party say they're now investigating. Many messages refer to left wing Labour supporters as 'Marxists (sic) Loonies' and more than 100 messages refer to Labour colleagues as "Trots".

Andrew Gwynne reposted a tweet about Angela Rayner buying Apple Airpods, which read: "

I don't see what the problem is. It's literally impossible to give (a) blow job while wearing wired headphones. Anyone with a similar background to Angela would understand this."

Andrew Gwynne comes from a well-off middle-class family. Apart from politics, Gwynne has never had a proper job in his entire adult life. Before becoming an MP, he was a Tameside councillor. His father John Gwynne who died aged 77 in 2022, worked as a sports commentator for Sky TV for over twenty years. He was former school teacher. 

Andrew Gwynne sacked as health minister and suspended by Labour.

 

Andrew Gwynne MP

Apart from a life spent in politics living off the British taxpayer, I don't think that Andrew Gwynne MP has ever undertaken a real job in his entire adult life. As a young man he was a Tameside Labour councillor who was groomed to take over the Labour constituency of Denton & Reddish from Andrew Bennett. He's now been sacked as a Labour health minister and suspended by the Labour Party for making sexist, racist and anti-Semitic comments, on WhatsApp.

According to the Guardian newspaper, in one message he joked that he hoped a 72- year-old woman would soon die after contacting her Labour councillor about her dust bins. This lady wrote to Gwynne saying "As you have been re-elected, I thought it would be an appropriate time to contact you about the bin collections." Gwynne shared this letter from the elderly resident on WhatsApp and contemptuously wrote:

"Dear resident, fuck your bins. I'm re-elected and without your vote. Screw you. PS: Hopefully you'll have croacked it by the all-outs."

As a former chair of Labour Friends of Israel, Gwynne is alleged to have written in another message, "Sounds too Jewish" and "too militaristic" from their name. "Is he in Mossad?"

In a 2019 message posted on a WhatsApp group called 'Trigger Me Timbers', Gwynne is alleged to have said that support for Dianne Abbott's historic appearance as a black woman at prime minister's questions was a "joke" adding that her appearance was "because it's Black History Month apparently."

In March 2021, Angela Rayner was criticised for claiming Parliamentary expenses for wireless headphones. Gwynne is alleged to have reposted a tweet that referred to the incident and related it to a sex act.

Gwynne, who is now the MP for Gorton and Reddish, issued a statement saying: "I deeply regret my badly misjudged comments and apologise for any offence I've caused.”

Last year, Gwynne was one of three Tameside MPs who voted in favour of removing the winter fuel allowance from state pensioners who did not receive pension credit.

Trump imposes sanctions on war crime court officials at the ICC.

 

Convicted felon, President Donald Trump, has only been in office since January 20, and already he's made the U.S. legal system look bleeding ridiculous by pardoning rioters and drug dealers and trying to get the courts to quash his own convictions for falsifying business records.

He's now signed an executive order imposing sanctions on International Criminal Court (ICC) officials. The sanctions, which could lead to visa restrictions on travel and financial assets being frozen, are Trump's response to the warrants that were issued by the court last November, for the arrest of the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the former Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant. They were charged by the ICC with war crimes and crimes against humanity. The ICC which is based in The Hague in the Netherlands, said that the two Israeli leaders "each bear criminal responsibility" for war crimes and acts including the "war crime of starvation."

The ICC also issued a warrant for the arrest of the Hamas leader, Mohammed Deif, who the Israelis say was killed in the Gaza conflict. Trump has dismissed the ICC charges against Netanyahu and Gallant and said the ICC had "engaged in illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel." He also accused the ICC of threatening U.S. national security and U.S. foreign policy.

Some 125 countries are parties to the Rome Statute, which established the jurisdiction of the ICC. Yet neither the U.S. or Israel recognise the jurisdiction of the ICC and under The Hague Invasion Act, introduced by the Americans over twenty years ago, America can invade the Netherlands to rescue American personnel who are being held in detention by the ICC for alleged war crimes. If this did occur, it would be considered the invasion of a NATO country that would oblige other NATO countries to take retaliatory action against America.

Trump said recently that he wants to annex Gaza by bringing it under American control and ethnically cleanse and disperse the Palestinian population. Trump who has made millions from property speculation, believes that Gaza without Palestinians could be transformed into an idyllic American-owned "Riviera of the Middle East" populated by the world's wealthy. 

Is Labour's pledge to build 1.5m homes in England just more Labour bullshit?

 

Since Starmer-oids squalid Labour government came into office last July, all they've done is pick people's pockets and driven up the cost of living. They've now got their eye on cutting welfare spending and people's state benefits. Labour did say that they were not the party for people on state benefits but the party of people in work.

Some landlords are now giving priority for social rented housing to essential key workers and professional couples. Most housing developments only offer a small percentage of homes for rent and most of the homes are intended for sale. The cost of buying a home has risen astronomically and is beyond the reach of many British people even if they're in work. According to the Halifax, one of Britain's biggest mortgage lenders, house prices have hit a record high. Twenty years ago, a family might have expected to buy a house worth roughly four times their annual income - now it might be eight times what they earn. The proportion of the population that now rents has nearly doubled in two decades and more than 159,000 children in England, remain homeless and without a permanent address.

I have seen homes offered for rent that cost more than twice the British state pension or are more than half the price of the weekly state pension. A one-bedroom flat can be over £160 a week. As there are no rent controls, some landlords have been known to double the rent and then evict the tenant when they said they couldn't afford to pay it. This is the reality of life for many people in Britain. We're seeing people living on the streets or in cars and vans.

Labour has vowed to build 1.5 million homes within five years or 370,000 new homes in England each year. Many people think this is just more Labour bullshit and I think they're probably right. How many homes have Labour started build in the last seven months?

Trump's former professor says he was the "dumbest goddam student I ever had."

 

Donald Trump

Elon Musk is right in one sense to say that we need electricians, plumbers and carpenters, but he also knows, that manual workers don't generally finish up in government or running the country. Musk studied economics and physics and bought himself a place in Trump's administration.

The type of people who do finish up in the American government or working for one of its agencies, are people with college degrees. According to the Congressional Research Service, some 95 percent of today's House members and 100 percent of the Senate, have a bachelor's degree or higher. In most cases they will have law degrees and will be graduates of Ivy League colleges.

In the British Parliament, most Members of Parliament, have never done a manual workers job in their life. Many of Britain's Prime Ministers were old Etonians and many British politicians will have attended Oxford or Cambridge university where they will have studied History Tripos, PPE, and Classics, all B.A. subjects.

Donald Trump is believed to have obtained a Bachelor's degree in economics without honours from Wharton. Trump has repeatedly claimed to have "the highest IQ", to "test much higher than Obama" and to be a "genius." One of his former professors at Wharton Business School could see no evidence of this.  Professor Kelley, described Trump as the "dumbest goddam student I ever had." Trump's attorney has threatened to sue any institution that makes his academic grades public.

 

Banksy the graffiti artist.

 

Banksy - Girl with Balloon

It's a mystery to me how Banksy has managed to conceal his true identity for so long. Somebody must see the graffiti artists doing his work which is so recognisable and done in public. How did he manage to organise the art project 'Dismaland' in Weston-Super-Mare and remain anonymous?

In 2018, Sotheby's auction house sold Banksy's 'Girl with Balloon' for £1.1 million. It was bought by an unknown European buyer. As the auctioneer's hammer fell, the painting started to self-shred. It was later auctioned again by Sotheby's as a piece of performance art called 'Love is in the Bin' and was sold for £18.5 million to an unknown Asian buyer.

I like Banksy's subversive art and the message it often conveys. But what was the intention or message behind shredding the picture 'Girl with a balloon' at the Sotheby's auction in 2018? Was the intention to increase the value of this picture or show up the absurdity of the art market by destroying this art work?  This act of creative vandalism, by whoever did it, actually achieved both of these objectives.