Blog

<h3>Valuable insight from the <a data-mce-href="https://dailysceptic.org/" href="https://dailysceptic.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Daily Sceptic</a>... We need to get inside the Labour mindset to anticipate the level of dogmatic mischief that is being hatched </h3>The War on the Family Home July 21, 2024"... A great novelist can, in a short passage, say more than a thousand scholars or non-fiction writers can in a lifetime. Hence, Dostoyevsky had modern technocracy’s number before it had really ever even been put into effect. In the section of the Brothers Karamazov now usually called the ‘Grand Inquisitor’, he laid it all out. In this story-within-a-story, Jesus is imagined to have returned to 16th Century Spain and is put on trial by the Inquisition. The accusation: that in rejecting the offer from Satan, when tempted in the desert, to be made ruler of the world, Jesus condemned mankind to freedom and thereby to suffering. It would have been better if he had accepted Satan’s offer and taken the opportunity to simply make everybody good, safe and content. The head of the Inquisition, the Grand Inquisitor, then paints a picture of what the appropriate relationship between the people and the church should be:[A]ll, all will they bring to us, and we shall resolve it all, and they will attend our decision with joy, because it will deliver them from the great anxiety and fearsome torments of free and individual decision.There are, then, Dostoyevsky is telling us, people in the world who think that the real problem with Jesus was that he wanted people to be free. Just think of the good I could do, these people say to themselves, if only I were in charge of every decision that anybody could ever conceivably make. I would make everything perfect. The implication is that freedom is necessarily undesirable; people should be made to do what is good for them, and free choice can only either get in the way of that objective or align with it – in which latter case it is moot.One of the major exemplars of this school of thought was John Maynard Keynes. In his 1926 essay, ‘The End of Laissez-Faire’, Keynes – with a blitheness that is truly chilling – makes his contempt for freedom very clear. “Nor is it true,” he tells us in his very opening paragraph, “that self-interest generally is enlightened; more often individuals acting separately to promote their own ends are too ignorant or too weak to attain even these.” And since this is the case, the last thing that anybody should want is individuals disposing of their own wealth as they see fit. That would leave too much to ‘chance’. Much better for intermediary bodies – in effect, quangos – to decide how much wealth people should be allowed to accumulate and where it should be invested (even to the extent of deciding how much of it should be invested abroad). “I believe,” Keynes wrote (stop for a moment and try to put yourself in the mind of somebody who had it in himself to write these lines):[T]hat some co-ordinated act of intelligent judgement is required as to the scale on which it is desirable that the community as a whole should save. This is the Grand Inquisitorial mentality, as it is applied to economics, in a nutshell: the last thing that anybody needs is people deciding for themselves how much money they should save. That is a matter of “intelligent judgement”, and this is a thing which ordinary people simply do not possess. No – the “desirable” level of saving is something upon which clever people should decide, and then impose on society. And much of the paraphernalia of modern macro-economic management follows from there, of course: the discovery of the “desirable” level of aggregate savings (and hence of spending), and the subsequent manipulation of the population into adopting it.Keynes wrote at a time when the Labour Party was in its infancy, but it is his mentality – a Grand Inquisitorial mentality – that has come to permeate the way the party thinks about wealth and property. Hence, we come to a recent interview with John McTernan, a New Labour high-up and muchacho of Tony Blair, in which (likewise, with a blitheness that is truly chilling) we find the issue of housing coming under the lens of discussion. Again, stop for a moment and try to put yourself in the mind of somebody who has it in himself to say something like this:A lot of wealth in the U.K. is in the form of housing wealth. It seems right that you should actually extract some revenue from that…. The reality is that the largest amount of wealth outside pensions held in the country, they’re actually held in the form of housing… Now, you can think what you like about housing, and housing is definitely a social need, but housing is a capital asset that’s been accumulating, particularly accumulating in the period of quantitative easing. It was a windfall to most homeowners, the fact that the houses that they lived in have gone up in value, some of them even faster than their income went up. And I was able to figure that two trillion pounds in value increased to them, accumulated to housing in Britain during the pandemic when we were literally doing nothing but staying at home. Now, that is a windfall, and windfalls should get a windfall tax.There are times when one feels as though public discourse has become too uncivil and that it would be nice if everybody remembered that, generally speaking, even one’s political opponents are approaching the matter of public policy in good faith. But there are other times when one is driven to agree with Pierre-Joseph Proudhon that the real issue we face is that we are governed “by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so”. This is one of those occasions: anybody who could utter the words reprinted above with a straight face should not be allowed within a country mile of the levers of power. And it is frankly mildly terrifying that such a person should be in a position to advise the U.K. Government about anything – let alone something as important as tax.Let’s leave to one side the sheer gall of suggesting that the debasement of the currency in the form of quantitative easing and the subsequent inflation of asset prices – all of which caused by the arrogance of Keynesian central bankers pursuing ‘unconventional’ monetary policy – constitutes a windfall for homeowners, as though it was some sort of freak weather event rather than a foolish way of propping up a zombie economy in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. Quantitative easing was, and is, a policy choice – it was not a surprisingly bounteous bumper crop of cherries from the orchard which Scrooge-like orchard owners have been unfairly squirrelling away for themselves in the basement. And suggesting that its consequences should therefore be a windfall tax for homeowners takes a special level of mendacity: in McTernan-world, it seems, government broadly constituted (and one should by all means include the Bank of England under that umbrella) has licence not only to collectively make public policy errors, but then to traduce the public for receiving whatever ‘windfalls’ they do as a result, and to tax them for it to boot. That is a world that should only exist in fantasy.And let’s leave to one side the suggestion that lockdown – a policy choice that truly merits the use of the word ‘catastrophic’ – was also simply an inevitable consequence of the pandemic (“when we were literally doing nothing but staying at home” – speak for yourself, mate; some of us had kids to look after, and some of us had jobs to do). To repeat: lockdown was not a weather event. It was imposed. That it was going to have serious economic consequences was evident to anybody with an ounce of sense at the time. The decision was taken to impose it anyway; the idea that it “seems right” to extract revenue from homeowners, who had no say in the matter, as a consequence takes, again, an exceptional level of gall.And let’s also leave to one side the fact that one of the main drivers of the growth in house prices has been a chronic failure of supply to meet demand, and that this is more or less entirely the fault of repeated governments’ failure to grasp the nettle of planning reform, combined with high levels of immigration – both of which, again, are not weather events, but policies which have been deliberately chosen and pursued, and therefore not to be described as ‘windfalls’ in their effects on house prices, but as the necessary and obvious consequences of decisions made in government.The reason for leaving all of these observations to one side, as important as they might be, however, is that they would distract us from the more important matter of what McTernan’s comments reveal about the mindset of those who now imagine themselves to be in charge of the U.K. economy.Some time ago, I wrote a piece about an elderly couple who had been erroneously told that a house they owned would be compulsorily purchased by the local council to house asylum seekers. In it, following Leo Strauss, I made the observation that it was crucial for a tyrant to eliminate property rights and ultimately private property entirely. This is because a population of property owners is a population that has a route to independent prosperity, and independent prosperity is definitionally not what a tyrant wants. A tyrant wants the population to be reliant on him, so that he can retain their loyalty. Hence, as Strauss himself puts it (these words need to be printed and distributed on posters and t-shirts):[The wise tyrant] would consider his [entire] fatherland his private property which he would naturally administer according to his own discretion.The consequence is that tyranny is contingent upon an idea of property as something not which the population owns, but which is bestowed upon them in the manner of a gift, and on sufferance. If they are good boys and girls they get to ‘own’ a house, but they always have to remember that just as the tyrant giveth, the tyrant taketh away; and ideally in the end there will be no home ownership at all – everybody will be ‘housed’ (it is noticeable that McTernan generally, though not always, prefers to refer to ‘housing’ than ‘homes’) by the State, and be grateful for it.In this sense, as elsewhere, then, it is sensible and apt to describe the trajectory that we are on as one that is in its essence tyrannical, even if to call the likes of John McTernan ‘tyrants’ would strike most people as hyperbolic. We are, in comparative terms, relatively early on in that trajectory, but it charts the direction in which we are heading: the gradual dissolution of the concept of private prosperity, and its gradual replacement by Keynes’s ‘intelligent judgement’, carefully and minutely micro-managing economic decision making at every level, and every given moment. And this is being done in the name of an inchoate and incompletely expressed ideal, within which no individual should ever be put in a position to exercise choice at all, since that would interfere – to take us back to Dostoyevsky – with the achievement of “joy [at being] deliver[ed] from the great anxiety and fearsome torments of free and individual decision”. Since delivering the population from the “great anxiety and fearsome torments of free and individual decision” is the essence of the promise that the tyrant makes, the explanation for the contempt for private property on display in McTernan’s comments becomes very plain.It should nonetheless appall us. There is one, generally attestable, route to prosperity for the poor: the gradual accumulation of savings and capital in the form of property. I know this because my family has lived it; from both sides I am of Irish immigrant stock, supplanted into Liverpool and Glasgow respectively; my grandfathers were both skilled labourers and my parents were born into poverty. But the family collectively dragged itself up into something approaching a middle class lifestyle through home ownership, and I hope that my children will be dragged up further yet by the inheritances that they will one day receive from all of the hard work, effort and sacrifice that three generations have made on their behalf. To hear the likes of John McTernan suggesting that it “seems right that [the government] should actually extract some revenue from that” is – I am anxious not to use inflammatory language – shameful. That his mentality is so widespread across the political class is more shameful yet. But it speaks to the real source of our malaise: to own property is to be in a position, if one is lucky, to grasp at “free and individual decision”. And free and individual decisions are simply not what those who govern us want us to make – because a population capable of making free and individual decisions does not need government very much at all.None of this is, in the end, very complicated, despite being rather shocking. Keynes did not want people to be free; nor did he wish for them to become prosperous. What he wanted was for them to obey the strictures of those who were “work[ing] out a social organisation which shall be as efficient as possible”; society was an interesting technical problem in need of solving, not a body of people with value in their own right. <h3>That was his mindset; it is also that of John McTernan; it is in the end what animates the Labour Party in particular. Those of us who live in the U.K. will have to get used to this mode of thinking, which, although it has been implicit for many years, is going to become increasingly explicit, and increasingly brazen, as Labour rediscovers its muscle memory and begins once more to flex. “It seems right that you should actually extract some revenue from that” is going to be the order of the day, across the piece. On second thoughts, maybe that’s what should be being printed on t-shirts.</h3>Dr. David McGrogan is an Associate Professor of Law at Northumbria Law School. You can subscribe to his Substack – News From Uncibal – <a data-mce-href="https://newsfromuncibal.substack.com/" href="https://newsfromuncibal.substack.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>

An Englishman's home is his tax liability

<h3>Pete does agriculture... Are the cows coming or going home?</h3>As you probably know, I warmed considerably to the SDP during the election, but that was by finding my way to overlooking their horror show of an agriculture policy. The more you research the subject, the more it looks to have been inspired by anti-farming environmental groups masquerading as farming advocates. Slagging a policy off, however, is far easier than writing one.&nbsp;To that end, I've written a sketch of one, to which I will add greater detail later down the line. It centres on the premise that farms are fundamentally food growing businesses, and all other considerations are secondary. So here goes...The grim reality for farmers in Britain is that farming is barely viable. For many farmers, though, farming is a way of life, and one that adds to the richness of the landscape – which is essential to the wellbeing and prosperity of the country. Every effort must be made to make farming worth it again. In line with our national resilience ethos, Britain’s farmers will come first.&nbsp;In order to support farming (an energy intensive industry), we will work to reboot fertiliser production in the UK, and through nuclear renewal will bring electricity overheads down - which will also stimulate greenhouse farms using cutting edge agribotics – not least to reduce reliance on cheap foreign labour and imports.&nbsp;A research fund will be created to make Britain the agriculture research and development lab of the world with farmers taking a share of intellectual property rights.The fashionable urbanite view is that pesticides, fertilisers and antibiotics should be phased out of farming but pigs and poultry, particularly, would collapse without antibiotics, and arable would not survive without nitrates. The Party recognises that, in reality, there is no British agriculture without them.&nbsp;The anti-pesticide/fertiliser lobby is a very well-funded NGO blob made up almost entirely of climate activists. Increasingly we find sustainable farming advocates are anti-farming climate zealots. As with energy, a full public inquiry will be held into the extent of green lobbying by domestic and foreign "philanthropists" who will then be blacklisted from all policy and parliamentary consultations. The Party opposes the decommissioning of agricultural lands for environmental and energy purposes.&nbsp;Agriculture has found a renewed place in national discourse thanks to the television programme Clarkson’s Farm. While it offers a fascinating insight into the bureaucratic hurdles of modern farming, it is a depiction of farming in the Cotswolds rather than a true depiction of what it’s like for cash poor farmers in remote areas with little diversification prospects. For them, even modest environmental requirements make the difference whether their farms turn a profit or not. Farmers do not have lucrative television deals to subsidise experimentation.We do, however, see the utility in promoting conscientious land husbandry, and it is certainly the case that farmers can play an important role in flood prevention. As such, the beneficiary of their work is the insurance sector. We would therefore explore tax incentives for insurance companies to offer flood prevention grants, inviting land owners to bid for the work.As to pollution from farming, there are already strict anti-pollution laws in place to prevent run-off - including the retained nitrates directive. What is missing is adequate and intelligent local authority enforcement - but there is also room for targeted grants to assist farmers with compliance. Both of these functions should fully be devolved to local authorities but with DEFRA inspection.&nbsp;When it comes to livestock rearing, due to economies of scale, the British meat industry can never compete on price but we can compete on quality and reliability. For the purposes of animal welfare, sustainability and food safety, we will dismantle the EU veterinary system in favour of smaller, local slaughterhouses under local authority supervision. Falling numbers of small, local abattoirs are forcing some farm businesses to call it a day, as finding alternative outlets for finished livestock pushes up costs and journey times.Some animals from remoter areas are now travelling more than 200 miles to slaughter, while many farmers report that remaining smaller abattoirs are increasingly busy and difficult to book into. Slaughter house owners cite the regulatory burden in their decision to cease operation. The system is in need of modernisations and regulatory streamlining. More detail will be given.&nbsp;SupermarketsSupermarkets must take some of the blame of the collapse of British agriculture. The report, Unpicking Food Prices, shows that farmers enjoy little or even zero share of any profit – typically just 0.03% of the retail price. By comparison, processors were found to be receiving 10 times the profit yet debates on farm policy, which put environmental aims at the forefront of targets, largely ignore how the money is divvied up in supply chains. Even doubling farmer profits from the retail price would not have a noticeable impact on the cost to consumers.&nbsp;The Party believes, in line with Sustain recommendations, that a stronger Groceries Code Adjudicator is needed, with greater powers to act when any unfairness between large-scale buyers and individual farm business is found.&nbsp;The Groceries Code Adjudicator (the GCA) was established on 25 June 2013 by the Groceries Code Adjudicator Act 2013 and is responsible for enforcing the Groceries Supply Code of Practice (the Code). The GCA is funded by a levy on designated retailers with a UK annual groceries turnover of more than £1 billion.The adjudicator should be backed by new supply chain rules on fair deals, with codes for each sector and an enforcement body, as provided for in the Agriculture Act 2020. Further rules should be introduced to improve transparency in supply chains to ensure farmers have greater bargaining power when negotiating prices. Provision for this is, again, set out in the Agriculture Act. Clear food labelling would provide greater clarity across the whole cycle of food production. Public procurement models should be established to secure more produce from a large range of farmers and growers, allowing small businesses to feed into public sector food contracts for schools, hospitals, and other institutions.A lack of transparency throughout the food supply chain means that the poor returns for farmers is being overlooked by policymakers. This could be remedied by two key recommendations:• The percentage of the retail price received by farmers has been removed from Defra’s annual report Agriculture in the UK. Reinstating the percentage would help shed light on how small businesses are being excluded from potential profit• The reporting requirements of larger businesses should be reviewed to ensure enough detail is being provided on where money flows within the food systemMeanwhile, schemes such as quality marks such as Red Tractor impose ever more stringent requirements. This has worsened with the onset of stringent environmental requirements which supermarkets use towards their carbon offsetting quotas, essentially exploiting farmers as free labour. The Party will end this by abolishing all state mandated carbon offsetting.&nbsp; ___Please let me know if I missed anything important. There's a lot more to be said on this issue, I'm sure.https://x.com/FUDdaily/status/1815445460372353263

Starter for an agricultural policy

James Melville posted this alarming movie plot on <a data-mce-href="https://x.com/JamesMelville/status/1815279991938068542" href="https://x.com/JamesMelville/status/1815279991938068542" target="_blank" rel="noopener">twitter</a>... "Here’s a script for a dystopian disaster movie: A pandemic sweeps the planet. In response to this, governments around the world decide to lockdown millions of people, close schools, mandate that citizens should wear masks and that anyone who refuses to take a vaccine (that doesn’t stop transmission) will be discriminated against. Governments spend fortunes on issuing contacts to companies to produce vast amounts of personal protective equipment and test and trace digital apps that are often faulty and not used. A bunch of unelected and grotesquely wealthy individuals and political leaders plot for various treaties to be implemented by global organisations who aren’t elected and also put into place a cunning plan for various forms of digital identity that is approved via a QR scanning device on a mobile phone. Citizens are punished with higher taxes and surveillance camera fines to help ‘save the planet’ while the individuals who enforced these policies travel around the world polluting the planet in private jets and motorcades whilst millions of people pay various forms of taxes to fund their lavish and polluting lifestyles. Doomsday scenarios are created about the temperature of the planet and solutions are found such as electric vehicle production powered by batteries made with lithium and cobalt. Landscapes in Africa and South America are destroyed and polluted due to the mining of these materials and thousands of child slaves are used for the mining. Massive deforestation of trees takes place to provide balsa wood and/or provide land space for wind turbines - which are then dumped in landfills after just 20 years of use. Cow farts are blamed for destroying the planet. Farmland is removed for massive solar farms. Political leaders repeatedly state that they want to ‘save the planet’ but at the same time, create various wars where thousands of innocent civilians die, and meanwhile, political leaders and major corporations try to control the oil and gas supply in the areas of conflict. Millions of people around the world starve, become homeless or struggle to pay for food or warmth - and meanwhile, a bunch of billionaires and major corporations plunder the planet’s assets and acquire obscene amounts of wealth in doing so.And then towards the end, one of the multinational corporations controlling much of the computer power of the planet receives a ransom note demanding a trillion dollars - or their widely deployed operating system will be exploited to brick the computer systems on which it is installed, requiring a physical call-out to each and every one in order to reset the problem. Instead, the megalomaniac in charge of the company refuses to pay and decides to blame a third party and an interfering EU policy decision.A candidate for the US presidency survives an assassination attempt by an inch and the incumbent President steps down from the presidential election campaign. And the bad actors who play the role of villains in this movie display the traits of every spoilt child who didn’t make it to the end of a Willy Wonka chocolate factory tour.&nbsp;It’s a ridiculous plot. It’s too far-fetched.

You could not make it up...

Oh my goodness. I can remember exactly where I was on the day that John F Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963. I was in my father's home office using his drawing board for my geometry homework - when a gasp went up from the sitting room.&nbsp; It was the shocked reaction of my family more than anything that brought home the stark reality that something really big had just happened.&nbsp; The infamous Cuban missile crisis had occurred the year before, when Russia had parked a fleet of nuclear missiles with friendly Cuba, right next door to the United States. It was the forerunner of the Ukraine and Russia situation we presently face, when everyone was on edge at the real prospect of nuclear Armageddon. But in return for Russia removing the nuclear missiles from its Soviet satellite states in the Warsaw pact, including Ukraine, there was a tacit understanding that NATO would not park its members' tanks on Russia's lawn. A simple observation of historical reality which got Nigel Farage crucified by a storm of indignation by the liberal establishment, during the UK general election, for daring to speak honestly. The anti-Trump rhetoric in the "liberal media" has been relentless since the alleged "storming" of the Capitol building in January 2020 by what looked more like a Village People tribute Act than a serious insurrection attempt.&nbsp; This incident was reheated and&nbsp; bent to fit the LawFare demonisation of Trump and used to mask the questioning of the legitimacy of the presidential election which once again highlighted the dubious nature of American election counts, and the unhelpful way that the electoral college system works to obscure and distort the actual numbers. The system is impossibly complicated in order that a clear-cut decision can be avoided while election fixers go to work to try to contrive the result they want.&nbsp; It's never going to be resolved with more of the same, somebody has to change the system and use modern direct democracy technology to reduce the scope for fraud and manipulation. And of course, the same can now be said of the UK electoral system where 80% of the electorate have not chosen Labour, yet MP Lucy Powell is claiming that just one in five voters represents a massive mandate for Starmer's socialist revolution. If you are one of the summarily disenfranchised, it's not hard to see that bemusement can lead to frustration at such absurd Alice in Wonderland politics.&nbsp; Especially now that the 20% of winners are poking jibes at the 80% seething losers, over the questions of the Brexit vote which they claim was stolen, despite being the subject of a more straightforward 52/48% majority. Yes, I am aware that the 20% of total electorate winners may be interpreted as 34% of the turned out vote of 56% of the Electorate. But however you spin it, the democratic deficit is extreme and embarrassing. And it will come around to bite the fraudulent winners in the fundament soon enough. Surely we can no longer argue that we do not need an electoral system that more reasonably reflects the entire electorate, where our five-year fate is decided by just one in five of the electorate, with the help of a very gameable system.I am well aware of the arguments in favour of the first past the post system, in that it delivers decisive results that allow government to get on without hindrance. Which is fine, where those governments are legitimate and not the result of accidents of unintended democratic malfunction. However, that was in the good old days before Tony Blair had politicized public service and rendered the rebellious and obstructive civil service as enemies of any Conservative government trying to carry out the will of the people as opposed to the will of the liberal elite that controls the civil service, the education establishment, the Health service, and the legal establishment. The frustrations of those who are denied democracy in the present system had generally been sandbagged by the incumbents of the two party system, who really do not want to risk losing their unfair advantage with any sort of proportional representation. I would of course argue that the proposals on this site for realdemocracy.uk can provide the subtle blend of engagement for all - with the comfort of a voting platform that can engage more than just a once in every five years with an ephemeral snapshot of fickle opinion. In addition, this time, the vote reflected no enthusiasm for the bollard and his vague manifesto, it was mostly a vote to remove the decaying carcass of the Sunak's Conservatives after 5 years of shambolic politics and backstabbing.We must do better - but now we have somewhat foolishly hung the albatross of Keir Starmer and his illegitimocracy around the nation's neck. So take every opportunity that comes your way to resist and object to the democratic deficit and the imposition of Starmergeddon.

A very close shave. .

<h3>A sane energy strategy - this has nothing to do with climate change, and everything to do with the reality that fossil fuels will run out eventually, and we need a viable alternative up and running. </h3>Does energy policy need to be any more complicated than this?...We begin by recognising that secure, affordable energy is the cornerstone of a thriving economy. Through thirty years of policy neglect, and an obsession with arbitrary climate targets, Britain has undermined its national security and economic resilience. It is absolutely absurd that we are spending billions on the grid to accommodate intermittent sources out in the middle of the sea which are vulnerable to attack. Decommissioning farmland or using it for low yield solar is also unwise. We judge the renewable energy experiment as a comprehensive failure.We do not share the liberal internationalist view that the world will follow Britain’s “climate leadership” and see no good reason to hobble our economic prosperity. As such, any and all applications for new fossil fuel exploration will be expedited. We will look to exploit Britain’s vast coal bed methane reserves. In accordance with this goal, Britain will withdraw from the Paris Agreement. We do not recognise any notion of “climate emergency”.As to electricity, Britain will build a fleet of new &nbsp;combined cycle gas turbine power stations on existing sites as an interim measure, pending a complete renewal of Britain’s nuclear fleet, supplemented by small modular reactors throughout the country. The nuclear sector will be put under an extensive regulatory review to expedite new designs. This will be the number one national priority.Britain will then undertake a review of planning laws. We take the view, however, that planning regulation is often used as an excuse for lack of political will. We will pass a nuclear infrastructure bill that permits any development on existing nuclear sites. We also regard Small Modular Reactors as safe and unobtrusive, and can be made to fit sympathetically into the landscape. As such, we regard any objections to them as frivolous, time-wasting NIMBYism, and will take legal steps to ensure their construction is exempt from the usual NGO lawfare.It is a given that successful fusion energy reactors would obviate all other forms of electricity generation, but estimates of deployment vary from 20 to 50 years to never. However, the entire solar system has evolved over 4 billion years fueled exclusively by fusion energy. It just takes a little more imagination than we seem to have been able to master recently.Mad Ed Milliband and his wind farms are a mistake, or maybe he plans to use prisoner release schemes and have them stand around and blow at becalmed windmills.?&nbsp; Or maybe pedal millions of bicycle operated generators..? Which in turn would tend to make them puff and blow even harder... 😃 Energy storage using ideas like the Wash Barrier scheme would be a start on more interesting alternatives.https://x.com/FUDdaily/status/1812455541941080499#NVManifesto

sanity in energy policy

Pete is testing a law and order policy strategy for his manifesto project. It is mostly a simple if long overdue infusion of common sense - and the extraction of dumb dogma... "... I'm first looking to firm up Policing &amp; Crime policy for a new manifesto. I have a reasonably good understanding of the problems (call me out if I missed anything), but solutions may prove to be difficult, costly and contentious. I'm offering up this preamble. Feel free to shoot me down. I will not be offended if you tell me it's crap. It's all part of the process..... Policing in the UK is broken. Through amalgamations, streamlining and politicisation, the force is no longer fit for purpose. <h3>Police officers are too thinly stretched, having to perform as detective, peacekeeper, social worker, paramedic, and taxi driver. The force suffers from a retention and recruitment crisis, deteriorating conditions and poor pay. Meanwhile, too many forces suffer from political activism at the command level, resulting in “woke” policing, and rainbow nail polish on expenses.</h3>Over the last twenty years, local police stations and detention facilities have been closed which has further eroded genuine community policing, where dedicated officers no longer meaningfully patrol a regular beat. It must also be noted that we have and disturbing number of low intelligence police officers, some with poor language and literacy skills. Police are also overworked with paperwork and administration.Maybe a job for an AI RoboPlod? Although the legal profession will probably object as it will sense that legal aid and other sinecures will be eroded in due course.A recent trend in policing is the prioritisation of public order at all costs, even to the extent of appeasing the mob. The police are quick to act against everyday British people, but will kneel for Black Lives Matter and stand idle as pro-Palestine protesters chant genocidal slogans. There is a growing perception of two-tier policing, which is not just a perception. The police will be instructed to intervene. Self-appointed protest conspiracies&nbsp; such as Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion will be met with extreme prejudice.We take the view police authorities are now too big and must be broken up. We will restore real community policing by rebuilding local police stations and detention facilities. We will ensure police work a regular beat, and that they drilled in the value of community connections.As regards the London Met, we will dismantle it and establish four separate commands answerable directly to the boroughs. Mayoral oversight has proven divisive and useless.&nbsp;We will then establish a London wide armed force, similar to the French Gendarmerie which will perform armed response duties, counter-terror operations and riot control. This force will be directly answerable to the Prime Minister.As regards “woke” policing, Chief Constables will be appointed by a policing committee in a two stage process, according to strict criteria. The committee will be composed of members of the public and selection proceedings will be streamed online with open comments.Police officers will submit to a bi-annual fitness test which they must pass. Officers incapable of passing a robust literacy and language skills test will be dismissed. Police officers and police vehicles will display no political symbols or badges, including rainbow flags (with the exception of poppies).Headcount and salaries will improve, but senior pay will be capped, except for high achievers, which will be decided on an individual basis by the local authorities they report to. Police and Crime Commissioners are useless. They will be scrapped in favour of community review boards comprised of magistrates and members of the public on a jury service basis.In order to make cities liveable spaces, police will be instructed to tackle vagrancy and will work closely with the border force to remove illegal immigrants. The first order of business will be to build three new super-prisons. The priority will be placed on public safety and punishment. Zero tolerance for violent crime will mean zero tolerance.The Party supports police officers having powers to stop and search all suspects if they have reasonable grounds to think they are carrying drugs, a weapon, stolen property, items used in connection with theft or to use to commit criminal damage.The Party will reverse the decision taken in 2013 by David Cameron’s Coalition Government which introduced direct entry to the senior ranks of policing, thus ending 180 years of tradition, which holds that all recruits to the police start their careers as constables.&nbsp;The Party will review and audit the actions and policies of all chief constables and issue new requirements, reflected in this manifesto, that must be adhered to..... This is just a preamble, and I'm sure I've left some important things out. Feel free to add your views.&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/FUDdaily/status/1812412808950124662" data-mce-href="https://x.com/FUDdaily/status/1812412808950124662">https://x.com/FUDdaily/status/1812412808950124662</a>14JUL24 #NVManifesto

The WOTE.uk Federation 2025

Blog: the Revolution starts here...

An Englishman's home is his tax liability

Starter for an agricultural policy

You could not make it up...

A very close shave. .

sanity in energy policy

Minding how we go...