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Another challenge to the climate cult from Chris Martz (US perspective), who does not hold back ... <a href="https://x.com/ChrisMartzWX/status/1818032783396397492" data-mce-href="https://x.com/ChrisMartzWX/status/1818032783396397492">https://x.com/ChrisMartzWX/status/1818032783396397492</a> We make no apology for focusing on this subject since it is driving the economies of the West to make huge sacrifices and compromises over budget considerations, also than the UK where mad Ed Milliband has already made some expensive mistakes since taking office on July 5th. The call for evidence from Chris comes in the wake of David Siegel's long-term campaign for an honest debate - but we're still waiting for honest answers from the Cult. "... Here are 10 questions for climate Nancy boys.➊ To the nearest hundredth of a degree Celsius, what is the “correct” global mean surface temperature (GMST), and why?➋ If your answer to question one is “the pre-industrial climate,” then explain to me why a 1.2°C cooler planet would be ideal for life on Earth in terms of agricultural and economic productivity. Explain to me why climate conditions during the Little Ice Age (LIA) would be less dangerous and more preferable?➌ What is the “correct” amount of extreme weather? How many tropical storms, hurricanes and major hurricanes; tornadoes; single-cell, multi-cell cluster, multi-cell line and supercell thunderstorms; damaging wind and hailstorms; droughts; coastal, pluvial and flash floods; heatwaves and cold waves; snowstorms, ice storms and blizzards; and wildfires should there be per year globally? Assign exact numbers then explain to me why.➍ What is the “correct” level of atmospheric carbon dioxide supposed to be? What dry-air volume or even range of concentrations would minimize bad weather and optimize plant growth? Most alarmists tell me that the pre-industrial level of 180-280 ppm is ideal. But, why? Show me the data that can physically establish a mathematical relationship between carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and the amount of tornadic or hurricane activity in a year, for starters, then explain why 180-280 ppm is more ideal for plants than 800-1,200 ppm.➎ Climate scientists say that the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which President Biden signed into law last year, was the “biggest piece of climate legislation in history.” But, since it was signed into law, the climate alarmists say that climate change has only become a lot worse. Why?➏ To follow-up to question five, when will the IRA be effective? At 6:24 p.m. today? Noon tomorrow? Next week? 5-years from now? When will it give us the ideal climate? What does that look like? How do we know, and by what measure(s)?➐ If the U.S. spends $50-78 trillion to decarbonize our economy by 2050, how much will that reduce GMST by 2100, if we assume climate model projections are an accurate representation of reality? Provide your answer to the nearest hundredth of a degree Celsius and show me your math.➑ If you don't know the answer to question eight, here is a follow-up. If you don't know how much GMST will be reduced by 2100 if we go to “net zero” emissions by 2050, are we supposed to spend $50-78 trillion and just see what happens? That would cost each of you between $150,000 and $235,000 to achieve.<h3>➒ China and India emit more carbon dioxide into the air than any other country. Why are their feet never held to the fire to reduce emissions? Why does the responsibility only fall on western countries, and all of a sudden the topic goes from total emissions to the per capita metric?</h3>➊⓿ Why do efforts to mitigate negative impacts of man-made climate change focus almost exclusively on reducing emissions, as opposed to more effective (especially in the near-term) measures, such as better zoning codes in flood plains; investing in weather-resilient infrastructure along our coastlines and in hail and tornado alley; better city planning to reduce flash flooding damage; or placing power lines underground and improving forest management to reduce fire risk?I'm still waiting for climate alarmists to answer these very basic questions in a clear and concise manner..."We all are, then we can ask the people for an informed decision on how our priorities should be ranked, and pass that decision onto their MPs - to test their willingness to engage with - and acknowledge - the will of the Electorate.

challenge the climate cultists

The effort to analyse what has gone wrong with the UK is in high gear as we wonder how a government with the direct support of just one in five of the electorate, is sneaking us back the 70s with nationalisation, the politics of envy and a Joe Stalin tribute act whose father was a toolmaker - whilst claiming to have won a landslide mandate. 3O% of the votes translate to 60% of commons seats, so why is no one raising hell? Is there a cunning plan being hatched to dump this "illegitimocracy" when the time is right? Let them get carried away with hubris whilst the silenced majority gets its act together..? Sadly, the Opposition is presently shambolic. Sunak doesn't need the money, and how it shows! He's mainly concerned with looking like a good loser who is helpfully handing over without being awkward or getting in the way. How much money does his family software business earn from the UK government?)Maybe current events will force the issue and overtake Starmer's novice government - the Stockport murders could force the issue and see protests on the streets.&nbsp; From <a data-mce-href="https://thenewconservative.co.uk/taking-back-control/" href="https://thenewconservative.co.uk/taking-back-control/">the New Conservatives&nbsp;</a>&nbsp; https://thenewconservative.co.uk/taking-back-control/ <h3>Taking Back Control Politics / By Kim Rye</h3>I have been spending a lot of time in reflection recently. The outcome of the general election on 4th July filled me with an abject longing for the 20th century values we left behind. On the stroke of midnight 31st of December 1999, it seemed common sense, fortitude, bulldog spirit and pride in our culture died. The past had manners, dignity and respect. It had character, it had fun. It had beauty, wit, kindness and authenticity. It was optimistic, inventive, brave, courageous and forward-looking. People were grateful for what they had, even if it wasn’t a lot.All I feel now is fear for the future. Post-war Britain had its ups and downs, but there was a sense of optimism and anticipation. The 21st century is self-obsessed, selfish, depressing and worst of all consumed by ghastly “woke”.Everything now revolves around taking offence and victimhood, creating fear of saying or even thinking the wrong thing. There’s climate fearmongering, critical race theory, ludicrous and fabricated gender and identity politics, false narratives and blame culture, particularly “white privilege”, self-blame and introspection. All are products of the over-fertile imaginations of catastrophists, drama queens and, frankly, the lunatic fringe.The fun has been sucked out of life. Comedy for example, has been replaced by banal, depressing “Reality TV”. Whose reality? Modern TV programming promotes unrealistic aspirations, body dysmorphia and “mental health” fixation. There’s none of the fun of send-up comedy, gritty soaps and light-hearted drama that we knew and loved in previous decades.The mid to late 20th century had its problems, but it was authentic and aspirational and it had great music. If you’re over 25, name one great band of 2024?Twenty twenty-four is mired in doom and gloom; the country is in a dreadful state. Hostile cultures that want to take up residence here, but hate us and our way of life, are busy creating fear and oppression. The ‘politics of the subcontinent’, as Nigel Farage recently put it are being played out on the streets of Britain. For example, the disputes raging in Bangladesh are now being fought over in East London. They had nothing to do with this country; we cannot be the world’s policeman.Britain 2024 is now a miserable, supine backwater, comprised of individuals who take the knee and betray everything our noble forefathers fought for in two world wars. While our own belief systems are trashed, we allow ourselves to be subjugated by those who not only hate us, but devalue, erase and rewrite our history.The future looks grim. Give it 20 years and we will all be under the control of evil cults and false religions. Surely it hasn’t escaped your notice that it’s already happening? It began in 2020, with the biggest error of judgement ever: the response to Covid-19 and the reaction of the world government. The madness then escalated with the events surrounding the death of George Floyd.Next came the industrial scale self-loathing and apologism, as politicians and celebrities demanded we house the entirety of the Third World – those whose lives and livelihoods had reportedly been wrecked by the “evil West”. It is no small irony that the queue to enter such evil countries continues to grow, while the taxpayer bankrolls illegal migrants in four-star hotels and turns a blind eye to ex-servicemen sleeping in shop doorways.Meanwhile, genuine migrants who came to live alongside us with good intent, decent people of the Windrush for example, are also affected by these events. They are part of our culture. They came here and made Britain their home too. Look around this country now. “Demi paradise” it is not. The land of Shakespeare is now the land of obscure slang, bad manners and crudeness.<h3>So what do we do about it? Well, to start with, what we don’t do is spend pointless hours on social media engaging in digital civil war. We get out there and join with other like-minded individuals to change the system from within. Whatever your “conservative values” are, regardless of which political party you support, you need to nail your colours to the mast.</h3>People talk of revolution, but surely it would be preferable to fight the system from within rather than without? We need to put ourselves up as candidates in every by-election, local council election and general election we can. Why is it that people suppose there is a factory somewhere that manufactures politicians, ready-to-go robots, pre-programmed – although I grant you, that is how it looks!The truth is that whoever we are, the system in which we operate is managed by politicians. If we don’t like how they are running things, we need to change it ourselves. Masses of us up and down the country need to get active within our communities and start campaigning. You might ask, do I practice what I preach? Absolutely. I am already a local town councillor, and am putting myself up for next year’s county elections for Reform UK, having assisted their local campaign during the election period, helping their PPC for this area.The more of us true conservatives are on the inside, the more inspiration we can give to others and ensure that, come the next general election, we are able to field a huge crop of conservatives, be they Conservative or Reform UK candidates. I truly believe this will make an enormous difference, and if we make a big difference locally, perhaps we can convince the electorate to turn out to vote.The turnout at this year’s general election was only 52 percent. This is not good enough. Something similar happened in London in May. The mayoral election that granted Sadiq Khan a third term, saw almost 60 percent of Londoners fail to show up.However, there is hope. The Reform UK movement now stands at a record 70,000 members, including a significant number of young people. I am hopeful this will inspire the Conservative Party to re-acquaint themselves with their true conservative values. I am not suggesting a merger, but imagine the next Parliament with a massive collaboration of centre-right individuals. Even if Labour manage to get re-elected, imagine the opposition!As Winston Churchill famously said, “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile hoping it will eat him last.” We certainly have enough appeasers ready and willing to drag us back to the 7th Century, courtesy of our import of Islam. It is a united front of true conservatives that now needs to stand up and take back control; starting right here, right now. Kim Rye is a former Fleet Street copytaker. She is a sub-editor on 007 Magazine &amp; Archive.

If we could turn back time...

The Pantomime of ParliamentI am still not willing to accept the result of the bogus election, and nor should you be. A government with the support of one in five of the electorate is an affront to democracy, and we are now subject to government by an illegitimocracy.&nbsp; The main current challenge for Real Democracy UK is to to bang on about the democratic deficit, and suggest ways to engage with the electorate so that more people can be engaged and bothered to vote.I have been watching the King's Speech debate on BBC Parliament, wherein the new boys and girls give their maiden speeches with widely varying degrees of competence. Mostly thanks to their voters, the usual sniping about the predecessors, and the promises to perform miracles. Not a lot said about empowering individuals and companies - it is once again all about a command economy in the traditions of the defunct Soviet Union. Although I have some sympathy with the idea that British companies have mostly been fattened up for acquisition and flipping, . And after their speeches they hold fatuous votes where they wander off to the division lobbies.&nbsp; What a waste of time. Amendment K was predictably defeated by 385 to 82. Die hard parliamentarians insist that this apparently pointless tradition is an important way for all MPs to randomly encounter and discuss random matters. The fact that it now represents a wanton waste of time and public money is another example of the basic reform required in the philosophy of modernizing democracy. And goodness me, the concept of democracy has been mutilated, misrepresented and mauled just about every where since 2020 and the onset of the hoaxes designed to test the gullibility of the people. The manipulative hard core of those who now control the messaging media are only being moderated by a heroic Elon Musk who bravely sticks to the idea that free speech matters. The USA is deep in the middle of a mockery of gerrymandering, voting irregularities, and downright fantasy gaslighting. and now state commissioned assassination?&nbsp; The EU has always made its interpretation of democracy up as it went along, to suit the purposes of the Bilderberg/WEF agenda, with no hint of irony. But now the UK has fallen - with the ludicrous notion that 30% of the votes should be allowed to control 60% of the HoC. The first job of the new government and its compliant civil service will be to enshrine this state of affairs in such a way that there is no danger of it being undone by the combination of former Conservative voters with the Reform party, to represent the silenced majority.Yes, lobby voting may be traditional, but what an outrageous and wanton waste of time and public money when there are more pressing matters to attend to. Overall, nothing of substance was achieved (as expected) and a number of minor axes were ground - the adjournment debate led by Labour's Tonia Antoniazzi ranted on for 30 minutes about Commercial Sexual Exploitation. A very worthy concern, but clearly Labour's foetus MP, <a data-mce-href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c16jpl6707eo" href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c16jpl6707eo">Sam Carling</a>, was somewhat taken aback by lurid stories of blowjobs and squirmed uncomfortably throughout. I guess even MPs need work experience. Jess Phillips then spent a further 10 minutes explaining the difference between prostitution and commercial sexual exploitation.Young Sam looked like he needed a stiff drink and a talk from matron about the birds and bees. <img id="78db4mketddlyyse6gh" src="https://cdn.durable.co/blocks/33XAOolZpX1NnIA1kDWCHmtx5z3OLRpPYTVRAbMbZ35dEUdvgxW3tTRV4z5xXgrM.jpg" alt="Table decoration of beautiful tasty food on celebration day." title="Table decoration of beautiful tasty food on celebration day." class="object-cover bg-gray-100 " data-corners="default" data-aspect="16:9" data-caption="" data-positionx="undefined" data-positiony="undefined" data-fullwidth="false" data-mce-src="https://cdn.durable.co/blocks/33XAOolZpX1NnIA1kDWCHmtx5z3OLRpPYTVRAbMbZ35dEUdvgxW3tTRV4z5xXgrM.jpg" data-mce-style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: center center;" style="font-family: var(--body-fontFamily); font-size: calc(16px * var(--body-fontSize, 1)); font-style: var(--body-fontStyle, normal); font-weight: var(--body-fontWeight, 400); aspect-ratio: 16 / 9; object-position: center center;"> And then when the Commons clocked off at 8 20pm. Attention switched to the House of Lords where we see a Liberal Democrat Peer holding forth, but not about why LDs have enjoyed more than 80 Lords seats even when their HoC numbers would have barely filled a taxi. The indulgence of the LDs in the Lords needs to be balanced with other parties with larger numbers of votes at the general election.This might take a while... They are very comfortably ensconced for now. <figure id="figure-dkipb47038lyyta5v4" class=""><img id="dkipb47038lyyta5v4" src="https://cdn.durable.co/blocks/2enLXX0YRxFPLzv1Vx1hcuGrDUuQjEV25O8yFGxMuXsrahJzW0p6mqATTnjCMAz2.jpg" alt="Lord Scriven" title="Lord Scriven" class="object-cover bg-gray-100" style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: undefined undefined;" data-corners="default" data-aspect="16:9" data-caption="" data-positionx="undefined" data-positiony="undefined" data-fullwidth="false" data-mce-src="https://cdn.durable.co/blocks/2enLXX0YRxFPLzv1Vx1hcuGrDUuQjEV25O8yFGxMuXsrahJzW0p6mqATTnjCMAz2.jpg" data-mce-style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; object-position: undefined undefined;"></figure>

The Pantomime Parliament

<h3>The new Labour government is every bit is delusional as we feared. The nanny state has never been an answer, especially now .. </h3>Peter Dawe analyses...This government will solve everything! Allegedly... The current UK political narrative is that the new government will solve all its inherited problems. Climate, food security, poverty, migration, every health issue known to man, transport … you name it, It is a government problem, It’s for the government to solve it. WRONG! The government does nothing useful, at best, it seeks to direct the efforts of its population and its corporations (both public and private). ALL THE WORK AND ALL THE INVESTMENT DONE BY YOU! You must make or buy the materials for the “Energy Transition” You must nurse the sick and infirm You must go into the fields and grow our food You must go out and fill the potholes … I go further, It is your duty to balance your outgoing against you income It is your duty to care for your children It is your duty to care for your elderly relatives It is your responsibility to live a healthy lifestyle …And that is only the beginning of a trip into the real world that Labour's legions of ingénues will be discovering at our cost.. A large part of this delusion arises from the way in which the inmates of Westminster are selected by a crazy system that has given the Labour Party the idea that with the support of just one in five of the electorate, they have been mandated to pursue Starmer's holy mission, steeped in the delusional socialist dogma of the failed 1970s. We really do have to rethink the way we choose our politicians, and how we can invoke and engage the enthusiasm and the skills required -and that's what the realdemocracy.uk site is seeking to help bring about.

Starmergeddon beckons...

<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

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An Englishman's home is his tax liability

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