- “Don’t panic about the ‘most vaccine-resistant Covid strain ever’! Experts say Britain’s wall of immunity means none of the current variants pose a threat to U.K.” – The XBB mutant strain – which has been detected in England – has mutations that make it harder for Covid-fighting antibodies to spot, but experts say there’s no cause to panic, reports the Mail.
- “What are EU thinking? European Union approves Covid jabs for babies amid growing fears of winter wave” – The Bloc’s drug watchdog gave the green light for children older than six months to get either Pfizer or Moderna’s jab, the Mail reports.
- “The ACIP Vote Today and What This Means” – Dr. Robert Malone says the U.S. advisory panel voted unanimously 15-0 for the CDC to recommend that children get the COVID-19 “vaccines and boosters”, while the actual vote to add the experimental COVID-19 mRNA injection to the childhood vaccination schedule is on Thursday.
- “Hong Kong spends £3.4bn to lure businesses after Zero-Covid policy cripples economy” – The Telegraph reports on the “top talent pass” which aims to reverse the exodus of foreign nationals.
- “IMF ponders ways to end people’s hesitancy to move away to cash” – Reclaim the Net reports on moves towards a digital-only future. (Watch the IMF video discussing the idea.)
- “The meaning of Jacinda Ardern” – Poppy Coburn in the Critic has seen the future, and it’s “soggy authoritarianism from elite darlings”.
- “NHS plans ‘war rooms’ as staff face their toughest winter in decades amid appointments backlog and fear of Covid resurgence” – ‘Winter resilience plans’ announced in a letter to staff include new 24-hour control centres in every area which will manage demand and capacity by tracking beds and attendances, according to the Mail.
- “Mark it Covid!” – El Gato Malo spots that deaths with cancer and Covid on the death certificate look to be being called “Covid” by the CDC to keep the cancer numbers down.
- “Boston University falsely denies gain-of-function accusations, lamely claims creation of chimeric SARS-2 virus will lead to ‘Targeted therapeutic interventions to help fight against future pandemics’” – Eugyppius calls out the obviously false denials of the GOF researchers who pretend they’re not.
- “When science and civil liberties clash” – Helen Dale at the Freethinker argues that a modern liberal state cannot justify lockdowns – and adds that “supporters of mandatory vaccination who argue ‘my body, my choice’ in other circumstances have now created serious cognitive dissonance for themselves”.
- “Health Officials Dumped Stocks in January 2020, Before Covid Was Declared an Emergency” – Michael Senger highlights a report from the Wall Street Journal which found leading health officials “began offloading stocks at truly unprecedented rates in January 2020 – well before the COVID-19 emergency was declared”.
- “The Macroeconomic Consequences of Lockdowns and the Aftermath” – An economy freighted down with $92 trillion of public and private debt was, is and will remain an accident waiting to happen, argues David Stockman in Brownstone.
- “Agree with Us or Hold your Tongue” – Ramesh Thakur writes for Brownstone that governments, health bureaucrats and drug regulators around the world have egregiously exploited the Covid crisis, and the freedom of doctors to dissent from Government diktat is the latest casualty.
- “The SARS-CoV-2 transmission riddle – Part 9” – Carl Heneghan and Tom Jefferson with the latest instalment of their quest for a robust method of finding the truth about infectious disease transmission.
- “Call for evidence on Net Zero review” – Chris Skidmore MP invites evidence on the Government’s approach to delivery its Net Zero target, as part of an Independent Review of Net Zero – closes October 27th.
- “Typhoon Frequency Has Fallen Since 1950, Contradicting Alarmist Global Warming Claims” – The typhoon trend is just more ‘Inconvenient Truth that the climate alarmists don’t want the public to know, writes Pierre Gosselin at WUWT.
- “Just Stop Oil bankrolled by non-profit funded by oil heiress” – The Telegraph reports that Aileen Getty is a founding member of Climate Emergency Fund, which has handed out more than $4m to activists including Extinction Rebellion.
- “‘It’s the Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati’: Suella Braverman launches savage blast at two men who blocked Dartford Crossing in Just Stop Oil protest” – “It’s the Labour Party, it’s the Lib Dems, it’s the coalition of chaos, it’s the Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati… that we have to thank for the disruption we see on our roads today,” she said, according to the Mail. Somehow I don’t think we’ll be hearing the same from Grant Shapps.
- “HSBC climate change adverts banned by U.K. watchdog” – The regulator said two of the bank’s posters “omitted material information and were therefore misleading” amid complaints of “greenwashing”, reports BBC News.
- “University to take action after report finds founder benefitted from slavery” – Dundee University says it will “decolonise” its curriculum after Mary Ann Baxter’s family wealth is partly traced to “clothing worn by enslaved people”, reports the Telegraph. Oh dear.
- “Toxic masculinity is a harmful myth. Society is in denial about the problems of boys and men” – Richard Reeves argues in Big Think that we are tearing ourselves apart over gender issues, with the result that the problems of boys and men are left untreated.
- “Why Suella matters” – Matt Goodwin on what the departure of Britain’s Home Secretary tells us about British Conservatism.
- “The Met needs to get its house in order” – It is failing to deal with police misconduct – but it is not institutionally racist or sexist, argues Luke Gittos in Spiked.
- “The BBC is beyond saving” – A hundred years since its founding, the Beeb is now a preachy HR department with some TV channels attached, says Gareth Roberts in Spiked.
- “Sorry, Elon, Donald and Ye. Americans by wide margins want social media firms to counter abuse, racism, conspiracy theories, and fake news, says poll that suggests weak demand for absolute free speech platforms” – The Mail reports that “Americans by wide margins want guard rails on their social media platforms and blocks on everything from harassment to abuse, racism, conspiracy theories and fake news”. According to, er, a YouGov poll – not exactly known for reliable outputs or favouring ‘conservative’ causes.
- “We’re now learning just how bad the ‘collateral damage’ is post-pandemic” – Does a tweet from Bill Maher signal a shift in opinion on the U.S. Left?
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Reform just six points off becoming biggest party, says election predictor
The state of British politics:
Reform:
Kemi Badenoch is horrid
Putin is admirable
Send in the Royal Navy
Labour Party:
Mission driven government: ‘Missions are designed to set bold visions for change, inspiring collaboration across the system and society to break down silos and work towards a common goal. They represent the ultimate purpose of the government, and the story it aims to tell by the end of the parliament.’ Eh?
Conservative Party:
Reform are cheating. Systemic reform is required. ‘Watch this space.’
Liberal Democrats: Whatever they didn’t say.
Green Party: Don’t light fires, ever
We are comprehensively fecked.
Starmer’s Britain is like North Korea if it was run by David Brent
Today’s ‘Let’s test the water’ popular poll. Which style of management is better?
Upvote:
Downvote:
1. Clarify vision and direction • Define the ambition and priority outcomes of each mission before the spending review: either by clarifying, building on or restating the specific goals in the manifesto. • Deliver some immediate, short-term confidence building measures – including Labour’s ‘First Steps’: the missions are a political project, and must start to make a tangible difference to peoples’ lives quickly. Unless they maintain the confidence of the public they will fail.
2. Establish strong political leadership • Appoint a lead cabinet minister for missions at the centre of government: providing the direction and challenge across government. • Appoint a lead secretary of state for each mission: with clear accountability for who is responsible for overseeing delivery. • Establish a mission leadership group for each mission: responsible for developing and enacting a shared strategy. • Create a Mission Strategy Board to oversee and broker between missions: and to act as the ultimate decision making forum for trade-offs within and between missions.
3. Develop a strategy – underpinned by the money needed to deliver • Undertake a series of ‘where are we now?’ reviews: to build the evidence base and set the baseline for where key priorities are starting from. • Develop five Mission Strategies: honing and iterating the approach. • Reform the spending review to budget for missions: putting cash behind the missions by funding a coherent strategy, not a series of disconnected initiatives.
4. Break down barriers to cross-government work • Build cross-cutting Mission Strategy Teams: to support each mission leadership group and owning the shared strategy. • Identify and dismantle barriers to working between departments: making it easier to work together on shared problems or priorities. • Reflect the missions in devolution deals, single settlements and intergovernmental relations: incentivising a shared approach between layers of government.
5. Open up more to partnership with the private sector, civil society and wider public sector • Create opportunities for the private sector and civil society to contribute to mission development: ensuring relevant leaders bring in delivery expertise and challenge for the government • Use a range of deliberative engagement methods to involve citizens early: supporting departments to try different approaches • Use red teams to test plans: facilitating learning and iterating on mission plans • Establish expert adviser networks: amplifying outside expertise • Introduce large-scale secondment programmes in each mission: building multidisciplinary teams across departments.
“Net Zero fines ‘set to drive up price of petrol cars’”
…All hail to the the Kommissars’ 5-year plan to outlaw private motoring and dismantle the auto industry. Just think how the Politburo Teslas will have the M25 all for themselves, while working parties of proles slave away emptying gullies and filling in potholes with their bare hands to the tune of the Internationale booming out from the PA system sponsored by Alphabet under license from Microsoft. Drones funded by Lords Alli, Gates and Schwab to provide air supremacy.
Meanwhile God-speed to Politburo private jets flying on aviation gasoline adulterated with cooking oil cast-offs.
The People’s flag is deepest rainbow.
Unfortunately, in the short term at least, it’s a win-win for the government. They put up the price of petrol cars, they slap extra taxes on flying, but people still pay. Because cars are so useful, because foreign holidays are so nice. The crunch will come when/if they actually follow through and make these things illegal. I wonder if they have actually made any plans for what happens then? (beyond their permanently relocating to the holiday home in Tuscany, that doesn’t count as a ‘plan’).
“Asylum seekers ‘drain money from Dutch state for generations’”
Pity the poor Dutch… they should take a leaf out of our book, where every immigrant adds immeasurably to the richness and culture of our nation, in so many ways, not least financially.
Or, so we’re told…
Well “diversity is our strength.” Apparently.
Whoever coined the phrase was being quite cute, the “our” being the establishment. “Our” was never intended to represent the masses but they attempted to con us this was so and quite successfully I believe.
The latest statement by the Dutch government is to cap the population at 20 million by 2030…. Current population 18.3. With current housing shortage, health care crisis, etc. etc….What could possibly go wrong?
“Why Britain could face ‘Babygeddon’: Experts’ warning over birth rates” – Britain is running out of babies, and this is predicted to lead to catastrophes, including the collapse of the NHS and pension system, and the atrophy of education, writes Christopher Stevens in the Mail.
The ‘problem’ is not so much a lack of babies, even though 2020 was a fairly slow year for the UK (most babies born in 2020 would have been conceived in 2019), 2002 and 1977 were ‘worse’. It’s also not that many more are dying.
It’s also not that we’ve got too few births per female of child-bearing age. The birth rate was lower in 2002 and nearly as low in 1977.
The ‘problem’ is that we’re living longer and spending longer in economically unproductive retirement. Society won’t accept that death is naturally inevitable. For example, if elderly people suffer heart attacks why in God’s name do we try to resuscitate? If I go through the pain and fear of dying why revive me and make me do it again later?
Of course this is easy to say when I’m not in the heat of the moment. I believe it was Bob Hope who overheard someone ask ‘Who wants to live to be 100?’. He replied ‘Someone who’s 99’.
The problem is partly that most of those that are born are called mohammed and will be brought up to hate Britain, britishness and the British.
If the working-age population is not generating wealth then it can’t be taken in taxes and used to look after the elderly. People on benefits who could be working and generating wealth are most of the problem. Also elderly folk who did not prepare for their retirement by building up capital – but it’s too late to fix that one – we were told the lie ‘don’t worry, the state will provide’, but it can’t unless there’s new wealth to tax.
Apparently, over 50% of the population are net receivers of money from the exchequer, in immigrant communities it’s even worse? Take out receipts from ‘London’ and we quickly slide down the wealth table, from fifth richest in the world to third world status. Unless they’re all bright-eyed, bushy-tailed entrepreneurs coming to build companies that will add significantly to the economy (which seems unlikely on current evidence) why would you want more? And, even if they were all medics, come to save the NHS, their contribution to the balance of payments is negligible, at best, since their pay comes from the public purse anyway…
My father worked until over 80 and I did until 70 or 73 depending how you judge it. He started at about 6 and I was working all the time not at school from 10.
after age 50 I found it difficult to get job interviews. My wife was thwarted by a Riyal Society that demanded a degree for an admin job she was ideal for – clearly their way of legalised age discrimination, perhaps also to filter out non lefties.
We need a better arrangement for employers and workers so work changes can be made later in life without the difficulties presented by employment law.
My dad worked until he was 89 and basically no longer able to work for health reasons. I think it kept him in good shape physically, mentally and emotionally. He “retired” at the “normal” retirement age and did part time jobs for the next 25 years. It worked for him. I don’t know what I will do – I have no firm plans other than to keep working for as long as I find it helpful. I am lucky in that I can work part time if I want to, which I have started doing. We have quite a few staff working part time – some seniors and others who have made a lifestyle choice for other reasons. It works for us – and we want to keep good people.
This always mystifies me…
First of all, why is it apparently such a shock that people born in the baby boom 60-80 years ago are just now reaching their 60s and 80s? If only there had been some way to know, so that we might have planned for it. A census every decade, or something, perhaps?
And then again, those in their 60s and 89s will be dead soon, mostly in the next 20 years, or sooner with a decent cold snap… releasing all that money they’re hoarding.
So, why do we need to relentlessly add to the population? Even yeast knows perpetual growth is not sustainable.
We seemed to do perfectly well with the population we had 50 years ago. Indeed going even further back, in Victorian era, with a population of just 18 million we conquered and held territory across the globe…
Why should such a piffling amount of snow make the news headlines? Its winter ffs!
I couldn’t agree more Dinger. Manchester Airport is shut apparently and I doubt there is more than a dust covering at Ringway. I suppose the fear factor has to be invoked at any and every opportunity.
Absolute Bollox.
Ah, well, you see, we weren’t expecting it because global boiling.