- “Voters rejected Ulez – and it could spell the end of Net Zero policies” – Starmer and Sunak will be asking themselves: are Britons willing to vote for short-term financial pain for long-term benefit to the climate, says Ben Riley-Smith in the Telegraph.
- “The numbers that show Ulez is an electoral nightmare” – The Uxbridge by-election proves the policy is Kryptonite at the ballot box, says the Telegraph.
- “This must be the end of Rishi Sunak’s green obsession” – If you threaten people’s livelihoods and what they regard as fundamental rights to mobility and self-reliance, they will get rid of you, writes Janet Daley in the Telegraph.
- “Sadiq Khan must ‘reflect’ on Ulez, Starmer says after Uxbridge loss” – Sir Keir Starmer has said Sadiq Khan needs to “reflect” on his plan to extend London’s ultra-low emission zone as senior shadow cabinet ministers blamed, reports the Times. (That’s Ed Miliband, btw.)
- “Keir Starmer vows to ‘reflect’ on Ulez after losing Boris Johnson’s former seat” – Labour leader says there is “no denying” the green traffic scheme was the reason his party lost in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, reports the Telegraph.
- “It’s Ulez now, but heat pumps are the next electoral disaster” – The Uxbridge revolt against Sadiq Khan’s green madness has set out a blueprint for a Conservative resurgence, writes Sam Ashworth-Hayes in the Telegraph.
- “Why your electric car is nowhere near as green as you think” – An electric car is only as clean as the electricity used to charge it, says Ross Clark in the Times.
- “The heat is getting to everyone’s head” – Shoddy reporting and the sinister cherry-picking of data on climate change will not help us save the planet, writes Alex Starling in Reaction.
- “Texas is boiling – and booming. Where is the climate catastrophe?” – Global warming is a huge problem, but adaptation and tech give us the tools to handle extreme weather, according to Matt Ridley in the Telegraph.
- “Just Stop Oil zealots are confronted by mothers” – Just Stop Oil yesterday morning shrugged off public hostilities to step out in London – for yet another motorist-baiting rush hour slow march, reports the Mail. But they met their match in a group of young mums.
- “I’m afraid NatWest boss may have to go” – Boris Johnson says in his column in the Mail that if NatWest boss Alison Rose really did tell the BBC’s Simon Jack that Nigel Farage had been de-banked because he was too poor to bank at Coutts she must resign.
- “BBC reporter fails to apologise for story about Nigel Farage’s Coutts bank account closure” – Simon Jack admitted the story “should have been clearer” that the information was passed on to him from a source and not an indisputable fact, reports the Telegraph. But he stops short of apologising.
- “Coutts’s ‘inclusive’ attack on Nigel Farage is both sinister and absurd” – According to its corporate bumf, Coutts claims to be “helping create a more inclusive culture”. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to include offering its services to individuals whose political views differ from those of its directors, writes Ross Clark in CapEx.
- “Ex-City trader ‘has waited 15 months to learn why Coutts account was shut’” – Nigel Farage claims the Financial Ombudsman Service has yet to respond to a friend who was turned away without explanation, reports the Telegraph.
- “Humiliation for Coutts as they grovel to Farage” – Gerald Ratner, eat your heart out. The decision by Coutts to ‘de-bank’ Nigel Farage over reputational concerns and then brief the BBC that it was due to financial requirements will go down as one of the worst corporate own goals in recent history, writes Steerpike in the Spectator.
- “Coutts updated its client rules after George Floyd murder” – A new anti-discrimination clause was added to Coutts’s terms and conditions in the wake of the BLM protests at the behest of Alison Rose, reports the Times.
- “‘Anti-discrimination’ culture is ushering in a new totalitarianism” – Equity, diversity and inclusion is the mantra of the new totalitarian managerial class, writes Melanie Phillips in the Times.
- “How Coutts destroyed capitalism” – Nigel Farage’s snub is a cautionary tale, according Peter Ormerod in UnHerd.
- “Coutts and the rise of private tyranny” – Farage’s de-banking proves that private tyranny is every bit as menacing as state tyranny, writes Sohrab Ahmari in UnHerd.
- “Spending Bill proposals include provisions to limit elements of the censorship-industrial complex” – According to Reclaim The Net, moves are afoot to defund the secretive agencies that spy on dissenters on social media and try to get their posts suppressed.
- “Zelensky sacks U.K. ambassador for rebuking him over ‘Amazon’ row” – Vadym Prystaiko, the Ukraine’s Ambassador to the U.K., criticised Zelensky over his ‘sarcasm’ in response to Ben Wallace suggesting Kyiv should show more gratitude and has been fired as consequence, according to the Telegraph.
- “Ukraine’s counter-offensive is failing, with no easy fixes” – Kyiv complains that it doesn’t have air power, but that is not the real source of its recent struggles, says Richard Kemp in the Telegraph. The problem is, the Russians are too well dug in.
- “Russell Brand to host Ron DeSantis for ‘deep dive’ interview” – Maverick podcaster to quiz the Florida governor as he attempts to revive his faltering presidential campaign, reports the Telegraph.
- “Elites love open borders, because lawless immigration doesn’t hit them” – In our day there are few luxury beliefs more glaring than encouraging, and being in favour of, mass illegal migration, writes Douglas Murray in the New York Post.
- “FBI told Twitter Hunter Biden laptop was real on day of Post scoop, official says” – “Somebody from Twitter essentially asked whether the laptop was real. And one of the FBI folks who was on the call did confirm that, ‘yes, it was’,” reports the New York Post.
- “The New York Times has lost its mind. And by mind, I mean principles and understanding of the First Amendment” – Alex Berenson laments the decline of his former employer.
- “Gender-critical editor dropped by agency over ‘five o’clock shadow’ tweet” – Sibyl Ruth accuses Cornerstones, a literary agency, of pushing her out after she queried the idea that someone with stubble can be a woman, writes Craig Simpson in the Telegraph. Sybil is a member of the Free Speech Union, which is helping her fight her case. Donate to Sybil’s fundraiser here.
- “By stealth” – Ann Sinnott in the Critic explains how the trans lobby took over the British establishment.
- “Head of Stonewall squirms under pressure from Beth Rigby” – Watch the head of Stonewall struggle to respond to some gentle questioning from Beth Rigby on Sky News about why it’s unfair for transwomen to compete against biological women.
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Hmm. When did that happen before… let me think… something about a virus and a relentless media assault that terrorised the public into wildly exaggerated, irrational fear and mandated self harming policies…
I wonder now that this is happening AGAIN, will Toby Young finally abandon the cock up camp? Two identical cock ups that unfold all around the globe at the same time, what are the odds of that?
I think you might have something there, Stewart…
It’s actually quite chilly here in the south-west this morning. I feel no heatwaves! ESA (European Space Agency – the space is the empty gap between their ears) started using Land Surface Temperatures not air temperatures, usually measured 2 metres above the ground. This gives a completely different set of temperature readings way above previous ones. They’re making it up.
I knew it had to be fakery of some sort. The timing was just too convenient.
I’m sat here watching the rain, it is nearly ten degrees below the July average and has been all week. I’m wondering where the heatwave is?
You are misunderstanding and misrepresenting Toby’s position. He’s not saying there is no collusion between people to mislead and deceive the public for their own common interests, for example, when they see an opportunity to make a lot of money. They may mislead and deceive themselves and come to believe what they think is in their own selfish interests to believe. That happens and has always happened everywhere.
But there are no masterminds behind the scenes secretly planning and controlling everything from the start, so brilliantly secretly that there has never been a whistle-blower. They’re not that smart. In fact they’re bloody stupid, as evidenced by all the crazy things they do and believe.
Well, I probably am a bit guilty of caricaturing Toby Young’s position, although he himself simplifies it as cock up vs conspiracy all the time in London Calling.
And that of course caricatures the opposing view. Few claim there is a global council masterminding everything. I certainly don’t.
I suppose its a question of degrees
There is however a Bank for International Settlements, a UN, a WHO, NATO, CRF, Trilateral Commission, IMF…oh and that WEF thingy etc many of whom seem to have interchangeable members. And there is an Agenda 2030, plans for a pandemic treaty, CBDCs and digital IDs across the world. Is it really all just for our benefit by people who have no other ulterior motives? Do these supranational unelected bodies get together at their summits and G7s, G20s etc and discuss ways to facilitate greater freedom, less surveillance, and so on? is there no hidden hand involved in flooding Europe and the US with illegal immigrants? Or in promoting one side of the climate debate? Or one side of the health debate? To me, it smells like a dead rat. It may not be of the Blofeld vs Bond variety but it is altogether more subtle, more patient….it may not be one global council but many, all aligned with a common purpose. And no, GKIG, there have been many whistleblowers but it’s difficult to blow your whistle and be heard when you haven’t got a media platform and no one would believe you anyway.
No-one would believe you, but it’s very easy to produce incriminating emails, if they exist, and it’s very easy to record conversations, with an iPhone for example.
I agree it’s a question of degrees, and I’m glad to hear you don’t claim there is a global council masterminding everything, but some people appear to be claiming just that.
When people use the word ‘conspiracy’, or even just hint that there is some kind of ‘conspiracy’, it’s a very ill-defined term, and it’s hard to know exactly what they mean, and it’s rarely ever clarified.
There are an awful lot of people who have the same interest in things being something different to how they have been. They went to the same schools, universities, they play at the same golf clubs and tennis clubs and their children go to the same schools. You don’t need a membership card and weekly meetings. They know what’s good for them, and they are pushing very hard to get it.
When I was a teenager I used to exercise caution. Didn’t want a mobile phone near my head, when they were new out I avoided them. Didn’t eat beef for a really long time, originally due to mad cow, then fell out of the habit. As I eat a steak now I’m reminded of my triple vaxed sister making fun of me for quitting cow many times over the years.
“Ukraine’s counter-offensive is failing, with no easy fixes”
This article begs a lot of questions and in that way I guess that is it’s objective? The western MSM have built up expectations of a result where Russia is humiliated by NATO/USA/Ukraine but that result is looking increasingly unlikely. Unless USA/NATO want to ramp this up to WW3? then they need to eat humble pie and call for talks with Russia. Any such talks would now likely concede more than would have been the case if Ukraine had accepted the original deal they negotiated with Russia and which Boris Johnson flew to Kiev to torpedo.
As it is I can only imagine that TPTB in NATO/USA are now racking their brains to find a strategy for managing a way out of all this that is less disastrous than their exit from Afghanistan. However all this plays out? I see that the geopolitical world situation will be significantly different.
The alternatives are not WWIII or capitulation. That was the sort of discussion in 1939/40. We and Ukraine just have to “keep buggering on”.
The USA are the main suppliers of arms and money to Ukraine, if they stop sending them the war would end. For the USA to be convinced to send more arms and money it needs to see a breakthrough but as this article points out this seems increasingly unlikely. If they stop now and do a deal with Russia then something can be salvaged. If the USA stopped sending money and arms but did nothing then I think Russia would be obliged to step in to ensure Western Ukraine does become the NATO free, neutral buffer state that they were seeking.
There’s no we is there?
That’s the silly and vile Western propaganda..to make people accept the hundreds of thousands of deaths of poor bloody Ukrainians…as if ‘we’ are in it together….we are NOT….it’s flag waving nonsense…. We aren’t saving democracy..or any of the other utter boll**ks they spout either…
The ordinary Ukrainian soldier is being sacrificed for American hegemony, and to weaken Russia…they bloody talk about it all the time!!
…the poor buggers are just more victims for the US military-industrial complex and it looks as though they’ll actually get to ‘the last Ukrainian’…..
The Political elites..couldn’t give a monkey’s…..
Washington Post 18th July……”The West feels gloomy about Ukraine. Here’s why it shouldn’t.”
……”Meanwhile, for the United States and its NATO allies, these 18 months of war have been a strategic windfall, at relatively low cost (other than for the Ukrainians).”
Mother fu****s…..
Well done Mrs Gums. I haven’t been on here today and I initially thought I was in the wrong place given the nonsense already posted and poor Aethelred trying his lonely best.
“Mother fu****s…..” Indeed.
The Americans don’t want it to end, and they own Zelensky. It’s a money laundering exercise to funnel money back the political crime families in Washington, or straight to the arms companies. And they think they can just keep printing to fund it, i.e. diluting the populace’s money. Big Pharma had the trough largely to itself, so Big Ammo said, “Time we got some of this bonanza.” Like the vaccines, Ukraine is a way to pour the wealth of the Western middle class down the toilet. Never forget: “You will own nothing.” And you’ll be happy if you believed it was to save Ukraine and save us from Covid and save us from global warming.
“Starmer and Sunak will be asking themselves: are Britons willing to vote for short-term financial pain for long-term benefit to the climate, says Ben Riley-Smith in the Telegraph.”
What long-term benefit?
And the idea we could benefit the climate is just as weak-minded and arrogant as the idea we could harm the climate.
That the leadership of this country, this fine country, is down to a choice between these two dangerous and treasonous clowns is horrifying. They will continue to push the agenda along no matter what climate science is presented. Sometimes it feels as if I’m in a huge herd of bison heading for a cliff. I can’t stop the herd even though I know the cliff is there and I can’t get out of the stampede because of the momentum.
No amount of money or control will make one jot of difference to the climate. The climate will happily do what it has done since there was a climate regardless of anything human beings can do. The idea that we could make a difference is akin to the effect of a single sardine (forgive the liberal use of metaphors today!) trying to turn a supertanker. It is a god complex. All this ‘we must keep to 1.5% or else’ rhetoric is just alarmism based on modelling. Evidence shows we have survived much hotter periods – even though it is actually becoming colder. The heatwaves in Europe are nothing to do with climate, they are anomalies, I believe, and more to do with El Nino/sunspot activity. I could be wrong on this but it isn’t climate.
This fine country? Per contra: most people still watch or read the BBC.
We have what we deserve. If people haven’t turned it off because of the deceit, filth, blasphemy, bigotry, slander and hate-mongering, then, as a nation, we have no right to complain about anything the WEF has in store for us.
What short-term financial pain?
Net zero is going to damage many generations to come.
Good point. It’s a false binary at both ends.
“Starmer and Sunak will be asking themselves: are Britons willing to vote for
short-termlong-term financialpainruin forlong-termongoing gaslighting aboutbenefit tothe climate, says Ben Riley-Smith in the Telegraph.”There, fixed it for you Ben.
““Elites love open borders, because lawless immigration doesn’t hit them””
True, but it’s worse than that. I spent an hour last night trying to persuade three bien-pensant liberals that we need to close the borders. They are not completely stupid in that they recognise the huge problems mass immigration (legal and illegal) is causing. But I kept getting “ah but who would pick the fruit” and “I feel sorry for those people on boats” and finally and most tellingly “well I don’t know what the solution is but I don’t think the answer is closing the border”. They are so in love with the idea of a happy-clappy world where we share our good fortune and lovely countries with people from crap places that they cannot bring themselves to admit that it’s only leading one way – the destruction of our own civilisation. The anti-racism crowd have done their work and done it well.
The liberal mind-set is so afraid of being perceived as racist or hostile, they would rather give their country away. Surely those ‘people on boats’ were safe as soon as they stood on European soil? So why the long and costly trek to the northern French coast and the uncomfortable crossing? The narrative would have you believe that they have just escaped some bombing. It’s clear that the benefits they get, which we pay for, are what it’s about. I rarely see or hear of refugees who are elderly or mothers and young children. It’s always these men.
Apparently in Italy (it was Italians I was talking to) the people on the boats are women and children. I’m sceptical and imagine it’s cherry picked propaganda images from the TV that have convinced them of this – whenever I have been to Italy the noticeable foreigners have mainly been the usual young men.
But beyond that I think they simply cannot believe that these people will keep coming until we are swamped and our culture is gone – they somehow think that either it will stop because suddenly Africa will become as rich and well governed as we are (yes, I know, thinking of us as well governed is a laugh) or things will be fine because hundreds of millions of foreigners will magically become like us and not like the countries they have come from. Either way this will happen due to a combination of our benign influence, generosity etc and the wonderfulness of human beings everywhere, who are all equal.
The idea that places like Africa will never catch up with Europe, and that the best thing we could do is be self sufficient and defend our culture and our borders, is unpleasant for people to contemplate.
According to Springwatch the real climate refugee problem is happening to bee-eaters.
“The Uxbridge revolt against Sadiq Khan’s green madness has set out a blueprint for a Conservative resurgence, writes Sam Ashworth-Hayes in the Telegraph.”
FFS we knew the blueprint already. It will either not be followed because Sunak doesn’t care if he wins or loses the next election, because being PM of the UK isn’t the pinnacle of his ambitions, or it will be followed and ditched in the unlikely event the Tories win. How thick can these Telegraph journalists be?
“Boris Johnson says in his column in the Mail that if NatWest boss Alison Rose really did tell the BBC’s Simon Jack that Nigel Farage had been de-banked because he was too poor to bank at Coutts she must resign.”
Er, OK, but presiding over a woke culture where people are debanked for political reasons isn’t a reason for resignation?
Also I do wish DS would not make unnecessary reference to Alexander Johnson. He is no longer important or relevant and I would rather not see or hear his name or be reminded of that despicable man.
Today’s politicians have, they believe, one job: to get re-elected.
They can see how the voter reacts to nut zero now when it directly affects that voter in the pocket.
The Conservatives should have been annihilated in Uxbridge, and they were elsewhere.
The expensive lunacy of ULEZ, nut zero, directly affecting the voters of Uxbridge as it does, saved them.
It could not be more plain if the almighty had written it on a tablet.
If the Conservative party cannot comprehend that one simple fact that shouts at them, stares them in the face, then, as the entire country has finally realised, with the splendid exception of the good burghers of Uxbridge, even the running of a whelk stall is clearly beyond them.
Sunak is surely not that stupid. He either truly believes in this green crap or his audience is not the electorate but his next employers.
I suspect he does, or did, believe in it.
I also believe that he is bright and capable, with backbone.
He has a great opportunity to get some good stuff through parliament next year.
And he has nothing to lose.
But I am, unfortunately, often hopelessly wrong…..
I’m not a betting man but I will happily offer to bung a fiver to a charity of your choice if he does the right thing in the next year
“But I am, unfortunately, often hopelessly wrong…..”
Nail on the head.
“Head of Stonewall squirms under pressure from Beth Rigby”. Beth Rigby cancelled for being a hateful, transphobe bigot in 3,2,1…
Rigby was done for breaching covid rules but hadn’t she been chirping before then about how we should all follow the rules etc. I seem to remember she was pretty covidian.
“are Britons willing to vote for short-term financial pain for long-term benefit to the climate, ”
I suggest slipping in the word “no” in front of “long-term benefit”
Just WTF does “benefit to the climate” mean? Since when did “the climate” develop a physiology such that it could benefit from me switching off a light bulb.
A journalist in name only – Pr#ck.
“Amazing moment during the @BethRigby i/v with Stonewall’s chair of trustees
when he’s asked to look at a photograph”
That prat wants blind folding, leading out into a court yard and…you can guess the rest
“An electric car is only as clean as the electricity used to charge it, says Ross Clark in the Times.”
Cobblers! Evs are not green! At all!
Petrol and diesel cars do not, and never have, required mass mining of cobalt and lithium by little children in a situation of near slave labour in central Africa!
Millions of gallons of wasted water in desert settings!
Millions and millions of tons of extra mineral extraction, world wide, at the expense of the local people and the environment!
Massive tax payer subsidies to flog an extremely dead horse!
“Only as clean as the electric they use”
Boll@♤ks!
More people than ever are going to the Med for a holiday!
You would have thought the burnt pizza blackened heat maps of death would have put them off!
“Zelensky sacks U.K. ambassador for rebuking him over ‘Amazon’ row”
Super comic hero “Captain Ukraine man
”
Seams his crown has slipped a little!
Pride comes before a fall