The U.K.’s Members of Parliament returned from their summer holidays last week to give the final nod to the Energy Bill 2023. It is a leviathan piece of legislation in every sense of the word. It is 427 pages long. It has 15 parts and 330 separate provisions (many of which have lots of sub-provisions), not to mention another supplementary 22 schedules. Its full title alone consists of 130 words. It covers everything from the licensing of carbon dioxide storage to hydrogen grid trials to offshore energy production. And in every aspect it aggrandises the power of the State and gives sweeping executive authority to Government ministers. As law-making, it is a travesty. As policy, it is inexcusable. As an illustration of the indefensible way in which Western societies are coming to be governed, however, it is exemplary.
Explaining the substantive content of the Bill in full would take a long time, and it is not my intention to do that here. (There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the complexity of the Act and its consequent opacity to the lay reader and sheer unwieldiness for the commentator is deliberate. But that’s a subject for another post.)
Instead I wish to highlight some key features, and explicate what the Bill tells us about how we are currently governed and are likely to be governed in the future. I will also elucidate the negative consequences of this governing style. To achieve this, I’m afraid that I will have to touch upon a subject which even most legal philosophers think of as arid and sterile, namely the morality of law. But before doing this, let’s back up and sketch out the changing nature of law in modernity.
From Rules to Regulation
Once upon a time, law could be thought of as primarily consisting of rules that are applied to facts. Bob intends to kill, and kills, Graham; he has committed murder. Sarah’s contract with Chris was entered into on the basis of a misrepresentation, and therefore the contract can be rescinded. Etcetera. This is how laypeople still tend to think of law, and it is how law students are still generally taught: ‘thinking like a lawyer’ means being able to approach a set of facts concerning a dispute, and apply legal rules to determine the likely legal outcome.
Rules, of course, still exist, are still created, and are still applied. But the fashion, really ever since the birth of the administrative state in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, has been to deploy law in a more regulatory way. Legislatures legislate, not primarily to make rules for ordinary people to follow, but to delegate power to administrative agencies or technical experts (or politicians advised by such agencies and experts) to make ad hoc, flexible rulings; to issue guidance and recommendations; to publish codes of conduct; to give and revoke licences; and so on as and when they see fit – often with a very wide discretion.
Roger Brownsword, an eminent legal scholar, gives us a useful shorthand for understanding this change, describing it as the transition from “Law 1.0” to “Law 2.0”. It represents, in essence, a move away from law understood chiefly as comprising rules per se, to law understood as policy. Legislation is not created simply to order the conduct of otherwise free citizens. It is created in order to give effect to governmental purposes. It is used not to make clear rules, but to delegate the authority necessary to effect desired changes of some kind within the economy or society, usually to the state’s ever-growing administrative bureaucracy (but also to private companies).
This is a plausible way of describing the history of legal developments over the past century and a half or so. And it has been frequently observed by people concerned with such matters that modern governance is a matter of – as Foucault put it – “tactics rather than laws”:
[Modern governance] is not a matter of imposing law on men, but of the disposition of things, that is to say, employing tactics rather than laws… I think this marks an important break… the end of government [is] to be sought in the perfection, maximisation or intensification of the processes it directs, and the instruments of government will become diverse tactics rather than laws.
The medieval concept of the sovereign as the upholder of the law (and, indeed, of good governance itself as being a matter simply of upholding the law), has thus gradually eroded over the course of modernity such that we are in the position in which we now find ourselves, with law simply being a tool to help the state manage society. It is not that laws are no longer made – legislation is still enacted and enforced – it is just that the point of legislation is no longer merely to make rules but to achieve purposes. And this very frequently means that legislation essentially delegates executive power to technicians, managers and what are inevitably referred to as ‘stakeholders’.
The Energy Bill 2023 is in many respects an example par excellence of the ‘Law 2.0’ mode of governance. To take one example, Part 5 of the Bill will when enacted create something called the Independent System Operator and Planner, a legal person (“likely a company“), which will do all sorts of vaguely-defined but important things, like “co-ordinating and directing the flow of electricity onto and over transmission systems”, “carrying out strategic planning and forecasting in connection with… the conveyance or supply of electricity [and] the conveyance and supply of gas”, “providing advice or information” to Government ministers, and so on. And the Bill also mandates that it shall do these things in view of three requirements: to achieve Net Zero, to secure energy supply, and to promote economy and efficiency. In other words, the Bill creates an independent entity (“likely a company”, remember, meaning it will have limited liability) with sweeping powers and wide discretion to regulate electricity and gas supplies as it sees fit in line with certain objectives.
The Emergence of Law 3.0
You will be with me so far. And if this kind of thing was all that the Energy Bill 2023 did, it would not be particularly noteworthy. It would simply be another depressing example of the way in which decisions of the most profound political importance are nowadays determined not by our elected legislatures, but by a penumbra of technical ‘experts’ and managers, acting either directly (through agencies and regulatory bodies) or through ‘advising’ Government ministers who then issue rules accordingly.
But this is not all that the Energy Bill 2023 does, and here we come to a fresher development in the relationship between law and the state. Importantly, Brownsword has recently been suggesting that we are rapidly advancing into the next iteration of law – Law 3.0 – in which law becomes essentially self-executing through technology and, indeed, the very exercise of subjecting human conduct to rules becomes subsumed by technological management. Here, the creation of rules itself will become seen as archaic, with technology providing us with better – more efficient, more rational, more effective – forms of justice than those available to the flawed system of law which we currently respect. The end result (the apotheosis of Law 3.0, as it were), will be the merging of technology with law, such that the requirement for rules to exist will disappear and human conduct will be more or less entirely managed by technology.
The example Brownsword uses – and it is an example used almost everywhere in the literature on this topic – is that of golf carts. We are invited to imagine the following scenario: a golf club buys in a new fleet of golf carts for members to use. But members keep driving them on the greens. The golf club could make it a rule for members not to drive on the greens, but, of course, there is no guarantee that such a rule would be complied with. Would it not be better, those referring to this scenario typically suggest, if there could be a technological solution instead? Would it not be better if the golf club just bought golf carts which, through the awesome power of digital tech, automatically stop working if they are about to go on the greens? Would that not be more efficient, and would it not achieve a more perfect result than simply making a rule?
The golf cart example is often invoked, one suspects, because it seems so benign. Who could object, the implication seems to be, to such a neat solution? Nobody would be harmed by golf carts which simply can’t be driven onto the greens. And everybody would benefit because there would be 100% achievement of the desired end. What would be the problem with this?
As is so often the case when blithe, abstract reasoning of this kind meets the real world, however, and we start to think about the implications in detail, the idea of law’s final union with technological management is revealed to be a genuinely terrifying prospect. This is because it will have two inevitable sets of consequences.
From Golf Carts to Energy Smart Appliances
The first set of consequences is bad enough, and will be obvious to anybody who has been paying attention. We already inhabit a scenario in which legislatures chiefly govern by authorising administrative agencies, regulative bodies, quangos, licensing authorities and so on to issue decrees and edicts as they see fit or to advise Government ministers to do likewise. Now imagine that said administrative agencies, etc., can make such decrees and edicts self-executing through technology, thus rendering non-compliance not simply illegal but impossible.
The tyrannical implications of such a mode of governance are so obvious that it really ought to go without saying. Golf carts are one thing, but given that our future seems to be populated almost exclusively by ‘internet of things’-connected ‘smart’ artefacts (fridges, cars, mobile phones, TVs, watches, even doors), and given the apparent lack of any principled limit on the purview of government in modernity, things begin to look increasingly dystopian when the implications of Law 3.0 are properly thought through.
And sure enough, sections of the Energy Bill 2023 give one pause when considered in the light of all this discussion about the union of technological management and law. Consider, for example, Part 9 of the Bill, which allows the Secretary of State to make regulations about something called “energy smart appliances and load control” (with this type of regulation being referred to as an “energy smart regulation”).
What is an “energy smart appliance”? Well, it’s “an appliance which is capable of adjusting the immediate or future flow of electricity into or out of itself or another appliance in response to a load control signal” (clause 234 (2)). What’s a “load control signal”? It means “a digital communication sent via a relevant electronic communications network to an energy smart appliance for the purpose of causing or otherwise facilitating such an adjustment [i.e. to the immediate or future flow of electricity]” (clause 234 (4)).
What does this Part of the Act therefore seem to entail? Well, without going into vast detail, it seems to empower the Secretary of State to make regulations concerning the sending of load control signals to energy smart appliances (which do things like “refrigeration”, “cleaning tableware”, “washing or drying textiles”, and “heating”) in order to adjust the flow of electricity to them, and to control who has a licence to send such signals. Yes, if you’re keeping up: this appears to create the legal infrastructure to permit the Secretary of State (advised, of course, by the ‘experts’) to issue regulations concerning the flow of electricity into fridges, dishwashers, washing machines, and so on, and to delegate the issuing of load control signals themselves to approved licensees – presumably utility companies.
The explanatory notes to the Bill suggest this will be done to “help consumers save money on their energy bills” by “shift[ing] electricity usage to times when it is beneficial for the energy system” and thus “smart[ly] and flexib[ly]… control consumption”. Sceptics may wonder if this is the only reason why it will be done – and will also have their eyes unavoidably drawn to clause 237 (5) of the Bill, which will “allow enforcement authorities to impose requirements by written notice on persons to… make appliances compliant with energy smart regulations” (i.e., to ensure that their dishwashers, washing machines, etc. can receive load control signals). These sceptics may, if they are capable of parsing modern Parliamentary drafting, also have their eyes drawn to to clause 235 (4) (c) and clause 236 (3) of the Bill, which seem to give the Secretary of State the power to ban the sale of non-smart appliances.
Why would the Secretary of State need to ban the sale of non-smart appliances if their only purpose was to “help consumers save money on their energy bills”? Why would he or she need to require people to make sure their appliances are “energy smart”? I won’t insult your intelligence by spelling it out, but I don’t think “helping consumers save money on their energy bills” is the end of the story.
Setting aside the substance of the Bill itself, what I wish to emphasise here is its character. If Parliament wished to legislate in order to control energy consumption through clear rules (“each household may only use X number of kWH of electricity per day”) that might be authoritarian, but at least it would be clear – and at least it would then be subject to open debate. But that would be to govern through the creation of quaint old Law 1.0. We’re now in the era of Law 3.0, and we don’t even see rules of general application appearing at all. Instead we see legislation delegating authority to a Government minister to appoint licensees to issue “load control signals” to “smart appliances” on a “smart and flexible” basis in order to control energy consumption. The law, in other words, will self-execute through the technology itself, and non-compliance will become impossible – because our machines themselves will simply respond to the load control signals which they are sent. (And because we will have to use such machines, because the sale of others will be banned; ironically, we see here a vestigial role for Law 1.0 after all.)
The substantive purpose of the legislation is not really the issue here. You may agree entirely with the goal of reducing carbon emissions and you may agree with the goal of achieving ‘Net Zero’ by 2050. I reiterate: the problem is the indefensible way in which all of this is being realised – surreptitiously, and through what is effectively executive power wielded by unaccountable managers deploying technological methods which cannot be gainsaid and which are designed to achieve 100% compliance through making non-compliance physically impossible.
Law’s Inner Morality
This is just the first negative consequence of the deployment of ‘Law 3.0’, though. The second is, to my eye, worse, and it concerns the effects of all of this on human subjectivity and indeed on our capacity to act ethically in the first place. To explicate this, we need to turn briefly to the subject of what the legal philosopher Lon Fuller, writing in the 1960s, called ‘the “inner morality” of law.
Fuller, like many postwar legal theorists, was interested in the phenomenon of law exercised within the context of totalitarian regimes. The curious thing about Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union was that, for all that they were brutal dictatorships, they still had the trappings of functioning legal systems: constitutions, courts, judges, advocates and all the rest. This raised a vexed question. We normally think of ‘the rule of law’ as a good thing. But Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, while appearing to have legal systems, hardly resembled the kinds of states that we think of when ‘the rule of law’ is mentioned. How, then, does one distinguish between societies which are governed by the rule of law from societies which are governed by purported legal systems but which are in fact oppressive and authoritarian?
Fuller’s answer was that law had an “inner morality” – which was distinct from matters of “external morality” (such as whether a given law had a morally right or wrong outcome). He asked us first to consider eight ways in which a lawmaker could “fail to make law”. These were:
- Producing no rules at all or making only ad hoc decisions
- Failing to make rules public
- Using retroactive rules
- Producing unclear rules
- Producing contradictory rules
- Producing rules with which it is impossible to comply
- Changing rules too often
- Deciding cases in such a way that outcomes bear no relation to the rules
Failing to make law, in these terms, was a violation of law’s inner morality, and a legal system which regularly and consistently failed to make law in any or all of these ways was therefore not to be thought of as comprising laws at all, but something else. And since legal systems in autocratic and totalitarian regimes very often violate law’s inner morality in these ways, this is why we are qualified to distinguish their purported laws from those which prevail in states where law’s inner morality is generally upheld.
Why did this matter so much, though? What’s so good about being governed by legal systems which have rules, where the rules are public, where they do not apply retrospectively, where they are clear, where they are not contradictory, etc.?
Here is one of those occasions in which it is beneficial simply to quote the man himself, in a passage of prose which ought to be reproduced as the compulsory PC desktop background of every legislator in every democracy in the world:
[Legal morality] cannot be neutral in its view of man himself. To embark on the enterprise of subjecting human conduct to the governance of rules involves of necessity a commitment to the view that man is, or can become, a responsible agent, capable of understanding and following rules, and answerable for his defaults.Every departure from the principles of law’s inner morality is an affront to man’s dignity as a responsible agent. To judge his actions by unpublished or retrospective laws, or to order him to do an act that is impossible, is to convey to him your indifference to his powers of self-determination.
Governing human conduct by rules, in other words, is to treat the people who are subject to the rules as conscious, free-willed, sensible agents who are capable of understanding the world around them and accepting responsibility for their decisions. We are capable of knowing, for instance, the speed limit on a given stretch of road, and we are also capable of making the decision to go faster in full awareness that there may be negative consequences of doing so – which we accept. The speed limit does not compel us: we can choose to abide by it, or not. And this, most crucially of all, means that we have moral agency. We can choose to do right or wrong.
Fuller would not have put it in these terms, but he would therefore have agreed with Foucault’s observation that “freedom is the ontological condition of ethics”. Acting ethically requires the freedom to choose. If one does not have the freedom to choose, because one is compelled to act morally, then one’s moral conduct is not really moral at all. One is simply robotically doing what one is told, and one is in moral terms therefore indistinguishable from a robot. It seems tautologous to point out that this denudes us of one of the central characteristics – perhaps the central characteristic – of humanity: the capacity to choose to act morally, or not.
Law 3.0 was a development which Fuller could not really have foreseen. And it therefore introduces a ninth way of failing to make law to his list: one can fail to make law by making it impossible not to comply, through the deployment of technology. And in its way, this is the worst affront to the dignity of man out of them all, because it destroys the very conditions of moral agency. I reiterate: if one does not have the freedom to choose, because one is compelled to act morally, then one’s moral conduct is not really moral at all. The Energy Bill 2023 is therefore not only bad law because it is unclear, because it mostly delegates authority to make ad hoc decisions rather than rules, and so on. It is bad law because it seeks to automate compliance.
I would say that this has the effect of putting the subjects of the law into the position of children, but this would be to underplay the affront considerably. Children’s conduct (provided they have good parents) is subject to rules which are clear and understandable and with which they have the choice to comply, and children – as any parent knows – are masterful negotiators, adept at carving out exceptions to rules as required. Really, it puts the subjects of the law more into the position of rats in a Skinner Box, and here Fuller was prescient in warning us that once the inner morality of law is routinely violated, social order would have to be enforced through other, behavioural means: “Instead of telling men to be good, we [will] condition them to be good”, and instead of “judg[ing] a man, we [will] act upon him”. The mode of lawmaking which the Energy Bill 2023 exemplifies is one in which our legislators create the conditions for us to be simply acted upon.
We are not going to like where that leads. Having our energy consumption governed through ad hoc micromanagement of the electricity flow to our compulsorily purchased energy smart appliances on a moment to moment basis is dystopian enough. I invite you, though, to consider the other areas of life – both public and private – which are currently likely being eyed up by our legislators for the Law 3.0 treatment. It’s not about, and never has been about, mere golf carts on greens. It is about the fusion of law and technology in every sphere of our lives, and everything that will entail.
Dr. David McGrogan is an Associate Professor of Law at Northumbria Law School. This article first appeared on his Substack. You can subscribe here.
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Otherwise known as gaslighting.
“22 year-old MP hits back at claims he doesn’t have ‘experience’
and asks why critics think “being older makes you better at the job”,
If you have to ask the question, then your lack of wisdom is self-evident.
Because all the old people with experience have done such a good job?
No one says experience is sufficient but it is necessary for many roles.
As EppingBlogger correctly points out, we’re not arguing experience is sufficient – I’d rather have an inexperienced person with good sense and the right attitude than an experienced idiot, but I am struggling to think of a human activity where experience is not helpful. If a person is intelligent and able to learn, which you would hope was the case, then if they do not improve with experience then you have to wonder what’s going on. Politics especially seems to me a field in which experience is going to be highly valuable.
Trust me Gunner,I don’t know how old you are but the fact is, experience isn’t everything but it is preferable compared to ideology!
“Business Secretary U-turns on digital ID cards after refusing to rule them out”
Like many citizens, have a driving licence and and a passport, both as photoID. Can they explain to me HOW having another card is going to reduce immigration. It seems an un-necessary layer of control, bearing in mind that criminals can fake these things for the right price. The fact that Blair is pushing it, also means its probably just another bit of ‘up to no good’.
Two comments:
1. In both this, and the similar DT article, the locution “digital ID cards” is used. I think we can safely say that although digital ID is inevitable, nobody is ever going to carry a ‘card’. A QR code on their phone maybe, or an RFID chip in their arm, but no ‘card’.
2. All the UN/WHO/WEFs plans require digital ID to function. There is simply no way the UK is going to be an exception here.
The digital dystopia has not come to an end with this announcement.
China has the Digital Bank ID,s , convid was used to start bringing then in elsewhere , it’s the Main Weapon the TPTB will use against us , if they can just get rid of cash as well , then Bingo they’ve Won !
The immediate problem is not identifying immigrants but stopping them coming. Labour and Tories will not stop them coming so ID does not help.
references to immigration are a diversion so they don’t have to say it’s part of elite control over us.
Those who do not want to comply will always sidestep the law, not abide by it.
Now a special Immigrant ID Card would be useful to track them. No card, no free services.
That’s a good idea
track them by what they don’t have, You ain’t got it ,you ain’t coming in!
Alternatively, they could have said, “No ID from your home country, no free services.” That would have had the same effect, but discouraged illegal immigration in the first place.
Passports and mobile phones go to the bottom of the English channel! How are Id cards going to fare any better?
Anything that has Bliar attached to it is definitely NOT in our interests. That is simply a fact of life.
“Le Pen’s party blocked from power, shock exit polls show”
Proof if needed that the slippery b’stards will do anything, and I mean anything, to hold on to power.
Sort of, but the voters had a choice and made their decision. I know some here have mentioned possible fraud and while I am sure it happens, I doubt it’s on a large enough scale to have changed this result – but perhaps my faith is misplaced. Anecdotally in the UK though, the declared results tally with my own experience of people’s views and how they approach voting.
Disagree. This from Tommy Robinson;
”In the second round of French elections.
-9,300,000 French people voted for the RN.
– 5,100,000 for the NFP.
The people voted for their sovereignty, closed borders, fixing their nation.
The other parties, who hate each other, but France more, joined forces to f*ck them.”
34% voted for the RN in the second round, 66% voted to continue the destruction of France. I guess that’s democracy. We need new countries.
As somebody commented online;
”The collusion by smaller parties to thwart the will of the French people to have safety and security is a damning abuse of Proportional Representation as a democratic process. The UK needs to learn the lessons from this French-left way of gaming the system.”
What happened in France is not how a true democracy works. However, I acknowledge that we’re living in post-democratic times, and this ”D” word is just another term banded about, much in the same way as ‘free speech’, which has come to have a completely fluid meaning, depending on who’s using the term to suit their own ends, so much so that these terms are now effectively meaningless, as substantial and enduring as gossamer. That’s my stance on it anyway. We’re living with the *illusion* of an actual democracy with only the illusion of freedom of speech.
These things are being abused and manipulated from all angles all of the time by TPTB who make the rules, and yes, we must defend them and our other rights with all of our might ( hat tip to our Toby ), but the reality is that you either have something or you don’t. It should be a black and white issue but the corrupt ‘PTB’ have made it more ’50 shades of grey’ and the goal posts are constantly moving.
Wasn’t the whole scamdemic experience proof enough of just how few rights we actually have in reality and how easily they can be removed or messed about with by the ruling class? When even the judiciary ( and we know all about the police by now ) demonstrably aren’t on our side then you know you’re scuppered. Therefore ‘justice’ is another term that appears to have become entirely meaningless nowadays.
We’re basically living in The Truman Show, it’s just that only a percentage of us are aware of this.
I agree with some of what you say but ultimately there was a clear choice and a clear majority for one side of that choice. No secret was made of what the left were doing – it was all out in the open. Nobody forced the French to vote against RN.
Salute.
Proof indeed ! If ever it was needed !
Yes, the nazis were a socialist party!
Freedom Is Hanging By A Thread – latest leaflet to print at home and deliver to neighbours or forward to politicians, your new MP, your local vicar, online media and friends online. We have over 200 leaflet ideas on the link on the leaflet.
“Battery maker SK On declares ‘emergency’ as EV sales disappoint, FT reports”
I think the situation with EVs is a clear and obvious indication as to where this net-zero business is heading. There are a number of reasons why EV’s are not selling;
.1. They are expensive
.2. The whole charging business is confusing, difficult, inconvenient and sometimes very expensive.
.3. The depreciationn on EVs is enormous.
.4. If EVs get damaged they are being scrapped much more readily than with ICE cars. And when ICE cars are scrapped they are often bought and repaired by enterprising mechanics but this is not happening with scrapped EV’s. Whilst I might buy a secondhand Fiesta with a cat s or n designation I would not risk that with a damaged EV.
.5. Consequently EV insurance is expensive and getting more expensive.
.6. EVs are like a smart-phone on wheels and if they run into problems repairs are difficult, expensive and sometimes impossible to fix.
.6. Scrapped EVs are already piling up at a faster rate than the scrap industry can handle and eventually the pile up of scrapped EVs will halt the sale of new ones.
The general public are a savvy lot and even if they have not done an in-depth analysis of EVs, they can sense a ‘pig in a poke’ when they see one. Would I drive an EV, yes if I could beg, borrow or lease one but buy one with my own money you must be joking!
If I and the general public can see all this, what does it say about our deranged net zero politicians? Do they really think EVs are the future of mass motoring or is this all some planned orchestrated mess leading to a future without private cars?
Batteries are just a big box of unstable chemicals, basing your future on them is idiocy!
A tankful of petrol or diesel is also unstable chemicals – but only when mixed with a particular quantity of air. The contents of an EV battery are unstable even in the absence of air which is why they’re a problem to ‘extinguish’ if they overheat.
Depending on the size of the tank there’s a hell of a lot more stored energy in a tankful of diesel (and the required amount of air) than in a similar size/weight of EV battery – which is why people get range anxiety. It’s just as well that the electric motors in an EV are smaller/lighter than most ICE engines/gearboxes or they’d barely get anywhere.
In cold weather drivers of most ICE vehicles keep warm by using the by-product heat from the engine to warm the cabin. There is no by-product heat from an EV – you have to use some of the precious stored energy to keep the cabin bearable. Not too surprisingly EVs are built to disable the cabin heating if the stored energy dips below a certain level – just in case the driver is too stupid to do that for themselves. I really don’t fancy an EV in something like a Wisconsin winter – but I guess ‘Global Boiling’™ will make sure that Wisconsin becomes liveable all year round soon enough.
Agreed, we know the pitfalls of ice vehicle’s, we ought to, they’ve been knocking around for over a century, but at least when they do go up, they are easier to put out!
“…is this all some planned orchestrated mess leading to a future without private cars?”
Yes.
Who has not “learned from mistakes” is David Paton. Why does he think Vallance made a mistake and might regret what he did? Vallance is clearly a power-hungry collectivist – convid was an opportunity not to be missed to put “public health” and “science” centre stage.
He never was anything but that didn’t prevent him being 100% complicit in helping to destroy thousands of lives , a proper B-stard !
Vallance: “Mistakes?”
France has just coverted the corse of true democracy, Vive la
I’m sure Germany will eventually and democratically end Afd in the same way!
“What does the New Popular Front’s election win mean for France?”
It means: “we’ll blow out your candle and we don’t care that ours is already flickering “
“Has Patrick Vallance learnt from his Covid mistakes?”
No!
“The German Government have no money and they can’t stop spending it”
No government has money! It’s tax payers money, not theirs
Monthly pub get-together in Surrey on Tuesday evening. All sceptics, free thinkers, speakers of truth and lovers of freedom, are most welcome
“Just one in four say Biden could stay awake through a Cuban Missile Crisis”
I think 48 minutes would be pushing it!
Unlikely to stay awake through another toilet crisis!
“Midsomer Murders viewers warned they will see crime scenes”
Imagine that! A crime series with scenes of crime!!!
Bags of KP may contain nuts
“Karma catches up with Nicola Sturgeon”
The ipitome of stewing in your own juice!
As they say, a leopard can’t change its spots, so Macron has left the spots as they are..but changed the leopard instead!
https://www.gbnews.com/news/world/france-paris-riots-election-surprise-win-exit-poll-new-popular-front
“Suprise win”? Engineered I’d say!
UK: Huge increase in anti-Marxist vote, country gets more extreme Marxist government.
France: Huge increase in anti-Marxist vote, country gets more extreme Marxist government.
Hmmm.
Great analysis by Thinking Slow, btw: https://thinkingcoalition.substack.com/p/the-really-interesting-2024-election
80% of UK voters supported left wing parties
Of voters *who voted*. Seems like Labour won basically because the Tories lost 7 million votes and Labour lost a lot less.
Well, those people who didn’t vote had the chance to, but didn’t. I think it’s a reasonable assumption that most of them were happy with the status quo or don’t care. For once in my area there was a broad spectrum of choices – the most interesting ones that were on my shortlist all got a handful of votes.
Typo? Left-wing parties took just over 40%, with right-wing parties just under 40%, the rest are supposedly centrist parties. If you then consider the significant drop in voter turnout (7-8%), which would have been mainly right-of-centre people with various feelings of utter disgust, then the split is 50/50 at best. Not exactly the landslide it’s been made to look. The conclusion of the article is correct of course, it was a vote against the Tories not a vote for Labour.
Reform got 14% of the vote. All the other mainstream parties are left wing IMO, including the Tories.
Sure, but the vote split should be considered by what people believe they’re voting for, not what values the party actually upholds in practice. The masses are dumb, we have to factor in that stupidity.
That is one way of looking at it, yes. Other than Monro with his particular thing about Farage and Putin etc etc, I’ve not seen or heard any other Tory voter explain why they didn’t vote Reform. Baffling.
Interesting article – thanks for posting.
Russian missiles hit children’s cancer hospital in Kyiv
https://www.ft.com/content/4075caad-7bf0-48a0-9106-7b953ccb9ee9
What is really going on? There is a NATO summit on Ukraine starting tomorrow and Ukraine has failed to successfully counter-attack, so why not engineer a Russian atrocity?
Children – tick. Cancer -tick.
A call has gone out for make-up artists who specialise in injuries.
We have seen it before and the international community has failed to come up with any verifiable intelligence.
The Ukrainian correspondent won’t be happy with this.
Oh goody.
PS Latest view is that the damage was caused by a failed Uktrainian air defence missile.
The pictures I have seen are not even of the main hospital, a multistorey building which was built in around 2015; you can see it in the background. The truly sick people on this site are the ones who accept at face value every bit of propaganda from Ukraine.
Ask yourself, what value is there to the Russians to deliberately target a children’s hospital on the eve of a NATO conference.
There’s some pretty sick stuff on here.
I leave it to the readership here to draw their own conclusions about the atrocity itself and the state of mind of the commentators who first drew attention to it.
Kyiv children’s hospital bombed
By Svitlana Morenets in Kyiv
I have been in Kyiv for a few weeks, struck by how safe the city has felt thanks to its improved air defences. But that changed this morning when the capital came under a huge attack. Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital, Okhmatdyt, was hit by Russian missiles and I’m writing this from the scene. The area is strewn with collapsed concrete and smoke is rising still. Children remain trapped under the rubble.
People are rushing to help – queuing to deliver water, food and medicine. Some have come to donate blood. Children have been taken out of the hospital on trolleys and are now in the streets, while some continue to receive their cancer treatments via IV drips. Mothers stand with their bed-ridden children outside the collapsed ward that was only recently rebuilt.’
The Spectator 08 July 2024
‘Based on official air threat warnings, the attack might have involved Kh-47 Kinzhal air-launched ballistic missiles and Kh-101 cruise missiles, most likely, some other types were used, too.’
‘One of the russian missiles hit in the middle of a residential building, and another landed on the Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital, a large medical treatment facility in Kyiv. As of now, 16 victims are reported as a result of this strike, including children. The rubble is still being cleared, and more information about the deceased and injured keeps coming.’
‘A local resident managed to film the moment a missile hit the Okhmatdyt hospital. This footage alone does not allow for a reliable identification of the exact type of the cruise missile. More importantly, there is no visible indication that this missile was shot down or damaged.’
https://en.defence-ua.com/news/childrens_hospital_hit_in_a_combined_40_missile_attack_on_ukraine_video-11105.html
The report doesn’t seem very sure:
“might have”, “most likely”, “does not allow for a reliable identification of the exact type of the cruise missile”
and the source seems a little biased:
“Defense Express is a partner of the Ukrainian Defense Industries (Ukroboronprom) State Corporation. Our Company has been a long-time promoter of domestic defense industry products at international arms exhibitions.”
And Ray McGovern “smells a rat” with this story coming so close to the NATO summit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmdL2eYJR2c (from 25:01).
The messages I hear regularly from Kiev is that they shoot down all Russian missiles.
It is also common practice in Ukraine to disguise videos of rocket attacks to deny the Russians any confirmation of targeting accuracy. It is therefore highly suspicious and unusual that so many videos claiming to be of the hit are appearing.
The missile in one of the pictures has been identified as an AIM-120 missile, used in the NASAMS Air Defense System of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,
As tragic as it must be, and whether a missile came off course or was hit by a defence missile, one can be sure that Russia did not fire intentionally at civilians.
Which is unfortunately not the case with the Ukrainian military. Patrick Lancaster (https://www.youtube.com/@PatrickLancasterNewsToday) has reported so many times in his videos on hospitals, schools and residential areas being targeted by Ukraine, either in the Donbas area or in Russia itself. Here are some of his video titles:
Thanks for the post.
Not to mention numerous attacks on civilians in Belgorod in southern Russia, and the recent gratuitous attack on Lugansk city.
Patrick Lancaster as a reference?:
‘Now, Patrick would admit himself that he’s not the brightest, maybe he’s just taken his eye completely off the ball after all that family time, maybe he just doesn’t have the appetite to cover the business end of the operation, after all his wide-eyed running around giving huge significance to random ‘gunfights’……..
……I’m sure you’ve already heard a hundred times that you should ‘like and share his videos’ and give him money. But, his absolutely inaccurate statement that ‘the major fighting is definitely done’, when the final battle is waging as we speak, cannot be left uncorrected. That is fake news.
I write this in a public forum because I have no direct communication with Lancaster. In general Lancaster is a harmless clown who runs around in a panic, like a rabbit in headlights spouting phrases in broken English, and doesn’t need to be addressed.
But, when he comes out with patently false statements, he needs to be dealt with the same way as anyone else.’
It may be that the readership here are delighted to read references on here put together by an ‘illiterate, grifting charlatan, with a journalistic acumen and ability lower than a potted plant.’ for all kinds of different reasons.
That is entirely a matter for them.
But pretending that ‘not the brightest’ ‘illiterate, grifting charlatan’ is an authoritative source doesn’t, at best, say much for your critical reasoning skills.
At worst, in the context of providing silly ‘whataboutery’ arguments concerning a Russian missile attack on a Ukrainian hospital, it shows you up as another deluded and eccentric, abhorrent and barbaric war crimes sympathiser.
….a number of Russian specialized platforms across social media openly stated that the facility had been hit by a Russian Kh-101.
‘Just look closely at the missile seen in the video, especially pay attention to its tail unit and the turbojet engine located there.’
‘…the Kh-101/102 is of all-Russian manufacture. It is powered by a TRDD-50A turbojet producing 450 kg (990 pounds) of thrust .’
https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/defense/2015-11-20/latest-russian-strikes-syria-employ-new-cruise-missile
‘Footage of the first minutes of the attack on Okhmadyt children’s hospital shows that it was a targeted terrorist attack……..hit Okhmadyt with a Kh-101 missile. The video of the attack shows that it was not a deflection of the missile….’
“The Kh-101 missile flew at an ultra-low altitude and before hitting the Okhmatdyt……….it ascended and hit the hospital. To bypass Ukrainian air defense systems, the missile could have used thermal (flares).
…..the combined strike included several Kh-22 missiles, two of which were not shot down.
‘…..there is no military sense in using such missiles, which have a deviation of 500 meters to several kilometers’