- “Boris Johnson asked: ‘Why are we destroying the economy for people who will die anyway?’ during Covid” – Boris reportedly said “we’re killing the patient to tackle the tumour” in contemporaneous notes revealed at the Covid Inquiry, according to the Telegraph.
- “Keeping the beaches open” – What did we learn about Boris Johnson’s Covid response from Didactic Dom, asks Robert Hutton in the Critic.
- “We can’t lay all Covid blame at Boris’s door” – The costly Covid Inquiry is becoming a frenzied witch-hunt, unlikely to answer the most vital question: Was lockdown the right policy, writes Annabel Denham in the Telegraph.
- “‘Excess mortality’ continuing surge causes concerns” – Life insurance executives and actuaries believe excess mortality rates are alarming and could continue to drag earnings for years to come, according to InsuranceNewsNet.
- “How U.K. Government advisers helped Pfizer win $5.95 billion U.S. Covid contract” – In TCW, Paula Jardine further explores the alleged quid pro quo between American funding for the Oxford AstraZeneca Covid vaccine and U.K. assistance in authorising the Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA vaccine.
- “Police hold back pro-Palestinian protesters as Starmer leaves speech” – Police were forced to wrestle back demonstrators as they attempted to mob the Labour leader as he exited the Chatham House think tank in London, says the Mail.
- “Israeli envoy wears yellow star before UN Security Council” – Israel’s Holocaust memorial body has criticised the country’s delegation to the UN for wearing yellow stars to a Security Council meeting, reports the Telegraph.
- “Is Suella Braverman wrong about pro-Palestine ‘hate marches’?” – Take a step back, and it becomes apparent that the pro-Palestinian marches themselves are constructed on infrastructure of bigotry, writes Jake Wallis Simons in the Spectator.
- “When did journalism become a hate crime?” – Spiked’s Fraser Myers on GB News’s Charlie Peters being reported to the police for investigating Islamic extremism.
- “Not ‘just Hamas’” – Evidence suggests that Hamas, or at least its policy toward Jews, is popular among Palestinians, say Eugene Kontorovich and Erielle Davidson in City Journal.
- “The normalisation of savagery” – Societies that give up on freedom will soon find it replaced by violence, writes Brendan O’Neill in Spiked.
- “Islamism is a failed ideology. Muslims must embrace the West” – Those who came here to escape tyranny are now cheering the tyrants they left behind, says Hussain Abdul-Hussain in the Telegraph.
- “The shameful silence of the ‘anti-racists’” – As antisemitism has surged, Britain’s ‘race equality’ charities have mostly looked the other way, writes Lauren Smith in Spiked.
- “Moolah from mullahs” – Arab countries are bankrolling American colleges and universities, with Qatar and Saudi Arabia leading the pack, write Joel Kotkin and Marshall Toplansky in City Journal.
- “Miriam Cates blames increase in working women for rise in children going to school in nappies” – A Tory MP has blamed the rising number of women going out to work for an increase in infants going to school wearing nappies, reports the Telegraph.
- “Ninety-nine percent? Re-examining the consensus on the anthropogenic contribution to climate change” – In Climate, Prof. Yonatan Dubi and others have detailed the flaws in the consensus study by Lynas et al, which (falsely) claimed the 99% consensus on the anthropogenic contribution to climate change.
- “Greta Thunberg and her Gen Z friends owe Baby Boomers an apology over climate change” – Greta and friends say ‘older generations’ have let young people down. Yet a new poll on green lifestyle choices tells a very different story, writes Michael Deacon in the Telegraph.
- “Indonesia shelves decarbonisation for prosperity and security” – The strategic utilisation of fossil fuels is a key factor at the centre of Indonesia’s growth, says Vijay Jayaraj in WUWT.
- “Dictating words: The Culture-Control Left and the war against free speech” – The Institute of Economic Affairs has released a new report on the ‘Culture-Control Left’, exploring their composition, sources of inspiration and political agenda.
- “Woke campaigners are using hate speech laws to stifle free speech” – An IEA report says elements of the Left have “successfully weaponised” concepts such as hate speech to “silence their political opponents”, reports the Mail.
- “Council purges word ‘mother’ from pregnancy and maternity leave policy” – A council was accused of “writing out women” for purging the word ‘mother’ from its pregnancy and maternity leave policy to be more inclusive, says the Mail.
- “Yayoi Kusama doesn’t need a race reckoning” – Who expects Yayoi Kusama, the 94 year-old grande dame of installation art, to be woke, asks Kat Rosenfield in UnHerd.
- “Macron rejects gender-inclusive writing to ‘protect’ French language” – There’s been a long-standing debate between French Right-leaning language purists versus the Left and feminists, writes Vivian Song in the Telegraph.
- “Academic dynamite” – Professors Alice Sullivan and Selina Todd’s new book, Sex and Gender: A Contemporary Reader, is an important, if difficult, contribution to debates around sex and gender, says Debbie Hayton in the Critic.
- “‘Asexual rights’ and the endless quest for victimhood” – New forms of ‘oppression’ are being invented every week, writes Jo Bartosch in Spiked.
- “The woke celebrities using their popularity to influence us” – The cult of celebrity has taken on a sinister new meaning in recent times, says Dr. Shane Fudge in TCW.
- “Is the American Academy of Paediatrics placing its own members at risk?” – New lawsuits and a panel on gender and sexuality at the AAP’s recent conference signal trouble for paediatricians who rely on its guidance, writes Leor Sapir in City Journal.
- “Canadian death cult” – America’s northern neighbour has euthanised tens of thousands of its citizens, says Michael Bonner in City Journal.
- “The Vanguard interview: Peter Hitchens” – On Substack, Laura Dodsworth interviews Peter Hitchens about his new book, The War We Never Fought: The British Establishment’s Surrender to Drugs.
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I sign a lot just to show concern and the numbers are not derisory but they are nuisance, achieve nothing and I wish people would stop starting them.
I agree, but I commend the good will and good heart of those who start them. I sign petitions because I like to support their civic-mindedness. it’s a form of applause for them.
“Displacement activity” the immoral cynics in power just laugh at them.
I sign a lot… and… achieve nothing.
Yes, just as with voting, petitions would never be allowed if they changed anything.
For me, the petition issue just drives in how powerless we are to control the Nabobs who control our activities.
We should also call out their use of YouGov to run self-fulfilling surveys that are then used to justify nasty decisions.
That is where ‘democracy’ (if it still is a thing) is really at these days.
I think everyone here probably got a bit fed up with signing endless petitions in the early covid panic days, which never produced any useful outcome as far as I’m aware.
So I tend to agree with the professor that these are just theatre and probably do more harm than good.
Failed the cost/benefit analysis.
“The bottom line is the Government doesn’t trust us. “
This is evident also from the active ongoing moves to suppress freedom of speech.
As far as the ruling elites are concerned, they don’t just fear us, they despise and hate us, where “us” means both dissenters from their elitist ideologies and ordinary people in general.
We’ve had Brechit not Brexit.
After the uprising of the 17th of June
The Secretary of the Writers’ Union
Had leaflets distributed on the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could only win it back
By increased work quotas. Would it not in that case be simpler
for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
Good job the feeling’s mutual.
Hence the derisory put-down many Sceptic commentators use on this site: “you should start an on-line petition“.
It’s clearly a tactic. I’ve signed many government petitions. The number of responses from the government that are rejected by the petitions committee is very high. It’s almost as if the government or the civil service minions who write the responses didn’t want to address the issue raised by the petition. Hard to believe I know. Perhaps the civil servants in question are too busy doing other things while working from home. Like reading the Guardian or reviewing their pronouns, refusing to comply with government immigration policy, booking another covid vaccine booster, etc…
Or not working towards selling me the flat they repossessed 3 years ago in lieu of an 8k government agency debt, the previously available 8k equity now been gobbled up by mortgage arrears leaving nothing to pay off the debt.
The assertion in the title of this article is exactly right. Politicians really don’t care about public opinion at all. In fact, they hold us in contempt. The feeling is mutual.
Public opinion is something formed by government propaganda, which governments then sample by polling and are persuaded that they have discovered the will of the people. It’s surprising how often the government finds its own policies are so popular.
Thanks to their wider ability to rig the debate, the government’s chosen policies are not just popular, but “essential” if we are to have any hope of saving the planet!
Not just propaganda, they also have their “nudge” unit to brainwash us.
Basically, we enjoyed the democratic right to elect the government (from a limited, preselected, choice) to brainwash us from then on. When the state wants our opinion, it give it to us.
Coincidentally, just saw this tweet from Gary Sidley asking people to sign an open letter:
Sign the open letter: End mask “requirement” in healthcare settings
Given the lack of good scientific evidence to support the wearing of ‘face coverings’ to reduce viral transmission, together with the wide range of harms associated with them, there is no justification for healthcare services to persist with the ‘requirement’ for all staff, patients and visitors to wear a mask.
Health professionals, scientists and patients/members of the public are invited to co-sign our open letter to the NHS Chief Executives below before Mon 23 May, when we will also be posting hard copies of this letter to the addressees.
Please note, we will not list individual names of members of the public but provide a total count instead.
Open Letter From Health Professionals, Scientists & Patients to the NHS Chief Executives:
cc UK Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, UK Prime Minister & First Ministers Of The Four Nations.
We the undersigned British health professionals, scientists and patients, agree it is time to put the patient first again by ditching the mask in healthcare settings.
cont
https://smilefree.org/nhs/
Seems to me that is at least as likely to have an effect as the official petition procedure.
Shame someone doesn’t do something similar re forced injections
I wonder how our democratic institutions are going to spin the Ukraine cutting off the third of Russian gas that transits through Lugansk from tomorrow.
Seems like those plucky Nazis have decided to up the stakes by screwing with the EU institutions they were hoping to join.
Solidarity would dictate that those EU countries still receiving Russian gas imports will support the EU countries that Ukraine are hoping to blackmail by threatening the destruction of their high dependency industries.
Maybe this is a last throw of the dice by those who pull Zelenskiy’s chain?
Ukraine says it is because Russian attacks on infrastructure make the Sokhranivka route impractical and Russia can switch to Sudzha. Russia says this is not technically possible. As usual, it is almost impossible to know the truth.
Depends on the definition of ‘impracticable’. If its English its ‘sensible’ which is definitely determined by the Ukrainians. If its US its ‘impracticable’ , impossible to do. determined by the Russians.
As the word used was the first not the second, which could easily be used, its clear that it is the Ukrainians that have made this decision.
I don’t think anyone disputes that the Ukrainians decided to stop gas flowing through Sokhranivka. The questions are:
Should that have read ‘impracticable’ and ‘impractical’?
Yes apologies for not proof reading my own posts!
I think it is – the Ukrainians are part of and stooges of ‘the West’ – so they are obviously lying!
That is the most blatant argumentum ad hominem I have seen for a long time.
Acting under CIA instructions.
As ever!
The New Lunatic Gender-confused Non-Germany will accept anything done to it that helps to abolish German national identity and collapse the economy – they know they deserve punishmentt for even existing!
“implying that ‘defensive’ weapons (whatever these are) are acceptable”
Any decent realist IR practitioner will confirm your view that there’s no such thing as “defensive weapons”.
Weaponry either enhances war-fighting capabilities, which means more dead enemies in the end, or it doesn’t, which means it isn’t really weaponry at all.
Much the same applies to “non–lethal military aid”, which is just a PR lie to cover up for helping one side kill the other side’s soldiers.
I wouldn’t mind if all we sent were tazers
$13.6b in just tazers would be quite a sight, if that applied to the yanks as well..
Though speaking of, our own regime apparatchiks aren’t slouching at throwing our tax proceeds into the firepit::
“Whilst the UK taxpayer is hit with the rise in costs, Boris Johnson pledges a further £1.3 billion in aid including £300 million in military equipment that has already been agreed upon with Boris and the treasury.”
https://twitter.com/RebelNewsOnline/status/1524122951351783424
What’s a tazer? £50?
That’d be enough tazers for every Ukrainian regime thug to have one and a couple of spares, and enough to hand out to all the nazis for use when they are “sanitising” gypsy camps.
<sharp intake of breath noise>
Followed by a full-throated snarling growl.
Surely that’s naive? Certain types of weaponry, e.g. artillery mounted in fixed fortifications, land mines etc. are unarguably defensive
I’ve met a few (civillian) amputees who would argue your point about land mines! Did you know that only 1/5th of all mines ever deployed since WWI have been found or accounted for? (source: My DEODS instructor) If I had my way all mines would be banned, land and sea.
also, how are you going to gaurentee the arty you sell is going to be used by the rules you set?
Defensive weapons of those kinds enable forces to be freed up to attack elsewhere, and make a country more likely to act aggressively.
In reality, no weapon system or military aid drops onto a blank slate and acts in isolation.
Nuclear weapons are defensive weapons – if you have them no-one will attack you!
the problem is signing a petition on the gov site is purely psychological, i.e you sign a petition for an issue, think you have had your say and instigated change, walk off and nothing happens as a result even though you think you have done something. What the state really does not want is millions of people in lockstep and desire to make things happen in the real world rather than an e petition.
Same as gassing off on here, or social media. It’s an outlet for outrage, if people thought they wern’t heard anywhere, it’d be torches & pitchforks, probably why there’s so much REEEEEE on social media, and here to some extent (looking at you tree et al)
Excellent comment. Now what’s your suggestion for improving things?
I havn’t got one, even if I did they would ignore it. e.g. Great Barrington, or the Harrogate Brexit paper, “flexit”, or a plethora of other burried and forgotten excellent ideas.
So nothing changes then.
How do we make a start to make that happen then?
“nothing happens as a result even though you think you have done something.”
But you have “tried to do something” … and that gives you the moral high ground to scream at others “Well, what have you done?!”
Moral high ground very hard to find these days what with rising sea of lies levels ‘n that.
i’m starting to think we could learn a lot from Sri Lanka…
Elucidate, please? It’s a lovely country, with tea, leopards, good food,and charming people, so I’m with you so far …
Almost every consultation activity, whether it be government petitions, local issues or whatever, has long been a waste of time and money. Whether the results are ignored, the terms corrupted or distorted, or result in lies, the outcome is zero. These are democracy window dressing for the (pace Raynor), scum that think they own us.
History tells us that, in absence of politicians who seek democratic consensus rather than domination and rulership, the only option available is some form of revolution, usually bloody. I favour a ceausecu remedy, as it’s the only way that the dung can be removed from these Augean stables.
The English have a long history of bloodily suppressed uprisings, and perhaps the embers are still glowing.
Government Election and Referendums That Never Lead to Change are Part of the Managed Illusion of Democracy.
No Real Brexit
Stand in the Park Sundays from 10am – make friends & keep sane
Wokingham
Howard Palmer Gardens
(Cockpit Path car park free on Sunday)
Sturges Rd RG40 2HD
Bracknell
South Hill Park, Rear Lawn, RG12 7PA
Telegram http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell
Thank you for your efforts David. Some sensible suggestions here.
Of the 16 comments so far, not a single suggestion as to how to resolve the petition problem, or holding government to account generally.
We have the technology to secure every Bank account in the UK. Why can’t the government have an electronic, participatory system, in parliamentary debates?
It sounds alright in principle, as long as the code was OS and publicly auditable.
But code would be secret, fiddleable, and we’d have to accept a digital ID, a slippery slope of technocratic authoritarianism. No doubt that’s comming anyway with CBDC, or it wouldn’t be programmable!
Good start, so what else would you suggest?
No point in knocking a suggestion over when you can’t propose something yourself. Nor does it need to be grand.
We can play “what I’d do if I were PM” all night, but it’s pointless, they would ignore any idea that takes away even a smidgen of their power.
Frankly, it’s got nothing to do with the PM. It’s got everything to do with elected officials, your MP.
Is he/she held to account for the mistakes he/she makes?
Is he/she under a performance review?
Does he/she engage you in discussion over the most important issue humanity has ever faced – climate change? My MP has refused to communicate with me over one reasonable letter I sent him on the subject. Why is that allowed?
Why do so many of these officials have second jobs and are allowed to invest in businesses whilst obviously having an inside track on what government decisions are made on future business decisions?
There are numerous other questions we should be asking of this ancient and unreformed electoral system like, who was in charge of pandemic planning? Was there even one and was it abandoned? Who is in charge of a civilian nuclear assault plan if we’re attacked? Who is in charge of a food shortage plan, and where is it? What about a financial disaster plan, and when was it last fully reviewed? Is there even a natural disaster plan, and shouldn’t we all know what it is, where it is and who is responsible for what?
Our government blunders through every disaster with the promise that lessons will be learned, but who actually learns these lessons and how is that transferred from government to government?
This isn’t rocket science. There are certain things the country can plan for, lots of them, that should be law, and are reviewed and updated every few years.
These are tasks individual MP’s should be responsible for and they should be answerable for when they go tits up. So why aren’t we pressurising our MP’s to ensure these things are done and ensure their commitment to them by making them answerable?
Business leaders do these things routinely because a government that can’t do them, demands they do them.
‘Of the 16 comments so far, not a single suggestion as to how to resolve the petition problem, or holding government to account generally.’
Is this how the White Rose stared off?
Oh and what “Parliamentary debates” are these?
The ones about beer and cake which get a full house – or the attempt by Sir Christopher Chope to have blatantly ignored ‘vaccine’ deaths and severe injuries taken seriously by a scornful, smirking Speaker before being trashed and which attract ZERO MPs?
The sight of that virtually empty chamber was something we should make them aware that we’ll never forget.
Our system only worked pretty well while the interests of the country were generally patriotically sought by the politicians in power. Now their interests are on the global stage with token gestures towards the populace while corruption and is on a scale never seen since feudalism.
Now, in our Information Age, the masses can, if the dig a little, see the rot. To combat this they have decided to control information, create a turnkey full spectrum control grid and prevent the growing swathes of red pilled masses from outright revolt.
Voting won’t save us. They are all sucking at the giant rotten teet of state. Not to do so or wish to would prevent access to the halls of power by the rest of Animal Farm’s pigs.
Seeing as the first phase worked so well in the fake pandemic, it doesn’t bode well for us in the coming manufactured crises of food and energy shortages.
The state has lost its need for existence, so it needs to find a way to make us need the system. For them, it’s a matter of survival that we become slaves to the state.
They have always concealed their motives behind the concept of “you little people don’t have all the information to hand to involve yourselves in matters of state”.
Well, we wouldn’t would we, because we are told much of it is a matter of national security. Whether it is or not is moot, but they will never say that, because “it’s a matter of national security”………..
Mushrooms…….
The HoC and HoL are the Gentleman’s clubs, or even the Masons where, what went on out of sight, stayed out of sight. Each of them sworn to secrecy to uphold the continuance of the system, even if that means lying for your worst enemy.
It’s notable that they all share the same dining facilities and the same drinking dens e.g. the Strangers Bar, where they undoubtedly mingle and chat amongst themselves. They certainly don’t sit across the room glaring at each other.
When they say “it’s just politics” they mean it, whilst slapping each other on the back and toasting each other successes, or commiserating failure – Then it’s game face on and off to the ‘stage’ to argue with each other across the ballot box in the House for the camera’s.
The public need representation and if anyone has ever met their MP they know it’s just not happening.
Personally, that’s the dynamic that needs to change. How they are elected, for whom, when and vitally what’s their accountability?
We have all been seduced into Big Politics. Debating Ukraine or National Covid policies when we simply don’t have the information to hand. Where should we be getting the information we need from? Our MP’s of course. Do we? Not a chance. A ten minute surgery in the local library? How are we to get anything from that?
As I have posted elsewhere here before, our pandemic response failed, if we even had one. Every time there’s a ‘crisis’ our government runs around like a headless chicken seeking solutions. It doesn’t matter what it is.
The fact is, there are procedures that can be in place for every eventuality the moment they happen with basic pre-planning.
A list of events, pandemic, financial collapse, nuclear attack, ‘extreme’ weather, food shortage, transport collapse, meteor strike etc. etc. the immediate response to which is pre planned and updated, say, every three years by every government, and published.
Every service, emergency or otherwise knows precisely what to do at any given moment simply by reading a document that’s immediately to hand.
We are told in the aftermath of every crisis “lessons will be learned” but they never are and the mayhem begins when the panic button is hit as no one has a clue what to do or how to respond.
So, two things to begin with as afar as I’m concerned. Reforming the interface between the public and Parliament – MP’s.
Ensure government pre planning for every eventuality that can reasonably be expected to affect the British public on a national scale.
One question is, why do we even need a government petition website when we have elected MP’s who should be conveying important concerns of their constituents directly into the HoC?
Surely we should be reforming our process of representation if the common man’s concerns are not getting through?
I would also say that many of the petitions I have seen raised on the petition website are just juvenile.
The first-past-the-post system is based on the assumption that defined groups of people each elect a representative which is then sent to an assembly of representatives on behalf of them. That’s a simple concept easily understood by people and it creates a fairly strong bond between voters and their representatives. Ultimatively, people don’t become MPs because they belong to a certain party but because the majority of a specific set of people elected them as their representative.
That’s not so bad compared to something like the German system where MPs are selected by parties they’re supposed to represent and input of voters is restricted to chosing their preferred party. Especially, when one also considers how hideously complicated the election system used in this case is and that presumably only a few people are aware of all its implications and corner cases.
Eg, in general, a party which didn’t get at least 5% of the actually cast votes will be excluded from parliament. This routinely leads to 10% – 15% of the votes simply falling through the cracks, usually votes cast for parties the political establishment seriously dislikes. But these votes are not effect free because they raise the bar for getting past the so-called 5% hurdle. Effectively, all voters who voted for parties which didn’t make it unwilling cooperated in making it more difficult for their preferred party to get into parliament.
Eh? people vote for other parties than their preferred party and that makes it difficult for their preferred party?
stronk logic!
People who voted for any party which didn’t pass the 5% hurdle all unwillingly collaborated in making that happen: There votes jointly served to raise the 5% bar to a point where none of the parties they voted for could pass it anymore.
No sorry, still not making any sense. “non of the parties they voted for”
You get 1 vote.
This makes perfect sense because that’s how it happens to be. Let’s assume 80 people vote. This means 5% of the votes which were cast would be 4 votes, ie, any party with 4 or more votes would go into parliament. Now, let’s assume another 20 people vote in 5 groups of 4, with 5 parties no one voted for so far getting 4 votes each. As the total number of votes is now 100, 5% of that would be 5 votes, hence, all parties with 4 votes get eliminated as well.
NB: I’ll ignore any future attempts an unintentional or intentional misinterpretation of anything I wrote so far.
But, how, as they voted, were they supposed to know that their choice wouldn’t make the 5% barrier?
Macron first came to power on the back of a newly-minted party.
I didn’t even understand the sentence you quoted. Should ‘unwilling’ have been ‘unwillingly’?
A great example of what we shouldn’t do, but what should we do?
If that bit weren’t so tricky, we’d all have the answer.
There are no ‘answers’. Life is ever evolving, what’s right today might not be right tomorrow. All we can do is provide suggestions. Lots of small suggestions build a plan.
Can’t comment on the half a dozen or so I’ve signed recently as I’ve not checked the outcomes but
“Debate the history of Ukraine-Russian relations to inform U.K. policy.”
does seem rather vague to me.
DS Etiquette frowns on conspiracy theories, the done thing is to blame it all on bumbling Bozza, ineptitude, and incompetence, though pointing out “fibbing” sometimes makes final copy
but seriously, it’s pretty obvious governments of all stripes hold the electorate in contempt. If voting made any difference, they wouldn’t let us do it (Twain)
Petitions don’t change anything because if they did we wouldn’t be allowed to have them. It’s all part of their evil game, like “being allowed” to have Pied Piper marches and a lot of these protest groups, to lead you round in circles, never actually achieving anything, usually organised by agents of the state to ensure everyone is kept happy and feeling like theyve “done something”, and to steer people into the outcomes THEY want! We are all being played like never before. We have to be kept as subdued as much as the normies. But one thing it does do is give an idea of strength of opinion, and we have to remain ultra vigilant to their tactics, and keep on doing what we need to do to keep pushing back.
OK. So how do we change things for the better? No use whinging if you have nothing to move forward with.
good luck moving forward with any cunning plan, that’s the whole point being made here!
Point being, you could invent the “perfect system” and they wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole!
No need for a cunning plan. Simply a movement refusing to participate in the existing system would be a start.
I would argue a local secession has the best chance. Lead by example. Small enough you can reach everyone, but large enough to support itself. Our ancient petty kingdoms fit the bill; Strathclyde, Northumbria etc.
Nationwide reforms cannot easily succeed. They own national media. But they don’t own local media. That is one factor.
If it were me I’d love to demonstrate to people how Russia can survive with only a 14% income tax and minimal regulations, despite being supposedly bereft of freedom. That is, abolishing all sales taxes and business taxes in your local area would free up a lot of cash for ordinary people. It would also demonstrate how we are being fleeced by big government.
That would be my goal. Localism. Then it doesn’t matter if Brighton want to promote gaydom or Manchester wants to heavily tax pensions. It is the one size fits all stuff that is killing us.
Precisely.
We should all be considering how to improve our electoral system. For too many years MP’s have busied themselves, making themselves busy. But no one reviews their performance. No one monitors the successes or failures. If they do something wrong the first people they answer to is their peers in the HoC instead of their voters.
Lots more options and suggestions needed, not just whining about how bad things are.
I try not to already!
Most people are politicly sound asleepwalking, especially the hardliners effectively living in a limited hangout; they even think their vote counts!
It follows that any system must not involve”them”. The whole point of freedom is you don’t need permission for anything. That is our tradition. We have rules against negatives only.
Not saying it is easy, but a base assumption we must somehow convince the psychopaths destroying us to go along with it won’t work.
It’s a fair point, Corbett, Fitts etc. have explored this, an alternative system rather than challenge the current system.
It reminds me of the “Transition Towns” thing ~20yrs ago, I think some of them are still going, Totnes, Brighton, Bristol and a few more had LETS systems, but it was way before it’s time for most people.
I was inspired at the time, I even opened up a 14 acre permaculture site, first 2 yrs went great, then narcisisstic people problems pretty much kyboshed it, I got so stressed my wife threatened to leave me unless I sold the land to free up the capital to renovate our building project <shrug> I ain’t got the mental energy to lead another one tbh, I’m digging in prepper style with a wider network of like minded people, we won’t be the slowest campers when the Bear comes!
Usual socialist bollox. You don’t tear down a system only to build it into some sort of utopian dream, you fix what doesn’t work in a potentially promising system.
We have a promising system, it’s just been badly neglected and is now run by the very people who shouldn’t be running it.
Corbett & Fitts socialists? LOL No. Corbett is Anarchist (in the true sense)/libertarian; Fitts seems very conservative (in the UK sense)
It’s not about “tearing down” anything, it’s about self reliance, building local networks that can work outside the system. Doesn’t look “utopian” to me, looks like bloody hard work.
It’s as if you don’t really any idea what they’re really saying, but label it “socialist bollox” because it’s easier than looking at what they’re saying.
100%!!
In other news, the Pope is Catholic.
But then he isn’t, is he?
A very real problem with their website also is that it makes absolutely no attempt to validate whether the people who sign their petitions are humans, are citizens, are of voting age, haven’t signed before, etc. They only seem to require that each signature is associated with a unique e-mail address.
Using the old UNIX convention of ignoring everything after the +, it would be trivial for me to sign one of their petitions more than once per citizen of the UK in a few days with a simple set of scripts.
If one wants to use the petitions to properly feed into the democratic process, then one must ensure that the signatures are meaningful, that they come from people who are entitled to vote and they have not been fraudulently obtained.
With respect, if online petitions had any meaning they would be hijacked by minority groups to push unrepresentative policies through. We’ve got that problem bad enough ad it is. Most normal people show up at elections but don’t actively engage in politics apart from that.
Yes, they’re a joke, but pretending petitions had some sort of authority would make us a better society seems naive to me.
Well, of course. Like peaceful protests, they’re just safety valves to stop the pressure building to the point where anyone does anything.
It’s scary ‘doing something’ – you could end up getting arrested or being sent to prison.
“In fact none of the 40,000 petitions have succeeded in bringing about their desired change.”
Looks like I was right, then!
Still, some people like to believe they got some virtue-signalling points for signing petitions.
“I signed it!”
“So did I!”
“Me too!”
“Baaaaaa!”
Interesting that neither Dr.Seedhouse, nor any commenters seem to mention the Climate Assembly or various other Citizens’ Panels.
This might be strange, as Our Beloved Leaders set these up, at considerable expense and some fanfares of publicity to show how important they consider “Public Opinion” to be.
Of course, even a bright six year old could (and perhaps did) point out that a selection (that they carefully made) of “applicants” to be on the panel (thus giving them many “activists” to choose from), who were then gathered together (at public expense) and bombarded by activist agit-prop (previously selected and annointed as The Settled Science), would only, could only, propose and agree on things that absolutely reinforced our Beloved Leaders’ decisions.
So, on balance, it is perhaps encouraging that neither Dr. Seedhouse nor any of the commenters thought that this cynical and despicable propaganda manoeuvre worth mentioning.
We even got some of our Beloved Leaders commenting in the House or on the Telly that the Panel’s or Assembly’s views would have to be respected and adopted. I suppose that it was thought a cunning wheeze, so that if any policy they had dreamed up went tits up, more obviously and more quickly than usual, the panel could be blamed.
But I thought that it is worth remembering, if only as reinforcing what is here the general view, that Our Beloved Leaders don’t care a fiddler’s fart what the people of the Country want.
Don’t trust Priti Patel. This Fake Conservative Government is trying to destroy our freedoms daily, Chinese Communist Party style. ISPs and Government Quangos are currently trying to shut down the conservative Woman website
You must wake up to the fact that ISP are now trying to shut down websites that don’ t fit the narrative. The Online Safety Bill is passing through Parliament at the moment and threatens to be even more draconian. It will give the British Government further powers to shut down free speech and debate.
.
“As censoring of TCW worsens, who is trying to gag us?
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/as-censoring-of-tcw-worsens-who-is-trying-to-gag-us/
TCW”
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Stand in the Park Sundays 10.30 -11.30am
make friends & keep sane from the globalist propaganda
Wokingham –
Howard Palmer Gardens Sturges Rd RG40 2HD
Interesting article. I was recently in Norway and the Nobel Peace exhibition had an index of world wide democracies and the U.K. was well outside the top 10, which initially was a surprise to me but thinking about it, sounds about right
The aim of government “consultations” are to give the illusion of listening and soak up the efforts of the opposition on the entirely pointless and loaded “questions” whilst they just get on with what they were always going to do.
The aim of an “inquiry” is to soak up the efforts of the opposition, into a meaningless exercise which at best will prevent prosecutions and kick the subject so far into the future that everyone forgets what it was about.
The rejected petitions site was always good for cheering one up. My personal favourite was “Reclassify Cheese as a vegetable.”
I don’t agree with much of this. The Government petitions are way way more influential than all the other options such as change dot org that simply collects signatures and nothing happens nor is it required to make anything happen. With a Govt petition you get updates on debates, you can watch live streams of them, your MP gets to know how many in your area are signing it, there are requirements at different levels to respond so at 10k a ‘response’, at over 100k a debate….all of the above being far in excess of any other petition option that simply collects emails for future marketing. Charity petitions also don’t lead to action just a longer marketing email list. There’s a charity petition that’s been going on for about 5 years saying ‘sign to get shops to use less packaging’ etc. last time round it had over 3 million sigs. but what has happened, almost nothing and when you contact them to say ‘what’s happened, why didn’t you do this as a Govt. petition’ they give a very patronising answer as if to suggest….’don’t worry your little head, we’ve got it in hand, we spoke with a leading supermarket last week’….and that’s it….If a Govt petition had 3million sigs it would be a significant debate issue in parliament as one of the highest ever signature levels.
I think also that the article seems to imply that just because a petition leads to a significant number (over 100k) signatures it will automatically mean change to practise in favour o the theme or topic or proposal presented but …as it’s a democracy…. that may not automatically follow. During both Brexit and Covid there were significant but opposing petitions in terms of their themes that the Government would often debate in combination as they were opposing but on the same/similar theme. And you would be notified of the debates so you could watch if you want and see the different views presented and the presenters and their views and you could access transcriptions of them as well as be notified of outcomes. Rather than not democratic I see them as the most underused democratic tool available to the public. Much rather them than rant and rave on social media, sign commercial petition sites that provide absolutely none of the above benefits and insights and then feel powerless and unhappy with things when to do the latter is a waste of time. The Government petitions can’t guarantee change towards what your signature wishes….as we live in a democracy…..people may not agree with us….but they are without comparison the best way of getting MPs to consider our views over any other and are greatly underused. Using change is a wast of time….please stop putting important topics on change….and other commercial petition email gathering sites. The Government sites also do not sell on your personal data…..have I said enough on it yet? So much better as an option to use Government petition sites.
This is a very good riposte to the atl piece.
Yes, the petitions are a waste of time. Writing to your MP is a waste of time. For me, the lack of a viable right of centre party means that voting is a waste of time, too.
Groupthinking mainstream political parties have lost connection with the electorate, but the only new party that has broken through is the SNP.
We need new political parties, and a media that doesn’t protect the status quo.
you want a favourable outcome for the petition?
easy!
just petition the following:
“increase the enumeration of members of parliament by 100%.”
So, the reply to the original petition title suggests that the Government admits that a debate in Parliament does not equate with ‘action’.
Is Truth beginning to make a timid reappearance?
I’ve signed many of these petitions and have become numbed to the inevitable bland response and lack of any meaningful action. It’s just a cynical ploy to make us feel like we have a voice especially when one’s MP is useless.
‘If we are ever to have meaningful democracy’ : ha ha ha ha!
“Illusion of Democracy” indeed but we sign in hope…
Yes indeed, the instantly binned/ shredded ‘petitions’ are just the steam valve like planning or ‘proposed legislation’ consultations – all a total sham to fool the naive.
We have no democracy in this country nor a Parliament which any longer represents the interests of the people .
Interesting article but fundamentally naive. Democracy has long gone from this land and globally and only a little research is needed to find the new global hierarchy (organogram). Until we break this new structure we will never see democracy again I’m afraid
So many people are waking up to the fact that this destruction of our economy and culture is deliberate. The Bank of England has printed loads of money which always causes inflation. I would say 10% inflation is very optimistic. It’s likely to be far worse.
As the Climate Change subisides we pay for fund “renewable energy” that clearly doesn’t work and is destroying the environment not saving it.
Amanda in East Sussex gets it dead right
Mike Graham caller claims UK is being destroyed
youtube watch?v=Nai-G1zF7Hs
Amanda in East Sussex claims the government is destroying the country “on purpose”, with people “still wearing masks in shops” and migrants “flooding in.”
TalkTV
A quote from one of the messages left on YouTube: “This chap Graham it was clear had no interest in her anger, and waffled on about the Weather and inflation. Good on her! She speaks for the majority.”
**
Stand in the Park Sundays 10.30 -11.30am
make friends & keep sane from the globalist propaganda
Wokingham –
Howard Palmer Gardens Sturges Rd RG40 2HD
Stop signing petitions – they are controlled opposition and designed for instant shredding.
People are still pretending that we are living in a democracy when the voice of the people counts – since Johnson took over with his “Emergency Covid Rule” we do not and it does not.
The complete obliteration of the Labour Party as any kind of political organisation with any defined policies of purpose is further evidence – it now appears just a device for putting the bums of lackeys on Westminster seats and stuffing their mouths with money to keep them shut!
A few Tories grunge and mumble now and again – but that’s it since the “Covid Coup” of 2020!
If voting changed anything, they’d ban it.
The same applies – in spades – to petitions. I sign them, but only because I like to feel I’m doing something to annoy the Establishment, not because I expect anything meaningful to come of it.
We are governed by a globalist uniparty.
Part of the game is to keep the plebs docile by pretending they have choice.
But it doesn’t matter whether Labour or the Tories get in we get the globalist uniparty agenda.