You would imagine that proposals to devolve politically the area where you live would be big news, especially in the area where you live. But the first I knew about this was when I saw a sticker with a QR code at a bus stop in Hull. We were exhorted to “have our say” on the proposals which were published on November 23rd 2023 for a Hull and East Yorkshire Devolution Deal. I don’t recall a letter to my house, amidst the deluge of letters from the local council every time the collection times for the bins changes. As I have not heard my friends, family or neighbours talking about this, my guess is that no such letter was ever delivered.
In outline, the proposals are for a unitary authority covering the present East Riding of Yorkshire Council area including Hull, which presently has its own city council. A consultation has just taken place on three possible levels of authority: one which barely differs from the present set up; one which is a hybrid; and one which goes for the full Monty, thereby abolishing the two existing councils and creating a new one to cover the whole region.
Potential nightmayor
According to two of the models it is envisaged they will be under the leadership of an elected mayor. Think London and Manchester and other areas of the country unfortunate enough to suffer under some political maverick who sees mayoralty as a stepping stone to world domination. Locally, we have a series of reasonably high-profile politicians such as David Davies MP, former MP turned author Alan Johnson (very popular), and Dame Diana Johnson (God save us). It is unlikely that Lord Prescott, now in poor health, will put his Jag in the ring. Would Michelle Dewberry take a shot or comedian Lucy Beaumont? There is always Hullensian Maureen Lipman who is very popular, but who chooses to reside in York rather than Hull.
Referring to East Yorkshire’s role in the Battle of Stamford Bridge (the final defeat of the Vikings, not the Chelsea vs Arsenal Derby), Hull’s defiance of King Charles I during the First English Civil War and, of course, our very own William Wilberforce, the authors of the devolution deal make the case for this new load of nonsense.
Train of thought
The rhetoric continues as platitude piles upon platitude. There is much talk of “levelling up” and “leverage” of “sectoral strengths”. A cracking series of oxymorons is expressed thus in the proposed “transition to a more productive, low carbon economy whilst improving the living standards and economic opportunities for their most deprived communities”. Much is made of the “low carbon economy”, the Zero Carbon Humber Partnership and “carbon capture, usage and storage clusters” – whatever they may be – and ultra bollocks such as the desire to “support inclusive economic growth in towns, cities and rural areas whilst tackling climate change”.
There is absolutely nothing that will not be fantastic once the new overlords are elected. Everything from adult education through housing to investment in enterprise, all things that both existing councils have spouted about for decades and where they have achieved next to nothing. It would have been no surprise to see “and world peace” as one of the goals of a unitary authority.
The green agenda runs throughout meaning that, in the lemming like leap to ‘decarbonisation’, we will have an ‘Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure’. Clearly, the authors of the devolution deal are not readers of the Daily Sceptic as there is a lack of concomitant planning to increase the local fire and rescue services they will need to rescue people from exploding Teslas.
Of course, we will have ‘consolidated’ local transport and electrification of the rail line to Hull which will slash the travel times to places such as York and Sheffield by several minutes. The long suffering train commuters of Hull were promised electrification of our rail system before we hosted the Year of Culture in 2017. In the intervening period not one amp has been pushed past a single ohm by a single volt between Doncaster and Hull. Quite how a mayoral authority will achieve this, where existing structures have failed, is hard to fathom. Those long suffering train commuters will just be happy to see trains arriving and departing at Hull Paragon station regularly and on time, by whatever means they’re propelled.
Carbon copy
Still on the transport agenda, we’re promised ‘Active Travel’ policies which will “ensure walking and cycling schemes are designed and delivered to high standards”. Presumably, they’re not referring to the “high standards” already achieved in the profusion of cycle lanes around Hull. Our cycle lanes are already the butt of many a joke and, prior to their creation, a city-wide consultation revealed what Hull folks – not prone to mincing their words – thought about them: “some of the most popular responses calling the new scheme ‘ridiculous’ and a ‘waste of money’”. Of course, the City Council installed them anyway. They are universally useless; they begin and end at arbitrary places and, where the road is too narrow, they simply stop. Some lead cyclists away from the inside lane at points, across the traffic, into the middle of the road and then stop, leaving cyclists puzzled as to where to go and motorists considering whether it is legal to mow them down. Most Hull cyclists vote with their handlebars and cycle on the pavement, with impunity.
Cyclists can use the bus lanes and there is nothing more comical than watching a slow stroppy cyclist being followed by a bus which cannot overtake, proceeding to its destination at the same speed as the cyclist. Actually, one thing is more comical and that is being on the bus listening to the stream of expletives from the driver’s cab. An educational experience. And don’t get me started on bus lanes, another aspect of the green agenda, which clog up Hull’s roads. In a remarkable example of people power, having excluded cars completely during the day, they were recently returned only to excluding cars at peak times. But not bicycles.
Green with ennui
We are promised green jobs and, to prove that the green agenda can lead to jobs, the Green Jobs Delivery Group will oversee progress ensuring that local workers and businesses “are supported through the Net Zero transition”. Those employed in the delivery group will be the only people to benefit from this and, no doubt, will be advising the hordes of unemployed created in the wake of the Net Zero transition to cycle to the dole office, thereby remaining active and contributing to the very agenda that has led to their enforced indolence. The authors of the devolution deal clearly operate in an evidence-free zone. We already know, thanks to Chris Morrison (of this parish) that most jobs now referred to as ‘green’ are simply existing jobs that have been relabelled to align with the green agenda, including “dustmen, mechanics, teachers and bureaucrats”. We also know that “each job in the wind and solar power sectors is being subsidised by the taxpayer to the tune of over £250,000 per job, every year”.
And so the devolution deal document goes on, blowing hard about offshore wind, another of the expensive green agenda scams which delivers little except damage to marine wildlife, environment and climate change adaptation and flooding and water management. In fact, this last one is a serious issue for Hull and some parts of the Humber estuary which lie below the water level. However, we have a very effective tidal barrier at the mouth of the River Hull which keeps us safe. There were devastating floods in Hull in 2007 when one person died and millions of pounds of damage was caused but the problem was not so much the torrential rain for many days as the fact that our drainage system was inadequate and, as any Hull resident will tell you, the local council had been neglecting to clean the drains for years.
Chilling prospect
The most chilling aspect (probably literally) of the report is the proposal to comply with the Government’s intention to establish heat network zones. There are already a staggering 1,400 heat networks in the U.K. Hull does not yet have any but plans are well underway to develop the infrastructure by installing a series of pipes which will be “used to transport heated water to buildings connected to the network”. According to the devolution deal local authorities “will have powers to require certain buildings to connect to heat networks within the zones” and thus will enable Hull and East Yorkshire Combined Authority to “assume the role of heat network Zoning Coordinator for its locality if they wish to play this role in the delivery of heat decarbonisation infrastructure”. Essentially, the local arbiters of the nanny state could be given the controls to the heating in thousands of people’s homes. You’ll be able to turn the heat off if it is too warm but unable to turn it up – beyond a predetermined maximum temperature – if you’re too cold.
Finally, I leave you with another of the many word salads from the devolution deal which comes under the heading of ‘Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG)’. Apparently, Hull and East Yorkshire are “missing the evidence on how they can include carbon sequestration and sequestration carbon values of BNG/flood interventions, to develop innovative approaches and incentivising greater private sector investment”. Perhaps the problem is that, on the one hand, nobody knows what that means and, on the other hand, nobody cares.
Dr. Roger Watson is Academic Dean of Nursing at Southwest Medical University, China. He has a PhD in biochemistry. He writes in a personal capacity.
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Peter Hitchens is, as usual, right: the death penalty is in principle a good thing, but the present state of Britain’s judiciary makes it impossible to advocate seriously for its reintroduction. The Letby case is a prime example of that, as was the Sally Clark case 20 years ago.
I say we give the convicts a choice: 1) death, or 2) life in prison without parole. Many will actually choose the former. Once on death row, you get 30 days to decide your fate, and if you don’t decide either way by day 29, by default you get executed on day 30. And none of these fancy expensive drugs (or gas, or electric chairs), an ordinary firing squad will do just fine. (Cigarette and blindfold optional.)
I think that having the State in a position where they can decide to end your life on a pre-text is a bad idea right now. You might end up on a trap door with only a rope to break your fall for a misplaced Tweet. On the Letby case, I know that there is a lot of emotion around this, but there are also considerable concerns about the case and verdict and an appeal is likely.
I’m with Blackstone, especially on this type of case. IMHO there are too many cases like Lucia de Berk or Ben Gunn for comfort.
Do we want the death penalty?
Think about it.
Do we want to hand the government on a plate a method of permanently silencing individuals they do not like, when “cancelling” them does not go far enough?
Do we trust the government not to abuse the law? Look at how they used the Public Health Act.
Do some of us suspect that over the last three years, the government has been killing off sections of society they do not like, under our very noses?
As a sticker on a bus stop in north London observed, Boris Johnson wrote about “why is nobody controlling the population?” in 2008 or so.
As for whether LL is guilty or not, with all the circumstantial evidence (funny how she has a highly memorable alliterative name, like Sharon Shoesmith, who was also turned into a public pariah): I would like to think that if the evidence got through a 10-month trial, with all the crown court protocol, and the jury took a month to deliberate, it’s extremely unlikely that she is innocent. There were probably plenty of opportunities for her to get off on a technicality. I don’t know how widely reported the case was early on (as I avoid mainstream media), but I’d never heard of her until the guilty verdict.
The media whipping up a storm about her refusing to appear in the dock has echoes of the baying mob against those who refused to clap, to obey the mythical “only allowed out for an hour”, to wear a face nappy, to take the jab. Even Sunak was interviewed saying he will change the law on this – an easy way for him to be “seen to do something”, just like lockdowns.
Lots of the evidence for Partygate was purely circumstantial, as Saint Boris tried to argue (he didn’t use the word “circumstantial” – it’s too long for him).
And if anything comes to light (we can only hope) about the Plandemic being deliberately started, and the government locking down for sh*** and giggles, evidence for this is likely to be circumstantial.
“I would like to think that if the evidence got through a 10-month trial, with all the crown court protocol, and the jury took a month to deliberate, it’s extremely unlikely that she is innocent.”
Given what many of us have learnt over the last few years, we should IMO definitely be questioning the integrity of the justice system as applied in individual cases. Judges can be bought off and/or threatened, as can defence lawyers. And defence lawyers can be incompetent. And the jury process is also open to abuse and cannot be relied upon, IMO.
The death penalty is acceptable when one has a sound and uncorrupted criminal justice system. We don’t have one. Interestingly , in Old Testament times, which is often condemned for being a bloodthirsty era, criminal convictions required at least two witnesses to the crime, and conviction rested on the eyewitness accounts being in agreement. Anybody giving false witness to the crime was dealt the same punishment as the accused would have received. There was no question of convicting someone on circumstantial evidence either, like simply being in a certain place at a certain time.
If Lucy Letby ever eventually wins an appeal, a lot of people are going to look very stupid, like Lord Denning and many others after the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four won their appeals.
“Disbelief at Reading Festival’s ban on ‘cultural appropriation’ clothes”
Judging by the state the revellers left the campsite in, we should all be grateful that our future World is in such good hands..
And I bet the vast majority of these people just abandoning their unwanted posessions to the four winds consider themselves ‘green’ and ‘eco aware’. Hypocrites.
Thery leave the tents and sleeping bags ‘for charity’ as if anyone actually wants damaged and burned tents, and sleeping bags reeking of urine and vomit. I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole lot ended up in a hole in the ground…
“Democrats’ climate change blame game for Hawaii fire confronted by reality after Maui identifies cause”
…but as always, the lie has been round the world while truth was putting its boots on…
Some arsonists apprehended in Greece are allegedly migrants also.
”For the past week, Greece has once again been plagued by wildfires, particularly in the vicinity of Alexandroupolis, in the northeast of the country, near the border with Turkey, which is close to where 13 Pakistani and Syrian migrants were arrested for arson.
A video posted on social networks last Tuesday says the group was caught red-handed trying to start a fire near the town of Alexandroupolis. They have been charged with illegal entry and attempted arson by a public prosecutor, but one government source says the fire was an “accident.”
https://rmx.news/greece/13-pakistani-and-syrian-migrants-arrested-for-arson-as-deadly-wildfires-erupt-near-greek-border/
..I think it’s still got some way to run..a lot of stuff I’m reading is now saying that while TPTB want people to accept the ‘utility company’ story…they don’t believe that’s true either.
There are still entire families missing presumed dead….including hundreds of children, and still no one is talking about them….….there is still a lot of talk about it being a land-grab?……Still a lot of apparent inconsistencies in the stories…
I have heard that Oprah WInfrey bought the land not too long back, something I’ve not been able to confirm…
The brilliant actor James Woods said this on his X feed, about Maui..which might hold a fair bit of truth!?
“Someday after all the land is appropriated, Hollywood will make a movie about this. Rich people in tuxedoes will celebrate their compassion and give each other little gold statues. And then everything will be forgotten”
“Wikipedia should focus on content creation – not social justice campaigns”
Wikipedia’s content IS a social justice campaign, where they are able to squeeze it in. Who “runs” it is somewhat opaque to me; there are lots of volunteers contributing who I imagine are mainly lefties judging by the articles, but I am not sure how you get to be one of the people who decide stuff when there are disputes – but it’s been taken over by the left just like everything else. Still some good stuff in there on non-political subjects.
Indeed. On TV series and discographies, Wikipedia is fine. It’s also very useful when looking up peoples’ Early Life. But much beyond that it veers off into far-left propaganda.
You only have to look at the Talk page for each article to see how the process is managed.
Only left and far-left leaning publications are acceptable as “trusted sources”, so it’s inherently biased and often full of establishment lies, e.g. Trump and Russia.
On a related note, I use a search blocker called uBlacklist which allows you to block websites from google search results. I find results to be much more useful when you get rid of the propaganda from the Guardian, BBC, Independent, CNN and NYT that Google pushes to the top.
Why isn’t it cultural appropriation when non-Europeans wear European style clothing? Tells you all you need to know. Everything to do with race and culture is just a thinly disguised way to attack white people and our culture.
South Asians should stop using chillis in their food: chillis came from the Americas and were introduced to Asia by evil white people from Portugal.
Thanks; I didn’t know that. I will try to throw that into conversations.
The whole idea that “cultural appropriation” is bad or even avoidable is so absurd that you wonder how it has taken hold and how a civilisation that embraces ever progressed beyond living in caves.
Living in caves was cultural appropriation from Australopithecines, so wash your mouth out with soap. Oh, that was invented by foreigners too.
LOL so true
I know, right? The whole specious concept of “cultural appropriation” being somehow bad is really just silly. Literally EVERY culture in history (and prehistory), except perhaps those tiny few who remain isolated and uncontacted to this day, is “guilty” of this “sin”. Even if it is defined a bit more narrowly, such as picking and choosing what one wants from another culture and discarding the rest, practically every culture is still “guilty” of doing so as well.
Talking of isolated peoples, I once got into an argument on YouTube regarding the inhabitants of the North Sentinel Islands who tend to kill visitors. Some ship ran aground nearby at some point in the past and they went onto the ship and stripped it of stuff that looked useful to them. The narrator of this video I watched made some comment along the lines of “and so, the Sentinelese entered the Iron Age”. I pointed out that the Iron Age was when humans noticed there was iron ore in the ground, dug it up, learned how to manipulate it and made useful stuff with it. That’s not quite the same as finding a crowbar on a ship. Some lamebrain replied to me along the lines of “but yes they were in an Iron Age because they were using iron tools”. No wonder we’re doomed if people really think like that.
Indeed, one’s IQ can easily drop ten points just hearing someone say that.
As did potatoes and tomatoes and corn. These foods spread across the globe but their origin was South America.
Mustn’t forget tobacco too. Actually, isn’t tobacco due for a revival given its serious adverse effects on health?
This really does make for concerning reading when you see an overview of the situation like this. ‘Mohammed’ has eclipsed ‘John’! ‘The great replacement’ going great guns in the UK and across Europe;
”Leicester, Luton and Birmingham are among 14 large areas of England where people who identify as “white” now make up the minority. The highest proportion are found in the London boroughs of Newham (69.2%), Brent (65.4%) and Redbridge (65.2%). Outside London, the highest proportion of non-whites is in Slough (64.0%), followed by Leicester (59.1%), Luton (54.8%) and Birmingham (51.4%).
For the first time since the 7th century AD, England is no longer majority-Christian.
“The British will be a minority by 2066,” wrote David Coleman, the most important English demographer, professor at Oxford, in Prospect magazine. “The 50 percent threshold has no special demographic significance, but it will have considerable psychological and political impact, and the transition from majority to minority will represent a huge shift in cultural, political and religious identity.”
And in the future, to accommodate all immigrants from Asia, England will have to build “eighteen Birminghams”.
Mohammed today is the first name in all of England: the first in Manchester, the first in Nottingham, the first in Leicester, the first in Leeds, the first in Luton, the first in Bradford…Everywhere the same numbers in the biggest British cities.
In just a generation, Islam will be the first religion in all of England.
And to think that just ten years ago, to the great wrath of the liberal intelligentsia, David Cameron defined England as a “Christian country”.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/376190
“…in pursuance of a decision on which they were never consulted, they found themselves made strangers in their own country”, as someone once said.
Yes..although we are told that from the last census around 18% of the UK population is from an ‘ethnic’ background, what they fail to mention is that in schools that jumps to over 35% of children are from ethnic backgrounds….I’m not sure it will take to 2066?…..
Bit ‘rabbit holey’ or maybe paranoid for this early in the day (
) but this does sound kind of prophetic from decades ago. Maybe we are becoming the slowly boiling frogs as our cities turn gradually into prisons..and this is before the internet! Man’s got a point. ( 3min clip )
https://twitter.com/WillingWitness/status/1696202515300458788
Chilling. And quite possibly true.
Their future is in the control which can be exercised in cities, especially “smart” C40 cities. Rural areas are a real problem for them: all those hard to get to places to evade detection, outbuildings they don’t know about, farm animals and fields providing self-sufficiency, mechanical plant allowing unregulated travel/digging/building, undeclared fuel dumps, the odd firearm, plenty of pitchforks, the absence of easy surveillance/control options, not to mention a curmudgeonly local population (of which I am one). Patrick Vallance’s document on imagining net zero admits as much, in saying that institutional trust/compliance is much higher and easier to enforce among urban populations. Hence concerted attacks on rural ways of life. If enough people (1) leave the city and (2) ditch their smartphones, the whole project collapses.
Wow, spot on!
“Wikipedia should focus on content creation – not social justice campaigns”
The naivete of some of these writers is annoying. Do they think that the social justice campaigns in Wikipedia are accidental? And are we not past the times when it is useful to say “X ought to be doing Y instead of Z,” since the whole strategy is to achieve Z?
It’s like saying that Lenin would be better off getting agriculture right instead of worrying about class enemies.
Quite. For starters, it would be helpful if Wikipedia focussed on facts and truth first and held back on narrative-based opinion, censorship and whitewash rather than AI-driven content creation!
“BlackRock hit by backlash after fall in ESG votes”
Since when has an ethically questionable company with a value greater than several countries given a sh*t about anything other than their own agenda? I’m sure they can cope with a few basis points off their share value for a few days while they drive through their plans for world domination.
https://hotair.com/david-strom/2023/08/28/cochrane-review-the-latest-scientific-institution-ruined-by-covid-ideology-n574233#google_vignette
“This is another example of how scientific institutions have been destroying themselves. The narrative requires that mask mandates work; the reality is that they don’t. In a rational world, scientists would simply put out the evidence and let the political actors do their thing. They shouldn’t be activists for or against masks, but rather providers of evidence.
But that is no longer the role of scientists. They have assumed the role of oracles whose job it is to act as con men, backing up the claims of the “right” people.
This works in the short term–most people fall in line, believing that the scientists are non-partisan truth-tellers–and destroys scientific credibility in the long run. People catch on to the con.”
So true
Well blow me down with a feather..we were right..of course we were….
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12453329/99-PERCENT-Covid-deaths-not-caused-virus-official-data.html#:~:text=Nearly%2099%20percent%20of%20%27Covid,the%20virus%2C%20official%20data%20shows.
Nearly 99 percent of ‘Covid deaths’ reported by the CDC each week are not primarily caused by the virus, official data shows.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Covid dashboard shows just 1.7 percent of the 324 Covid deaths registered in the week ending August 19 had the coronavirus as the primary cause of death.
(not behind a pay-wall)
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/authorities-in-denial-over-vaccine-link-to-soaring-pilot-deaths/
PILOT deaths are in the news again as three more have ‘died suddenly’ this month.
Recent freedom of information (FOI) requests to the CAA and the RAF show an alarming increase in the number of commercial and armed forces pilots registered unfit to fly post the vaccination rollout.
pilots:
· 2018 – 1,550 – normal year
· 2019 – 1,663 – first covid cases reported in December 2019
· 2020 – 851 – air travel restricted because of lockdowns, covid infections at their worst, no vaccine until December
· 2021 – 1,594 – vaccine widely available from January and mandated for US and Australian pilots in November but not for British, the majority of whom would have taken the vaccine or faced restrictions flying to countries with vaccine mandates
· 2022 – 2,784 – post vaccination, huge increase in failed medicals – 75 per cent.
I posted this yesterday but am reposting as this information is mind blowing & completely destroys the whole ‘deadly virus pandemic with vaccines as the only way to stop it’ false narrative. It also destroys the avian flu narrative.
It is well worth investing your time watching this. Lots of information is presented & the fact that ‘covid’ symptoms are exactly the same as radiation exposure symptoms is a good way to get folk questioning the need for a ‘vaccine’ to prevent the radiation exposure.
https://rumble.com/user/cbkovess
Hear, hear! LOL!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJs2yZpQFWA
ALISTAIR WILLIAMS …September Lockdowns?
Discussion with John Campbell and Russel Grant…
Full of interest and info…..
Starts with Moderna’s $400 million ‘donation’ to the NIH…Rishi’s investment in Moderna, and Van Tams new job there…but there’s nothing to see here!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hh8CBR78DhQ
Were and are all the variants made in the lab as well?
Some credible researchers from Japan have found anomalies that suggest so.
https://www.steynonline.com/13744/who-making-the-variants
For the time being, “ULEZ: Chaos as fines cancelled”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAnStegdz6Y&list=WL&index=2 This matter was reported on GBN as well.
And another one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQJ3XxKpOoU&list=WL&index=3 A “Black Belt Barrister” production this time.
Quite astonishing that there should be any question of the death penalty in the Letby case. For a start, it has not yet been demonstrated to the public that she is without any shadow of a doubt guilty.