- “Britain to stop exporting some arms to Israel, Lammy announces” – Israel has responded furiously to Britain’s decision to clamp down on arms sales, saying it is “deeply disheartened” by the drop in support, reports the Mail.
- “Dark tunnels and moral beacons”– The names of the six murdered Israeli hostages – and the evil ideology of their executioners – should be seared into the minds of all who wish to live in a civilised society, writes Bari Weiss in the Free Press.
- “Israel has always been forced to be too kind to its enemies” – When it comes to pushing forward to victory in war, the Jewish state has always been held to a different standard, says Jake Wallis Simons in the Telegraph.
- “Tory councillor’s wife admits inciting racial hatred” – The wife of a Conservative Party councillor has pleaded guilty to publishing social media posts that stirred up racial hatred, reports the Standard.
- “Telegraph readers on Starmer’s free speech approach” – In the Telegraph, readers voice their views on the Prime Minister’s actions in response to the widespread riots.
- “Starmer taking knee for BLM shows Labour ‘takes some violence less seriously’” – James Cleverly claims that Keir Starmer taking the knee for Black Lives Matter shows Labour “takes some violence less seriously than others”, according to the Telegraph.
- “Police log more non-crime hate incidents despite crackdown” – Official data obtained by the Free Speech Union reveals that, despite a crackdown, the police are logging more non-crime hate incidents than ever, says the Telegraph.
- “Tories governed like Labour, says Badenoch” – Kemi Badenoch says the Tories’ mistake was that it “talked Right but governed Left” at the launch of her Tory leadership campaign, according to PA Media.
- “Scrapping one-word Ofsted verdicts is a mistake” – The decision to scrap one or two-word Ofsted inspection grades for England’s schools is good news for teachers – but bad news for parents, says Andrew Tettenborn in the Spectator.
- “Scrapping one-word Ofsted ratings puts feelings above facts, says Birbalsingh” – Britain’s ‘strictest head teacher’ has described the decision to scrap one-word Ofsted ratings as a “nod in the wrong direction”, according to the Telegraph.
- “Has the number of rapes in Britain really gone up?” – Has the number of rapes in England and Wales soared in recent years? A little digging reveals that this apparent increase is entirely down to changes in recording and reporting, writes Noah Carl in UnHerd.
- “The SNP is wrong: Scotland is a conservative country” – The inept Tories have failed to realise many voters north of the border are crying out for an anti-woke party, says Tim Stanley in the Telegraph.
- “Man found dead at home after GP surgery told patients to email” – A senior coroner has written a warning to the Government over GP surgeries asking patients to email rather than call after a man died when staff ignored him, reports the Mail.
- “Who wants to be weighed in the workplace?” – ‘Health MoTs’ for middle-aged men are the latest harebrained scheme from Starmer’s nanny state, says Lauren Smith in Spiked.
- “The war on smokers has gone too far” – Banning smoking in public parks, outdoor restaurants and pub gardens – as reports suggest Labour might do – is illiberal to no clear purpose, writes Sam Leith in the Spectator.
- “Royal Society report contains half-trillion-pound error” – A key report published under the auspices of the Royal Society understated the cost of building a Net Zero electricity grid by half a trillion pounds, according to Net Zero Watch.
- “Coolest U.K. summer since 2015” – According to the latest statistics from the Met Office, the U.K. has experienced its coolest summer in nine years, reports the BBC.
- “Low popularity zones” – Transport Minister Louise Haigh’s move to lift the ban on LTNs and 20mph speed limits will face the same backlash as Wales and Khan’s Ulez, writes Jack Watson in Country Squire.
- “Starmer faces more backlash over winter fuel payment cuts” – The prospect of 10 million pensioners missing out on the winter fuel payment has ruffled feathers among his backbenchers, especially since Sir Keir somehow rustled up cash for public sector pay rises, notes Steerpike in the Spectator.
- “Moscow says it will revise its nuclear doctrine over Western ‘escalation’ in Ukraine” – State media has quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying that Russia will amend its doctrine on the use of nuclear weapons in response to what it perceives as Western escalation in the war in Ukraine, according to the Guardian.
- “The trans ‘cult of ideology’ ripping apart Britain’s doctors’ union” – The British Medical Association’s decision to challenge the Cass review and condemn the puberty blockers ban has started a civil war, says Sanchez Manning in the Telegraph.
- “How Creative Scotland was corrupted by gender ideology” – Creative Scotland is over. The organisation has managed to make itself hated by both politicians and artists. It exists only to feed itself and its infantile staff, writes Euan McColm in the Spectator.
- “‘The police are too busy investigating our tweets to police our streets’” – On TalkTV, Toby explains to Mike Graham the dangers of policing “non-crime hate incidents”.
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“Royal Society report contains half-trillion-pound error”
Half a Trillion here and half a trillion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.
Well exactly, JK. Bring back Lance Armstrong, all is forgiven. If there is zero tolerance for doping, which every sane person acknowledges as cheating, then why is a male athlete, who didn’t just go through puberty but lived as a man for 99+% of his life, not also considered cheating? Maybe Armstrong also had an inferiority complex and knew he’d only win if he doped and gained an unfair advantage over his fellow competitors because they were superior to him when competing on a level playing field.
I’m very confident that if it was men who were losing their medals and sporting opportunities to cheats and not just women, as is happening now, something would’ve been done about it long ago. So let’s just bring back doping and have done, shall we? Because the only way these trans/intersex male athletes are winning anything is precisely because they’re not competing on a level playing field. They’d win naff all in the men’s category and their mediocrity would shine through for all to see;
”Why all the anger about the inspirational Petrillo? The cheat community has never had this kind of visibility! Out and proud cheats like Petrillo prove the era of cheat-shaming is over. What a role model! I say we give Lance Armstrong his medals back and move on.”
https://x.com/jk_rowling/status/1830613005283008781
The worst thing about Armstrong wasn’t his cheating (lots of other pro cyclists were doing it too and had been for years) but how he reacted to people who accused him of cheating. He was a very powerful and popular figure within the sport and he used that power to hound at least one journalist and a fellow racer in a very aggressive manner – that was despicable.
Well there were athletes from other sports also getting banned for doping, Ben Johnson being another name that springs to mind. Whichever way you look at it they’re gaining an unfair advantage over fellow competitors by cheating, so why isn’t being a Y chromosome owner in a female category also considered cheating? Why the double standards?
And as for Armstrong and possibly others, sounds like there was a classic case of ‘egomania’ at play there. In fact, the same can be said about these Y chromosome cheats also. They’d achieve no success and therefore no glory if they competed where they rightfully belong, which is in the men’s category. But they get to legitimize their fraudulent behaviour because it, outrageously, is not against the rules. Look at that dreadful ‘Lia Thompson’, for example. Wasn’t he ranked 400 odd in the world for male swimmers but could only experience success and get a taste of what it’s like to win a medal if he claimed to be female? It’s massively insulting to females as well as blatant cheating due to fraud. However, women are meant to just accept this but men ( and the sporting bodies ) would not tolerate men doping. Total hypocrisy.
His main crimes were timing & nationally. He wasn’t French, so fair game. Cycling had been outside the drug testing regime of international sport, primarily because it was a professional sport when the Olympics were supposed to be amateur. To be accepted by the IOC they had to ‘clean up cycling’.
US Postal took it to another level
A friend is in his 70s and has been a competitive cyclist nearly all his life. It shocked be the number of apparently legal substances he still takes to maintain his performance on a daily, non-competitive basis.
I know amateur Cat 3 riders who say illegal doping among their number is not unusual, and people who train in gym bro gyms where lots of them are on steroids
Doping in sport is common place and rampant. The higher the stakes the more of it there is and rhe more sophisticated it is.
Anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional and completely misunderstanding what they are watching.
I’m not sure. It certainly was rampant in certain sports – possibly less so in mainly skill based sports. It’s hard to say what the current reality is. There are some long standing world records like women 800m that has stood for more than 40 years – obviously the product of doping so I would guess women are doping less than they were.
I’m not sure how much I care about doping in elite sport, though I do think it’s a shame if it trickles down to lower levels and people are ruining their health, especially children – but ultimately it’s a personal choice to take stuff to do better.
Petrol Car Sales being rationed
There are various reports that car manufacturers are rationing the delivery of petrol/diesel/hybrid (ICE) cars to keep within the governments zero emissions rules and avoid hefty fines;
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1943591/drivers-sent-huge-warning-manufacturers
The dealers are reported as being frustrated that they cannot sell what people want and are stuck with stocks of EVs which they cannot sell.
This whole EV car business starts to look more and more like a Soviet era style state interventionist policy forcing us to buy cars we do not want which then must be charged via a charging infrastructure that requires huge state intervention and subsidy. The taxpayer is funding this subsidised move to EVs and yet many of the lower and middle income taxpayers are never likely to ever have an EV. The current zero emissions mandate will slowly reduce the supply of second hand ICE cars coming onto the market and slowly but surely there will be fewer cars on the road.
There is an initiative to fit EV charging points into rural villages and our village has applied, we have been told we may eventually get 2 slow speed (7kw) public chargers for the village car park. It is more or less an admission that EV’s are for upper income people with driveways who can charge at home. If you are not in that category then use the bus or a bike or go and live in the city.
Wow, you’re lucky, you’ve got a village car park! I had never thought about public chargers in our village, but now I do, I realise there is nowhere to put them anyway.
A lot of villages have car parks attached to their village halls at the moment. I wonder how many of those will survive being classified as grey belt and will be used for building migrant homes by our glorious leader.
Don’t worry about losing car parks round village halls or charging points in them. The Powers will make sure we soon won’t have cars at all.
There are still alternatives https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sinclair-C5-1985-Electric-Car-White-Boot-Model-Excellent-Unrestored-Condition-/286038800468?var=0&mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=710-53481-19255-0&campid=5338268676&toolid=10044&customid=CjwKCAjw59q2BhBOEiwAKc0ijeW5vZAO2fgp6SHOBVQsZI-pf91wDFWU8Pt3wJ6T8d07CNEN3lDYExoCPPcQAvD_BwE
My village has ev chargers which were installed in the village car park, paid for by the council at tens of thousands of pounds each (FOI request)
They are very seldom used.
I did see one person using one of the chargers the other day,who was fuming, he returned from doing a bit of shopping to find a parking ticket on his windscreen.
he did not realise that even though he was paying through the nose for the electric, he also still had to buy a parking ticket (the sign was tiny)
Jesus wept, another Roxy Tickle. More insanity from Germany;
”A German court ordered an episode of the Hoss and Hopf podcast to be deleted after a prominent transgender activist sued the hosts for calling him a “man” and using the male pronouns when referring to the activist during the show. The gag order is not the end of the saga though, as the podcasters might even face jail time or a fine of up to €250,000, the feminist news site Reduxx reported.
In the controversial episode, the hosts were discussing the case of Laura—formerly Nicolas—Holstein, who has been making headlines in Germany by abusing the law to demand access to female spaces. Recently, for instance, Holstein has been pursuing legal action against a female-only gym in Bavaria with the help of Berlin’s federal Anti-Discrimination Agency.
Last week, the Frankfurt Regional Court ruled that the episode must be deleted from their online archive and prohibited them from ever re-publishing it under their own names or through any third parties. The court also banned the two hosts, Kiarash Hossainpour and Philip Hopf, from referring to Holstein as a man and using male pronouns to refer to Holstein in any future discussions.
In his X post, Hossainpur explained that the court used an expedited procedure without an oral hearing. “It is noteworthy that the court saw an ‘extraordinary urgency’ here—as if the use of biologically correct terms represented an immediate danger that could not be delayed,” he wrote.
“This creates a fascinating dilemma: In Germany, a person who was born biologically male and is legally considered a woman can no longer be called a man,” he went on.
Furthermore, the fact that the gym was the only one among the town’s 14 gyms that was exclusively reserved for women suggests that Holstein deliberately targets female-only spaces to gain media attention by weaponizing the country’s anti-discriminatory laws.”
https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/german-podcasters-might-face-prison-or-e250000-fine-for-misgendering-trans-activist/
As the father of 2 daughters I am appalled at this assault on people with an xx chromosome structure. One of my daughters is a leader in the Girl Guides and she is adamant that many girls need a girl only space to develop and flourish. And my definition of girl is a young person with an xx chromosome structure.
Many people are appalled at the actions of the Taliban in Afghanistan in relation to xx chromosome people and yet in the western world, by allowing xy chromosome people to ‘muscle’ in on activities designated women’s or girl’s, it seems to me we are forcing genuine xx chromosome people to abandon these activities and retire into the shadows much like the xx chromosome people in Afghanistan.
Yes just when you think it’s impossible for the evil men of Afghanistan to dehumanize females further, the Taliban dream up even more ways to basically erase them as a sex. But erasing females as a designated and biological sex is exactly what’s happening here in the West, just using different tactics and under the guise of virtue, thanks to the Woke mind virus. And absolutely, female spaces should remain always single sex only, it goes without saying that the male equivalent applies, though it’s not exactly the males that are under attack in this regard. No doubt if you had sons and not daughters you’d have no concerns relating to this particular matter. But as regards to Afghanistan, I can’t begin to imagine what miserable existences females must be enduring over there. I think girls cannot even finish education and are banned from going to high school over there. What prospects are they supposed to have? A ‘life’ of drudgery and slavery instead?
”Taliban rulers have banned women’s voices and faces in public under new laws to promote ‘virtue’ in Afghanistan, according to Associated Press.
The hardline Islamist group had set up a ministry for the ‘prevention of vice’ after seizing power following the withdrawal of US and coalition forces in 2021.
Officials published its 114-page vice and virtue rulebook on Wednesday that covers aspects of everyday life such as public transport, music, shaving and celebrations.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13770831/Taliban-new-lifestyle-laws-Afghanistan-women.html
Moscow says it will revise its nuclear doctrine over Western ‘escalation’ in Ukraine
‘Steady, The Buffs…..!’
Genius…….or not really……
Putin’s idea of restoring the Czarist Russian empire as a new European and Asian super state always conveniently forgets that the Czars ruled over part of Manchuria.
Others have not forgotten.
“China has repeatedly reiterated that nuclear weapons cannot be used or that a nuclear war cannot be fought,” said spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry Mao Ning during a press conference in Beijing. She was responding to comments by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov.
“Under the current circumstances, all parties should remain calm and exercise restraint, and jointly promote de-escalation and reduce strategic risks through dialogue and consultation,” Mao added.
Mao mentioned that five nuclear-weapon states—China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States—issued a joint statement on preventing nuclear war on January 3, 2022
“We affirm that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” according to the joint statement.
It also stressed that the use of nuclear weapons would have far-reaching consequences, and therefore they “should serve defensive purposes, deter aggression, and prevent war.”
https://www.newsweek.com/china-news-reacts-after-russia-changes-nuclear-war-policy-ukraine-1947545
Which is the latest country to have developed a nuclear warhead delivery system?
Oh! Ukraine……..
Oops!
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/putin-arrives-mongolia-key-link-planned-gas-pipeline-china-2024-09-02/
‘The Kremlin said on Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin had arrived for a state visit in Mongolia, which lies on the route of a planned new gas pipeline connecting Russia and China…….
The project, Power of Siberia 2, is part of Russia’s strategy to compensate for the loss of most of its gas sales in Europe…..’
Genius……!
Oh!
‘Russia’s proposed natural gas pipeline to China hit a roadblock on Friday after the landlocked East Asian country Mongolia moved to exclude the project in its national action program through 2028.’
‘We are entering a long pause, where Moscow no longer believes it can get the deal it wishes from Beijing and will probably park the project until better times,”
Munkhnaran Bayarlkhagva.
Maybe that energy blackmail game, you know, the one that great leader Merkel fell for, isn’t too good for future business………
Oops!
That suggests to me that Mongolia is asking a price for gas transit that is higher than Russia is prepared to pay. It certainly is an energy blackmail game.
Meanwhile, a little old lady living in a sink estate in Middlesborough worries about being mugged on the way to the corner shop, or whether the shop will have anything left to sell after it is daily looted by local youths.
Though she is thankful that some of these youths involved in the recent disturbances have been rounded up by the police earnestly doing the work they are paid for, but at the same time is puzzled that the boys and gals in blue were not so diligent in finding all those men in the gang who violated Mrs Essenhigh’s granddaughter, aged 13, some years ago.
Late that night, after drinking a cup of cocoa which is the only form of heating she can afford, she worries if she has said anything to her neighbour, Mrs Whatmough at No.7, that could be recorded as a non-crime hate incident. She has heard all about how sophisticated drones are; though she always thought they lived in hives. And, after all, she only expressed frustration that the chancellor evidently is a complete nincompoop who must think that climate change was enough to heat her house for her.
Sitting up in bed, dozing, she watches Newsnight and the reports of the advances of the 146th Ukrainian Volkswagen Camper Van brigade towards Voronezh-on-the-Bug and wonders why the Korean War hasn’t ended yet.
The TV presenter is saying something about how the USA has used nuclear weapons but, if they cannot be used again, it means that conventional wars can continue and that as NATO has breached every red line it has set for itself, where will this war end. Before finally dropping off to a merciful sleep, searching for some familiar hope, she remembers her school lessons about Metternich bringing peace to Europe. Or was it Chamberlain. In any case, she recalls comfortingly her old dad saying, we only part to meet again.
Bringing peace to Europe?
You mean ‘The Long Peace’ or Pax Americana 1945-2022?
That would be NATO.
That is why Finland and Sweden have just joined NATO.
So is a new “Czarist empire” (what are you smoking?) more dangerous than the old US hegemony, with a President clearly being a long-time sufferer of dementia, with its State Department filled with Antony Blinkens, Jake Sullivans, John Kirbys, and the like, all living their dream of destroying the Soviet Union, even though the latter no longer exists? With their how many military bases distributed throughout the world – 900? – now also determined to threaten China?
Then we have the great EU, led by Merkel’s Queen, von der Leyen, who narrowly escaped charges of corruption as Germany’s Defence Minister, accompanied by such characters as Josep Borrell, responsible for EU foreign affairs and security, famous for his statement that the EU is a garden surrounded by jungle (the rest of the world), who is retiring to be replaced by the Estonian PM, Kaja Kallas, another Russia hater.
Finally, the numerous, successive, faceless UK PMs, all acquiescing to our US masters, happy to supply the totally corrupt Ukraine government and its illegitimate President with ever more weapons and ever more unaccounted tax-payer billions, all to be used in its war against Russia, of which we of course play no part. And if Ukraine fires a Storm Shadow missile at the Kremlin, well that is surely not our problem, is it? After all, we are not at war with Russia, are we?
And then our amazing defence alliance, NATO, which has never harmed anybody (ho ho), extending its grip from the west to the south around Russia, with Germany recently agreeing that USA may place intermediate range missiles there, is no cause for concern to Russia, is it?
So if Ukraine does fire a Storm Shadow missile which hits the Kremlin then it would be unthinkable and inexcusable if Russia were to play a modern Guy Fawkes and fire a missile (not necessarily nuclear) at Westminster, would it not?
Certainly China is perfectly correct to urge restraint in the use of nuclear weapons and, indeed, all nuclear-weapon states (you forgot Israel) should get around a table and start working on disarmament programmes. But somehow western leaders are only interested in visiting Kiev and not Moscow – shame on them.
And all the while Netanyahu is spurring USA on to join him in a war against Iran, which would quite probably result in a massive attack on Israel, encouraging the latter to employ its nuclear arsenal.
We live in worrying times and we should bring wars to an end (by neither financing them nor supplying them with weaponry), not encourage them on.
Probably you know what happened to Guy Fawkes……..
The best way to end a war is not to start one in the first place.
Czarist Russia was a threat to its neighbours:
‘Incorporation and assimilation of native elites” in neighbouring regions became Russian policy.’
Empire: The Russian Way, Matthew Wills
Moscow was a revolving door for Western leaders until Putin invaded Ukraine.
Israel has already attacked Iran and Iran has responded.
Ask Ukraine how well nuclear disarmament works out……..
I don’t smoke but you appear to have ingested far more harmful chemicals than is good for you.
“…the U.K. has experienced its coolest summer in nine years, reports the BBC.”
There – that means it’s different this year, which means it’s changed, which proves that climate change is to blame. We’re all doomed.
https://www.gbnews.com/news/sat-nav-horror-two-dead-directions-led-driver-wrong-way-slip-road A Coroner’s verdict on a sat-nav related error. Over the years, I’ve come across lots of mistakes in the verbal output of such systems. Of course, they always have get-out clauses when they are switched on. Then there are plenty of them in use which have local map data on board, which is out of date due to road alterations, along with out of date atlases etc. In essence, they are not actually safety systems, just there for driver assistance – but it’s often quite overbearing.
“Has the number of rapes in Britain really gone up?” So the number of rapes in the past was under-recorded and it would appear to be due to the under-reporting of gang rapes. It makes me wonder how long this has been going on and why the police seen to have been complicit in covering it up.
I suspect the police cover ups are way more prevalent than we even realise, and that’s without taking the national shame that was ( and still is? ) the organized Pakistani rape gangs’ countless crimes. This is just one harrowing account from a mother who shared her story of what happened to her daughter, who was only 12 years old, same age as my daughter, when she killed herself. The treatment she, and also a whistle-blower who was trying to help, received by the police is disgusting;
”This is my daughter Semina Halliwell she was only 12 years old when she took her own life. Why ? You maybe asking….. well I will tell you what is fact!!
She was groomed online by an older boy
She was pressured into a meeting with him by constantly being contacted by him.
When they met, he proceeded to sexually assault her, a manner in which is classed as statutory rape in the eyes of the law, by definition that a child 12 and under cannot give consent .
It turns out that she was his second victim. The other victim was 13 and had already reported the crime to the police.
Semina reported her sexualt assault to Merseyside Police to investigate having been confirmed by them as a rape case.
Following the reporting of this sexual assault to the police, Semina was subjected to online threats and hatred. She was also attacked and beaten 3 separate times, which had been filmed and posted on social media.
During the last meeting with police where it was said it was her word against his, she went upstairs and took a lethal overdose, which took 4 long days for her to die whilst being awake.”
https://x.com/Rachelhalliwel5/status/1830578078839427449
But 12 year old girls are able to consent to sex, according to South Yorks Police. What right-minded person, who takes child safe-guarding seriously, could possibly not call this out for what it is? Or does plying the girls with alcohol and heroine first, threatening them with physical violence if they don’t do as they’re told, count as consent, in somebody’s warped and twisted world view? But to my knowledge, no-one in authority has been held to account and punished for their part in this;
”Rotherham: An 11-year-old girl who previously reported she was sexually abused was found in a derelict house with another girl and a group of adult males. She was arrested for drunken disorderly, and none of the males were arrested.
Police officers dismissed a case where a 12-year-old girl was having sex with five Asian males as quote “100% consensual in every incident”.
Fathers have tracked down their daughters and tried to remove them from the houses where they were being abused only to find themselves arrested when police arrived to the scene.
Home Affairs Committee 09 Sep 2014.
Crompton retired with a £2m pension in 2016.”
https://x.com/vpopulimedia/status/1826229433658749159
Disgraceful.
I enjoy Jack Watson’s writings and feel he should be encouraged to write more – while paying due attention to his education. So I was a bit reluctant to offer this criticism of the above article.
However, in this article he mentions that:
Wow! ‘Just‘ 24%! Nearly a quarter of respondents ‘felt encouraged to travel by bike or on foot‘. That is astonishingly high and the pro-LTN lobby would and should seize on this as a fantastic success.
Of course, it makes me wonder if that’s just a typo or what the source of the survey is and the method of selection of participants etc.
Although I used to be a keen cyclist those days are disappearing rapidly in my car’s rear view mirrors. If ex-cyclist oldies like me were not effectively excluded from the survey that makes the 24% look even more remarkable.