- “Keir Starmer faces Cabinet backlash over budget cuts” – Ministers including Angela Rayner may revolt over plans to slash departmental spending by as much as 20%, reports the Times.
- “Ryanair threatens to axe hundreds of U.K. flights if Reeves raises taxes” – Ryanair has warned it could axe hundreds of U.K. flights if Rachel Reeves raises aviation taxes in her Budget, according to the Telegraph.
- “Starmer poised to grant more than 60,000 people asylum after scrapping Rwanda scheme” – More than 60,000 migrants will be granted asylum in the U.K. in the next year after Keir Starmer scrapped the Tories’ Rwanda scheme, according to an analysis by the Refugee Council, the Telegraph reports.
- “Meloni’s migration strategy is working – and the rest of Europe is watching” – Giorgia Meloni’s Italy has become the first European nation to successfully offshore illegal migrants to a non-EU country, and the rest of the EU is taking note, says Nicholas Farrell in the Spectator.
- “David Lammy’s disdain of the West is degrading Britain on the international stage” – The international order is under siege from the destabilising agendas of authoritarian regimes and diluting Britain’s influence by expanding the UN Security Council will not help, says Samuel Ramani in the Telegraph.
- “Keir’s landed Foreign Sec in quicksand over reparations” – Sir Keir Starmer has landed his Foreign Secretary David Lammy in Caribbean quicksand by ruling out paying slave reparations, says the Mail‘s Ephraim Hardcastle.
- “Labour to send 100 party staff to U.S. to help Democrats in swing states” – Republicans described Labour’s plans to send dozens of volunteers to help the Democrats as an “outrage” and warned they would damage the U.K.’s relationship with the U.S. should Donald Trump win the Presidency, the Telegraph reports.
- “Councillor’s wife jailed for inciting racial hatred online” – Lucy Connolly, the wife of West Northamptonshire Conservative councillor Raymond Connolly, has been jailed for inciting racial hatred on X on the day of the Southport attacks, the Mail reports.
- “Bungling Keir Starmer calls Rishi Sunak ‘Prime Minister’ again at PMQs” – Keir Starmer has repeatedly appeared muddled over whether the Tory leader is still in power since his crushing election victory in July, says the Mail.
- “Who won the Tory leadership hustings?” – The result was clear. It’s Badenoch who will allow Tories to once again feel good about themselves, says Tim Stanley in the Telegraph.
- “It’s Kemi Badenoch’s to lose” – Were Kemi Badenoch not to be unveiled as the next Conservative party leader in a couple of weeks it would now go down as a very notable upset following Thursday’s GB News leadership special, says Patrick O’Flynn in the Spectator.
- “Kemi Badenoch is wrong about Labour and race” – The Telegraph‘s Michael Deacon says Kemi is wrong to suggest Labour won’t call a black woman prejudiced: the identitarian Left loves nothing more than hounding a “race traitor”.
- “Liberals are starting to panic. Donald Trump is going to win in a landslide” – It’s becoming increasingly clear that Democrats are getting desperate, says Roger Kimball in the Telegraph.
- “The real reason black and Hispanic voters are abandoning Kamala for Trump – driven away by the Democrats’ delusional obsession with race” – The first flutter of panic is beginning to grip the Harris-Walz presidential campaign, writes Andrew Neil in the Mail.
- “Kamala Harris’s Fox interview: our experts are united in their verdict” – Harris’s Fox interview with Bret Baier was a disaster, say the Telegraph‘s pundits.
- “Yahya Sinwar’s killing is an immense victory for Israel” – The impact of the Hamas leader’s death cannot be underestimated, says Limor Simhony Philpott in the Spectator.
- “We need to be far more sceptical of Hamas’s propaganda” – Horrific viral footage from Gaza is not by itself evidence of Israeli war crimes because it often doesn’t tell the full story, says Andrew Fox in Spiked.
- “Ukraine’s NATO fantasy” – Zelensky is understandably hankering for NATO membership, but legally and politically it’s impossible, says Owen Matthews in the Spectator.
- “The strange timing of Jacinda Ardern’s damehood” – It’s standard for ex-New Zealand PMs to be knighted, says David Cohen in the Spectator. But Ardern’s investiture comes as New Zealand is knee-deep in a Royal Commission of Inquiry into her Government’s controversial response to the pandemic.
- “Jacinda Ardern deserves scorn, not a Damehood” – The former leader of New Zealand is a stout republican. So why is she accepting the honour, asks Patrick O’Flynn in the Telegraph.
- “‘Debunking’ Port Hedland Council” – On the Dystopian Down Under Substack, Rebekah Barnett is not impressed by journalists who claim, without citing any evidence, only authority, that vaccine cancer worries have been “debunked”.
- “Does passive smoking cause lung cancer?” – A recent American Cancer Society study reports a negligible risk from passive smoking, shedding new light on the uproar over a 2003 paper, writes Geoffrey Kabat in Reason.
- “The U.S. state will regret waging lawfare against Elon Musk” – Making the ability to play the Left’s political games a condition for enjoying economic success will backfire, says Sam Ashworth-Hayes in the Telegraph.
- “The rise of anti-Elonism” – In the Spectator, Douglas Murray says he finds anti-Elonism to be a fascinating trend, because it seems mainly to affect people who have really never done anything very much with their lives.
- “Elon Musk is a ‘promoter of evil’, says EU official” – Věra Jourová, a Czech politician who is in charge of the European Commission’s work on online “misinformation” and “hate speech”, called Elon Musk a “promoter of evil” and X “the main hub for spreading antisemitism”, the Telegraph reports.
- “Poor at risk of being coerced into assisted dying in Canada” – Assisted dying is used by patients in Canada because they are poor and lack housing, a major official report has found, the Telegraph reports.
- “‘Not all suffering can be relieved’: A debate on assisted dying” – The former Justice Secretary Lord Falconer and the Spectator’s Chairman Lord Moore debate assisted dying.
- “English cricket to ban transgender players at elite level – but not community game” – Transgender women are to be banned from professional and semi-professional women’s cricket in England – but controversially not from the grass-roots game, the Telegraph reports.
- “ECB’s dismal transgender fudge makes you want to scream” – The England and Wales Cricket Board has on the one hand banned players who have gone through male puberty from competing as female, but on the other, restricted this rule only to the elite level, leaving the grass-roots game as a dangerous self-ID free-for-all, says Oliver Brown in the Telegraph.
- “Should we prioritise the LGBTQI community when disaster strikes?” – Following Hurricane Milton, Rod Liddle ponders one of the pressing questions of Left-wing disaster management in the Spectator.
- “Conductor sacked over his ‘use of pronouns’ wins unfair dismissal case” – A veteran conductor whose student complained about his “use of pronouns” has won an unfair dismissal case after he was sacked following a bullying investigation, reports the Mail.
- “Iranian border guards ‘massacre’ dozens of Afghans trying to enter country” – Iranian border guards have reportedly killed dozens of Afghans in a massacre as they attempted to enter the country, reports the Telegraph. I imagine the Left-wing protests over this atrocity will hit the streets any day now…
- “Labour MP pushes for new laws to ban fireworks louder than a lawnmower” – Sarah Owen, a former Shadow Minister, claimed a change to the rules around fireworks was “long overdue”, the Mail reports.
- “OMGAWD these just keep getting better!” – If the thing missing in your life in a video of Trump surrounded by cute kittens, you’re in for a treat.
OMGAWD these just keep getting better! pic.twitter.com/l5TUDSYoMq
— Karli Bonne’(@KarluskaP) October 16, 2024
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Where in all this medieval barbarism of hostage taking in Gaza is the Red Cross? Why did we, the west, and the good old UN not insist on proof of life before even considering negotiations?
How do we reform bad QANGOs?
The reform of bad quangos is straightforward.
Simply start up another one with the same mission but with a culture of service replacing that of entitlement.
Then gradually reduce the funding of the original quango.
Gathering the political will, consensus, to do this is not straightforward.
In most cases the answer is to close them. They won’t be missed.
Or sunset them when establishing.
Nice idea. Patronage is the thing, jobs for the boys and girls. But make it the right ones.
“Keir Starmer faces Cabinet backlash over budget cuts”
…presumably because the naysayers believe that every pound of public expenditure is reasonable and necessary..?
…and affordable? …and good value for money? …and not lining the pockets of grifters?
“English cricket to ban transgender players at elite level – but not community game”
At lower levels, my understanding is that there are mixed male/female cricket teams now-a-days, which kind of solves the problem, doesn’t it…?
Not if a team has 11 male players and they play an actual mixed team.
Thats a situation that can happen anyway isn’t it.?. I dont think in leagues where they allow mixed teams, that they specify how many male/female players there are in a team. Often mixed teams are more about keeping clubs alive.
“Labour MP pushes for new laws to ban fireworks louder than a lawnmower”
Down our way, fireworks are let off in their hundreds most weekends to celebrate Muslim marriages.
Thursday Morning Bagshot Rd & Nightingale Crescent Bracknell
“Should we prioritise the LGBTQI community when disaster strikes?”
Ah.! The Birkenhead Protocol of ‘Women who like women, men who like men, women or men who like both women or men, people who believe they are women despite being men, people who aren’t entirely sure what they are, and children first’. I hope I didn’t forget anyone important.
Incidentally, I discovered recently that the Birkenhead protocol of ‘women and children first’, first used at the sinking of the HMS Birkenhead 1852 is one of only two occasions it has been used. The other was at the sinking of the Titanic…
Used a lot at Dover, apparently…..not really….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVClLPauojQ
Interesting drone footage showing Sinwar’s last moments. It’s good that he knew he was going to die;
”The final moments of Yahya Sinwar, the architect of the 7 Oct atrocities. From what I’ve learnt a tank fired a shell at a building.
A dazed & confused Sinwar is seen by a drone. In desperation he throws an object. He was then fatally shot in the head.”
https://x.com/DaveAtherton20/status/1847022416158974048
https://x.com/Osint613/status/1847012268149538840
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mH9NzJwldok
You appear to have enjoyed seeing an already wounded person killed; I am afraid I did not.
Maybe you will watch this video showing what disgusting and despicable soldiers the Israelis actually are: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEo813rYm8g. If you would, you might understand why so many Palestinians object to being ruled over by such individuals, why their suffering has been so great over the past 80 years, being prosecuted and subjugated in their own country by a slow but continuous influx of Jewish immigrants convinced of their own superiority vis-à-vis these exact indigenous Arabs.
After all, you post daily your objections to immigrants in your own country, especially those that carry out acts of violence against women and children, but somehow the thousandfold acts of violence carried out by the IDF on Palestinian and Lebanese women and children leave too many DS commentators cold. Incomprehensibly strange, in my opinion.
I’ve come round to the conclusion that surrogacy should just be outright banned. I don’t have a source but I’ve been reading more and more about how the demand for surrogate babies has increased among gay male couples, even ones that are 50yrs>. It’s not just concerning it’s highly unethical. We’re talking about mail-order babies here. How can it be in the baby’s best interest, which should be priority number one, to be ripped away from its mother at birth? Italy has the right idea, the U.S is horrendous;
”Giorgia Meloni has clamped down on the buying and selling of babies by making surrogacy a universal crime. The prime minister described an extension of the existing ban on surrogacy inside the country to those who seek it in countries where it is legal as a “common sense law against the commodification of the female body and children.”
But critics—whose collective voice has been bolstered by the international liberal press—have complained that the move primarily targets gay couples, for whom it makes parenthood effectively impossible. Same-sex couples are also barred from adopting children in Italy.
The Washington Post describes Italy’s as the “most restrictive” surrogacy legislation in the West, noting that while 90% of the Italian couples who use international surrogacy are heterosexual, “same-sex couples are the law’s most vulnerable targets.” The paper also quotes a Rainbow Families campaign group spokesman who says “this is about [targeting] gay fathers”—a claim the Italian government denies. Similar comments have been echoed by Britain’s national broadcaster, the BBC.
Conservative campaigner Jacopo Coghe said he believes “this is a barbaric practice that creates a market for children regardless of who makes use of it. Everyone should be penalised” (emphasis added).
Pro-child campaigner Katy Faust added online that “Italy isn’t some bigot barring gay couples from becoming parents. Biology is.”
In the UK, writer Mary Harrington agreed that “gay men already can’t have children, this just bans them from subcontracting gestation to someone who can,” while the Family Education Trust campaign group criticised surrogacy as “child trafficking” which “exploits women.”
https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/italy-extends-its-surrogacy-ban-abroad-to-protect-women-and-children/
I agree. I’ve got a cousin who used a surrogate because she’s on anti rejection drugs following a lung transplant but I still think the easiest and fairest thing to do is ban it completely. There is far too much abuse and no control, or way of controlling, who is able to become a parent this way.
I agree, but not going to happen.
Firstly, they don’t really care about babies,. If they did they would do something about the 70 million or so that are
murderedaborted every year around the world.Secondly, hell hath no fury like a woman who has been told what she can and can’t do with her body with respect to having or not having babies. (Slight modification of the well known saying.) So I don’t see too many people jumping on the “let’s ban surrogacy” bandwagon.
I know we don’t always see eye to eye, but I agree 100% with you.
Ukraine’s NATO fantasy
“Which nuclear states suffered?
None except Ukraine…
Who gave up their nuclear weapons?
All of them?
No. Only Ukraine…
Who is fighting today? Ukraine,” Zelensky told the European Council.
He then referred to his alleged conversation with Trump.
“As such – and in a conversation with Donald Trump I said – this is our situation,” Zelensky added.
“What way out do we have?
Either Ukraine will have nuclear weapons, which for us will be a defense,
or we’ll need to have some sort of alliance, besides NATO.
But today we know of no other alliance.
NATO countries today are not at war.
NATO countries are not fighting.
In NATO countries people are still alive.
Thank God.
That is why we choose NATO, not nuclear weapons.’
‘Although Nato’s 1949 founding treaty does obligate allies to treat an attack on one as an attack on all,’ she argues, ‘it doesn’t impose one-size-fits-all membership requirements.’
France, for example, withdrew from Nato’s integrated military command in the 1960s.
Norway – the only founding member to have a land border with Russia – unilaterally declared in 1949 that no foreign troops or nuclear missiles could be stationed on its soil in peacetime.
West Germany got around the disputed-borders ban by renouncing ‘recourse to force to achieve the reunification of Germany’, notes Sarotte.
‘They made it clear that they were enduring, not accepting, that division.’
In peace talks this winter, Ukraine will be asked to endure, West German-style, the de facto partition of the country, even though it will certainly refuse to accept it de jure.
But what does Kyiv do if neutrality becomes the key concession required to achieve peace?’
Will a ‘beefed-up version of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances’ really clinch peace?
‘Could a neutral Ukraine, its borders firmly guaranteed by the West, result in a more secure country?’
Yes it could, but, all the while, Ukraine, if NATO membership is denied, will seek nuclear weapons. They already have the delivery system.
‘We don’t want to fight but by Jingo if we do, We’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, we’ve got the money too, We’ve fought the Bear before tra la la…..’
‘Oleksii Arestovych, a former adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said (2023) that Ukraine has the ability to quickly produce its own nuclear weapons “within a short time.”
Arestovich added that the war-torn country would need some time to obtain enriched uranium before it could be capable of making nuclear bombs. He then noted such a thing could be possible.
“Who knows where this uranium is just lying around?” he said. “You just walk and see a barrel of uranium. That’s cool.”
https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-can-develop-nuclear-weapons-within-short-time-ex-zelensky-aide-1808663
Is that really what the EU wants? A jingoistic nuclear armed state on its borders, one way or another?
“Ryanair threatens to axe hundreds of U.K. flights if Reeves raises taxes” – Ryanair has warned it could axe hundreds of U.K. flights if Rachel Reeves raises aviation taxes in her Budget, according to the Telegraph.
This will please JSO and the like as it will likely make flying more expensive and reduce the number of flights; less competition => higher prices.
It also pleases me. The sooner Joe Public gets hit where it hurts over the climate loonies socialism, the better.
When I first read that Labour were sending staff to help the Harris/Walz campaign, I was annoyed that my taxes would indirectly be spent on helping those buffoons.
However, as everything Labour touches seems to turn to shee-yite, maybe it’s not such a bad thing after all.
The biggest problem they will have is that the colours Blue and Red are reversed for the US parties.
Isn’t it the same kind of “interfering in the election of a foreign country” that Putin and others have been accused of?
I don’t understand how UK Labour Party Members’ hard-earned donations can be misused in this way. It seems like a misappropriation of funds.