- “Reform U.K. overtakes Labour in national poll for first time” – A stunning new poll suggests that Reform U.K. would outperform Labour if a general election were held tomorrow, reports the Express.
- “Reeves’s Budget is ‘an egregious act of self-harm’” – Sir James Dyson has accused the Chancellor of inflicting “an egregious act of self-harm” on the economy by targeting family-owned businesses in the Budget, says the Sun.
- “Starmer lays out ‘milestones’ in Labour ‘reset’ speech” – Keir Starmer has tried to “reset” his floundering Government by launching six bold new targets for Labour to hit by 2029, according to the Mail.
- “Starmer drops manifesto pledges as economy stumbles” – Keir Starmer has watered down two of his key election pledges amid signs of economic struggle following his tax-raising Budget, reports Ben Riley-Smith in the Telegraph.
- “If Starmer is too weak to rule, the administrative state will rule for him” – In the absence of political leadership, senior civil servants now find themselves in the driving seat, writes Robert Jenrick in the Telegraph.
- “Why Starmer’s lack of charisma could be his downfall” – Charisma is the most coveted, and ineffable, quality in politics – and the Prime Minister’s rivals have far more of it than him, says Guy Kelly in the Telegraph.
- “Britain’s state pension Ponzi scheme faces a catastrophic collapse” – In the Telegraph, Christopher Mellor warns that Britain’s state pension system is a ticking time bomb, unsustainable and on the verge of collapse.
- “Rotherham rapist to be released from prison after serving only nine years of 19-year sentence” – A member of a Rotherham grooming gang who raped and tortured his victims is set to be released from prison after serving only nine years of a 19-year sentence, reports the Telegraph.
- “A minority of Muslims are demanding special treatment for Islam. This should be refused” – In the Telegraph, Suella Braverman warns that the rise of shadow blasphemy laws, driven by political correctness and cowardice, threatens free speech and the fabric of British society.
- “Free speech now more limited, say self-censoring academics” – A survey of university staff in 28 Western countries reveals that 77% believe free speech on campus has shrunk in the past decade, leaving just 12% who disagree and 11% uncertain, according to the Times.
- “Police should tackle crime, not ‘someone expressing an opinion’, says Michael Gove” – Michael Gove says that the police should be focusing on pursuing burglars, shoplifters, domestic abusers and fraudsters, “not someone expressing an opinion”, according to the Telegraph.
- “Whisper it, are more Tories going to join Reform?” – With Reform U.K. gaining ground, Kemi Badenoch must act swiftly to prevent the Right from splintering beyond repair, says David Frost in the Telegraph.
- “Sadiq Khan to be knighted in New Year honours list” – London Mayor Sadiq Khan is reportedly set to receive a knighthood in the New Year Honours list, according to the Express.
- “Wales could be on the brink of a tourism nightmare” – With levies on second homeowners and anti-tourist sentiment already deterring visitors, fears are growing over plans for a new holiday tax in Wales, reports the Express.
- “Electric car brands offer £11,000 discounts in sales scramble” – Car companies are resorting to “heavy discounting” to meet EV sales targets that have proven “overly optimistic”, says the Telegraph.
- “Meta to use mini reactors to power its AI” – Meta has announced that it’s seeking proposals from nuclear power developers to help meet its AI and environment needs, reports the Mail.
- “Almost all councils allowing staff to work from home” – Councils are allowing staff to work from home despite cutting public services, a survey by the Telegraph has found.
- “NHS warns of ‘quad-demic’ as flu cases surge” – NHS chiefs are warning of a “quad-demic” of viruses this winter driven by a four-fold surge in flu, according to Sky News.
- “Scientists under fire for publishing flu recipe for next pandemic in top journal” – Scientists have been criticised for publishing a blueprint to create a mutated bovine-bird flu virus that could cause another pandemic, reports the Telegraph.
- “Wuhan wager: the $400 ‘bio bet’ that predicted the pandemic” – In the Spectator, Matt Ridley dives into the high-stakes bet between two scientific heavyweights, Lord Rees and Steven Pinker, over the origins of COVID-19.
- “The column you don’t want to read” – In the Spectator, Lionel Shriver explores the collective amnesia surrounding Covid policies.
- “Revisiting the pictures of doom” – On the TTE Substack, Dr. Tom Jefferson and Prof. Carl Heneghan peel back the layers of manipulated images and questionable reporting during the early days of the pandemic in Bergamo, Italy.
- “Australian excess deaths are highly correlated with the number of booster vaccinations” – Booster shots correlated strongly with excess deaths. Changing the number of unvaccinated people didn’t change the excess deaths. Who would have guessed? says Steve Kirsch on Substack.
- “Israel lashes out at ‘fanatical’ Amnesty after genocide report says Gazans treated as subhuman” – Israel has lashed out at Amnesty International after the rights group accused the nation of committing genocide against Palestinians, reports the Telegraph.
- “France’s political crisis is becoming a crisis of regime. The Fifth Republic could fall” – In the Telegraph, John Keiger warns that France’s political turmoil isn’t just a crisis – it’s a potential death knell for the Fifth Republic.
- “Ignoring voters comes at a high price – that’s what France’s centrists just learnt” – Marine Le Pen toyed with Barnier, then finished him. Will Macron be next, and with him, the Fifth Republic? wonders Fraser Nelson in the Telegraph.
- “How the U.S. State Department spends millions of dollars to coordinate Western media and direct investigative journalism against its geopolitical rivals and enemies” – On Substack, Eugyppius uncovers how Drew Sullivan’s Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project channels U.S. government funds to direct global investigative journalism against America’s geopolitical rivals.
- “A very bad idea” – On the Point Substack, Thomas Buckley warns that Pete Hegseth’s vow to quit drinking if confirmed as Secretary of Defense could undermine his nomination and damage his leadership credibility.
- “The theories behind assassination of U.S. health insurance executive” – In the Telegraph, Susie Coen delves into the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, exploring potential motives linked to the cutthroat world of health insurance.
- “MasterChef meltdown” – In the New Conservative, Dr.Roger Watson takes a measured look at the Gregg Wallace saga.
- “The BBC vs Gregg Wallace” – The truth is that working-class behaviour is no longer tolerated in this country, says Rod Liddle in the Spectator.
- “Gender-critical student suspended from university radio after posting interview with detransitioner” – Connie Shaw, an undergraduate at the University of Leeds, has been suspended from hosting a student radio show for expressing gender-critical views, reports the Telegraph.
- “Golf bans male-born players from women’s events after transgender controversy” – The major powers in female professional golf have changed their transgender policies to ban male-born players from their competitions, reports National Club Golfer.
- “Inclusivity is excluding fans – and now it feels like language of a cult” – Many who love football are bristling at the pressure to be compliant with the latest causes, says Oliver Brown in the Telegraph.
- “Carol Vorderman – activist extraordinaire” – On Substack, Charlotte Gill takes a deep dive into Carol Vorderman’s “later-life renaissance”.
- “YMCA isn’t gay and my wife will sue if you claim it is, says songwriter” – The songwriter behind the smash hit pop song YMCA says his wife will sue anyone who refers to the song as a gay anthem, according to NBC News.
- “Could this really happen?” – An AI-generated video on X shows Keir Starmer outside No.10 being photobombed by Donald Trump, who holds a sign spelling out exactly what he thinks of him.
I could see this really happening pic.twitter.com/AaYz7USjKb
— WeGotitBack 🏴(@NotFarLeftAtAll) December 5, 2024
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Have We Finally Reached Peak Woke?
I hope so, but I doubt it. For the past decade I’ve assumed at regular intervals that we’ve reached peak madness, only to find, when we’ve reached the apex, that ahead of us lies another, even higher mountain of lunacy.
Wokism is too deeply ingrained to be easily bypassed or destroyed. This is because wokism is an ideology that serves the class interest of the state bourgeoisie – the class that has risen to social dominance on the back of the vast interest in state interference in society since the War. This class interest arises because the state bourgeoisie is not an independent class like the entrepreneurial middle class, it is a dependent class – dependent for its income, that is, on the taxpayers. To that end the state bourgeoisie tries endlessly to increase its control of society, because that gives it control of its source of income – the taxpayers. This is achieved by ever-increasing social controls on society, i.e. the impulse towards the total-control state. This is a social condition where the state bourgeoisie micro-manages the lives of everyone. This impulse is so strong that it overrules reality – increasingly so, hence the increasing insanity of the wokusts.
This is why, in my opinion, the state bourgeoisie cannot ever give up wokism. Our only hope is to decrease the size and influence of the state bourgeoisie, and this can only be achieved by decreasing the state’s interference in society.
Sorry, I’ve made a mistake I can’t edit: “vast interest in state interference in society” should be “vast increase in state interference in society”.
I can remember the political correctness lunacy of the late 1980s using language intended to avoid offense or disadvantage to members of particular groups in society. It went through a phase of painfully earnest speech ‘chair person’ for ‘chairman’ and so on but rapidly became bogged down by ridicule – ‘person holes’ for ‘manholes’ and ‘Peoplechester’ for ‘Manchester’. Some of the better bits of usage have remained but the overblown bits were rejected.
Now if you read the Wikipedia article on Political Correctness you will see that there has been more than one period of history when PC has tried to influence how societies behave through control of speech.
I expect that Woke is just another period of PC, possibly turbocharged by social media. And yes ridicule is reducing the stupidities, but some worthwhile bits will endure,
No.
Wokism peaked in the USA until the moment Trump took office.
It will continue to metastasise until Labour are dragged, kicking and screaming, from office.
Even then, the deep state agents will fight tooth and nail. BoE, CoE, Civil Service, Quangos, Police, Judges will all resist.
We can win, but must be steadfast, organised, unyielding in the battle for Christian Britain.
I welcome the return of that picture. The leader of one of the greatest nations in the history of the world is pictured kneeling like the sap he is, because some criminal died while being restrained by a police officer in another country. This is how far we have fallen. Almost 10 million people voted for that man.
Like all Peaks, you can only see it in the rear view mirror.
What a field day satirists of the past like Swift and Defoe would have had with woke.
Defoe: Let’s take a poke at woke, shall we, Jonathan?
Swift: Yeah, let’s play the Wokey-Pokey, Dan.
Defoe: You put your Left pronoun in
Swift: Your Left pronoun out
Defoe & Swift: In, out, in, out, you shake it all about
You do the Wokey-Pokey and you turn around
That’s what it’s all about.
Swift: You put your Right mis-pronoun in
Defoe: Your Right mis-pronoun out
Defoe & Swift: In, out, in, out, you shake it all about
You do the Wokey-Pokey and you turn around
That’s what it’s all about.
Defoe: You put your Left gender in
Swift: Your Left gender out
Defoe & Swift: In, out, in, out, you shake it all about
You do the Wokey-Pokey and you turn around
That’s what it’s all about.
Swift: You put your Right mis-gender in
Defoe: Your Right mis-gender out
Defoe & Swift: In, out, in, out, you shake it all about
You do the Wokey-Pokey and you turn around
That’s what it’s all about…
…Plenty more to feast thy wit on, Good Sires.
I’ve noticed a definite correlation with blue hair and women talking complete sh*te;
https://x.com/JebraFaushay/status/1900308685940822205
People don’t just stop believing in something, it gets replaced by a new and supposedly better hope. Wokesim is PC come of age, a pretended majority democratic peer pressure for morality and what is right, but now with the force of law underpinning it. Previously left and right politics sat in the context of modernism based on Christian thinking and morality. Wokesim is post modern. Farage Trump and Brexit although a last stand against Wokesim do not as yet constitute a replacement ideology, there is also a lot of chaos there. Modernism came with Christian foundations, I doubt you can go back to it without such. In this country the established church is just about the wokest thing there is. Predicting peek woke without a clear replacement ideology is foolish.
“The more a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it”. George Orwell.
When feelings are more important than facts…
https://x.com/DefiantLs/status/1900249804589973860
My guess is that woke will undergo some form of metastasis and turn into some new type of insanity.
Ultimately, as far as I can see, there is a sequence here from Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, through various forms of political correctness to woke.
It won’t stop. It comes from us. From a sick, deranged society, with intellectually stunted, morally corrupt individuals who don’t have any faith left, so we latch on to all sorts of stupid ideas. Ultimately it is also diabolical in origin but since we no longer believe in the devil, we are too blind to realize it.
Yes, to a greater or lesser extent that includes me because I have to ask myself to what extent I allowed this to happen? How many times was I too cowardly to say no? How many times did I repeat a falsehood or agree with a lie? What is my personal contribution to the current state of affairs?
But there is hope. If a sufficient number of people resist, we can turn around and stop the corruption. It is doomed anyway because nothing can survive in the long run unless it’s based on the truth.
Can humans live without religion?
Many can’t I think. I’m not religious but I guess my substitute is my family (wife and kids) which is enough for me. I have no objection to people worshipping “woke”, but I object to them wanting it imposed on me. There seem to be two visions of religion – one that sees it as a personal choice and one that wants to burn non believers at the stake.
George Floyd was killed by a white police officer
George Floyd died in Police custody. He was not murdered, or killed, by a white police officer.
Correct. A fact glossed over was that he had more than enough Fentanyl in him to kill a horse. The officer concerned has been hung out to dry to appease these morons. He is not alone.
I think we have seen a change in people ‘just going along with it’. There is more scepticism round the edges and a growing realisation that this is not the way to go.
The hardcore, however are as bad as they ever were, convinced by their own arguments, reassured by their groupthink and determined to press on with their righteous crusade.
The odious brainwashed spreaders of woke, DIE, climate change hysteria etc have for decades,filled our public sector and been their virus. Worse still is that our judiciary is on their side. They aren’t going anywhere.
Thank heavens! It does now seem as if speech, which everywhere has been in chains, is now getting free. Not only has Top Gun: Maverick been making a lot of money and Bud Light got a new advertising campaign but major American companies like McDonald’s, Google, Boeing, Amazon, IBM and Deloittes have stopped doing this and are now doing that; fewer people are now watching those news channels and more watching this one; Jeff Bezos has announced something and Mark Zuckerberg is scrambling after him; in place of that one as President of Global Such-and-Such at World-wide So-and-So, we’ve now got this one. Hurrah! Everything has changed. Oceania is saved!
Well yes but why, Toby, do you think the last general election was a setback? Labour didn’t win that election. People were voting against the ghastly Tories who had literally presided over the whole of that “second decade of the 21st century”.
It is arguable that the Tories, far from being centre-right, are actually positioned to the left of Labour. They should never again be allowed anywhere near power.
Probably not as the main underlying issue in Britain is the declining level of free speech. This has been weaponised to suppress any proper debate about so many areas of woke. It only requires some woke warrior to claim that they are offended in some way. This is the primary difference between the USA and the UK and it is all of the difference. Due to this difference, the USA will survive and thrive but, with no change to it, the UK is finished.
I see first hand, that it’s in full swing in the UK, in schools, work places, government departments, hospitals etc, with no sign of slowing down.
How on earth we come back from this is another question.