- “Flatlining growth risks another Reeves tax raid, says IFS chief” – Rachel Reeves faces the prospect of a fresh tax raid next year as a growth downgrade leaves Britain teetering on the edge of recession, reports the Sun.
- “Treasury admits it didn’t do basic costings for inheritance tax hike as CBI slams Reeves and recession fears rise” – The Treasury is under fire for seemingly copying its inheritance tax figures from a far-Left report, with the Government slammed for dodging expert consultation and failing to provide basic revenue breakdowns, according to Guido Fawkes.
- “Jeremy Clarkson reveals staggering costs of keeping his pub running” – Jeremy Clarkson has revealed the swingeing costs involved in keeping his Farmer’s Dog pub open, blaming “Starmer’s Britain” for pushing up prices, reports the Mail.
- “More than half of winter fuel payment claims rejected” – Since Rachel Reeves’s winter fuel changes, over half of pension credit claims have been rejected, leaving thousands of pensioners without heating this winter, says the Sun.
- “Labour split over Mandelson plan to work with Farage to woo Trump” – Labour is split over Lord Mandelson’s plan to work with Nigel Farage to woo Donald Trump, reports the Telegraph.
- “The EU can detect weakness in its dealings with Keir Starmer” – The EU senses that Labour is not very united, and that Starmer’s administration is weak, writes Andrew Tettenborn in the Spectator.
- “Labour is on a quest to erase anything uniquely British” – Silicon Valley is discovering just how big a pushover Starmer really is, writes Andrew Orlowski in the Telegraph, with a focus on Labour’s proposed reform of copyright laws.
- “Non-crime hate incidents surge in half of police forces despite government crackdown” – The number of non-crime hate incidents recorded by police has surged in half of Britain’s forces despite attempts by the Government to crackdown on the practice, reports the Telegraph.
- “Blasphemy work on hold despite rise in extremism reports” – The government has shelved work surrounding the issue of blasphemy in Britain at the same time as warnings over extremism are on the rise, according to the Times.
- “Counter-protester who threatened Tommy Robinson and the EDL during riots while holding ‘fake AK-47’ is jailed for 27 months” – A counter-protestor who appeared in a social media video holding a decommissioned AK-47 assault rifle and making threats has been jailed for 27 months, repots the Mail.
- “Reform U.K. set to have more members than Tories within a month” – Reform U.K. hopes to surge past the Tories in membership numbers within a month after publishing figures showing they are only around 11,000 members short, says the Express.
- “Musk would be trying to ‘buy U.K. politics’ with Reform donation, Kemi Badenoch suggests” – Kemi Badenoch says that Elon Musk would be trying to “buy” British politics if he made a multi-million pound donation to Reform, according to GB News.
- “Voters will tell Musk where to put his $100 million” – If Nigel Farage’s party is in hock to a foreign billionaire, Reform will lose all credibility as the people’s champion, writes Charles Moore in the Telegraph.
- “Funding for troops falls by £500m in past five years” – Funding for British troops has plunged by £500 million in real terms over the past five years, analysis shows, reports the Telegraph.
- “NHS neurologist who called Hamas leader a ‘legend’ is suspended” – A doctor who praised Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar as a “legend” has been suspended by the General Medical Council after Jewish News revealed a stream of unhinged antisemitic posts and conspiracy theories on her social media account.
- “BBC’s ‘appalling and sloppy’ reporting caused illegal abortion trial to collapse” – A judge has said that the BBC’s “appalling and sloppy” reporting caused the high-profile trial of a woman accused of illegally aborting her baby to collapse, reports the Express.
- “Guardian axes journalist who claimed Brexit supporter had Russia links” – Observer journalist Carole Cadwalladr has had her contract cancelled by the Guardian following the Sunday newspaper’s controversial sale to Tortoise Media, says the Telegraph.
- “Net zero ‘crisis’ prompts £42 billion merger talks between Honda and Nissan” – Honda and Nissan have opened talks to merge as the two Japanese carmakers confront a crisis caused by the shift to electric vehicles, reports the Telegraph.
- “Mass immigration is killing Europe – and the political class just don’t care” – In the Telegraph, Douglas Murray sounds the alarm again on Europe’s immigration crisis, with leaders ignoring the looming cultural and security collapse.
- “Illegal migrant who set woman on fire on subway was deported under Trump but snuck back in” – A 33 year-old man who set a stranger on fire at a New York City subway station was in the U.S. illegally from Guatemala, according to the Mail.
- “The crisis gripping France’s Le Monde newspaper” – The glory days of Le Monde are gone, replaced by a paper that appears more concerned with parroting the ideological consensus, writes James Tidmarsh in the Spectator.
- “Former Mossad agents reveal secrets of 10-year exploding pager operation” – In an interview with CBS News, two former Mossad agents describe how Israeli spies spent 10 years on an operation to hide bombs in walkie-talkies and pagers before detonating them earlier this year.
- “Matt Gaetz paid underage girl $400 for sex, U.S. ethics report finds” – According to a House of Representatives report, Matt Gaetz, the former Florida congressman whom Donald Trump nominated as his attorney general, violated Florida laws by paying a 17 year-old girl $400 for sex, reports USA Today.
- “Baric referenced a 2017 molecular blueprint for COVID-19” – On Substack, Jim Haslam uncovers how Dr. Andreas Martin Lisewski’s breakthrough research links SARS-CoV-2’s unique spike protein to a 2017 MERS clone, suggesting a lab-based origin rather than natural evolution.
- “J.K. Rowling leads feminist backlash against Sturgeon for ‘rewriting history’ over gender self-ID row” – J.K. Rowling has slammed Nicola Sturgeon for inventing a scapegoat to deflect public backlash over her gender self-ID law, according to the Express.
- “Of Mice and Men: classic U.S. novel taken off GCSE course in Wales” – The classic American novel Of Mice and Men will no longer be studied at GCSE in Wales from next September amid concerns about racism and the use of racial slurs, says the BBC.
- “Cadbury’s loses royal warrant for the first time in 170 years” – For the first time in 170 years, Cadbury’s, a favourite of the late Queen, has lost its royal warrant, joining 100 other companies excluded from the prestigious list last week, reports the BBC.
- “Christmas quiz 2024” – On Substack, Dr. David McGrogan invites readers to decipher AI’s delightfully deranged attempts to reimagine MPs.
- “President Trump announces immediate withdrawal from WHO” – President Trump declares that the United States will immediately withdraw from the WHO, calling it a “corrupt globalist scam” dominated by the Chinese Communist Party and global elites like Bill Gates.
— Jim Ferguson (@JimFergusonUK) December 23, 2024
BREAKING: President Trump Announces Immediate Withdrawal from WHO
In a fiery statement today, President Donald J. Trump declared the United States would withdraw immediately from the World Health Organization (WHO), calling it a "corrupt Globalist SCAM" dominated by the… pic.twitter.com/lEgcUcN3dl
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“Matt Gaetz paid underage girl $400 for sex, U.S. ethics report finds”
Poor girl (17..). Too young for the Republicans, too old for the Democrats…
Don’t believe all you read from Democrat controlled sources.
Two sides to every story …
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-accuses-nato-creating-security-threat-russia-asia-2024-06-20/
‘NATO is already “moving” there (to Asia) as if to a permanent place of residence. This, of course, creates a threat to all countries in the region, including the Russian Federation.’
Putin 2024
That from the man who has just signed a treaty with North Korea and imports drones from Iran…..
For those who doubt that NATO’s role is defensive; to keep the peace:
‘In 2004, the US agreed to act as Lead Nation for the project, but with conditions. Concerned that Ukraine’s surplus Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) and Man-portable air defense system (MANPADS) presented a potential security threat, the US wanted Ukraine to surrender MANPADS and SALW, for destruction.
Phase 1 of the project would:
Phase 2 (2012-16)
Destroy 366 000 SALW, 76 000 tonnes of conventional ammunition and 3 million PfM-1 (anti-infantry high-explosive) antipersonnel mines.’
Even Putin himself agrees:
‘We of course are not in a position to tell people what to do. We cannot forbid people to make certain choices if they want to increase the security of their nations in a particular way.’
Putin 2001
‘I am absolutely convinced that Ukraine will not shy away from the processes of expanding interaction with NATO and the Western allies as a whole. Ukraine has its own relations with NATO; there is the Ukraine-NATO Council. At the end of the day, the decision is to be taken by NATO and Ukraine. It is a matter for those two partners.’
Putin 2002
What changed?
Oh!
‘Democratic mobilization, first in the Middle East, Syria and then across Russia—not NATO expansion—ended this last chapter of U.S.-Russian cooperation.
….a series of mass protests erupted in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other cities in the wake of fraudulent parliamentary elections in December 2011.
They were the largest protests in Russia since 1991, the year the Soviet Union collapsed.’
Robert Person, Michael McFaul
In reality, Putin feared democracy on his own doorstep and elsewhere (Syria). That is one of the main reasons as to why he propped up Assad and invaded Ukraine.
But Russia’s empire in Syria, built at great expense since 2015, has now fallen.
2024 has been bad for Putin.
2025 will be a great deal worse…….
Michael McFaul is an imbecile.
Russia and Korean have a shared border and a level of military cooperation has been going on sinice Korea. It’s not new.
NATO should have been wound up in 1993. It’s a giant money laundering scam for the military industrial complex. Russia’s Empire..oh fgs. What do you think NATO is exactly?
NATO is a defensive alliance of Nations responsible for the ‘Long Peace’ in Europe 1945-2014.
North Korea is an international pariah, as, now, is Putin’s Russia, for the foreseeable future.
Yawn.
I wish you a happy Christmas Munro.
Firstly, why should Putin not sign a (defence) treaty with a neighbouring state (North Korea) and why should he not buy war material from any place he can get it, if he needs it?
For comparison, how many countries are members of NATO and where do they get their weapons from (and who is interested)?
For those who doubt that NATO’s role is defensive …. Oh, come on – ask Libya and the old Yugoslavian states just how defensive NATO was.
And just what is NATO doing in Asia? They should at least change their name.
You have been reading the Kyiv Post again (https://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/43969): How I Helped NATO Destroy Ukraine’s Weapons.
But you omitted to mention the reason for the destruction of the weapons:
My first experience of Ukraine was in 2001. As the demilitarization advisor for the NATO Maintenance and Supply Agency (NAMSA), I ran a project to destroy anti-personnel landmines, in the Donetsk Chemical Plant, so that Ukraine could meet its “Anti-personnel Mine-Ban Treaty” obligations.
Then, in 2002, the government of Ukraine asked NATO for assistance in destroying some of its huge surplus of conventional ammunition.
Soviet forces, withdrawing from Eastern Europe, had dumped in Ukraine huge quantities of ammunition, which was now obsolete, aging and hazardous. The major safety and security threat this posed had been amply demonstrated by the number of fires and explosions in depots within Ukraine in the previous decade …
While the main financial contribution came from the US, 16 other nations gave funds: Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, Switzerland, Turkey and the UK. The EU also agreed to fund for buying specialist technical equipment.
Maybe you can be comforted by the March 2022 Reuters report (https://www.reuters.com/world/risk-worth-taking-us-rushes-manpads-ukraine-despite-proliferation-concerns-2022-03-11/):
WASHINGTON, March 11 (Reuters) – The United States and NATO are shipping weapons into Ukraine at break-neck speed, including highly sensitive items such as shoulder-fired missiles called Man-Portable Air-Defense Systems (MANPADS) that can take down aircraft.
And surely you do not believe that Syria has now become ‘democratic’, currently allowed to be led by a brutal terrorist with an embarrassing $10 million reward on his head? Oh, now the US State Dept. has just revoked the $10m reward: what a coincidence!
USA helped themselves year after year to Syria’s oil and wheat. Meanwhile the CIA and MI6 funded diverse terrorist groups in Idlib and Aleppo, ensuring Syria also had no income from their industries. Damascus is apparently a centre for competing drug gangs. With Western sanctions on top, it is no wonder that Syria had no money to feed its citizens, let alone pay its military.
And now it is a free-for-all with Turkey lined up against the Kurds, temporarily supported by USA, in the north, and Israel in the south. With ISIS and Al Qaeda in the middle, Syria has finally become another failed state: another great achievement of the West.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, we have just concluded our meeting with the Secretary General of the North Atlantic Alliance, George Robertson, and we have discussed the most important issues of NATO-Russia relations. We believe that the potential established in Rome within the NATO-Russia Council is beginning to be implemented. That body conducts joint work to find responses to a broad range of threats to both global and regional security and, first and foremost, to the threat of international terrorism.
The recent tragic events in Moscow have become yet another tragic confirmation of the need for the world community to join efforts in combating this evil. In this connection, let me express our appreciation to Lord Robertson, Secretary General of NATO, for the support to the people and leadership of Russia given by him during those difficult days.
That solidarity clearly demonstrated that the “20” is exactly the type of instrument that is in a position to combine the political and real resources of Russia and NATO, with a view to strengthening peace and stability and to provide reliable protection to our citizens, protection against the threats of international terrorists.’
Putin 2002
And Putin 2024?
‘It is a different time now and Putin is not Stalin in many ways. But targeted killing has always been part of his system:
His accession saw a spiral of killings of his enemies or inconveniences to his power, from that of Galina Starovoitnova, the Duma member who promoted western democracy when he was still FBS director, to Anna Politovskaya, the investigative journalist, in 2006 and ex-deputy-premier and critic Boris Nemtsov in 2015, and famously the poisoning of his chief opposition Alexei Navalny in 2020.
While abroad dissidents and double-agents from Alexander Litvinenko to Sergei Skripal were targeted for murder with exotic poisons from the biological weapons laboratory.
Since the Ukraine war started, destabilizing and reshaping the secretive tournament of rivals and clans into a frenzied cagefight for money and power, the killing spiral has become unpredictable and widespread:
Bankers, oil executives, bureaucrats—and sometimes as a gruesome warning, their mistresses—have been murdered—thrown out of windows, drowned in pools, poisoned.
Many businessman who expressed skepticism about Putin’s war now found that their rivals—who may well have been FSB potentates—could forcefully grab their companies and sometimes liquidate them, too.’
Montefiore
How easy it is to write accusations, especially against a powerful leader with whom you are in disagreement. How much is true and how much is conjecture can only be affirmed by the individuals investigating each crime.
It is sadly the case that lists of government assassinations are prevalent in Wikipedia.
The Wikipedia table for Russia (i.e. post-USSR) lists 82 names, but they are people “suspected or confirmed” to have been assassinated by the government (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Russian_assassinations).
The list of Soviet assassinations (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Soviet_assassinations), dating back to 1918, names a meagre 34 subjects but there are claims that 60 million Russians were murdered or starved to death under the communist regime (https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/USSR.CHAP.1.HTM).
The list of US assassinations (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assassinations_by_the_United_States) numbers just 63 rows but, for example, there is just one row for ‘Viet Cong operatives’.
But when it comes to targeted assassinations, Israel surely leads all countries (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Israeli_assassinations). I gave up counting how many victims are listed.
How charming the world is that we inhabit, when it is the norm for our governments to assassinate whomever they wish.
How easy it is to write accusations, especially against a powerful leader with whom one is not in sympathy. How much is true and how much is conjecture can only be affirmed by the individuals investigating each crime.
It is sadly the case that lists of government assassinations are prevalent in Wikipedia: for USSR, for Russia, for USA and (by far the longest) for Israel.
How charming the world is that we inhabit, when it is the norm for our governments to assassinate whomever they wish.
Apologies for the duplication but DS has the habit of making inputs disappear – and obviously reappear after a while. I assumed the number of URLs was a problem and therefore rewrote my original input.
Monday Morning Bagshot Rd
& Nightingale Crescent, Bracknell
“Net zero ‘crisis’ prompts £42 billion merger talks between Honda and Nissan”
Whilst there is much low level, unimaginative, simplistic thinking from politicians with regard to ‘Net-Zero’, it is hard not to conclude that some at the core of this scam knew exactly what they were doing and what the consequences would be. It took 100 years to develop the petrol/diesel (ICE) car industry to the position it has had in our economy. The idea that we could change and seamlessly move to electric cars (EVs) in a few years was ludicrous. I cannot believe that nobody saw that this attempt to rapidly shift to EVs was going to lead to a huge upheaval and major changes to the world economy and to the lives of ordinary people.
Is there nobody prepared to question this net-zero, EV lunacy? Maybe there is somebody? I guess we will see what develops in 2025? If there are sinister forces behind this net-zero scam then they are not going to give up without a fight.
Sadly, the impractical timescales are a direct consequence of the unhinged (and unchallenged) predictions that, “unless we do something NOW”, the World will be reduced to a burning ember. Rational discussion left the building a long, long, time ago.
This chimes with a thought that’s been developing in my mind for a few years now.
The car industry is a major source of wealth for the UK. Directly in terms of taxes on vehicles (VAT, road tax) and fuel (VAT, fuel duty, carbon taxes), almost directly in terms of employment taxes (income tax and NI) and the tax (VAT) on the spending power it generates for the workers and less directly in terms of the supply chain manufacturing and employment taxes and the maintenance and repair and insurance businesses and their workers.
When fewer people buy new cars every few years what is the plan to replace this wealth?
There is a plan, right?
I think you know the answer to that question…
Sadly yes, I fear that I do know. There is no plan to replace that wealth – reducing it is an end in itself.
Is anyone aware of any industry or business which has a plan to exploit the new conditions after Net Zero? Something significant that some people will want to spend a year’s wages on every few years? (If you earn 60k and you buy a 60k car and trade in a car worth 40k you’re still spending a year’s wages. It’s just that you traded in a capital asset worth 2/3 of a year’s wage.)
Windmills and heat pumps are not what I’m talking about. Something that we buy and then pass on into a second hand or pre-loved market.
Ultimately I’d say new car ownership is dead outside of companies purchasing – the aim is likely everyone else leases… remember ‘you will own nothing and be happy?’ – the last thingy the banks want is people NOT paying for services on an ongoing basis… they take their % of every such arrangement
Yes, car leasing can still be taxed to raise revenue for government. The lease companies can effectively decide how long we keep a new car before replacing it and sending it into the second hand market. Once on the leasing treadmill it is difficult to get off again – like a drug pusher’s dream. But anti-car policies will still bite the government income – where’s the plan to replace tax revenue on vehicles?
“Net zero ‘crisis’ prompts £42 billion merger talks between Honda and Nissan”
Imagine the ridiculous situation if a company was not allowed to sell its products, the costs of making those products was higher than anywhere else, and the work force threatened to take industrial ‘action’ to ‘prevent’ job losses… No need to imagine – it’s happening.
Thank you to all the staff at DS that bring me my daily dose of reality each morning.
Wishing you and all it’s readers a Happy Christmas and New Year.
Clare Craig is taking the UKHSA to court to force them to release death/Covid vaccine data.
The date is set for 20th of February. The defense is using the arguments that the data should not be released because of ‘privacy’ and ‘potential distress to relatives of the deceased’….
Will be an interesting case.
Merry Christmas to you all and wishing everyone a wise, common sense 2025!
Farage does it again!
The unsupported rumour about Elon Musk giving Reform $3100 million has sent the political class into a tail-spin. It has terrified the Tories. It has deranged journalists and the Labour government’s anti-democratic instincts have been disclosed by their ideas for new laws on donations designed solely to suppress a newcomer political party.
They are beside themselves with anxiety about how to stop reform. If they can’t, many of them will not getthe peerage they need to make their wives or partners into ladies.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/12/23/labour-is-creating-a-blander-more-boring-britain-to-please/
I have been making this point almost since the start of the Scamdemic. Good to see some bright spark in the MSM catching up.
FFS.
“Cadbury’s loses royal warrant for the first time in 170 years”
I have to say that Cadbury’s chocolate has lost its flavour. I doubt very much that it’s still ‘a glass and a half, in every half pound.’ It’s gone downhill since the American takeover – and I say that as someone who would only ever buy Cadbury’s.
I also remember the family sized bars at Christmas being about half an inch thick. Now they’re more like 2mm thin, and not much larger than the fun-sized packs of yesteryear.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/23/voters-will-tell-musk-where-to-put-his-100-million/
No good spouting from your London bubble Mr Moore, we proles don’t seei t that way. Remind me again who funds Liebour.
Actually I’m encouraged by what Ld Moore says. He, Hague, Heseltine and Clegg are always, reliably, wrong
Fair enough.
My thoughts exactly.