I tend to be someone who thinks this country is basically finished. Hence my recent article ‘England is Lost Forever’. Not my most subtle title.
Listeners of the Weekly Sceptic will know our Glorious Leader Toby Young is somewhat more optimistic. And now we have another optimist (sort of) in the form of Tom McTague, who claims in UnHerd that Britain has pretty much always been on the verge of collapse, at least in the eyes of the doomsters and gloomsters. Here’s an excerpt:
Have things ever been so grim? Given the depressing reality of contemporary Britain — with the endless stories of sleaze and decay, decline and division — it is easy to draw that conclusion. Surely the NHS has never been this dire, the union this fragile or the country’s economic prospects this bleak? Surely we’ve never had a Government, or a parliament, quite so devoid of ideas and ambition? For those, like me, who find themselves asking these questions more regularly than ever, there is a salve of sorts available: modern British history. If you think you’re living through the worst of times today, think again — it’s usually like this.
Over the past few months, researching a book on Britain’s long, troubled relationship with Europe, I have found a strange solace in the almost seasonal nature of our national life, with its endless wintery crises (usually involving the weakness of the pound and our ability to pay our way) that eventually give way to spring-like calms. Ben Pimlott’s biography of Harold Wilson, for example, is like a thunderstorm of charm and disorder, short fixes and political escapism. There was, of course, plenty of honour and achievement along the way, but as you turn the final page, you cannot help but wonder what it all amounted to. Here was a magical politician who dominated British politics for more than a decade, only to fade from national consciousness with alarming speed, his ghost barely even troubling the minds of his successors let alone haunting them. Today, Wilson is back in vogue as the man who finally ended 13 years of Tory rule, a favourite of Keir Starmer and some Sixties nostalgics, but this was a man almost broken by his own decline — and his country’s.
Wilson, though, is the rule in this regard, not the exception. A similar air of despondency hangs over almost all of Britain’s post-war leaders up until 1979, each of whom fixated on the notion of British decline but were unable to escape its clutches.
Admittedly, to call this optimism is stretching things, but I understand the claim that we are by no means in uniquely bad times. Though this sidesteps the issue of mass immigration, which of course increased radically from 1997 onwards. Not to mention the illegal migrant problem, the escalating insanity of the culture war, and the existence of Nicola Sturgeon. I could go on. But McTague claims:
For Britain, the truth is that our crises are never quite as important as we imagine — and nor are our leaders.
To illustrate the point, here’s a challenge: when was the last time a British Government or prime minister pro-actively achieved something of lasting importance, addressing some great strategic threat before it became an existential challenge? The disasters are far easier to list, but not the lasting achievements. Did any of Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson or Liz Truss leave us with any lasting monument to progress? It is hard to think of one. They largely managed crises — or, more often, caused them.
Here he is on more solid ground. Though he goes on to argue that even Thatcher is overrated, which will irk many.
Still, whether you agree or not, it is worth reading in full.
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I am convinced that the bad outcomes discussed are the intention of the green industry. It would be their route to socialism and the totalitarian rule that necessarily involves.
They and selected members of their families would be protected, as happens in all socialist hell holes.
Yes.
“To produce a maximum of chaos in the culture of the enemy is our first most important step. Our fruits are grown in chaos, distrust, economic depression and scientific turmoil. At least a weary populace can seek peace only in our offered Communist State, at last only Communism can resolve the problems of the masses.”
“If we can effectively kill the national pride and patriotism of just one generation, we will have won that country. Therefore we must continue propaganda abroad to undermine the loyalty of citizens in general and of teen-agers in particular.”
“By psychopolitics create chaos. Leave a nation leaderless. Kill our enemies. And bring to Earth, through Communism, the greatest peace Man has ever known”
Lavrentiy Beria
“Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.”
Thomas Sowell
“Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.”
Thomas Sowell
That’s a cracker – one of his best!
Well, you know, it is a bit of an inconvenience having to travel over to the villa in Tuscany whenever we want to eat pineapple, but I’m sure we would all agree it’s a sacrifice worth making.
Our only hope is that it takes a long time to execute such a plan that the next GE will arrive and sweep away this idiocy (as exemplified by all of Labour, Conservatives, LibDems, Greens, etc.). I can see day 1 of a Reform govt announcing policies that echo Trump’s day 1 Executive orders. What a day that will be.
The vote against Labour will be split between Tory and Reform. I don’t see an end to Labour government or that of its allies Tory, Green, LIb Dem etc.
I suspect you are correct. The media will still back the uni-party to the hilt. Reform has done well but it’s still got a mountain to climb.
So many lunatics in the asylum.
Running the Asylum
And they have the keys more importantly.
‘This takes the allowance down to around 10% of the current level. The reductions needed are barely imaginable and Homewood observes that a ban on all imported goods and food would still get the country nowhere near mandated targets.’
Okay…let’s see….what will happen to the developing world when developed world economies are switched off?
We know because we just did that only a few years ago:
‘The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is largest for the world’s poorest. In 2021, the average incomes of people in the bottom 40 percent of the global income distribution are 6.7 percent lower than pre-pandemic projections’
‘Turning to the report on agriculture development, food security and nutrition, he said that some 29.6 per cent of the global population — 2.4 billion people — were moderately or severely food-insecure in 2022, 391 million more than in 2019, with more women and people in rural areas denied access to safe, nutritious and sufficient food year-round. A long-term, holistic approach is needed to address structural problems such as political and economic shocks, unsustainable management of natural resources and socioeconomic exclusion.’
How long before Savage MP also says something like this?
‘What did surprise us is we hadn’t really thought through the economic impacts.’
Melinda Gates
Savage might struggle to say anything because of the rope around her neck as she dangles for a lamp post.
Chris Morrison’s Finest Sceptical Hour thus far, a call to arms against of the very real risk of “an abyss, a new Dark Age made sinister by the lights of perverted science.”
Meanwhile across the Atlantic, The Donald takes leadership of the free world and kicks off by again pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord, stopping EV mandates and upping the ante on drilling for oil and gas.
Pure Theatre of the Absurd across this side of the pond. Like A. B. de Pflogiston, Rishi Buoy and the rest of the clowns who orchestrated the response to The Pandemic That Never Was, and all the social and economic nonsense that followed, Sir Two-Tier and the Overgrown Student Junta seem resolved on making a future appointment with the International Criminal Court at the Hague, charged with Crimes Against Humanity.
So much for Sir Two-Tier’s precious human rights, which count for nothing in the face of the latest in Green Fascism.
Roz Savage be thy name, smirking savage be thy nature.
‘Green Fascism’. Spot on.
Anti-science
Anti-human
Anti-reality
Anti-ecology
Pro-corruption
Pro-money laundering
Pro-censorship
Pro-violence
Pro-fascism
Pro-ecological devastation
The Rona plandemic fascism will be a template for these goose stepping half wits.
High time the collective ‘we’ got off our arse and confronted and smashed them.
Exactly. Well said.
The election of Trump and its effects may reverberate. We can only hope that the reverberations rattle the tiny brains of the Milibands of this world and hope that he receives an almighty uppercut from REALITY that knocks the living daylights out of him and leaves him on the canvas before all of this economic suicide can get underway.
Heard on GB News that the Bank of England is even calling this government to cancel Net Zero [Agenda 21/30 Sustainable Development Goals]. Not that I heard them report it on Radio Four.
If you haven’t heard it on R4, it must be true!
I think I’m right in saying I saw it reported in The Telegraph too.
Whenever the Democrat madmen are expelled from the US government, they hide in the colonies (that’s unfortunately us) and plot their comeback. There’s little point in swapping out a dysfunctional government in the USA (for some limited time) while its pseudopodes remain firmly wrung around the backbones of all other governments in the so-called West by virtue of political systems designed to guarantee that.
But dn’t you think changes are afoot in Holland Italy and Germany with the AfD eg and also in the UK with REFORM?—–Eventually the people have to wake up to this piss taking left Wing Agenda.
These are stirrings, but there’s a long way to go. Most people are still in their comfort zone of ignorance, the emphasis here being to ignore what’s happening around them. They’re below deck or in the holds of the Titanic, whilst those who walk the deck feel the contrast of the real world around the ship, and are eyeing up the lifeboats.
You can stand in a blizzard and say the world is on fire, and everyone thinks you are sane and wise, but say fossil fuels give us all our heat, medicine and infrastructure for modern life and we’ll die without them and they think you are an idiot. Amazing.
Yet today there are reports about the expansion of Heathrow with a third runway, and extra capacity at Stansted & Gatwick, such as in the Telegraph. Money talks louder than those zealots, perhaps.
Schizoid times we live in. Hopefully you are right and sanity will prevail.
Not to mention Starmer’s plans to become the leaders of the AI world, or whatever rubbish he was spouting last week. Don’t think that would be possible under the new regime. I thought he also back tracked on banning gas boilers recently?
Could Starmer perhaps be his own, AI-powered deep fake? His teflon-like appearance doesn’t seem particularly real to me.
He’s certainly somewhat robotic at times isn’t he?
Cognitive dissonance within the government. Clearly no coordination between treasury and energy departments.
Well done as usual Chris Morrison.
Nothing but the Truth, I for one didn’t vote for this lunacy I am seriously considering withholding my council tax payments if my local MP votes for this crap.
Email to my MP, Clive Jones, regarding Climate and Nature Bill
The Climate and Nature Bill will destroy the UK economy and end private property
————- The Climate and Nature Bill has its second reading in
Parliament on 24 January 2025. If it becomes law, it will bring in
compulsory re-wilding of more than 30% of the UK and place
controls on travel and consumption. It will cause starvation and
economic catastrophe.
Net Zero already massively benefits Communist China which
continues to build coal fired power stations and produce steel
from blast furnaces, both now banned in Britain.
There is no climate crisis, or man made climate change.
Carbon dioxide makes up only 0.04% of the atmosphere. Without
carbon dioxide life on earth would end.
John Clauser won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics and has confirmed
that there is no climate crisis. Unlike Greta Thunberg, Barack Obama,
Bill Gates, Al Gore or Ed Miliband, he is a scientist.
Stephen
Wokingham
I too wrote to my MP – a Labour makeweight who was so disastrous as head of the city council (taking it to near bankruptcy) that she was rewarded with a safe local seat. I can quite believe that she hasn’t even considered the financial impact of this madness.
Have written to my MP about this three times. Only because he had the cheek to say how well the Tories had done in “reducing the carbon footprint”! I had to point out to him that as we buy most our imports from China/India both of whom are building a coal fired power station every week all we had done is to transfer our footprint elsewhere. I also sent him a copy of Climate the Movie and a link to the CO2 coalition app. I assume he’ll ignore it and probably thinks I’m some sort of crackpot looney “far right” conspiracy theorist. But there you go.
To get where they are, these politicians have to be paid-up members of the groupthink and that’s impenetrable. Do good luck there. I believe that the late, great Christopher Booker was writing a book about groupthink before his untimely death. It would have made a revealing read.
Blithering idiots who vote for this utter trash probably think that all we need to do to “save the planet” is get rid of all the fossil fuels double quick and replace them all with wind and sun and everything will tick along just fine. —–NO IT WON’T. —-Plus, all of this energy suicide will not come anywhere close to saving the planet, as we are a very small contributor to the manufactured climate crisis even if the science was remotely true, which it isn’t. —–These people cannot all be as thick as two short planks which means that they have a brain in their heads and are deciding not to use it, and instead are voting for this garbage for Political Purposes. The Politics of the UN that they are pandering to, is the politics that says we in the west are consuming too much, and our lifestyles are “unsustainable”. —–Did anyone in this country, apart from some rabid eco fundamentalists, and assorted brainwashed dreamers ever vote for this tyranny? —–Nope. No one apart from the dreamers wants their standard of living reduced, and the politicians they think have their best interests in mind are lying to them by telling them that all will be fine when we ditch fossil fuels. —-This is a bare faced lie. These people are TRAITORS
These people are TRAITORS
Hear, hear.
Forgive them, because they are just too stupid to know what they are backing. They simply lack the intelligence and underpinning knowledge to understand what it is they have thrown their support behind in a frisson of virtue-signalling “goodness”.
They need to be educated.
I am sorry but calling them stupid simply lets them off the hook. They are not stupid, they are dangerous
I’m afraid to say it but a lot of our problems derive from too much education / conditioning. Youngsters are no longer taught to think for themselves, that involves effort and commitment. Blair and his ilk deliberately wanted more so-called universities so as to spread the ideology. Our MPs are the result of this.
Why doesn’t Ed and the rest of the MP’S and their sponsors clear off to North Korea? It sounds like their idea of Utopia.
The sad news is that the English will not rebel and they know it, they got away with it during Covid the great test bed, they got away with locking up dissenters, they got away with allowing the attack dog child rapists attack our young, they got away with forcing injections on people that were experimental in return for the retention of livelihoods. They know they can get away with this, they know they can have Party’s and live lives of luxury whilst the rest of us suffer. They have ran the model they did it for nearly 3 years, there was no great uprising, just bowed heads and grateful acceptance of crumbs of favoured liberty.
They want those times back again, the country gave them the go ahead, now they are almost there, the prize is within their misanthropic grasp.
Correct. —It seems today that the only ones listened to are the ones that kick up an almighty stink, like Muslims, eco fundamentalists, gender lunatics, and brainwashed commie students that try to ban everything. —The rest of us are just cannon fodder sitting watching silly dancing shows on a Saturday Night, Soap Opera’s and Football Games
Why doesn’t Ed and the rest of the MP’S and their sponsors clear off to North Korea? It sounds like their idea of Utopia.
Indeed. They would be in their element over there.
I wish people wouldn’t keep insulting North Korea. They take their orders from no-one and still live in the real world. No globalist agenda for them.
“ just bowed heads and grateful acceptance of crumbs of favoured liberty”
That reminds me of driving past a pub and a tanked up lady waving flowers or something from the entrance in celebration.
Celebration of the first lifting of restrictions.
Why doesn’t Ed and the rest of the MP’S and their sponsors clear off to North Korea?
Because North Korea is effectively an absolute monarchy and Very Electable Ed® and his cronies wouldn’t be tolerated there. Maybe one of them could rule if the ruling family was disposed first. But the Usans have been trying that without any success since the Korean war and this would still leave several hundred tin pot dictators without an occupation.
You’re right, things have to get really ugly before most people wake up. This bill, with all its ramifications, may be instrumental in doing this.
This is so insane, I can’t believe it will come to fruition. And yet, there is a part of me that thinks bring it on; punish the people. May be then they will rise up in desperation and outrage.
The People. Those who voted Conservative or Labour or Lib Dem or Green (or SNP or Plaid Cymru) or didn’t vote at all at the last General Election will get what they deserve.
Unfortunately, so will all those who DIDN’t vote for any of those parties, myself included.
And our children and our children’s children.
Good point.
I don’t think the blame lies with those who didn’t vote.
I do.
Presumably, this bill was in the same party manifesto which also announced the planned inheritance tax changes for farmers.
The bill is a private member’s bill. No, it was not in the manifesto. However, net zero was in all those parties’ manifestos and the CAN bill is a logical interpretation of net zero.
Can the CAN.
The CAN bill is an even insaner extension of Net Zero. Even if this wasn’t the case, the people who were tricked into voting for it wouldn’t deserve to become victims of their susceptibility to a (pretty much) 24×7 propaganda bombardement using each avenue which could conceivably be used for that.
PS: Put the two-tier man in the can and can the can!
It’s nice to see someone remember old Suzi Quatro hits
My expletive has been removed from my comment. I broke the rules. My apologies.
It’s difficult not to “break the rules” given the madness of this treasonous government.
Indeed!
I wonder if the MPs about to vote for the Climate and Nature Bill had a nice warm bath this morning, followed by cooked breakfast, a warm journey to work, and coffee on arrival in their warm offices (which we are paying for)
Whilst our gas boilers were warming up the bath, 65 PERCENT OF THIS MORNING’S ELECTRICITY WAS ALSO GENERATED FROM GAS. Plus 1% from solar, 11% from wind, and the rest from nukes, or burning imported wood, or importing electricity from other countries, where generation is likely to be a reflection of the above mix except for the French nukes
Renewable energy can only ever deliver about a third of our needs. To hope for more is a fantasy, and just plain wrong
I heard a professor on GBNews this morning, uttering some bollocks about the world is burning, and offering this as justification for turning the UK into North Korea. Even if we do adopt North Korea standard of living, it won’t make a jot of difference to the climate.
Some people are so far down the rabbit hole that there is no hope for them. They would happily destroy the lot of us. These people must be resisted with every fibre in our being.
I hope the bill passes, it’s consequences are felt and the people who are responsible for it are properly thanked.
Yes. The sooner people start hurting the sooner they will start resisting. I hope before it’s too late.
Provided there’s a mechanism for repealing the laws and regulations that follow.
The Donald will simply not allow this to happen.
I looked at the portrait gallery of grinning simpletons who support this to see – of course – my own MP there. I’ve given up emailing, I don’t even get an acknowledgement anymore.
She probably thinks I’m crazy, in a beautiful irony.
Yes, I often feel like the Jack Nicholson character in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Or “You can’t handle the truth” in a Few Good Men.
Maybe the US would send food aid if we’re lucky….They are welcome to invade.
I wonder if the US would accept applications for political asylum…?
Political asylum – that’s what they should rename the Palace of Westminster.
We should start a petition for the UK to be sold to the US.
Whoever, the seller might be (the King?) would be well advised to do it sooner rather than later as I suspect the price is going down every day…
Me too, although we now have a new MP in Ashley Pete Fox. Same colour new face. I might give it another go.
Years ago, the Exchange Rate Mechanism demonstrated that we are governed by dangerous fools. Today’s fools are even more dangerous.
The one’s doing the so-called governing may be fools, but the even bigger fools are those who think that there are people wise and clever enough to govern the rest of us
The underlying problem here is that too many of our politicians not only don’t believe that any part of human existence ought to be outside of the domain of state law-making but that they also believe that this extends to each and every other part of the real world, IOW, that it’s perfectly sensible to create a law stopping the tides and that the tides only need to be fined for long enough to actually forces them to stop.
In short, the problem is that too many MPs are totalitarian crackpots with only a very faint grasp of reality or completely without a conscience and paid by such crackpots. See also “the vaccines are safe and effective”, to be repeated ad nauseam whenever reality comes a-knocking.
Up until 2020 I thought there were well established systems in place to protect the ordinary citizen from totalitarian crackpots. It is chilling how they have to power to repeat the 2020 PsyOp or something similar.
Me too. I though that was the very point of our convoluted political systems. But this belief died a sudden death when Angela Merkel abolished one of the most fundamental rights guaranteed by the German basic law¹ by decree overnight and then made the German parliament approve of that after the fact by a simple majority vote.
¹ The right to freedom of religious worship. As opposed to most, if not all, other so-called rights guaranteed by the basic law, this one is not explicitly subjected to limits imposed by the legislature (improvised translation of Gesetzesvorbehalt). Merkel would have needed to change the constitution before she could have legally interfered with that. In a universe where she had given a rat’s ass for the so-called rule of law which she obviously didn’t.
Whatever the outcome of this vote by our lliterate, innumerate MPs, it will be interesting to compare the trajectories of the the British and US economies to see which strategy is most advantageous.
I don’t think it will pass. The excellent work of people like Net Zero Watch and Charlotte Gill is increasing public awareness of this scam, and is hopefully having impacts on the reputations of those who champion it.
Belatedly come across, a YouTube of the Enemy…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIQYCAU5UUQ&t=3s
…Rt Dishonourable Ms Savage MP preaching usual vacuous climate claptrap, oblivious to savagery outlined by Chris Morrison that would descend if her naive private members’ bill ever got its way.
And why do these neophytes always smirk as default fizzog? Needs politely but firmly reminding much of canoe, kit and clothing that cocooned future dishnourable member through all those canoeing jaunts across the oceans, manufactured using evil hydrocarbons as feedstock.
You Save the Planet all you like, just leave the rest of us to focus on saving ourselves.
I’d greatly prefer if people like her would scale down their ambitions to something more realistic (and benevolent) like, say, saving abandoned cats.
Give her a litter picker and a bin bag (plastic) and she could improve the environment no end.
Of course, Starmer will vote for it. The total destruction of the UK is his aim.
If only these MPs voting for max lunacy would try carbon capture and storage of their own – a plastic bag over their heads tied at the neck
Horrifying and frightening! But of course it’s being done on purpose – the plan is to break the economy (and us). You will have nothing and be happy!
….And it was via this means that the British, a once proud and highly civilised nation, voted to destroy itself and unleashed a grim and bloody future where death and horror were the norm, all in the pathetic and ridiculous expectation of ‘saving the planet’ from non existent climate change.
To add to the tragedy, they even considered themselves to be an example to the rest of the world.
How right they were!
If passed this Bill will bring down the government and put the final nail in the nut zerro madness, so maybe a good thing?
BTW please stop calling these retarded morons “elites” they are anything but. Elites are the best of the best, the cream of the crop. The zombie like figures that govern us are lightweight turds bobbing around in the cesspit of politics.
How does this sit alongside Two Tier Starmer announcing airport expansion?
It’s for the planes of the future, covered by solar panels and magnets, flying as if by magic.
The use of the words “fossil fuels” is a non-technical populist term that may not even have a legal definition.
Hydrocarbons on the other hand are well known and are a class of organic chemicals that contain carbon and hydrogen atoms. This is clear.
Hydrocarbons can be manufactured and are also extracted from the earth as oil and gas.
My point is that does a fossil fuel ban amount to a hydrocarbon ban?
To those MPs voting for the bill, it does, by inference, in the same way as “carbon” infers CO2, despite them being completely different substances of course.
I have emailed my LibDem MP (again) with a link to this article, having previously encouraged her to vote against it. Being a LibDem of course, she says she ‘believes’ in the ‘climate crisis’ so will be voting for it. I have said to her therefore that if she’s going to vote for it, she *must* produce the actual evidence for this apparent climate crisis (which excludes models, consensus, hypothesis, belief, assertion, correlation, etc.). I very much doubt she will (I know she can’t), and simply vote from a position of wilful blindness. How this can be acceptable behaviour for an MP, beats me.
It’s acceptable if it causes a majority of her constituents to vote for her. That’s the only yardstick which really matters, reality and the lifes of people who voted for someone else be damned.
Thus is IngSoc = English Socialism – Fabian Socialism.
Letter sent to MP. The trouble is, as Mr Morrison says, they’ll be off to their constituencies for the weekend unless they’re very keen on refuting this bill.