- “The moments that made 2024 a year we’ll never forget” – From Trump’s defiant fist-pump to Sunak’s washout to Taylor Swift conquering the world, the last 12 months will live long in the memory, says Alex O’Connell in the Telegraph.
- “Andrew Doyle on the Triggernometry End of Year Review” – Watch Andrew Doyle on Triggernometry’s End of Year Review with the comedian Leo Kearse and hosts Francis Foster and Konstantin Kisin.
- “The year of lying dangerously” – Thomas Buckley reviews 2024 on his Substack.
- “Help me understand… what will happen in 2025” – On Substack, Youscha Mounk provides a forecast for the coming year and a mid-decadal assessment of his predictions for the 2020s.
- “Blair opened borders despite warnings over East European migrant influx” – Official files reveal that Tony Blair was urged not to open Britain’s borders to thousands of Eastern European migrants but ignored the advice of his most senior ministers, according to Sky News.
- “Ministers urged to use Post-it notes to avoid FoIs” – Tony Blair’s ministers were advised to use Post-it notes for sensitive messages to avoid having to release them under the new Freedom of Information laws passed by his Government, reports the Telegraph.
- “VAT on schools is not a tax, but an act of class warfare” – VAT on private school fees isn’t just a tax – it’s a reckless act of class warfare that could wreck education, punish families and spark legal chaos, warns the Telegraph in a leading article.
- “Labour’s 60-year war on excellence in education impoverishes us all” – No country should tax education or close its best schools, not unless it has a death wish, says Philip Johnston in the Telegraph.
- “The value of Latin best appreciated sub specie aeternitatis” – In Country Squire, Sean Walsh defends teaching schoolchildren Latin: “When you learn the grammar of classical languages you become acquainted also with the structure of human thought; you participate in a discussion about what we are.”
- “‘We warned you’: the hammer blows about to be dealt to Britain’s rental market” – Labour has a wave of rent reforms planned – and the fallout looks catastrophic, warns the Telegraph’s Ruby Hinchliffe.
- “More than one pub a day closing in Britain as Reeves blow looms” – Publicans fear this was their “last Christmas” as higher wages and taxes risk pushing them to the brink, reports the Telegraph.
- “Pinch yourself, but Labour really was this stupid in 2024” – Labour’s Budget was self-harm on steroids – and more pain is coming, warns Brian Monteith in the Telegraph.
- “The Tories would be foolish to write off Kemi Badenoch this early” – No one is particularly interested in what the Conservatives have to say at the moment, but as Labour’s failures mount up, that time will come, says Iain Dale in the Telegraph.
- “Kemi and Keir, don’t panic about Nigel – look what became of the SDP” – In the Telegraph, Alan Cochrane predicts Reform U.K. will go the same way as the SDP.
- “New Year’s Eve train strike misery as guards demand £300 extra to work on rest days” – RMT members at Avanti West Coast are walking out on December 31st and January 2nd, demanding an extra £300 to work on their days off, reports the Telegraph.
- “Hundreds object to temporary Springwell green belt solar farm” – Despite over 400 objections, council planners are pushing ahead with plans to approve a “temporary” solar farm on green belt land on the outskirts of Sunderland, says BBC News.
- “Electric car drivers face threat of steep tax rises based on vehicle weight” – Electric cars could face bigger taxes than petrol and diesel vehicles under a new proposal to levy cars by their weight, the Telegraph reports.
- “Energy bills to jump again in latest blow to struggling families” – Despite Keir Starmer’s pledge to lower costs, families face a double energy price cap hit this year, with bills creeping up from £1,717 to £1,738 today, and more to come in April, says the Sun.
- “Terrifying ‘quad-demic’ alert as NHS top doctor warns U.K. is set for ‘worst year ever’ for flu – and predicts surge will get worse” – NHS National Medical Director Prof. Sir Stephen Powis warns that the worst of Britain’s tidal wave of flu is “yet to come”, according to the Mail.
- “What really happened in Wuhan” – Five years ago, the Chinese authorities staged the deadliest cover-up in history, writes Matt Ridley in Spiked.
- “Rise of home working holds back women, says Nationwide boss” – The boss of the world’s biggest building society Debbie Crosbie warns that women are at risk of missing out on opportunities at work because they are less likely to go into the office than men, reports the Mail.
- “Why is Israel being blamed for the battle of Kamal Adwan Hospital?” – In its coverage of the Battle of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza much of the media is deliberately burying the most vital point, says Brendan O’Neill in the Spectator: “that a neo-fascist militia is using a hospital as a base from which to plot the murder of Israel’s soldiers and citizens”.
- “Provisions of new hate crime law come into effect today” – Harsher sentencing will now be imposed in Ireland if hatred towards a protected group can be demonstrated, reports the Irish Times.
- “New poll shows Musk effect: AfD at new high, free Democrats in collapse, Christian Democrats and Greens too weak for a coalition” – Musk is making things very awkward indeed for the cartel parties that rule Germany – and that is glorious, says Eugyppius on Substack.
- “What’s Sadiq Khan done to deserve a knighthood?” – The worst-kept secret in Westminster was confirmed when it was officially announced that London’s two-bob chancer of a mayor is getting a knighthood, writes Richard Littlejohn in the Mail.
- “Why has ‘decolonising’ Sadiq Khan accepted a knighthood?” – Why on Earth has Khan, a man who has vowed to “decolonise” London, agreed to become a Knight of the Order of the British Empire? wonders Ross Clark in the Spectator.
- “Five charts that show how Sadiq Khan has ruined London” – From road congestion to an increase in knife crime, the capital feels like it’s in decline – yet the London Mayor has now been knighted, bemoans the Telegraph.
- “Host of Britain’s Olympians and Paralympians snubbed in New Year Honours List” – Only 41 athletes who took part in Paris 2024 have received a gong for services to their sports, despite Team GB and Paralympics GB winning 189 medals (63 gold) across both Games, notes Ben Rumsby in the Telegraph.
- “Black project manager who sued Heathrow Airport for £1 million after being ‘strip searched’ when she set off scanner loses race discrimination claim” – A black project manager who claimed she was “treated as a criminal” and sued Heathrow Airport has lost her race discrimination claim, reports the Mail.
- “Almost two thirds of trans women prisoners are sex offenders” – Almost two thirds of transgender prisoners who identify as female are convicted sex offenders, says the Mail.
- “Liberate civil servants from the tyranny of diversity training” – The majority of Home Office workers are hard-working and impartial and deserve better than the EDI agenda, argues Suella Braverman in the Telegraph.
- “How atheists fell for the new religion of gender identity” – In the Spectator, Debbie Hayton shares Richard Dawkins’ exasperation with his fellow atheists for their descent into anti-scientific gobbledegook.
- “Jesus was Palestinian? That really would be a miracle” – Bear Grylls’s clumsy comments about the son of God aren’t just absurd – they’re dangerous, says George Chesterton in the Telegraph.
- “Dungeons & Dragons ‘heading to inclusive oblivion’ after removing racial differences” – Dungeons & Dragons’ September 2024 rulebook has been slammed for erasing the classic racial traits of orcs and elves, stripping orcs of their strength and elves of their brains, reports the Telegraph.
- “Elon Musk ‘living in cottage on Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate’” – Elon Musk has been living in a cottage on Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and dropping in on dinners hosted by the President-elect, according to the Mail.
- “‘It’s mad innit?’” – On X, an AI-tickled Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio compare the prices of supermarket beers. Happy New Year.
Happy New Year
— Stevo Stonko (@Stevo_Stonko) December 31, 2024big plans for 2025
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https://www.wsj.com/politics/trump-is-unlikely-to-abandon-ukraineand-might-even-escalate-the-war-356a2825
What’s really going on?
For the first time, Sports Handle, which aggregates political betting odds, said Trump has a 57.2% chance of winning the November election. By comparison, Biden’s odds of reelection have fallen to 40.9%, down from 47.1% at the end of April.
What would a Trump Presidency mean for Ukraine?
Maybe not quite what, until recently, many might have expected.
‘Between 2017 and 2021, he made no concessions on Ukrainian territory: He didn’t recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea or its military presence in Eastern Ukraine. Trump also broke with Obama administration policy by sending lethal military assistance to Ukraine, including Javelin antitank missiles, which were invaluable to Ukraine in the early stages of Russia’s 2022 invasion. Two new countries, Montenegro and North Macedonia, were admitted to NATO with the Trump administration’s approval. In Syria, the U.S. took military action against Russia in 2018, killing several hundred Russian mercenaries.’
‘In 2017, the GOP-led Congress levied sanctions against Russia that the White House didn’t want, and today, a strong vein of pro-Ukraine sentiment persists among Republican lawmakers and within the Republican electorate.
Highly sensitive to this dynamic, Trump has accommodated it and is aware of how much the pullout from Afghanistan damaged Biden’s popularity. Before Speaker of the House Mike Johnson went ahead with a funding package for Ukraine in April, in defiance of much of the Republican caucus, he made a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago, where he presumably got a green light from the former president.’
‘For Trump, an additional hurdle to abandoning Ukraine would be the war itself. As president, Trump never had to deal directly with war. Between 2017 and 2021, Russia wasn’t on the march. By early 2025, Ukraine—and with it, the U.S.—could be on the cusp of losing Europe’s first major war since 1945.’
‘If it unfolded with Trump in the White House, it would force him to contend with his cardinal fear in politics and in life: being seen as a loser.’
You know and I know that isn’t going to happen……
‘Responding to the battlefield, Trump might change the U.S. calculus and furnish Ukraine with weapons systems that the Biden administration was reluctant to allow. He might let Kyiv use U.S.-supplied weapons on Russian territory.’
‘Like Putin, Trump might refuse to declare tactical nuclear weapons off limits in Ukraine.’
‘He could approach the question of nuclear war not according to the cautious old orthodoxies but according to his own unknowable rules.’
‘Alternately, Trump might escalate without wishing to escalate. His anarchic style of communication creates risks, and he doesn’t work through layers of professional staff’
‘Unable to end the war in 24 hours, Trump might up the ante, and Putin might respond in kind.’
On the war in Ukraine, voters have a choice in 2024 that is not simply binary……two different ways of supporting Ukraine: one that is predictable and operates according to careful assumptions and one that is ad hoc and thus dangerously prone to escalation.’
‘Whoever is elected in November, the war stands little chance of ending in the months and years to come. Because of the election, however, an entirely new phase of the war might begin in late January.’
But Trump has a skill that Biden does not. He is a seasoned negotiator. He is also sensitive to battlefield losses. If this war is to be brought to some kind of cessation, however temporary that might be, a Trump Presidency might be the only way to bring that about.
There are two intractable problems.
Many thanks to Biden and his cronies for thinking that they could topple Putin in this ill-conceived proxy war.
As for Trump, the first issue that the Don has is getting past a corrupt election, as it will surely be.
Trump will be elected. That is clear.
Regarding Ukraine, the U.S. has two intractable problems.
Putin will not negotiate in good faith.
Western European NATO members are not willing to provide for their own security, let alone that of Ukraine.
President Trump has the skill set to competently address, ameliorate, if not solve, those two problems.
I want a recording of the first meeting between Trump, Starmer, Lammy and Rayner (plus interpreter).
Remind me, how did Biden persuade Putin to invade Ukraine (twice) and set up a Presidential Administration department solely responsible for issuing various strategy documents and plans as to how to take over Belarus (accomplished), Ukraine (partly accomplished), Moldova (work in progress) and the Baltic States (just started the other day, at sea)?
I admire your enquiring mind, but from where I stand, everything from the Colour Revolution to the current day has been orchestrated by the CIA. Why did Putin decide to invade? Because he saw, as we all did, the Biden administration has been poking him with a pointy stick, and breaking its own 2005 promises. Add in the shocking failure in how the US withdrew from Afghanistan, and he must have felt the time is now. I can only think that China are just biding their time over Taiwan, but they were similarly emboldened by how the US administration is dealing with foreign policy.
Please don’t see this as an opportunity to dazzle me with your extended analysis of the situation. I could be right or I could be wrong, but as far as I’m concerned I’m right, and thats that. Its just an opinion.
Colour revolutions, plural. However the attempt in Belarus failed.
And you are, of course, entitled to your opinion.
Debate is all about different opinions backed by evidence.
That is why I do not share your opinion regarding CIA orchestration.
For example, what evidence is there for any ‘2005 promises’?
I am indeed so entitled. Also I am under no obligation to provide evidence. That is what opinions are about. As I have said before, one mans evidence is another man’s disinformation.
It is truly unbelievable that the “champion of democracy”, the USA, is still supporting the dictator Zelensky and opposing the recently re-elected Putin.
It used to be unbelievable.
The rumour is that the story really develops from the Maiden Coup, in February 2014, and the West rejecting the now very generous looking Minsk Agreements, and all when Biden was VP!
What a coincidence!
With regard to international affairs, meetings are documented, records of the minutes available, signed agreement texts in the public domain.
I like a good story, but a story is fiction, if unsupported by fact.
How naive can you be?
Well done, you got this far without issuing a direct insult.
The DS community should be proud, we trained you well.
There is no such thing as “the DS community”, and who do you think you are trying to deny Freedom of Speech to anyone but your own little gang?
“Training” like Communist Re-education you mean?
Get lost!
Seconded.
Speaking personally, I belong to no tribe. I come and go as I see fit. Someone may deserve respect for having engineered the best solution for yesterday’s problems, but today is another day and today’s problems reset the counter.
Anarchy.. it ain’t for everyone.
That is an excellent point you made about “resetting the counter”.
It’s also really encouraging, as a way of looking at the world.
Would an anarchist feel the need to convince people they don’t know of how individual they are?
No.
As our previous conversations have highlighted, I’m all for freedom of speech whereas you advocate censorship.
“Training” as in training an algorithm or training an influencer to be taken more seriously by avoiding insults.
Oh dear, you sound upset. Ironic that you want to deny DHJ the free speech you claim to be concerned about.
In a spirit of helpfulness:
‘Well done.
You got this far without use of insult.
The DS community should be proud.
We trained you well.’
FYI: “community” is an unpopular term for the collection of accounts on here even although a community does not require shared ideas or beliefs.
In a spirit of helpfulness:
‘For your information:
‘Community’ is apparently an unpopular collective term for commentators on here, despite the word ‘community’ itself not implying shared ideas or beliefs.’
“a corrupt election, as it will surely be”
There comes a point where it becomes impossible to get away with corruption in the election process, without it being absolutely obvious to all. If the margin between the two main candidates is so wide that the establishment believes it can’t get away with the level of vote-rigging necessary, it would resort to a Plan B.
In my view, they will not allow Trump to become President. So Plan B might be to trigger some kind of emergency (financial collapse, civil war, nuclear war?) which would allow the Election to be suspended. Or Plan B might simply be the JFK option. Who knows?
‘‘Whoever is elected in November, the war stands little chance of ending in the months and years to come.”
Can Ukraine and Russia continue to pour troops into the horrendous slaughter that is the human horror of this war? Will we get to the point where there are no more troops left to pour into the slaughter machine? If so, what happens then?
‘Can Ukraine and Russia……?’
Yes.
‘Will we get to the point……?’
Not without use of lethal CBRN.
‘What happens then?’
The U.S.A. will use shock and awe…….at first……….
Let’s hope we are in the middle of the biggest sting operation that the World has ever known.
Quite so.
As the great man said:
‘To urge the preparation of defence is not to assert the imminence of war.
On the contrary, if war were imminent, preparations for defence would be too late.’
There will come a time, probably in the not too distant future, when one side will run out of troops. According to Budanov that moment is not far off. He has said that he has no reserves left and implies that a serious offensive on another front by Russia will be impossible to repel.
What happens then?
I think that any sort of Ukrainian victory is out of the question, and the West will be too late to come to the party without using the big nuclear stick. So it is Russian victory or oblivion for all of us.
The war only continues because the Biden administration (acting for the military-industrial complex) wants it to continue, since defeat would eliminate his chance of re-election. Putin wants the war to end and has, from day 1 virtually, been willing to agree a peace deal. If Trump is elected, the war will stop. If the USA and Russia don’t want the war to continue, it will stop. Ukraine is totally helpless without US support.
“AI will replace all human jobs but there will be ‘no shortage of goods or services’, says Musk”
From my experiences so far, Artificial Intelligence is still some way from beating the real thing. I’m still waiting for the ‘paperless office’ which we have been told will be here from the 1980’s onward.
It may not have to initially beat the real thing, just be good enough at a speed and scale that is unlikely to be achieved using people. Over-time, it could be assumed to improve.
Here’s one use in the area of anti-money laundering.
https://www.thetaray.com/
I remember 4G languages were going to put all computer programmers out of work.
How did that work out?
It’s moving in that direction.
4G languages are in some areas but even they can currently require a high level of technical skill to make best use of them.
Popular development tools like Visual Studio are semi-automated already with code completion and predictive suggestions. AI is making in-roads in development environments also.
For Cloud-based systems, software developers can now replace traditional IT teams by selecting hardware using ‘code’ (really a set of configuration settings).
With centralised code repositories, there’s now a vast amount of solutions to real-world problems (good and bad) that can be analysed by AI.
I’d suggest children consider training as plumbers, electricians etc. and if they are interested in software development do it as a sideline unless you’re supremely gifted in hardcore computer science.
Hi DHJ, what’s your background in the world of IT?
Just wondering, because you’re making the implication that functionality like code hints in IDEs like Visual Studio indicates the presence (and success!) of AI…
That is telling me you don’t know the first thing about IT. What say you?
“you’re making the implication functionality like code hints in IDEs like Visual Studio indicates the presence (and success!) of AI…”
I think you’ve misunderstood my comment. Those were examples of semi-automation – more automation usually reduces the requirement for staff over time. I then went on to add that AI is making in-roads, not that it was fully there and already a success.
I normally wouldn’t use the term IT in the context of software development because it’s a different field. So you’re correct to some extent as I’m not in the world of IT.
“Popular development tools like Visual Studio are semi-automated already with code completion and predictive suggestions.”
Code completion [hints] and predictive suggestions are not examples of automation.
“…more automation usually reduces the requirement for staff over time”
For all sorts of reasons (not least human nature) this
neververy rarely happens. Toyota and the car manufacturing industry in general are one of the few exceptions. But the people just get employed in other fields. So no overall drop in the need for staff.Whether those staff are doing anything useful or rewarding or necessary is another subject!
What is “semi-automated”? I think you’re confusing
1. labour-saving systems/devices with
2. the removal of human oversight and decision-making
“The two faces of EVs: brilliant in town, hopeless in the fast lane”
As this article points out, with current heavy lithium-ion battery technology, for most low/middle income private motorists, EVs will reduce the car to something for local utility use only. Future battery technology developments could change this but that is very much something for the future. For now, for most of us hoi-polloi if we are pushed into EVs it will be something like the BYD Seagull and a trip to Sainsbury’s if the smart meter lets us charge our car.
This will be a huge change, leisure motoring for most will be finished. Cars have always offered the lure and the dream of ‘Born to Be Wild, Easy Rider, Thelma and Louse but EVs will put an end to this aspect of motoring, buying a new EV is about as exiting as buying a new saucepan. This article concludes by asking if they will allow the continued use of rented diesels for long distance leisure motoring? In the UK the answer seems to be a firm NO to that one, the current uni-party general election seems to regard net-zero as a done deal and it is not featured as an election issue.
And the next on on the list is “Toyota shuns electric cars with new generation of combustion engines” . I haven’t read it as it is in the T, but I’m familiar with the manufacturer. It could be that some other ones are betting on the horses, and they might lose a fair bit of cash.
Easy Rider was motor bikes.
Indeed, and motor-bikes are suffering the same problem, possibly worse. Imagine a chapter of the local bike club all queuing at the EV points on the services on the M4. When Harley Davidson had the Electra Glide in Blue, it was meant to be the spirit of the freedom of the open road, not a huge battery bike with a low mileage range. Motor bikes will be reduced to city e bikes for pizza deliveries.
The journalist road trip was utterly atypical, in nearly 60 years of motoring, I have never driven 700 miles in a day.
Years ago, I drove the length of California, over 600 miles, in one day with a full load of luggage and family and it was knackering. We had frequent stops for petrol, food, toilets, and rest. If that trip had been in an EV there would have been plenty of opportunities for charging without introducing significant additional delay.
Next Oxford Union debate: “This house would rather be Orthodox than dead…”
I wonder which side would win.
There are an awful lot of jobs that AI will not replace because it doesn’t have hands, or care about people.
“Angela Rayner council house probe: Police say no further action to be taken as investigation concludes”
Why on earth had it got anything to do with the police in the first place? Tax is a civil matter and is investigated by the tax office, it certainly would be if it was you or I that were fiddling the books and not the future deputy pm!
The police investigation was into possible breach of electoral law and that is potentially a criminal matter.
If she had been found guilty of infringing electoral law by registering to vote at an address she did not live at that might have fed into the civil investigation about capital gains tax from selling a second home. HMRC’s separate investigation can now proceed without deferring to the police investigation. Pretty much whatever HMRC decide won’t get published – its a civil matter between her and them.
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/angela-rayner-cleared-hmrc-over-29260877
She’s been cleared by HMRC. I do believe there’s a saying about there’s no smoke without fire? So many MPs must be wearing Teflon coated jackets.
The Rayner case was pushed over to GMP in order to provide the illusion that such a serious matter was being investigated. Burnham treats GMP as his personal police force and is thick as thieves with the Sunak / WEF government and as he controls who gets the chief plod job he could obviously tell Chief Constable Stephen Watson to bury the case. Which is exactly what has happened.
All very cosy. Job done.
“European Council approves ‘rapid response teams’ to combat ‘disinformation”
I dont think even North Korea or China have thought this one up yet?
Spetsnaz disinformation flying squad!
“Tories cut gap with Labour to 12 points: Sunak makes shock recovery”
Really? It’s always useful to look at who is conducting these polls. This one was conducted by J.L. Partners (Johnson-Lubbock):
“James Johnson is a New York City-based political adviser and pollster, having previously served as the Senior Opinion Research and Strategy Adviser to the British Prime Minister, Theresa May. In that capacity he conducted opinion research and private polling, and presented recommendations to the Prime Minister and the Cabinet, as well as the rest of Whitehall and the Conservative Party.”
“Dr Tom Lubbock is a public opinion specialist having previously worked as an academic behavioral scientist at the University of Oxford, specializing in research methods and referendum campaigns. Between 2017 and 2019 he ran analytics and polling at Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ), working on tracking polling for the Prime Minister…”
So no bias there, then…
“Pope Francis apologises after using homophobic term” – The Vatican says the Pope did not intend to use homophobic language after the Italian media quoted him saying there was “an air of f*****ry” in the church”
This is the only thing the Marxist Pope has ever said that has made me laugh.
They didn’t say what “f*****ry” was but RT wasn’t so coy “Pope sorry for ‘faggotry’ remark – Vatican”. I thought it was fruitery.
There’s always been falconry in the Catholic Church. Francis is quite right to call it out as a vain pastime…
Story Tip 2023 Nobel Laureate for Physics, Dr John Clauser exposes IPCC fraud. https://www.icsf.ie/lecture-series-2024