Off to a good start …

 

This week is off to a good start! My blood pressure kicked into high gear thanks to the Westminster press. Take a look at the offerings of the print edition: ”Newspaper headlines: ‘Britain’s mortgage crisis’ and ‘guilty party’.“(link)! The silly season is indeed upon us …

Before I get to my ‘pick of the day’, let me indulge in a happy meow, claws out! Scroll down on yon link to the DT’s print front page where you’ll find a photo of the Sturgeon, vowing that she’ll be back. She’s sans makeup, sans ‘power suit’, and looks like an extra from ‘Last of the Summer Wine’. Meow!

Staying with pictures, there’s one in the Independent from that infamous Tory Party members ‘Partygate’ video – have a look here. The partygoers are all hideously white – so off with their heads. I shall say this only once: the Party is becoming unelectable, not least thanks to the help from the Westminster MSM who do their utmost to carry Starmer into No 10.

Not only are they ‘celebrating’ his utterances, they promote him with photos where he is made to look suitably heroic. For example, the DT’s leading article at the time of writing is headlined (all emphases are mine):

Keir Starmer: I’ll scrap ban on new onshore wind farms – Labour leader fires starting gun on ‘race’ to build more turbines as he vows to ‘throw everything’ at net zero” (paywalled link)

Just look at the ‘heroic ‘photo accompanying that report! Get Labour and get ‘moar Net Zero’! I’m sure the vaguely lefty Audi Avenue denizens will be delirious with this: moar electricity for them, for moar EVs and heatpumps!

Let’s not rain on his and his voters’ parade by asking where the material for all those bird shredders is going to come from and who is going to build them … our ‘new people’, perhaps? We all know who will pay: us tax payers. 

I am however mildly upset that Starmer and cohorts are doing nothing nor proposing to do anything about the exorbitant prices households have to pay for their home energy consumption.

Funny dat, innit: one would’ve thought that Labour is meant to stand up for the poor and the ‘hard working families’, but apparently Starmer is happy to make them pay huge sums to energy concerns which can be ‘windfall taxed’ or yon profits used to build bird shredders for which the already oppressed workers will pay on top of what they are already shelling out. 

But that’s not all of the horror looming over the horizon. The Times has set up their own ‘Health Commission’. Either they don’t trust the Whitehall mandarins to run things properly, or they believe that they must provide as much support for Starmer as possible. After all, what else is a proper ‘quality paper’ good for but to point the way to socialism! Firstly, see this headline:

Ditch triple lock and give pension cash to health, urges Hague – Peer seers says system is unsustainable as more money will be needed to treat older people” (link, paywalled)

The other peer to which the ‘seers’ in the title refers is Lord Blunkett who quite agrees, naturally:

“Speaking at a hearing of The Times Health Commission, Hague also said that the health of the population was in such a serious condition that a food strategy, including new taxes on salt and sugar, was vital. The former Labour minister Lord Blunkett told the commission the older generation would need to pay its “fair share” but said it was important it did not seem like a “punishment”. Hague […] said the increasing size of the pensioner population represented a generational issue that “we will have to confront”, risking a slow drift into higher levels of spending “with steadily higher taxes to cope with [the resulting] surge in demand for healthcare”.” (link, paywalled)

Yes, dear friends: old people simply cost too much: their pensions, their health care, it’s all too expensive. Blunkett then suggested

[…] “a double lock” on pensions that avoided the pitfalls of a simple link with inflation. “But you don’t need a formula that rewards you for being what you are,” […] Given that the poorest in retirement have housing costs met, we could be a lot, lot more sensible.” (link, paywalled)

Nice: getting a pension is ‘rewarding’ people for what they are, i.e. ‘old’. Are benefits for being disabled not also ‘a reward for being what one is’? Nice slippery slope here, Lord B.!

Moreover, a ‘simple link with inflation’ has to be avoided … Do pensioners get an ‘age bonus’ when paying for their groceries or for their heating? It’s apparently ok to bewail ‘Teh Poor’ who had to decide between eating and heating when it afflicts the bennie generation, crying that ‘something must be done’.

Interesting isn’t it, that setting up things so that ever more pensioners are having to make the same choice is acceptable. Anyway, “the poorest” have their housing costs met, sez Blunkett, so they’re fine, they don’t need to worry about rising mortgages, do they! Meanwhile Hague came up with a truly chilling, futuristic outlook, saying:

“[…] that he saw a national food strategy and better use of technology, including artificial intelligence, as two keys to breaking out of the [health] problem. Action on obesity “needs to go faster”, […] “Look at how many people are on various forms of incapacity benefits, unable to work,” […] “I actually think this is so serious that it’s not possible to have a health strategy or an economic growth strategy or a low-tax strategy or a levelling-up strategy without having a food strategy.” (link, paywalled)

Blimey: a ‘food strategy’ means ‘more taxation’ to keep down obesity! It doesn’t mean supporting our UK agriculture – no, farm land must be re-wilded. If any of you also sniff incipient Chinese ‘social accounts’, run by AI, to tell us plebs what to eat or else, let me know!

I find it disquieting indeed that the opinion makers and the Westminster denizens are incapable of noticing how under Labour we’ll slide into a coercive system, rationing the necessities of life either through taxation or ever higher prices thanks to Net Zero. And Tory “thinkers” seem to applaud and prepare the way …

That’s all I have for today. ‘Tis a good start to the week because we independent peasants can see the cloven hooves of socialism officially being revealed, and prepare accordingly. Have a good day.