Working hard on the Labour Manifesto …
Parliament will be back from their ever so well earned recess today. It’s not as if we missed having another set of theatre performers vying for our attention, but perhaps we’ll be spared the ongoing obsession in the MSM with yon ITV presenters. They’re still at it, as the obligatory glance at the print editions’ front pages shows: “Newspaper headlines: Mortgage rates ‘squeeze’ and ‘Phil won’t watch Holly’’ (link).
Hidden away were two ‘stories’ I found interesting. One is about Starmer’s proposal to stop oil and gas production in the North Sea “because green!”, the other is about an episode shown on telly on Saturday. They are both indicative of the ‘culture’ preferred by the Westminster denizens.
Let’s firstly look at this delicious article in The Times: “Unions lambast Labour over ‘naive’ green energy plan” (link, paywalled). The labourite responsible for yon plan is none other than Ed Millipede, the one who gave us the green surcharge’. But rest assured: the Trade Unionists haven’t seen the light and condemn Net Zero – they solely want to preserve jobs in the oil and gas industries:
“Gary Smith, general secretary of the GMB, joined Unite’s Sharon Graham yesterday in criticising the pledge to ban new licences for oil and gas extraction in the North Sea. He said the proposals were naive and displayed a “lack of intellectual rigour and thinking”. […] He said he thought that workers in the petrochemical industry “are going to be very worried about what Labour are saying and I think it is time for Labour to focus on the right thing rather than what they think is the popular thing”.” (link, paywalled)
Does Mr Smith believe that ‘Net Zero’ and everything pertaining to it is ‘the popular thing’? How … interesting. Ms Graham, Gen Sec of ‘Unite’, displayed the same attitude, saying that:
“Labour must now be very clear that they will not let workers pay the price for the transition to renewable energy. […] We cannot have a repeat of the devastation wrought on workers and their communities by the closure of the coalmines. It is reckless in the extreme to talk about halting this industry without offering a coherent, fully funded plan for jobs.” (link, paywalled)
Labour will keep the ‘Net Zero’ policies, disregarding the fact that the destruction of the basis of our economy will hit their clientele, the ‘workers and downtrodden’, more than the posh, red-tinged middle classes in the shires who appealed to Starmer:
“In a statement to The Guardian, groups including the Campaign to Protect Rural England and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds called on him to “stand firm on Labour’s policy of no new oil and gas developments and its significant investment in well-planned, nature-positive renewables and energy efficiency”. (link, paywalled)
Isn’t that a beautiful appeal: ‘nature-positive renewables’! ‘Farming’ solar and wind is so lovely and ‘nature-positive’ that we don’t need to worry about food security or the destruction of our land and shores by installing bird shredders. Better also not worry about where the material for those things is coming from and how it’s going to be manufactured. The cherry on top of the icing of that cake however is this:
“Before a visit to a nuclear power plant in Somerset today, [Starmer] said: “Nuclear is a critical part of the UK’s energy mix. It’s shambolic that after 13 years of Tory government, not one of the ten nuclear sites approved by the last Labour government has been built.” (link, paywalled)
Doesn’t Starmer know that his German colleagues, in coalition with the German Greens, have just shut down their last three nuclear power plants? Doesn’t he want Labour to be ‘green’? Shouldn’t he instead find it within himself to grudgingly applaud the Tories for being so ‘green’ as to refrain from building these things?
Some weeks ago a German blogger pointed out that shutting down those nuclear power stations is a good thing because, given the state of the ‘education’ in schools and colleges, there are no engineers and workers who’d actually be capable of safely running said stations. That, I’m afraid, applies to us here in the UK – with knobs on.
And so to the second item which attracted my attention. The DT reported: “BBC criticised over non-binary Casualty character discussing top surgery” (paywalled link). This episode was broadcast before the watershed and
“[…] includes a character discussing their “top surgery” and being presented with a surprise cake shaped like breasts. “Top surgery” commonly refers to a mastectomy carried out on transgender men to remove breast tissue.” (paywalled link)
Because nowadays those ‘playing’ characters must be ‘authentic’, the ‘actor’ of this scene was of course ‘transgender’ itself:
“Arin Smethurst, the non-binary trans actor who plays Sah, previously told Metro: “Sah is really interesting for me to play for a number of reasons. I think that I’ve figured out more about my queer identity than they have when you meet them in the show.” (paywalled link)
‘Acting’ is now also ‘therapy’? Who knew …! There were viewers – or rather: campaigners – who applauded this … thing as ‘joyful’. How tasteless is that when so many women have to undergo ‘top surgery’ because of cancer! How could the BBC do such thing? Easy: it’s ‘gay pride month’, which has become more like ‘gay trans month’.
I leave you with a video where one such person talks about their experience, shattering that of yon BBC trans ‘actor’. Watch it here – it is truly sad. But then again, if the BBC and certain campaigners say that such utter destruction is ‘joyful’, who are we to argue …
Is it too much to hope that all those crying for ‘moar money’ for our Sacred Cow will demand that scarce resources will be saved to treat cancer? Is it too much to ask Labour and the other parts of the Uniparty, never mind the BBC and MSM, to save the lives of our children from such irreversible procedures based on nothing but trans propaganda?
That’s all I have for today. I wonder when gays and lesbians will grasp the fact that this transgenderism is actually a crass case of homophobia because it eradicates lesbians and gays by surgical means. Have a good day.
Despite the dire polling, the only way I can keep my sanity is to be a member of I centre right party and UKIP is still the only one with the infrastructure. Such is life. As far as pronouns are concerned, forget it. There are only two genders and they will be addressed accordingly. These people need psychiatric help.
Lisa…….you are right, the only real option out there as far as I can see is the UK Independence Party. It has slightly upped its game of late and sending out policy updates via email. And the party has of course attempted to bring the other parties together to contest elections as one united front, but has met resistance with regard to this with Reform UK failing even to reply to the advance. This is all one needs to know about that particular party and not worth bothering with.
Doesn’t matter a jot what Labour say they will do just as it doesn’t matter a jot what the Tories say they will do, or not do. At the end of the day both are equally deceitful having utter contempt for the British people. They take their orders from powerful unelected individuals and organisations and they will follow their orders to the letter. Why people take any interest in what the politicians and the MSM say is beyond me.
” ‘Acting’ is now also ‘therapy’? Who knew …!”
But is it even acting. That’s ‘it’ as in it’s pronoun, not it being a thing. But hang on; it’s both really. Oh dear this idiocy is so complicated.
Norman………and Phillip Schofield wont be listening. Two utter bores from the same pod. Utterly fed up reading about these total non entities who haven’t got an ounce of original thought between their lugholes.
Yesterday afternoon Nigel Farage declared to the world that he would be making a big announcement on his Twitter site at 7 pm. Like many many people I honestly thought he was going to announce that he was returning to front line politics at long last and at least take over that total waste of time party called Reform UK from the hopelessly useless Richard Tice or maybe form a brand new party. I am not either a Twitter or Facebook subscriber but that doesn’t stop me from looking at what utter crap other people are writing and saying on their respective sites. And what Farage announced at 7 pm was indeed utter crap, in fact mind numbingly boring in the extreme. No leadership plans and no announcement of a new party for us all to get behind, and so should I have been that surprised. No not really, because we have been let down time and time again about what he may or may not do politically, and its getting to the point of being water off a ducks back. Hopes raised and then dashed in an instant. And so what was this big announcement that Farage made in the company of a large glass of red wine in some sort of street bar on a main road somewhere……he was more committed to Twitter than ever before and would be launching a Subscription page and that he would do livestream debates and wouldn’t hold back with his opinion, and that it would be fun (but for whom I wonder) and he would give away free bottles of Farage Gin. Oh, well that’s alright then, but wait a minute I would much prefer to quaff a glass of Gordon’s Gin to be honest. Some big announcement, someone please wake me up…….
Dan Wootton asked him outright last week if he was going to re-engage in direct politics. He gave what to me was a pretty good summation of the pros and cons, and wrestling with the decision. But if a tipping point has not been reached already for him to get re-involved, what on Earth would it take? Sadly, at least for me – I know others here disagree, I don’t think he will.
PO – I’m now of the opinion that Farage was controlled opposition all along. I don’t think Farage had any intention of winning the Brexit referendum, on the night the referendum results were announced, Farage, instead of being overjoyed at winning after over twenty years of campaigning, he looked shocked and horrified, I was watching his face.
Forget about Farage, once he was useful, now he is a has been.
If you don’t go ” Onward and Upwards “, ” You go ” Down and Out “
POS……I don’t think Farage will either, but he seems to like keeping us on permanent tenterhooks, will I, wont I etc. Its far easier to sit in a warm and comfortable tv/radio studio spouting his thoughts on how to set the world to rights to a fairly limited audience and without actually speaking to the real people out there (the UKIP activists) who wore out shoe leather on the streets to make Brexit happen and the voters out there who made it happen I know he bangs on about Proportional Representation and how smaller parties don’t fair very well out of the First Past the Post system, but if sufficient voters in one area vote for a UKIP style party then they will get elected, and indeed UKIP did get a lot of councilors elected under their banner, so in fact it did work to these parties advantage. Farage’ popularity is solely based on his success as leader of UKIP over several years and then more latterly with the Brexit Party and he was indeed the voice of Brexit, but many people like me who worshipped the ground on which he stood are tiring of him now. How long can he go on flogging a dead horse and playing on past victories. He needs to step up, and up his game and that cannot be done in a studio talking to the likes of Katie Price etc.
GBNews and an EU pension would be enough for most people but, financially, Farage is the runt of the litter among Trump, Banks et al – something that bothers him – and he had a costly divorce. There is no way he is going to give up his GBNews income and hit the campaign trail.
The history of UKIP, during which it languished most of the time, is a history of people Farage fell out with. It was not until the advent of YouTube that UKIP took off when Farage’s videos went ‘viral’, especially the ‘Who Are You?’ one. The momentum from that was supplemented during the referendum campaign by a series of masterful roadshows. The schedule which took him across the country was punishing – but effective.
The Brexit Party was a burst of roadshows that depended on Farage’s reputation. Also highly effective. Tice was master of ceremonies as he funded the party initially through donations eventually took over. The Brexit Party’s reincarnation as Reform UK has not worked. It is trying to be a conventional party, but without (expensive) roadshows and the equivalent of Farage’s viral videos it remains off radar for many people.
Roadshows and videos are how to break through the establishment stranglehold on politics but they require a personality to lead, even one loved snd hated in equal measure (e.g. Farage, Johnson). If Farage came back, and that is very unlikely, he would have to hit the road again to raise Reform UK’s profile and get it some attention. Disaffected Tories were never the breakthrough and will never be. It was Farage in red working class areas that made the difference. I doubt he wants to do that again and I doubt Tice wants him back anyway.
There is no-one to lift an insurgent party in time for next year’s GE. David Kurten is good on stage but his party does not have the funding for Heritage roadshows and Reclaim is just a luvvy indulgence. So, we face the usual LibLabCon next year.
I fear you may be right about Farage and GB News and his income from it. However, I was surprised at how low their audience numbers actually are compared with competitors. Surprised, was I really surprised. No, not really. The ludicrous self adverts are a major turn off for me at least and go on for ages. If it a commercial radio/tv station it should have some proper adverts being run, but some of their so called presenters in these self adverts just talk utter twaddle and Farage falls into the trap of pushing forward his opinion at every available opportunity, rather than getting the best out of the person he is interviewing. He is a far better politician than he is as a presenter, and that is why we need him once again on the front line fighting our corner. Not playing second fiddle to Tice who is instantly forgettable, but leading a party under his own steam. I know it wont happen now, but every time he mentions a big announcement our/my hopes are raised only to come crashing down again in short order with some utter baloney about offering help to Tice and taking on an honorary role, and now taking Twitter subscribers, livestream, having fun, with the opportunity of getting a free bottle of his brand of Gin. Not what we desire and all so formulaic and utterly boring.
It’s alright everyone, don’t get triggered according to the D.M Holly is going to address the nation this morning, Dear god………