Apologies for postponing my take on that extraordinary paper Cummings sent out last week. I do not have the brain power of that man – probably because I’m too old – to do it justice without going into it and not just swanning over his ideas. Also, some other issues private and public in the form of ‘news’ intruded yesterday (see my ‘Sunday Special’) and this morning. They add to the picture of a government hell-bent on destroying the country for green stuff while at the same time being incapable of actually solving pressing problems. 

These ‘news’ come under two main headings. One is ‘I believe it when I see it’, the other is ‘civil serpents and No 10 can’t organise the proverbial piss-up  in the proverbial brewery’. Lord Frost‘s speech at the Tory Party conference today is in the first category. The DT has given it a pre-view (paywalled link).  We learn that Frosty is going to threaten the EU with triggering Article 16 unless they agree to replace the NI Protocol. Yes, I’ll believe that when I see it. 

The other news item in that category is the announcement Johnson will allegedly make at that Tory jamboree. According to The Times, he’ll declare that all our electricity – 100% of it – will come from ‘renewables’ by 2035. Apparently he’ll include nuclear energy in this scenario (link, paywalled). Well, we’ll have to wait and see, won’t we!

Looking at the news in the category “can’t even organise yon proverbial piss-up”,  there’s the staggering news that our oh-so-wonderful mandarins are clearly more concerned with keeping the paper-shuffling going rather than accelerate the offered solution to the HGV driver crisis. It’s the same attitude which saw private businesses being sidelined last year when they offered to help , e.g. providing lab spaces for those covid tests. We read that thousands of former Army HGV drivers have offered to help but are hampered because government agencies are not pulling their weight:

“Thousands of army veterans are ready to help tackle the HGV crisis but are being ignored by the Government, a logistic expert has said. Service leavers and veterans with requisite skills that have no civilian equivalent are being hampered […] Former soldier Darren Wright, of Veterans into Logistics (ViL), a non-profit organisation, […] said there are thousands of veterans with HGV licenses, but without the Driver Certificate of Professional Competence – a civilian qualification not awarded by the military and which “takes months” – they are unable to drive equivalent vehicles.” (paywalled link)

Here’s the rather interesting point: from today, 200 army drivers will start to deliver fuel, and, we read, they: “will remain on fuel delivery duties “for as long as it’s needed”. The MoD would not give any further details of military support to the crisis, citing “security reasons” (paywalled link) – ‘security’ now being the go-to excuse for anything whitehall does or doesn’t want to do.

One might ask why these army drivers are allowed on the road without that ‘civilian qualification’ – isn’t this, ahem, ‘unsafe’? Or is it the case that jobsworths, presumably WFH, couldn’t care less about working to solve that crisis? Are they not affected by petrol and food shortages? Perhaps it’s a sign of passive resistance by all those civil serpents who, if not out-and-out Remainers, are at least green to the core, knowing that they, the upper crust, won’t be affected as much as the working plebs. After all, the ‘Environment Minister’, Lord Zac Goldsmith, said that:

“[…] the ongoing petrol crisis is a ‘good lesson’ in the need for the dependence on fossil fuels to end. In an interview with The Independent, Lord Goldsmith said queues at petrol stations amid current shortages should serve as a reminder of the need to accelerate the switch to electric vehicles.” (link)

He obviously thinks we peasants need to learn a lesson, that queuing at petrol stations is just the right stick with which to bash greenery into our stubborn heads. No wonder then that help like that from the Army veteran drivers should be hampered by bureaucrats at every step. Let’s not even mention that electric vehicles for the masses will produce unprecedented problems for our electricity grid when recharging – electricity will come out of the walls, all green and lovely and ‘renewable!

Take note of how the ‘great and good’ are peacocking around, displaying their green or feminist sides. From yon Zac Goldsmith – a ‘very good friend’ of Carrie –  to the Tory West Midlands Mayor who cancelled his participation at the Tory Party conference because he found himself part of an ‘all male panel’ (link, paywalled): it’s all about forcing their policies down our throats – policies which are more at home in Labour or the Green Party. 

An investigation in today’s Times looking at the pay ‘awarded’ to Quangos illustrates that we’re on the way back to the Blair Labour government. “We” shelled out “£29 billion last year, up from a low of £18 billion at the end of the coalition government in 2015.” (link, paywalled) and it won’t be long before levels of those seen during Labour’s stint in No 10 are reached again. Those well-cushioned quango ‘eminences’ propose policies affecting us plebs, policies from greenery to housing. Worse – most of the ‘chiefs’ receive ‘salaries’ well in excess of that which is paid to the PM – for working two or three days a week only. 

Will Sunak take his ‘spending review axe’ to those jobs? I doubt it – not when that man, David Willets, who started the boom in ‘boomer bashing’ ten years ago, has come up with a lovely proposal. To ‘help the young’ he advocates scrapping both council tax and stamp duty and impose a ‘property tax’ of 0.5% across the country.

It’s only fair, innit, because the young rent and thus won’t have to pay while all those sitting in their own houses would pay and pay – until they give up, move out into ‘granny silos’ so that the young can get their homes. That these selfsame young would then have to pay those property taxes – what with? – doesn’t occur to him. Clearly, living a cushioned, sheltered life does affect the brains – from Lord Goldsmith to Mr Willets and all those quango chiefs in between, not to forget all those jobsworths in our public ‘services’. 

There’s one rather funny bit of silver lining, showing that peasants getting together can have an effect. ‘Tis only a small one, admittedly, but when I read that “Passenger ‘mutiny’ forces packed train to reverse – Travellers caused the train to stop after it failed to stop at Swindon” (paywalled link) I grinned from ear to ear. Perhaps a good dose of civic disobedience is what this country needs.

Perhaps our ‘great and good’, from quango chiefs to ministers and indeed MSM editors need to be reminded that the autumn revolutions which toppled communist dictators in eastern Europe a bit over 30 years ago happened when people saw that the reality of their lives was in no way as described by their ‘leaders’ and propaganda machinery. History has a habit of repeating itself when people, especially those ‘at the top’,  won’t learn.

KBO