Bindweed roots …
These are the last few days where most people are still on their prolonged Christmas & New Year break. Some of our Party leaders believe though that now is the time where they can make some headline-grabbing announcements about Brexit. Some in the MSM have ‘discovered’ a certain blog, making the blog owner into ‘Enemy No 1’, the devil incarnate, especially now that he’s published some thoughts about the civil service. And then there’s RemainCentral which is addicted to running at least one poll every week, the latest being about the BBC.
On the surface, neither Mr Cummings’ thoughts on the civil service nor the poll on the BBC are about Brexit – but readers here know better. But let’s first look at the strictly Brexit-related items before we look at the BBC poll and the Cummings blog.
First up is the interim co-leader of the LibDems, Ed Davey. It’s reported that he will table an amendment to the WAIB which is getting its 3rd Reading next week, demanding an inquiry about the whole Brexit campaign and Referendum result – and demanding a 2nd Referendum (link). In the Red corner, Jeremy Corbyn will table an amendment which demands that the negotiations must go on until 2023 – read it all here, it’s not paywalled.
These last attempts of Remain are obviously futile, given the majority of the Johnson government. But at least, Davey and Corbyn have shown that they are still alive. There’s one other amendment which might have some chance of success, given the screeching and hysterics of the opposition laydee MPs at the 2nd reading of that Bill before Christmas when they used this item to paint the whole of the government benches as a bunch of mean, heartless bastards:
“Other amendments tabled by Labour include a bid to protect the right for unaccompanied child refugees to be reunited with their family after Brexit. The revised wording of the Bill removed a Government commitment to strike a deal with the European Union so child refugees can be reunited with their family in the UK, even after free movement ends.” (link)
All you need to know is that this demand to ‘reunite children’ is an EU attempt to empty the migrant camps in Greece. It’s also being considered by the governments in EU member states. It would seem that Labour’s connections to Brussels are still strong and that, moreover, the EU will make use of them to get their laws and directives onto our statute books even after Brexit. The metaphor which came to my mind comes from gardening: it’s like trying to get rid of bindweed – the roots are everywhere and even a tiny piece left in the soil will sprout again.
Let’s now take a quick look at the poll in The Times (link, paywalled), also reported in the DM (non-paywalled, here). It won’t surprise you that 50% want the BBC Tax scrapped. There are some very interesting details:
“Conservative voters were the least supportive of the licence fee. The poll found that 21 per cent of those who said they voted Tory at the last election chose the licence fee model, compared to 38 per cent of Labour voters and 43 per cent of Lib Dems. Remainers were more likely than Leavers to support the licence fee — 40 per cent compared to 18 per cent.” (link, paywalled)
It seems the brainwashed want to keep their favourite brain shampoo going, in the hope that it’ll finally have some effect on us unwashed Leave peasants. Obviously, the BBC won’t take this lying down even though nothing can be done until their Royal Charter runs out in 2027. Decriminalisation of the BBC Tax can however be achieved for 2022. Meanwhile the BBC will try their utmost to ‘reach out’ for those most susceptible to their brand of brainwash:
“Lord Hall of Birkenhead, the director-general, pledged yesterday to “refocus content spending” on young audiences to try to win them back from streaming rivals, after Ofcom warned that the BBC risked losing a generation of potential licence-fee payers. The strategy is likely to mean that tens of millions of pounds is stripped from the general programming budget to create shows specifically aimed at 16-24-year-olds, such as the BBC Three reality series RuPaul’s Drag Race UK.” (link, paywalled)
Yeah, that’ll work … especially when we can stop paying the BBC Tax without fear of going to prison. After all, the generations older than 24 years must learn about that ‘drag race’ and all the trans- and whatever gender issues which interest nobody but the Islington Champagne socialists.
As we all know, having lived through the post-EU Referendum years, the BBC is one of the key Remain pillars. As we also know, the other, major Remain player was Whitehall, especially the Mandarins – naming no names. Before the Christmas break there were rumblings in the MSM that Dominic Cummings was thinking out loud about a reform of the civil service. Now he has done so, and published his thoughts on his blog which you can read here. I highly recommend reading it, especially as Cummings links to some previous blog posts – this one is most interesting! – which furnish the background to this ‘job advert’.
The MSM are of course in uproar, with two prongs to their attack. One is displayed fully in their headlines, about Cummings wanting ‘weirdos’ to apply: “Wanted: weirdos to shake up Whitehall” (link, paywalled), or: “Calling all ‘weirdos and misfits’: Dominic Cummings begins extraordinary No10 recruitment shake up” (paywalled link). Here’s a non-paywalled report. The astonishing thing is that they’re all fixated on ‘weirdo’ but never look at the other people Cummings want to recruit. It’s as if they’ve not read his blog, nor do they ask what made Cummings write it.
For them, Whitehall is nearly as sacrosanct as the NHS, it’s ‘the Rolls-Royce’ of all services, untouchable. Never mind that we’ve all lived through the May BRINO debacle, created by Whitehall and their top henchman, a certain Mr O. Robbins, now gone to a rather lucrative job! However, they found immediately the usual suspects, howling:
“Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA, formerly the Association of First Division Civil Servants, said […] many issues the civil service faces were “of the Government’s own creation. Churn in senior civil service roles is a result of a decade of pay stagnation, with movement between jobs the only route to a pay rise’. […] Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, said: “Comments by Dominic Cummings that imply he wants to hire-and-fire at will reveal an anti-trade union mentality and will be strenuously resisted by PCS.” (paywalled link)
The Express has a full industrial-strength title about this reform: “Boris Johnson faces WAR with union barons as they vow to ‘resist’ PM’s radical reforms” – the report is somewhat less belligerent, it’s not paywalled (here) so you can have a look. RemainCentral has more, reporting what the two top civil service union bosses told them. Unsurprisingly, they tell us that it’s all the government’s fault, and anyway it’s due to ‘pay restraint’:
“Mark Serwotka, of the PCS union which represents 200,000 government staff, said that the main problem in the civil service was pay restraint and bad government policy” (link, paywalled)
He doesn’t tell us what these bad government policies are, but never mind: it’s all due to “Toree austerity” …! The arguments against Cummings’ proposals coming from Mr Penman, secretary of the ‘senior civil servants’, are along the lines of ‘we’re good already’:
“Dave Penman […] said that officials would find it harder to give independent advice “if they rely for their employment on a guru or a minister”. He insisted that good civil servants would already “go out and find people with radical ideas and test them against evidence — rather than ideology — and see what stacks up”. Surrounding ministers with teams of the “like- minded” risked destroying institutional memory when politicians changed.” (link, paywalled)
Does that mean that Mr O. Robbins as he was then was not ‘like-minded’ with his PM? We’ve reported time and time again about the monolithic adherence to ‘Brussels Rulz’ in our ministries and departments. Many of the Tory eurosceptics have seen the results of EU directives in real life. Just ask Owen Paterson … or recall the repeated replies given to ministers that something cannot be changed ‘because the EU won’t like it’.
After we’re free of the main EU shackles on January 31st Whitehall must get rid of the ‘institutional memory’ of being led by Brussels. Perhaps they might dig deep and find the buried institutional memories from the times when Whitehall ran that Empire which the Left so hates …
Brexit, getting back our Sovereignty, also means getting rid of the EU’s bindweed roots which have infested Whitehall and the MSM. A huge field, that, you will agree! So
KBO!
Photo by urbanwild 
Well done Viv. You’ve gone to the roots of the issues as usual. So, we will get Futile attempted amendments to the WA. I do hope even the ‘poor orphan children’ one fails. The Beeb poll is little more than filler to give the brainwashed something to read about.
It’s the Dominic Cummings Blogs that are interesting and true to form, as you say, the MSM are now frightened of the Devil Incarnate.
I have always been sceptical about the possibility of Artificial Intelligence. Also most of what he says goes way beyond my level of I.T. knowledge or understanding. But I find odd nuggets there of sense, like referring to evidence based science – a theory is suggested so that it should be criticised and only accepted if it meets all the known facts.
So I’m far from happy about Cummings in general but given the pathetic responses of top Civil Servants representatives and the Shock Horror of the media I am rather looking forward to the Weirdos having a go at the Civil Serpents – and any other bindweed roots.
Here’s a podcast ( https://youtu.be/ZY4IuyrYKEA ) from LarouchePAC ( https://www.larouchepac.com/ ) that surveys post-war history (briefly!) to indicate what they think has been driving the world chaos over recent decades, and where the Trump phenomenon fits into the scheme of things. Very significant to us in the UK.
As we prepare to leave the European Union and we contemplate the traitors that took us in to it: those from Heath to Blair and all the other traitors and remainers, I’m wondering if anyone remembers the traditional punishment for treason?
We need recompense for the harm that has been done to our country and society.
“Drawn and Quartered – Worst Punishments In History of Mankind”
https://youtu.be/crcFImOwiJg
We do indeed need recompense but perhaps being hanged and/or drawn and quartered is a bit too much for people to stomach or want to watch. Stripping them to their bare bones financially would be a good punishment. Let them sit cap in hand on a street corner and see who is foolish enough to support them.
Enoch Powell – wise and prescient – said in 1980:
”There is a name for appealing over the head of the Crown to an authority outside the realm, and that name is treason. The word may be disused, but the thing is not; and the penalties of praemunire, which those guilty of it formerly incurred, were not disproportionate to its seriousness.”
Not sure about that flyer I was taught that Roman Empire crucifixion lasted longer. And to be fair didn’t some of England’s Medieval Barons devise impaling and flaying alive and whatnot. Jack Thomas’s stripping them financially appeals best to me.
I fully agree, including the traitors that were in westminster in both houses, using every dirty trick to stop Brexit,also destroy democracy. And that includes those out side westminster having discussions with EU top brass, which was effectively usurping the UK government,which is also treachery. I believe that the death sentence should apply to all of them, no exceptions for female one iether.
I read some his blog last night and it is clear he wants people in No10 who can think outside the box and transform how ideas are generated and how policy and decision making is made. Sounds good to me. He wants to end the carousel of hide bound and career focussed public school and Oxford PPE SPADs and secretaries and replace them with mavericks and very bright people who are fired up by ideas and new ways of working. He especially wants to update committee rooms with new technological aids and AI so they are more than just tables full of jawing suits.
It is going to be some time before we fully understand the deliberations of Cummings. Yes, clear out the supranationalist deadwood in Whitehall by all means but I sense there is more to Cummings than we may at first understand.
If unaccompanied child refugees want to be reunited with their families I would fully support our government paying to transport them back to Greece or wherever their families are. How did they get here in the first place?
They came through a perfectly safe country like France.
Then France should pay to send them back.
Here’s a bit of a laugh for you. I particularly appreciate the bit where Mahyar says: ” in spite of their virtue signalling, of course the EU don’t care for anyone but their own agenda and objectives” or words to that effect. Never has anything been more true: the EU, UN and other globalist organisations are the latest and greatest tyranny to ever manifest on this earth,they can’t melt down fast enough.
“EU In Brexit MELTDOWN As Member States Warn EU Bosses”
Mahyar Tousi
https://youtu.be/d2TcF1J9PdQ
The system has learnt a lot since WWII. Mass incarceration camps and beatings are so last century although the principle of kill one frighten a thousand is still used but sparingly.
A far more effective form of tyranny is what Blake called ‘manacles of the mind’. These are serviced every day by MSM psychological pressure and government, quasi government and EU and police announcements about ‘giving offence’ plus the threat of loss of jobs and other social privileges if you express contrary views.
Particularly ingenious is encouraging people to ‘express their democratic rights’ on social media by making it a flourishing mass participation exercise. Any dissenter deemed dangerous can then be ‘called out’ by the MSM with coverage about ‘outrage on Twitter’ and such. It also helps to fill their columns without their needing real journalism which costs money to implement.
No extensive secret police system of agents needed to watch the people. They effectively create their own ‘secret police file’ by typing into a home PC. This provides far more information than any Stasi could ever collect and so much cheaper!
As the saying goes, ‘we know everything about you’.