Another Monday, another week: same old same old …
Remember I was going to give up on ‘news’ for Lent? Well, it seems the Westminster MSM have heard me and given up on ferreting out actual news. They do try and make themselves look relevant by referring breathlessly to yet another coming theatre production in the HoC. The broadsheets then fill the rest of their pages with ‘women’s issues’ and ‘campaigns’.
Here’s the usual collection of this morning’s print editions’ front pages, under “Newspaper headlines: ‘Crunch vote on small boats’ and laughing gas ban” (link). The good old Star however goes with a weather forecast. Well, talking about the weather is always a useful distraction.
If there are no news because ‘sources’ have dried up, there are always ‘campaigns’ run by this or that newspaper which serve as suitable page fillers. They are also good for extra government bashing, especially when the elephant in the room is diligently disregarded.
One such campaign is run by The Times and is about our dirty rivers. They’ve asked and still ask citizens to send in their own observations and complaints. The latest report, under “‘Our children are inheriting dead rivers’: your stories of filthy British water” (link, paywalled) quite explicitly states where the material for this report came from: “We asked for your accounts of how sewage, farm pollution, litter ruined Britain’s once cherished natural heritage”.
Litter is been an ongoing problem. It is also ruining our town and cities – but this isn’t a campaign theme because the blame for that can firmly be placed on local councils. The Times would rather campaign against water companies that politicians.
Moreover, ‘farm pollution’ is a much better theme because it fits in with the green agenda according to which farming is bad. As for sewage: well, yes, this is terrible. However, the fact that “we” have taken in a huge number of people over the last twenty years isn’t mentioned, neither is the fact that the campaigns for building more houses always disregard building infrastructure. Do all these people not produce sewage?
I find it interesting that the MSM are now taken for granted that local citizens are ‘litter picking’ as a matter of course, be it in streets, in parks, or on river banks. Not one word is said about local councils keeping the streets, parks and river banks clean, despite ever increasing local council taxes. When was the last time you saw a streetsweeper?
Interestingly, Remain Central had a report on one specific, violent protest yesterday in France. I suggest the reason was because it fitted their green campaign theme. It was about the building of a reservoir in rural France and not about Macron’s pension plan. One demonstrator is in hospital with life-threatening injuries as were two police officers:
“Activists moved to the countryside to protest against the building of reservoirs to irrigate agricultural land. The Deux-Sèvres département in western France became the scene for a brutal confrontation between 6,000 protesters, including 1,500 described as violent activists, and 3,200 police, the interior minister said. Four police vans were burnt and officers were attacked with stones, metal pétanque balls, axes, spikes, sticks, fireworks and petrol bombs, the ministry said. Twenty-eight officers were injured, two seriously.” (link, paywalled)
The use of the word ‘activists’ is a hint that the violent participants might have been affiliated with Antifa. The photos of burning cars and hooded figures are familiar and could be taken at any violent protest across the Western world. This is what yon protest was about (my emphasis):
“The reservoir is one of 16 being built in Deux-Sèvres for a total capacity of 5.9 million m3 of water. The plan is to fill them in the winter by pumping water from aquifers under the ground. Ecologists say they will be monopolised by farmers using intensive agriculture.” (link, paywalled)
Words fail me: fight against a reservoir because it’ll help farmers grow food? At a time when ever more illegal migrants flood into Europe and need to be fed? doesn’t this fit in nicely with the Times’ campaign for ‘clean rivers’, demanding that farming pollution be stopped? After all, who needs farmers producing food when we can import it all?
I wonder what would happen here if water companies were going to build new reservoirs. Would ‘activists’ protest here as well? It’s a difficult question, isn’t it, because whenever there’s a ‘water shortage’ during summer, the MSM demand such reservoirs be built.
Would they support ‘activists’ because good farmland would be taken out of production? Or is this not relevant because there are no protests by any activists when ever more ‘solar farms’ are being set up, making more agricultural land unproductive? How can they square the cycle of ‘more people in = good’ with the green demand of ‘less food produced = good’?
That’s all I have for today. I note that the MSM are wilfully not questioning why local councils, why foreign-owned water companies are not doing what they ought to do. I note that they wilfully disregard the rapid increase in population numbers, thanks to ‘diversity immigration’. I suppose in the end they’ll blame Mrs Thatcher, as usual. Have a good day.
If I remember correctly, the first time I heard it called a Surrender Treaty in Parliament, was when Boris made one of his greatest and most effective speeches in parliament ,
There were howls , but he carried on repeating it and won that particular contest
Some good news amongst the doom and gloom:
https://www.gbnews.com/news/grooming-gangs-survivor-secures-landmark-ps425000-legal-win-against-rapist
Let’s hope that the PTB make sure he pays up, although it would have been better if he had lost his tackle too.
Assuming the rapist has no money and no way of raising the money (no assets, been in jail for a few years and no employment prospects) where would the money come from to pay the plaintiff? Just asking.
You know the answer Jake; he will be quietly let off.
I suppose in the end they’ll blame Mrs Thatcher, as usual.
Viv- that’s so ‘old hat!’. Now its
I suppose in the end they’ll blame Brexit, as usual.
Viv – here’s an article to cheer you up on a Monday morning.
Deutsche Bank is on the skids and is going to need a backstop from the ECB, this will probably destabilise the Euro and the Eurozone generally. This banking crisis thing is bad news but if it drives a few nails into the EU coffin then it may be worth it.
Perhaps a bit of a silver lining for you.
“Deutsche Bank’s collapse would be a threat to the whole eurozone”
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/deutsche-banks-collapse-would-be-a-threat-to-the-whole-eurozone/
Flyer. There is a video of the UKIP leader Richard Braine warning about May’s Surrender Treaty aka Withdrawal Agreement back in 2019. I will dig this out and post it here later today. I think one of the things he warned about was the 50 billion( I think ) which Britain would have to stump up in the event of such a collapse.
Richard Braine and his video were of course quickly silenced.
BTW the Wikipedia entry for the Withdrawal Agreement once stated that ” terrorists call the WA a Surrender Treaty. So that makes us truthful people terrorists. Nice one Wiki.
mary – that sounds about right, we’re probably still on the hook. May’s withdrawal agreement and she signed the Global Compact on Migration, she didn’t like her countrymen and women much did she and the present PMs countrymen are in India.
Not a silver lining at all then!
Flyer:
Here it is. 11 minutes in approx.
Clearly we need May and BoJo to “hang out together” in the traditional manner for traitors, quite possibly joined by Sunak unless he sorts out the mess.
Mary……..Richard Braine could have been a good leader of UKIP, but he did his own legs by supporting Gerard Batten who encouraged Tommy Robinson and various others to get involved with the party which largely brought about its rapid decline, which led to Nigel Farage leaving the party and following this the mass defection of UKIP MEP’s to the fledgling Brexit Party. And of course he wanted Batten to become deputy leader under him. I for one trusted the old UKIP MEP’s more so than the Brexit Party MEP’s that were eventually elected in their place. And the rest is history. The UK Independence Party by rights should have led the Referendum campaign rather than getting into bed with Leave.eu which subsequently lost out to Vote Leave, and should rode the crest of the wave post referendum. Had that occurred I think there would have been a reasonable chance that UKIP could have eventually succeeded the useless Conservative Party of today. And here we are now in the position where we have Reform UK borne out of The Brexit Party and led by someone who is about as effective as a chocolate teapot, where its appeal to the electorate is miles below what it was in the heyday of the UK Independence Party.
Colin H: “…he did his own legs by supporting Gerard Batten and TR…”
Assuming that was a crime which I don’t think it was, nobody’s perfect, he was as good as UKIP were ever going to get, and all concerned should have stuck with him. All concerned didn’t so we are where we are. The blame can’t be all put on Braine.
Mary……….whether you like it or not, the electorate will not accept extremism in any guise, whether it be from the left or right. There was a danger that UKIP could have gone down that route due to what was happening internally and is what ultimately caused Farage to resign and form the Brexit Party, the MEP’s to defect to the Brexit Party, and its support in the polls to collapse where many good councilors lost their seats or defected to other parties, and where the electorate chose to elect Brexit Party MEP’s instead of UKIP candidates. The whole point to a political party whether it be the UK Independence Party or any other party, is to gain representation on Borough, District and County Councils and ultimately Parliamentary seats in the House of Commons, and if that is not being done you might as well pack you bags and call it a day. I am not blaming Richard Braine wholly because by the time he took over the leadership, the damage to UKIP’s reputation had been done and members were leaving in their droves. However he made mistakes and did his own legs in his support of Batten. He should have drawn a line under it and set about uniting and rebuilding the party. This is now all water under the bridge and the party is having to rebuild from the basement all over again which will prove very difficult to do.
Plumbers and DIY persons can be responsible for some of the river pollution. When a new washing machine or additional toilet is installed the outflow from it is too often connected into the nearest available drain without checking if it is a foul or surface water drain. One of the common issues with newer developments where separate foul and surface water drainage is a requirement of the planning approval.