Too hot even for lions – or bored to death by the MSM?
Yesterday we had the first of three TV ‘debates’ with the Tory candidates. This and the other two won’t really matter because we’re all gonna die next week. Well, some of us, that is … the rest will die of severe degradation of the brain. I’m used to the MSM printing horrendous nonsense, either of actual events or of politics and politicians, but today’s front pages take the proverbial. It’s good though that their stupendous nonsense is out in print – as we all know, online headlines, articles, single paragraphs can all be changed when editors need to hide or correct mistakes.
Now then – take a look (here) at the horror which will greet unsuspecting people buying their morning papers today: ‘Meltdown – national emergency’ screeches the Mirror, with a map of Great Britain in red splashed across the page. ‘Take cover’ cries ‘i’, and ‘Thousands may die” wails the Guardian. The DT, with a huge Mordaunt feature right at the top, still has a banner promising ‘guidance’ on what to do in that heatwave. For some inexplicable reason The Times’ print frontpage is missing. Perhaps they changed layouts to avoid the ‘heatwave’ hysteria? Online they’ve gone with a splash about Sunak at the top (link).
And so to ‘that’ debate. I didn’t watch it. The photo of the poor things standing in front of a horrible background demonstrates that this was a thoroughly forgettable PR exercise. The Speccie had their full complement of writers watching this show, each contributing to their live blog (paywalled link). I’m glad that the Speccie’s Steerpike mentioned the garb in which the contestants presented themselves to the nation. That means I’m not the only one who was stunned by the horrible outfits worn by two of the female candidates:
“Steerpike writes… Away from trivial issues like cost-of-living, inflation and Ukraine, there’s much excited chatter about the choice of candidate outfits. Unfortunately against the true-blue backdrop of Channel 4, four out of the five look washed out in dark suits. The one exception is Kemi Badenoch in Lib Dem yellow: a striking contrast. Tom Tugendhat meanwhile has opted to wear his old regimental tie of the Special Boat Service. How on-brand – do you know he used to be in the military?” (paywalled link)
This ‘chatter’ probably refers to the social meejah where ‘journalists’ must have been tweeting like things possessed. Under the title “Tory leadership candidates outpranced by a Channel 4 peacock” Quentin Letts has penned a wonderful sketch for The Times. This will receive our famous ‘From behind the paywall’ treatment – check it out later.
If you require a more sober report go to the DM (link). There are some video clips – and there’s the instant poll of 1000 viewers with an astonishing result: Tom Tugendhat leads with 36%, followed by Sunak (24%). Mordaunt and Badenoch are in this place with 12% each and La Truss graces the bottom rung with 7%. Well! So Liz T isn’t a vote winner then, is she? Perhaps some MPs might wonder if they ought to re-think their vote. But then again – what do we stupid plebs outside Westminster really know about the intricacies of modern politics …
These poor things have to go and perform their PR stunt, ahem: live TV ‘debate’, on two more days. There’s one tomorrow at 7pm on ITV and one on SKY on Tuesday at 8pm. And this is where the heatwave and the dire warnings kick in. Tomorrow will be hot enough according to the weather maps. Are the unfortunate PM candidates aware that most people won’t watch them live because they’re outdoors? After all, we know we won’t die of the heat on Sunday – that’s gonna happen on Monday when there’s no live TV debate scheduled.
And so to the heat drama. The Met Office has issued a ‘national red alert’ for the very first time and seems to be very proud of it. The Evening Standard writes:
“The first ever extreme heat weather warning covering much of England has been issued by the Met Office as temperatures in London are expected to soar to 40C early next week. […] Grahame Madge, Met Office spokesman, said: “We’ve just issued a red warning for extreme heat for Monday and Tuesday which is the first such warning ever issued. […] This is potentially a very serious situation.” (link)
Gawd, it’s as if they’re salivating at the prospect of recording the highest evah temperatures! Obviously, such ‘record’ means that we must keep going with Net Zero and surcharges for ‘green energy’, never mind inflation and exorbitant energy prices! The scare stories about people dying are written with the same purpose. The DT has given their scare story the title:
“‘Your blood thickens and then clots’: what extreme heat can do to your body – As the Met Office issues its first red alert for heat, experts say we need to start thinking of high temperatures as a natural disaster” (paywalled link)
It’s unbelievable: whatever the weather, for ‘experts’ it’s going to be ‘a natural disaster’. The horror example the papers quote is the summer of 2003 where indeed many people died – in France. And that’s why we must be afraid now? For one or two days of heat? It gets worse. The Guardian, guarding ‘teh workers’ and especially ‘teh NHS’, writes:
“Thousands of people could die in the coming heatwave, experts have warned, as the government triggered the first ever national emergency heat red alert with a record 40C (104F) temperature forecast for south-east England on Tuesday.” (link)
Who knew that south-east England is, like, ‘the nation’ …! It’s indeed our caring government, not just the Met Office which is producing the ‘we’re all gonna die’ warnings:
“The level 4 heat alert announced for Monday and Tuesday by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) means “illness and death may occur among the fit and healthy, and not just in high-risk groups”.“ (link)
And so, scaring everybody from granny in her hot flat to the ‘fit and healthy’ who might perhaps be so ill-advised and try having a swim in some rivers or lakes or even the sea, the ‘authorities’ are preparing us for the worst:
“The Met Office described the forecast heat that is coming from France and Spain as “absolutely unprecedented” and urged people to treat it like a storm warning and consider changing plans. Operations are being cancelled in parts of the NHS, some schools are closing early or shutting altogether and Network Rail advised people not to use trains that will be slowed down amid fears of buckled rails.” (link)
Yes, better stay indoors, draw the curtains, WFH and drink lots of water – the top tip by the DT. Don’t have accidents because you want to ‘protect the NHS’. For comic relief, i.e. more ‘original’ home tips on how to ‘beat the heat’, go to the DM’s piece (link).
Meanwhile, don’t you dare ask about excess deaths in winter, due to cold! Don’t even wonder about how people will fare when more and more of us cannot afford to heat our homes properly. Above all, don’t expect the MSM to investigate if there actually were excessive deaths due to those two days of heat.
Perhaps tomorrow the Tory PM racers could answer questions about Net Zero and VAT on home fuel. I’m not holding my breath though: during a heat wave it’s far more profitable to maintain that we must keep the green crap stuff because people are dying of heat, allegedly. Perhaps the Tuesday debate will shed more light on this issue. People will either have dropped like flies on ‘Heat Monday’ or they haven’t. Who will watch anyway when people will sit outside in the cooler evening air, after all that heat.
As for me, all I want to see is if La Truss and Ms M will appear in nice summer frocks, like Ms B did. I’m sure the gentlemen won’t turn up wearing shorts, sparing us the sight of their hairy legs. Remember: we’re presented with theatre performances, not with proper political alternatives. So there’s nought wrong with judging them by their outfits.
Anyway, they think that we’re thick and shallow, so let’s let them keep their illusions. Let’s assess them only on what they wear and how they look. And please let’s see some cat fights! Meow!
I’m old enough to remember wonderful summers in 1947 (Compton and Edrich, the “Middlesex Twins” – cricket), 1959 tar melting on the roads in October, and I went on holiday in the Lake District, forgot to take a mac, and never needed it. And 1976, nothing special to remember, just a good summer. And there were freezing winters too – 1962 – 63, ninety days of continuous frost. How have so many people survived those years? Well, we weren’t woke (but awake), men married women and had children, there were no stupid computers telling us to beware of all sorts of non-disasters, education still had worthwhile elements in it, and that precious commodity, common sense, had not yet evaporated.
So we survived, and doubtless will this time round, politicians, Gates, Soros and the rest of that club permitting.
Where is that sleeping lion statue Viv?
There is something very endearing about our lion statues.
I have been wondering why it is that we have never heard of all those blood-clotted people who have expired in the routinely hotter climes of the World such as the Middle East! The majority of the indigenous population there wear all-enveloping clothing. But I am assuming that they have the sense to stay out of the midday heat! Never having been remotely tempted to go to any of these Countries I can only speak speculatively of course!
So it seems that the old term ‘Mad dogs and Englishmen’ is still true here!
I stood it for a short while but sickness at the level and banality and insincerity of four them drove me away. And Kemi seemed for the first time cowed by the claustrophobic barely concealed contempt in the atmosphere of C4’s sub-Question Time, and that’s really bad, theatre. Here are five potential Prime Ministers, charged with massive generalised affairs of states and we have audience members putting questions like: “I am a full time carer for my old Dad, and I can’t, blah blah.” And the Krishnan person sniping, with ill concealed glee at his own cleverness. Ye Gods!
I shall not be watching the leadership debates – I note that doing so is above and beyond even for our intrepid Viv – as I find the entire contest unbearable. I agree with Viv that the most interesting feature on Monday might be whether the Trussbot and Mordure appear in nice summer frocks. If they do, their design choices are likely to be more informative than anything they say. Mrs Yeoman’s keen eye for fashion will be used to decode their choices for me even though Mrs Yeoman is mainly a listener of radio (she is more intellectual than I am).
It’s been a Northern Ireland week for me. On Wednesday, while enjoying a cigar at a garden party, I fell into conversation with two people from Londonderry, or Derry as these two fenians, a brother and sister, insisted on calling it and which, to stimulate conversation, I repeatedly called Londonderry. Later that evening, at a dinner with Anne Widdecombe, I was sat next to a parliamentary aid to a DUP MP who also worked for a Tory MP.
Briefly, the UK ship is scraping along the submerged iceberg of Northern Ireland and as the tear increases so the UK is turning into the Titanic. It is a submerged iceberg for being invisible to the candidates and the media, by choice it seems, but Northen Ireland, unless someone somewhere wakes up, has the potential to become an explosive crisis. While the murals are now tourist attractions, they are not removed anymore than are the physical walls between ‘communities’ that were peacekeeping (sort of) before the Good Friday agreement. No molotov cocktails are being thrown over the walls at the moment but my conversationalists, nationalist and unionist, were certain that we are getting closer to violence the longer the problem with the Northern Ireland Protocol drags on. The paramilitary organisations are currently passing the time with protection rackets and smuggling, but can revert to political roles at anytime. Politicians kick cans down the road – immigration, the ECHR, and Northern Ireland – and the electorate seems content to let them, except that Northern Ireland is not a can that can be kicked indefinitely.
It is the most egregious spin ever to frame the EU’s grab for Northern Ireland in terms of protecting the Good Friday Agreement. That agreement does NOT mention the border and only does so implicitly in a) acknowledging, by international treaty no less, that Northern Ireland is sovereign UK territory – the Republic changed its constitution to recognise that – and b) consent, by referendum, is required to change that status, a referendum only the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland can call. (Current polls indicate only around 30% support for a united Ireland – so no chance of a referendum soon – and a former Irish Teapot said an Irish goverment costed unfication at 6 to 9% of GDP which they cannot afford).
How on earth did May fall for the EU’s play over the border? How did she so easily breach the Good Friday Agreement herself in allowing the UK to lose full sovereignty? It’s a can with a bomb inside and should never have been kicked. The journalists should be questionning the candidates most closely on Northern Ireland.
I am advised that Connor Burns, minister of state for Northern Ireland, ‘gets it’, but whether he will be listened to by a new leader before it is too late, is the question. Given the raft of problems a new PM will face, it must be more probable than not that he or she will succumb to the temptation to kick the bomb laden can one more time.
Meanwhile, a snippet from Mrs Yeoman who has been listenig to the radio as I type. A woman caller terrified of the killer heat wave due in London says she’s vulnerable (elderly and overweight) and has booked herself into an air conditioned hotel for the few days. She said the govt should be moving all vulnerable people into air conditioned hotels during the crisis, but the next caller said they can’t as they’re all full of dingy arrivals. Lol.
And a letter in the DT:
SIR – Although no doubt meant as a whimsical take on the leadership contest, J J Hawkins’s letter (July 14) asks a very important question: “I understand the runners, but who are the riders?”
Previous prime ministers have repeatedly been influenced by special advisers who ride to a position of authority on the shirt-tails of the democratically elected leader, examples being Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill for Theresa May, while for Boris Johnson most notably Dominic Cummings and, of course, Carrie Johnson. Such riders are unelected and unaccountable yet have profound influence upon party policy and, ultimately, national legislation. It is therefore most pertinent that those running for leadership be asked to enunciate which advisers are their associated riders.
Dominic Cummings and Nigel Farage got BJ his massive majority at the last general election.
Boris’ popularity took a nose dive when they got rid of Cummings who was the only one in touch with real people.
“How on earth did May fall for the EU’s play..” Because she was/is a traitor just as her replacement is.
Oddly enough Jack T, I’ve been feeling a bit sorry for May lately.
She made a big mistake calling that election, which she apparently felt was needed due to Cameron resigning.
So she then only had a slim majority in the House.
Her second mistake was triggering article 50.
Ukip was saying at the time that all that was needed to leave the EU was to repeal the Act that took us into the EEC.
I have just been reading about how Heath passing that Act through parliament was illegal. If the Conn Party had still had a reasonable majority surely she would have been able to whip enough MPs to get Heath’s Act repealed.
Once she went down the Article 50 route she didn’t stand a chance because the EU devised that mechanism precisely to make it near impossible to get out.
The large majority returned at the last G.E. should have made it possible to get brexit done but Boris has squandered it.
So we are now in danger from more enemies, without and within.
PB re May : I’m certain it was no mistake and there is absolutely NO reason to feel sorry for May
Spare your sympathy for the victims of May’s actions ie us. And specially the schoolchildren who had vile sex “education” inflicted in them: she was a keen advocate of this.
Did Anne Widdecombe have anything coherent to say about Northern Ireland Stout Yeoman as she was Northern Ireland Secretary at one time and as far as I can recall just cosied up to the IRA which achieved nothing.
As you have just said and beaten me to it Mary, the clot shots need another cause so bring on the heatwave. I wonder what number they are up to now for all the “unexplained” deaths. Quite frankly if people don’t know how to look after themselves in summer the Darwin principle should preside.
Lisa. Just to add to the idiocy we are subjected to, I am being targeted by Northern Powergrid concerned about how the heatwave might make me more vulnerable if the electricity goes off !?!
Err . . . . do they think we all rely on electricity to COOL our homes?
Well, I seem to remember that Colonial Administrators in India had Punka Wallahs. Ian Fleming, ‘Passage to India’.
As the bbc will say ‘hottest day since records began’ . . . (all two years of bbc records?).
The subject is almost immaterial. Wind, voting, weather, measles, bike accidents, GCE passes, SINCE RECORDS BEGAN.
All together now . . .
Errr…
Wrong as usual.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/how-forecasts-are-made/observations/recording-observations-for-over-100-years
HarryAgain- Charming as usual.
And how far back do fact checking *bbc* records go?
The last time I accessed the MetOff database for location information (not a cheap option) their MetOff records go back a great deal further, but on paper.
Did you participate / volunteer to read and help to digitise them?
MetOcean is similar, but say 100 yrs ago weather ships would make for port rather than stick it out for the worst weather figures and possible drowning.
BP bought MetOcean weather records and then designed the Forties field platforms for a 100 yr wave strike.
During the first Winter on location, they were hit by five such 100 yr waves.
Moral of the story? Don’t put faith in false Gods.
https://dailysceptic.org/2022/07/15/net-zero-global-warming-alarm-based-on-temperatures-measured-next-to-airport-runways-with-hot-jet-engines-and-tarmac/
50% of British meteorological readings taken at airports with huge swathes of tarmac and hot jet engines
‘Your blood thickens and then clots’: what extreme heat can do to your body …”
Ha ha ha. Propaganda taken to a new level. .The heat is now the perfect scapegoat for all the blood clotting caused by ….THEIR rotten jabs !!!!!!!!!
You couldn’t make it up……(well, they do).
You really need to improve your education. You could end up dead, dehydration kills. Especially the elderly.
https://www.meridianvalleylab.com/dehydration-shown-to-increase-blood-viscosity/
HarryAgain- you being a total arsehole, as evidenced by your comments, you really do have a brass neck to constantly insult all and sundry, who are better educated than you. Mostly just educated.
As a Lady told you on one of them, Why Dont Tou Buzz Off Somewhere else?’,
last line missed out ‘You appear on other comment boards, and as a . . . ‘
I guess the purveyors of such propaganda weren’t around in ’76 and haven’t holidayed or worked in hotter climes either.