Oh dear – “we” have another crisis! According to the headline in today’s print edition of the  Mirror, a ‘Tory MP puts foot in mouth’, which the BBC gleefully put at the top of their compilation (link). So of course I had to hold my nose and go to find out what this was about. More on that below. The Guardian’s print edition this morning has an unspeakable photo on their front page, about ‘carbon bombs’ triggering ‘catastrophic climate breakdown’. Yes, I had to go there as well to see what this was about so you don’t have to. 

In contrast, the broadsheets ‘celebrate’ the PM having signed ‘a pact’ with Sweden, to help ‘nordic countries to fight Russia’. Both the DT (paywalled link) and The Times (link, paywalled) have decorated their reports with the same sweet photo of the PM rowing the Swedish PM around a little lake, The Times alleging that this is ‘a diplomatic tradition dating back 50 years’. I must be getting old – I cannot remember having seen any photo of any foreign PM rowing any Swedish PM around that lake when visiting Sweden … 

The question is – what has Johnson been telling the Swedes and Finns? The DT reports:

“British soldiers would be sent to defend Sweden and Finland from Russian invasion, Boris Johnson said on Wednesday as he sealed mutual defence pacts with the Nordic nations to strengthen opposition to Vladimir Putin. The Prime Minister suggested troops could be sent even if the two countries did not join Nato as he gave his public support for expanding the military alliance to further contain Russia. The defence pacts, signed during Mr Johnson’s visit to both countries on Wednesday, are a warning shot to Moscow in case it is tempted to invade Sweden and Finland before they are expected to join Nato.” (paywalled link)

What British soldiers would these be and how many, given the ever lower number of people serving in our Armed Forces? Has this government suddenly and secretly embarked on increasing our military, given that we’re only able to defend our country for two weeks, according to the statement of a retired general to the HoC Select committee on defence? We reported on this a few weeks ago. It gets worse. The Times reports:

“The prime minister […] said that Britain would “very seriously” consider deploying nuclear weapons to protect the sovereignty of Sweden and Finland.” (link, paywalled)

“We” have nuclear weapons to spare? I’m amazed. Note also that there seems to be some confusion about this ‘pact’ being aimed at Putin in particular, just in case, or against Russia in general. I don’t even pretend to understand why Russia needs to be ‘caged’ because on the one hand she’s allegedly poised to attack anything at her borders when on the other hand our MSM keep telling us how badly Russian forces are doing in the Ukraine because of old material and lack of logistics. Perish the thought that Johnson embarked on this dangerous tour just because it’s more fun to row on a Swedish lake than face the increasingly desperate economic situation here at home!

One, if not the largest, problem facing us is of course the question of energy and galloping energy prices. Brussels is working hard to get Russian oil imports blocked to EU countries, trying to find a formula to ‘compensate’ countries like Hungary which imports 60% of their oil from Russia (link). Meanwhile, Mr Draghi met Mr Biden and those two were talking about “setting up a “cartel” of oil buyers in order to persuade the OPEC countries to produce more oil” (link). The mind boggles, and it boggles even further when looking at what Draghi told the world press:

“We are both dissatisfied with the way things work, in terms of oil for the US and in terms of gas for Europe,” Draghi told reporters in Washington. “Prices don’t have any relationship with supply and demand.” (link)

Yes, he really said that! He also seems to think that the EU and USA can ‘cap prices’ because that would “reduce the financial help we are giving to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to continue the war” and make use of Europe’s “market power,” (link) – how? Telling Putin the EU will only pay so much for his gas and oil because of ‘EU Market Power’ and because there’s suddenly no such thing as supply and demand on the global energy market? 

Draghi and Biden also pondered if this ‘market power’ could be used to put pressure on OPEC countries to increase production (link). They clearly seem to believe that they ‘have the power’ to dictate to the rest of the world what to produce and how to pay, for example by ‘capping prices’ to be paid to producers.  

For an assessment of the impact such ‘cartel’ would have on OPEC countries, see Mr Bhadarkumar’s fine article in Indian Punchline where he warns that Saudi Arabia could retaliate by moving away from $$ payments and that China would support such move. Mr Bhadrakumar’s assessment of the EU ‘committing economic harakiri’ is spot on. Read the whole thing here.

Neither Mr Biden nor Mr Draghi nor, of course, anyone in Brussels can have seen the utterly scary report in the Guardian about the ‘carbon bombs triggering catastrophic climate breakdown’ (link). Here’s the summary, and it’s quite sufficient to demonstrate how the green lefties ‘think’: 

“Oil and gas majors are planning scores of vast projects that threaten to shatter the 1.5C climate goal. If governments do not act, these firms will continue to cash in as the world burns” (link)

It must be nice to live on cloud nine in cloud-cuckoo land where such petitesses like embargos for Russian oil and gas are irrelevant even as US and EU politicians hope to entice those ‘oil and gas majors’ to produce more to make up for the shortfall in energy products caused by their embargos. Let’s also not mention the inflation in energy prices for industries and especially homes. Funny how the green left can bewail the plight of ‘Teh Poor’ on the one hand while promoting their deadly green policies on the other which afflicts ‘Teh Poor’ more than anyone else.

Having mentioned ‘Teh Poor’, here’s the report on that Tory MP who said in the HoC that ‘Teh Poor’ can’t cook:

“A Tory MP has sparked fury after claiming poverty-hit Brits forced to rely on food banks “cannot budget” and “cannot cook properly”. […] Speaking in the Commons during a debate on the Queen’s Speech, he claimed people could “cook meals from scratch” for “30p a day” instead. He said […]: “When people come now for a food parcel, they’ve got to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course. And what we do at the food bank, we show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget.” (link)

Is it wrong to recognise a problem – and it is a problem – and then try to solve it, as this MP’s constituents seem to do? Is it better and more helpful to blame ‘Toree cuts’ and moan about Universal Credit rather than help people to learn how to budget, especially at a time when not just ‘Teh Poor’ but working middle class families not living in the charmed Westminster Village will also have to learn how to budget, as a matter of urgency?

Sadly, I can’t find a silver lining on the dark clouds our ‘leaders’ here in the UK, in the USA and the EU are creating. Why, in the face of contradictory evidence, they still believe they are the ‘rulers’ of the world, I cannot explain. They clearly believe their own propaganda and assume that we peasants will follow them into the abyss they are creating.

While energy prices explode, while we all will have to bear the consequences of these leaders’ policies, fervently supported by the Left, is it really acceptable to denigrate help such as that Tory MP seems to do in his constituency? With ‘price caps’ having been thrown into the public discourse, are we on the way back to the 1970s which us oldies can remember very well?

Is it forwards – back to a new winter of discontent? 

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