7 September 2023
Corbynista Rides Again
Corruption and Stupidity
by Don Urquhart
10 August 2023
Gary lives in Cheshunt close to Windmill Road which runs between the station and Cheshunt Pond. For some it is a splendid stretch for checking out Formula One skills. Gary has asked the police on several occasions over many months to control speeding on the road. Then, much joy, he spots three of our finest, clothed in Hi Vis and bearing impressive equipment showing an interest in Windmill Road traffic. He tells them it is he, Gary, who has solicited their help. They report that they have not seen any speeding and when he suggests that their Hi Vis might have something to do with this they point out that they have at least made the road safer during the hour of their duty there.
11 August 2023
There is a TV Series called Bosch where the central character is a detective in the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). Harry Bosch pursues an ethical agenda and has no time for corrupt practices in his profession.
Newsnight recounted the case of Nikki Allan, a 7 year old who was murdered 31 years ago. The Northumbrian police picked out George Heron as prime suspect and spent 3 days beating a confession out of him, although the Court rejected it. The real murderer was convicted in May this year.
George Heron was “fitted up”. In case you are wondering, concerned citizen Arthur Daley here extracts from a judge a definition of the verb “to fit up”.
It seems to be as common an occurrence here as in LA. But where is our Harry Bosch?
17 August 2023
The journalist H.L.Mencken took a jaundiced view of politicians and many of his sayings are as valid today as they were a Century ago.
Here is a prescient example from the Baltimore Sun in 1920:
Sadly, not just the White House.
18 August 2023
The Conservative Party has conceded the next General Election. Their people in the Commons are therefore focussing on ensuring a comfortable existence once they are out of power.
According to The Times, last year a company of which the husband of our current Education Minister, Gillian Keegan, is a non executive director did £35 million of deals with the government, although there is o suggestion that he was involved with the contracts..
Here is the report by Ben Ellery and George Greenwood in The Times:
Official deals worth £35m given to firm with Tory’s husband on board
Now we discover that while an Environment Minister our local MP, Theresa Villiers failed to declare £70,000 of Shell shares.
Here’s the BBC report.
Theresa Villiers: Ex-environment secretary failed to declare Shell shares
It may just be careless but it is not pretty.
23 August 2023
On 14th September there will be a by-election in Liverpool’s Fazakerley East. It will be something of a bell-weather for Starmer’s Labour Party which has been steadily losing seats in the city to a group called Liverpool Community Independents comprising former Labour Party members disenchanted with its direction under Starmer. The Independents’ candidate is Jean Martin. Let’s see how she does.
24 August 2023
The poor you will always have with you (Mk 14:7).
Many Christians interpret this as Jesus throwing his hands up when confronted by poverty – what can you do?
And this view prevails in our society or why do we elect people who ignore the poor.
Alexandra Rogers of Sky News reports:
So when Rishi Sunak rattles on about his 5 projects and how they are the people’s priorities, I am guessing that he is not including “renters” as “people” either by accident or design.
29 August 2023
The wrong people are running the world.
Winston Churchill once said that: “democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried.”
It’s not about the system of government but rather the policy perspectives of those in power.
The main motivations of the world’s leaders? to stay in power as long as possible and build a big bank balance or to redistribute wealth to improve the standard of living of the poor.
Whatever you think of these approaches you have to concede that they both have major downsides. In their implementation they have in common a focus on national goals to the detriment of the planet’s survival.
So I was happy to come across The Balaton Group which takes a supranational approach to the world’s problems. Please take a look and you might agree with me that these are the people who should be in charge.
30 August 2023
Martin Rolfe is the chief executive of National Air Traffic Services (NATS). He was interviewed by Sky News regarding the flight chaos caused by NATS going out of service.
“Passenger safety is incredibly important”;
“We will conduct our investigation incredibly thoroughly”.
It was kind of him through the use of the word “incredibly” to highlight some of the areas of his presentation we should not believe.
First reports blamed a single piece of inaccurate flight data soon enriched by the rumour that a French airline was the source.
Systems Implementation 101 tells you to recognise invalid data and discard it quickly. In the case of a complex application like air traffic control contingency planning and graceful degradation are key concepts.
NATS credibility is indeed in question.
What really went wrong?
31 August 2023
Ros Altmann was appointed to the Lords in 2015 by David Cameron and was a DWP minister for a time.
Faisal Islam had her on Newsnight to talk about the young/old divide and the extent to which the pensions triple lock exacerbated this.
The Baroness pointed out that we have the lowest pensions in the developed world and while there were some comfortable pensioners there were also many who were impoverished.
Faisal mumbled about a Wealth Tax noting that politicians on both sides seemed allergic to it. Altmann supported the concept so makes it into Corbynista as the first (nominal) Tory to do so.
