What Do You Think Today?

[peter]

In 2008 we had the financial crash. Since then we have had years of austerity - the policy of controlling/reducing public spending in order to claw back some of the money that had been spun out of nowhere in order to support the crashing financial institutions and ensure that the richest people in the country didn't loose their piles: ie. A 'magic money tree' (the one that the Tories said didn't exist when it came to funding public services prior to the crash), created for the benefit of the wealthy and paid for by the poorest, who were the ones worst effected by the hit on public services that the austerity policy demanded.

Follow this with the Brexit referendum, the division that caused, the near civil meltdown of splitting the country down the middle, the raging arguments of the withdrawal period and the turmoil as the country attempted to prepare itself both economically and psychologically for the new world it was to enter.

Then throw the pandemic on top of this. The ink hadn't even dried on the wretched Boris Johnson withdrawal agreement (and we all knew it was wretched remainer and leaver alike, but we "just wanted it over." ( )) before we suddenly found ourselves in fear of a sweeping death (that never occurred) followed by a ......I don't even know what to call it........period of collective madness in which we wilfully destroyed virtually everything we had as a nation, sacrificed it on the anvil of who knows what, to leave ourselves reeling in shock - again, economically and psychologically - as we emerged......

Only to find ourselves plunged into a vicarious war courtesy of Russia, Ukraine, Nato and other influences who we shouldn't have had to give a flying fig about - a historical throwback to the old east versus west drama that should have gone away for good in the 90's when the Soviet Union and communism fell to its knees. War in Europe. Then economic fallout, inflation, a cost of living crisis that blew our living standards back to where they were in the 1970's.

Then Israel, and the killing of a people in Gaza and ethnic and religious divisions running rife in the towns and cities of our nations. And propoganda, and not being able to tell the truth from lies, and not knowing who you can trust and who you can't, and realising that you might not be on the good side after all, and on and on and fucking on!

Doesn't it occur to anyone that we've maybe had enough? That it's time we had a break? That would it be to much to ask - just for once - that something might go right for us? Just once hey? Just once.

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As the world seems to be increasingly bent on self-desrtuction with every passing day, I should perhaps make my position clear in respect of the Ukrainian aspect of the madness.

I'm not an apologist for Russia: the Russian leadership is full of very bad men who have much suffering and harm chalked up against them on their side of the balance sheet.

Neither do I suffer any illusions about our own leaders, whose bad foreign policy decisions over decades have brought us to this pretty pass.

My entire concern, past, present and future, is with people. The people who have died, the people who continue to die, and will do so as long as this fruitless war continues. Both Russian and Ukrainian. The sufferings of displaced people. Of people whose lives and homes have been reduced to rubble, to whom it matters not one jot whether this Russian kleptocrat, or that Ukrainian mobster, runs the show above their heads. These are the ones I care about. And I couldn't give two figs about our own leadership position on the matter, other than that they seem hell-bent on keeping this thing going until every Ukrainian body, every Russian soul, lies dead in the dirt before their cold, piggy eyes. If there existed one shred of evidence that they do anything - anything - with the interests of the Ukrainian people at heart, then I might have more time for them. But all I see is a cold calculating interest in what is good for them. Not the Ukrainians. Not the Russian people. Not even us, their own respective peoples. Just the interests of a small slice at the apex of our societies who profit from power, from control, from influence.

And so I come to the words of our own venerable leader Sir Kier Stamer.

Two utterances he has made in the last couple of days that have been widely reported (he's been in Brazil or somewhere, at one of these G20 shindigs).

Firstly he said, "We cannot allow Putin to win." And yesterday he followed up with the suggestion that Putin could end the war at any time by leaving Ukraine.

I'm not even sure that the second statement is true. It seems to me that so many vested interests now want this war to continue that they'd continue to push for it beyond anything Putin could do to stop it, but let that rest. Because it's not going to happen anyway is it? It's just a soundbite. Meaningless and adding nothing.

And as to the first. We cannot let Putin win? Define win? What does that even mean? End up with more territory than when he started I suppose. And with an assurance that Ukraine will remain neutral. On the territory front, does that include the Crimea? Or just back to the 2022 borders? The latter, I suppose might just be possible (if Russian fortunes suffer an almost miraculous turnaround - and Ukraine's as well), but the former, never. On the 'neutrality' issue, you mean that Russia must not be able to prevent Ukraine joining Nato, which in essence means allowing American military bases bristling with military hardware and missiles, to occupy sites right up to the borders of Russia. Like Russia are going to ever allow that.

So this 'win' that Kier Stamer speaks of, that Putin cannot be granted, requires things to occur which Russia can never allow. America wouldn't (in terms of having an enemy sitting on its doorstep threatening it with missiles) and neither will Russia. What kind of stupid foreign policy would demand it?

So on Kier Stamer's terms this war can never end but with the total defeat of Russia militarily. And those nuclear buttons we keep hearing about would be pushed long before that.

Two things.

Intelligence and stupidity are not mutually exclusive. Never make the mistake of thinking that intelligent people don't do stupid things, and this applies to the leaders of countries just as much as anyone else.

And secondly.

It's entirely possible that we are already in an escalatory cycle that cannot be stopped by any means. That we will claw, claw, our way into nuclear armageddon, looking on helplessly while it happens, because no-one has the (substitute your own word here - power, authority, intelligence, compassion) to stop it. This is where our leaderships have brought us, we people who just want to live our lives and for whom it simply doesn't matter whether it is Vladimir Putin or Kier Stamer or Donald Trump who is rinsing us from above, because they're all the frikkin same anyway.

So go away with you! Away with you all. If you wants to fight each other, then go out onto the plains of central Europe and do it yourselves. Even that fellow in fucking Gaza had the balls to be out with his people, putting his money where his mouth is. Let's have some of the same from you clowns and leave us at home to look after our own lives.

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The ICC has at last formally issued arrest warrants for Benjamin Netenyahu, Yoav Gallant and the (possibly deceased) leader of Hamas, Mohammed Deif, months after announcing that it was considering such action.

Considering that a similar warrent was issued in respect of Vladimir Putin within a week of the announcement that he was under investigation, it's not exactly timely, but better late than never I suppose.

This means that the individuals named will be subject to arrest if they enter the territory of any of the 124 signatory countries of its membership, although the court has no means of enforcement of its ruling should a country fail to comply. Downing Street has said that it will comply, but has stressed that there is no "moral equivalence" between Israel, a democratic state, it says, and Hamas or Hezbollah which are, it says, terrorist organisations.

As an aside, I'm confused by why they should even be making such a comment: the ICC has no interest in countries or organisations, but concerns itself rather with individuals and individual crimes and the innocence or guilt thereof. This seems an observation deliberately introduced as a distraction from the Israeli Prime Minister - a form of gaslighting if you like - but at least it seems we shall comply with the ruling of one of the supreme bodies responsible for maintenance of the rules based international order, which I suppose is something.

The USA has reacted with predictable outrage at the issuing of the warrants (except no doubting the Hamas one), but as it is not a signatory member, this is neither here nor there. The USA was ever against any kind of organisation over which it has no control (and this of course includes governments of any countries that don't bow down to its hegemony, and which it usually simply attempts to overthrow via CIA destabilisation and coup methods if they are small enough not to be able to put up any resistance).

The crimes of which Netenyahu and Gallant are accused are using starvation as a method of warfare and of crimes against humanity, of murder, of persecution, and of other inhumane acts. Needless to say Netenyahu has immediately set up a shout of antisemitism against the court, but this accusation has been so debased by its wall-to-wall usage to cover any kind of criticism of Israel, that it is unlikely that his crys will cut him much slack in the wider, observing, world.

Speaking of which, it should be said that it is here that the ICC's issuing of the warrants will have most of its effect. The rest of the world has looked on with horror at the activities of the Netenyahu administration in Gaza following the atrocity of October 7th, fully cognisant that the response they, via their IDF, were taking was tantamount to revenge and collective punishment. That something terrible was happening that went far beyond all claims of returning the hostages or ridding the occupied territory of Hamas was clear. The issuance of these warrants will do much to undermine Israel's credibility as a responsible state, dedicated to the preservation of democracy and international order and cement the growing impression that it is a rogue state operating outside of the internationally recognised norms. And this rests, as the warrant makes explicit, significantly at the feet of Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netenyahu.

I don't suppose that the ICC would ever expect their warrants to be exercised: but as a signal of the Court's judgement of the actions of the men involved, it has weight. Now these accusations can be made widely by any with an eye to the situation in Gaza, safe in the knowledge that one of the highest courts in the world also believes that the accusations are not baseless, even if not proven.

(Incidentally, I believe that misuse of the word antisemitism should be recognised as a crime against the victims of the Holocaust and the Jewish people more generally, in the same way that Holocaust denial is. Those poor, poor people deserve far better, as do the millions of completely innocent Jewish people who will suffer from the effects of a very real increase in antisemitism in the broader world, as a result of the Netenyahu administration's intemperate acts in Gaza.)

[peter]

Right, moving on to the Ukraine issue, and it seems that Putin has reacted to the use of UK and US missiles inside Russian borders pretty much as he said he would.

He's said that he now considers military targets of both countries in countries outside Ukraine to be legitimate targets, up to and including on US or UK soil itself. He's added that he will mirror any escalatory action on the West's part with equal and appropriate action on Russia's, and to demonstrate the seriousness of his intention has directed the firing of a new and experimental missile at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro. He's also, by accounts, raised the Russian nuclear facilities to their highest state of readiness, in anticipation of a possible further Western escalatory move.

If this is what our respective leaderships wanted, then they have certainly achieved their goals. I saw a Nigel Farage interview yesterday in which the suggestion was made that this was a deliberate ploy by the UK and departing Biden administration in Washington, to create such an imbroglio, that it would be impossible for Trump to extract himself from it and bring the war to a close. Trump has by accounts already told Putin that his promise to end this war will be subject to Putin's not escalating the conflict further, and of course the actions of Biden and Stamer force him to do exactly that. It may be that Putin's actions in the firing of this claimed "experimental" weapon are just bluff. There are some doubts being cast that this was anything much more than a conventional ballistic missile of shorter range, and of course Putin's words are just that - words. Trump won't be offended by words and if he sees Putin acting with restraint he might well feel that he can justifiably allow him a small amount of slack to respond, in order to maintain 'face' domestically. If these guys have any sense they will establish a direct communication between the two leaders and cut Biden and Stamer out of the loop altogether. (In fact I'd be very suprised if they haven't already.) By their actions, in the face of a clear expression of support for Trump's plans by the American electorate, Biden and Stamer have demonstrated their contempt for the democratic process. It was incumbent upon the Biden administration not to take any decisions of magnitude before handing over to Trump, yet they ignored this constitutional obligation and instead made a decision that could actively plunge the nation into war. By so doing they effectively remove their legitimacy as an administration and go 'rogue'. As such it puts anything that Donald Trump did in 2020 into the shade of almost insignificance, and gives him full authority to bypass the incumbent administration to act in the national interest as their elected president.

Haven't heard this suggested, but surely it must be the case.

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The outrage caused by the posting of arrest warrants BT the ICC for Netenyahu et al has one common feature irrespective of where it comes from; the evidence supporting the Court's decision is not addressed.

I believe that the ICC used the word "overwhelming" in support of the evidence that Netenyahu and Gallant had used the means of starvation and witholding supplies essential to the continuance of life as a collective punishment on the people of Gaza, but none of the world leaders that have reacted with such anger against their decision, have seen fit to challenge this.

Biden considers that the Court has "no credibility", while Trump's recently announced national security advisor Mike Waltz described them as having "antisemitic bias". Netenyahu himself screams that they are antisemitic, but this is predictable. The German leadership has indicated that it would not make an arrest should Netenyahu or Gallant visit their country, but on the grounds of its nazi past and the special relationship it has with Israel. Victor Orban of Hungary has vowed to defy the arrest warrants, again as would be expected, given the right wing bias of both the Hungarian and Israeli governments. Not one of the complaining leaderships has asked to see the evidence that the ICC refer to, in order to subject it to independent verification. This probably tells you everything you need to know about the background of this outcry.

The rules based international order might be of small consequence to these individuals (most of whom would probably welcome the opportunity to act free of its shackles on occasion) but being signatory to the Rome statute they are still bound by it (America being the exception, for the reasons given above). It remains, however, one of the single planks of international agreement upon which smaller countries have some recourse to protection against the advances of more powerful aggressors, and the world will be a more sorry place if it is undermined by the collective refusal of member states to uphold its decisions. Kier Stamer (for all his manifest faults) does seem to get this, while his ministers have been evasive as to whether the arrest warrants would be acted on in the event of a Netenyahu/Gallant visit, they have at least said that they respect the jurisdiction of the Court in this matter.

Meanwhile there are indications that the incoming Trump administration will impose sanctions on the three judges of the Hague based ICC panel. One British based judge has been singled out for his role in leading the panel. The funny thing about the American attitude towards the ICC is the conflicting response it has to different decisions it makes in different cases. In the Netenyahu case, it doesn't recognise the Court's authority:in Putin's case it does.

Oh well - I suppose consistency from the country that would hold itself up as the supreme supporter of freedom and democracy, of moral uprightness and responsibility, would be too much to ask. The freedom to be inconsistent is, it would seem to be, the chief freedom that the American polity would accord itself, above all others.

[peter]

How close are we to nuclear war with Russia?

That is the question that should be occupying our media this Sunday, but needless to say, it gets not a mention in this morning's press. Only the Express front page even mentions the word 'nuclear' and that is to push failed Tory hopeful Tom Tugendhat's urging that we should "stand firm" in the face of the nuclear threat made by Russia "designed to destroy support for Ukraine".

In a significant (you'd have thought) statement by an American two or three star general a couple of days ago, it was revealed that "America is ready to fight a nuclear war with Russia." Well okay, they would be wouldn't they - but it's unusual for such a bald statement of the fact to be made by a senior ranking army officer. And it's exactly this kind of reckless intervention that could actually cause this thing to kick off.

Because while our media has not even seen fit to report on the comments (you can't even get a Google result if you search it), be in no doubt, it will not have been missed by the Russian security watchdogs, and they will be taking it extremely seriously. I saw internet commentary from highly placed individuals from within the American security establishment - think Scott Ritter and Colonel Douglas Macgregor - who were horrified by the man's foolishness. Macgregor said he should be removed forthwith together with his four star general superior, and a clear message relayed to the Kremlin that his comments were unauthorised and bore no truth in respect of the desire or otherwise of the US to engage in a nuclear exchange.

Ritter was even more pessimistic. He (a UN arms inspector amongst other things, during the course of his career) took the general's words to be very much in earnest. The general would not, said Ritter, have made such comments, had he not been either authorised to make them or had at minimum heard them expressed in exchanges between his superiors. This showed, he said, a level of preparedness for a nuclear exchange amongst the high military echelons, that should make us go cold with fear. He seriously - seriously - feared a nuclear exchange could happen before Christmas. We are closer, he told us, to nuclear war, than at any point in our history. He included the Cuban missile crisis in this, not least because at that point we were actively talking to the Kremlin via back channel communications at all times. Now, he said, no communication exists.

Ritter, who clearly knows his stuff, explained that the 'experimental' strike made by Moscow on Dnipro in response to the US/UK missiles fired into Russia, was a game-changer. It was a resurfacing of a system that was being developed by Russia as a response to the Pershing missile system, the development of which had been halted by the nuclear arms limitation treaty signed between Ronald Regan and President Gorbachev of Russia. This was abandoned in 2019 in what Putin described as the West's "gravest mistake" in its history. The said 'experimental missile' which was tested in Dnipro is a 'hazelnut' cluster of smaller missiles, designed to take out the Western nuclear sites of Europe before they are able to launch. In using it in Dnipro, Putin was effectively showing us it's game-over in Europe. We have, said Ritter, no answer to it. It's either capitulate over Ukraine or enter a nuclear confrontation. We are, he said, at a point where the slightest miscalculation by either side, the smallest of mistakes or even a single stupid comment, could result in nuclear conflagration. A nuclear weapons games theorist in the same presentation, gave a rather cold account of how an exchange would develop and in so doing ruled out the idea of a 'limited nuclear war' as a fallacy.

As I've said, our media see fit to concentrate on the ongoing I'm a celebrity - get me out of here! series, or similarly important topics (oh yes - assisted dying for the soon to become burdensome is in there as well), but not a word on the potential imminent destruction of the planet in nuclear war, a sword of Damoclese hanging over our heads by just the thinnest of brittle hairs if Ritter is anything like correct. Ah well - wouldn't want people to actually understand what a pickle we've landed ourselves in would we? They might start talking. God forbid, they might actually decide to start making it known that they aren't happy about it, that they don't believe that Russia wants to march, Hitler like, through Europe, or that Ukraine is worth seeing everything they love destroyed over. Who the fuck gave these people a mandate to bring us any where near a nuclear war, let alone to the very brink.

To this end I'd like to throw my support behind the idea of a public 'demonstration' of our desire for our administrations not to bring about the end of the world, and for that reason will be supporting (if from a distance) the call of Ritter and friends to rally in Washington on December 7th, to speak out against nuclear war.

(There is some 'hashtag' thing he mentioned, but I forget what it was. Oh, and it's possible that Trump may speak at the rally.)

[peter]

This week the viperish little work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall will set her sights on the easiest 'go to' target in the country, wheeled out every time a political leadership wants to court a few 'brownie points' with the Telegraph reading set in the country - namely the 'workshy benefits scroungers'.

18 - 24 year olds not working or in training will be told to get into either one or the other, or loose their benefits. (Seems to be that they'd loose benefits either way anyway, but I might be missing something). This isn't by any means the first time that the group has been the attention of those looking to court a bit of good coverage in our predominantly right leaning press, and with many hundreds of thousands of youngsters sitting at home doing Jack you can maybe understand why. Overall it's estimated that around 9 million people are not working who could be, and as a pensioner still trying to make ends meet by working a few additional shifts a week as a top-up, I can understand perhaps the chagrin of people about this issue.

But, but, but.....

I'm not exactly helping by taking up hours in the labour market that'd be better being worked by a youngster, and there are millions of pensioners just like me. But we are not doing it by desire. Our exiguous income from our state pension leaves us little choice in the matter and I'd put it to our politicians that money spent on payment of benefits to young people would be better spent on paying proper pensions to those who have already worked a full lifetime, thereby freeing up those valuable hours to the young.

But only if they are going to be paid properly. I work with one young person who earns just eight quid an hour. That's an insult. This person does the same job as me, just as well, yet I get 3 quid per hour more. That's for the birds. If I was a youngster I'd stay at home out of protest at this as well. Granted this disparity is going to be addressed fairly soon with a rise to ten pounds, but it's still one fifty per hour less. C'mon: if a person is old enough to work, they're old enough to be paid properly for doing so.

But these things aside, youngsters should be working. It's good for them. It sets the tone of their lives and turns them into productive citizens who earn their place in society and can look anyone - anyone - in the eye, no matter what job they do. To contribute is important: for both your own mental wellbeing and the good of society as a whole. (I leave aside the fact that a person earning minimum wage, as a huge proportion of our workforce do for the entirety of their lives, will be not one jot better off at the end of a working life than at the beginning of it - and will have had a pretty thin time of it in the interim, but there you are.....that's, as they say, life.) It's also better to have young people occupied because they become troublesome if they are not. Working during the day tends to make for resting during the night for younger people - and that means not out on the streets causing trouble. Old people are less inclined to be troublesome when under occupied - we're too frikkin knackered for it.

So yes, even though I'm aware of the reasons for Kendall's announcements, and even though I have reservations, I do believe that youngsters who sit at home through indolence should be 'encouraged' to work (carrot and stick wise). But paid properly therefore for doing so. But I still say that they're an easy attack group, less likely to cause a violent kickback than say at any suggestion that the richest should pay their fair share of taxes. The Labour administration is under attack for the tax increases it has introduced, and needs some capital bought back from somewhere, to renew it's good graces with the business community. Pushing kids out into cheap jobs (or suggesting that you will) is probably a good way to win this back, so hey, why not say it. It'll make a good headline for a day or so and then the media will forget about it. The reality of actually doing anything to change the current situation will soon scupper any real changes from being effected. Like that there aren't enough jobs, or money to pay extra labour, or work for them to do, or people willing to employ them, or thriving or growing businesses to take them up. You know. Small stuff like that.

But it's still just a headline grabber. Another glossy promise by the new administration that will never occur - is probably never meant to - and which everyone will forget about in due course when something more interesting takes their attention. For my part, I'll just keep working until my health fails, or someone takes me aside at work and says, "Look old chap.......".

[peter]

We are being gaslit by our politicians and their client media on a grand scale.

In the two ongoing conflicts which are claiming thousands of lives per day, and threaten to plunge the world back into global conflict the like of which we haven't seen for eighty years, we are spoken to as if they both started on particular dates - October 7th and 24 February 2022 for Israel and Ukraine respectively - with no pre-occuring history. Just out of the blue and with no provocation or back-story to the events, suddenly Putin decides to attack Ukraine and Hamas Israel.

It's like the airbrushing of the historical background to these events doesn't exist, and if you keep saying it in a certain way, whatever you say becomes the truth. Putin's war of aggression. The Hamas terrorist attack on Israel. It's like in both cases nothing had happened prior to these events which might give them context, a different 'spin' on the official narrative that has to see us, the West, as the good guys. That we promised that Nato wouldn't move an inch eastward in return for German reunification, and then proceeded to do so in three separate tranches which we expected the Russians to suck up without complaint, never happened. That the Palestinians hadn't been held in the "largest open air prison in the world" (ex British Prime Minister David Cameron's words) for decades, that they'd been forgotten by the world from the point at which the Abraham Accords had relegated their plight to an insignificance in pursuit of the normalisation of Arab-Israeli relations......that these things hadn't happened. Non-existent. A blank space in history.

Truly we'd just as well deny that German invaded Poland and say instead that World War 2 started on D-Day; so it must have been us that started the second world war.

Well okay, none of this is denied by our leaders, our media - it simply isn't spoken of. Our news is presented devoid of context, framed in language specifically designed to direct our attention to here, away from there. Like a cheap second rate conjuring act, this misdirection is carried on day after day, until presumably our brain-numbed population is supposed to start repeating this official mantra like a gaggle of good little schoolkids performing in front of a visiting dignitary. Orwellian is an overused phrase but is apt in this case. I had an eighty year old man telling me that the answer was to "dump a nuclear bomb right on the Kremlin" in the shop the other day. You'd think in eighty years he'd have learned something wouldn't you? Still, as I say, repeat something often enough, loudly enough and I suppose ultimately it actually becomes the truth - whatever that addled and turned-around word actually means these days.

Truly do we live in year zero these days. Lurching from one disaster to the next, never slowing down to the point where we get time to take stock, to apprehend where we are being herded. I wonder if it's like this elsewhere in the world? Or is there a place where normalcy still rules the day. I listened to ex Conservative Party leader Ian Duncan-Smith talking the other day and heard him saying that the problem was Ukraine had only been able to fight "half a war" against Russia. "You can't fight half a war," he said, "It leads nowhere. War is all, or it is nothing."

What does that even mean? It's this kind of loose bullshit talk that has gotten us here. An all out war against Russia means nuclear annihilation you tit! Say it straight or don't say it at all. That's your "no half measure." And this ridiculous attitude is so common among our leaderships that we should be shitting our pants just at the thought of it. As Neil Oliver pointed out yesterday, who'd ever have thought it would be the day that we would be relying upon the restraint of Vladimir Putin to save the world.

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Fucking hell!

No sooner do we get the pandemic out from under our feet than we've got a new threat to be contending with. Look out folks......

The Quad-Demic is coming!

The quad-demic, a mix of the four main viruses that are going to kick our arses this winter, will be more virulent, more widespread and more profitable for the pharmaceutical industry......no - scotch that last bit.....and more, well, something else, than anything else that we've seen before. A mix of norovirus, respiratory syncitial virus, regular cold/flu virus and the remnants of the covid virus, these 'big four' are set to have us reaching for the tissues, running for our beds or even the 'big white telephone' (if you get my nasty drift), before the season is out.

As an aside, I've got a cold as we speak. Sore throat, bunged up nose, feeling like crap - you know the drill. Yes, it's real, and yes, when you get to my age it's more threatening than it is to younger people, but at the end of the day its a natural thing. You survive or (sadly) you don't. I don't like colds or flu anymore than the next guy. But at least we have the comfort of knowing that, as with the arms industry, our sufferings are not all to the bad. They provide the grist to the mill of a huge well of profit, that keeps the mulah flowing into the coffers of some undoubtedly lucky guys, who I doubt ever come close enough to the common herd as to ever contract anything so run-of-the-mill as the common cold.

Still, it's an ill wind that brings nobody any good, and speaking of ill winds, I'm away to another place to 'make myself comfortable' (as it were) and if you think you might need to use the 'facilities' yourself in the near future, take a bit of advice from me. Don't!

[peter]

Do you remember Betamax? Or eight track stereo? Of course not - you're too young and they just didn't make the grade.

Well there is mounting evidence that electric vehicles might well go the same way.

Yesterday, car manufacturer Vauxhall announced the closure of its Luton plant citing the falling demand for EV's as chief reason for its demise. Some say that the car's parent company Stellantis have long wanted to close the plant and consolidate its operation in the Ellesmere Port factory, but in fairness the sales figures for the electric models do back up the owners argument.

It doesn't help that the penalties for any car manufacturer of failing to reach targets for electric vehicle sales (as a percentage of total sales) attract significant fines from the government for failing to meet the legislated requirements. These threshold percentages, which currently sit at 22 percent of all sales of any given manufacturer, are designed to force the industry away from the sale of petrol engines and towards electric. The current percentage will rise to an even higher threshold in the near future, making it even harder for manufacturers to avoid penalties.

Because the truth is, that like Betamax videos, and like eight track stereos, people just don't want them. And the truth is that there isn't much sign that the government wants us to have them either. The effort to put in the necessary infrastructure - the charging points and power upgrades to the national grid etc - are notable only by their non appearance. Certainly the money required for the transition is simply not available to our government given our current level of finances, but even if it were, there doesn't appear to be much appetite in Westminster to adress the issue. So aside from the fact that people like their petrol cars, there is little incentive to give them up for what it seems (with little evidence to the contrary being provided from above - at least not with any real conviction) to be an inferior alternative.

Slick the cars may look, as they slide silently by (gosh - that was good....alliteration at 5 o'clock in the morning), but is it all just presentation with no substance. Donald Trump famously said that in an electric vehicle you only spent the first ten minutes enjoying the ride and the rest of it looking nervously at the charge, and this exactly hits it. You'd need to be a brave individual to make a journey of more than a few miles away from your home environment where you know where the charging points are situated. And battery life is another issue. Seven years after buying the vehicle it's out of warranty for the battery and effectively valueless. There is no trade for second hand electric vehicles, except for pocket money or scrap.

So people are speaking with their wallets and simply not buying them.

And if you were a cynical person, you might just believe that this doesn't really bother the government. Because they have no real intention that we ever do. That they aren't bothering with the infrastructure, except in the most lip-service of ways, because they never expect us to use it.

Let's just look at this agenda 50 stuff (or whatever it's called). You know - that, "You'll own nothing and be happy" bullshit. Well okay, more and more of us work from home, so what need have we of a permanent vehicle sitting on our driveway doing nothing for 90 percent of the time. Imagine a day when you simply tap into your phone, and a vehicle pops up outside your house (driverless, needless to say) and takes you wherever you want to go. When you get there, out you hop and it's gone. It's all controlled from a central AI hub and all the vehicles are charged and serviced at centrally placed hubs you never see. You never own a car, and you are happy not to. No doubt the quality of the ride you get will be dependent upon how much you pay (Rolls Royce vs Skoda, style of thing), so you'll still be able to flaunt your wealth with a shiny cock-extension, so no problem there. (You'll even be able to avail yourself of the 'back seat' while the car is driving along, if this type of exercise takes your fancy.)

So sofar so good. Doesn't sound too bad, but still we've got to be weaned off our cars, and the system introduced. So there's not much point spending billions upgrading the grid, laying in charging points that in ten years will be only ever used by dogs to piss on. Best just to make it harder and harder to replace your car, and let car use atrophy while people switch first off to Uber, and then transition to the driverless system I describe above.

And now we transition from cynicism into conspiracy. Because if you're a government it's nice to be able to exercise some.....restraint, shall we say......on 'the people'. And it's nice to know what they're up to. Because in that car - the one on your drive - you can go anywhere you want, when want. Have gas, will travel. And all peachy clandestine if you want to. But in that driverless vehicle, sure, go where you want: but wherever it is, someone (if they choose) can know it. Or, that someone, if they so wanted, just as an example, to lock a population down (and not that this would ever happen, you understand)..... why then, they'd have the perfect means to do so.

Not that such systems would ever in a day be used by our state, to exercise control over us. This is of course unthinkable - the stuff of the swivel-eyed loon conspiracy theorists. And never let it be said that I'm one of them.

[peter]

I was just on YouTube and the algorithm threw up a vid entitled "I asked AI to produce a video showing biblically accurate angels and this is what it came up with.

What then followed (because I can't resist this kind of crap either) was the usual hodge-podge of eyes and scrolls of hebrew lettering etc that always attaches to these types of posting.

What the so-called AI was doing of course was simply scouring the Internet for any postings entitled 'biblically accurate angels' and then reproducing an amalgam of all of the nonsense imagery that always accompanies such postings. If one could do it, I'd have little doubt that the said imagery could be traced back to an initial posting of a single image by an artist (or whatever) that that has been forwarded and mutated like a spreading wave of Chinese whispers from that original posting forward.

It occurs to me that this is exactly the way that facts and knowledge will be degraded as we become ever more dependent upon AI to make ever more complex decisions for us in the future. People will simply believe that because the magic words 'AI' are attached to something then it must be right. They will be too blinded by their saucer eyed enthrallment to the words, to realise that it's in effect no more than a giant and superfast reading device. It has no ability to make judgements on what it is reading. It is, in fact, not intelligence at all. It's just replicating to the best of its ability, the most likely correct answer, but has no ability to sift out the crap that will distort this and ultimately produce the Chinese whisper effect on everything we know.

When this ultimately starts to kick in big time it's going to be a case of "Houston, we have a problem."

-----0-----

And talking about having a problem, on Friday our MPs will vote on whether to pass the assisted dying bill, and it looks likely that a sufficiently large number will vote for the motion for it to pass through the House.

Can you get that? A sufficient number of our MPs believe that the state can be trusted to administer decisions about whether individuals should live or die. Can you believe it! After all we've been through in recent years, people still haven't cottoned on to the absolute limits of what we can expect our system to rationally perform. I mean - it beggars belief.

I absolutely get the 'golden hued' mental imagery that can be conjured around the subject of assisted dying, the 'blessing' of a peaceful and controlled end as opposed to a dirty smelly and quiet possibly pain filled demise that nature and fate might have prepared for you - but do you seriously believe that the state will be the ones who can deliver it? Fuck, you have more confidence than me.

They are now running a series of glossy advertisements on the London Underground showing happy and contented looking individuals all saying what they want from their assisted death. "I want to spend time with my family," says a smiling man. "I want to pursue my life," says a woman who looks healthier than I did at 16.

But of course the devil is in the detail. As someone pointed out, the state seems to be spending more time and attention about getting us to a place where we can be ushered out of life when we get burdensome, than on how we can be looked after and our lives extended. Which at the end of the day should be it's primary responsibility. Shouldn't it?

Someone else noted that the pressure for this all seemed to be coming from the top down, with the exception of the Daily Mail campaign, which in itself should give you pause to consider the idea very carefully. If the Daily Mail is pumping for it then their must be some fell influence behind it - unless you believe that organ to be acting with the 'best interests of the people' at heart.

And then there's the mission creep aspect. Or who should qualify? Me because I don't want the indignity of having my arse wiped for me, but not some poor benighted individual locked in the back-wards of a psychiatrist hospital, quite possibly straigt-jacketed and in severe physical pain as well as unbearable mental anguish......for decades? Shouldn't he be allowed this release. Of course he should.

As I say. Mission creep.

And what about children? At least one European country that allows assisted dying to be carried out includes children in the set of individuals that qualify and no doubt others will follow. I don't know, but something in my gut just can't see this as being right - not for anyone and especially not for children.

And I haven't even got to the potential for abuse; the pressure people will feel under, the gulit of families who don't want a family member to do this thing...or do. Think about the minefield we enter into when we first step onto this road. Because a gold lined road to the sun filled uplands it ain't.

[peter]

Today's 'i' newspaper tells us that only 16 percent of the UK public oppose the adoption of assisted dying practice in our NHS while 54 percent support it. This leaves 30 percent who are unsure about it, and I'd put it that in a thing as important as this, then to be unsure is akin to not being in favour of it.

Further, I'd bet a pound to a penny that virtually none of that 54 percent has actually taken the trouble to look at the protocol followed when an assistant dying procedure is carried out.

When the ancient philosopher Socrates was condemned to death by the Athenian courts, the sentence was carried out by giving him a glass of hemlock to drink. This he swallowed and continued, by written account from a witness to the event, to talk calmly to his friends gathered in the cell in which he was confined, describing a numbness that progressed from his feet up his legs, into his body and reaching his chest, at which point he fell silent and was dead shortly thereafter.

This is not the way a modern medically assisted dying is carried out.

The protocol will no doubt vary from country to country and be dependent upon the given case in question, but in essence it will follow a certain pathway that will be common to all. Contrary to popular belief it will not be as simple as 'draining the bitter cup' ala Socrates, but will involve multiple stages in which a cocktail of different therapeutics are administered. Anti-emetics to prevent vomiting come first. Then sedatives and tranquillisers to prevent panicking (possibly to the point where a paralytic effect is induced). Multiple saline flushes and local anaesthetic injections are required to mask the pain of the barbiturate injections, the saline being used to wash away crystalline deposits from the mixing of local anaesthetic and the tranquillisers. This cocktail will be administered over a period of time, and it may be many hours before the death can be confirmed.

The advisory information that I read (from a Canadian province health authority to it's medical personnel involved in carrying out the procedure) stretched to 28 pages in length and described the multiple stages in detail. It ended with a strict instruction that a plan must be in place for the path to be followed "should the procedure fail", which it said would occur in a small number of cases.

Clearly it must be thought that the patient is unaware of what is happening to them during all of this - but given the potential paralytic effects of the drugs being used thisis an assumption rather thanan established fact. (nb I don't know that this paralytic effect is indeed the case, but it has been suggested, and I'd very much like an assurance, as yet not forthcoming, from the clinicians involved in this that it isn't so.) Surely some clarity on this point would be nice? Some disturbing reports of postmortem examinations of US euthanased convicted criminals (who are essentially subjected to the same procedure) have suggested that the lungs exhibit higher fluid presence them than should be the case, indicative that 'drowning' may have had an input into the cause of death in, but then if the individual was either paralysed by earlier drugs given in the cocktail or indeed deeply anaesthetised, we'd never know.

So no. Given the above information I'm not nearly as convinced that this so called assisted dying is nearly as seamless a procedure as we are being led to believe. It certainly isn't the golden sunset picture that is shown on the London Underground advertising campaign in large glossy posters.Ang given that it is being used on children as young as 9 years old in Belgium, I really hope our MPs do their research before they cast their votes today in a vote upon which the issue will be decided. There will be a debate on the issue before a vote is taken and I hope some of the above issues will be properly addressed.

As I said at the top, in the event of uncertainty, I believe that the only moral decision can be a vote against the bill.

[peter]

If you keep anything like an eye on the UK news, you'll know that yesterday our elected representatives voted to back the assisted dying bill in the Commons, allowing it to pass on to the next stage of its journey through Westminster and onto the statute books. If like me you have the gravest of reservations, not only about the practice itself (as an idea in ideal form), but also of the state's ability to practically administer it in a way that avoids the myriad dangers inherent to its execution, then for you, like me, you will wake up today (if this were possible) in a darker place than you did yesterday.

I hope our politicians are proud of themselves.

-----0-----

Last night I worked with a guy who had, a year or two ago, worked for Amazon in one of its picking warehouses near London. Here is the tale he told me.

The warehouse was built like a huge cube, and it employed around 1000 people working in 12 hour shifts.

The space was divided into the central area, containing the many thousands of products held in huge columns of stacks, around which were flying hundreds of automated 'robots', grabbing a bay of products held in numbered drawers, a dozen or so of which would be sitting one above the another in any given stack.

Around the perimeter of the cuboid building were lines of cages, into which the workers would go, one per cage. They could neither see nor speak to the workers in the cages adjacent to their own.

Once inside the cage, the worker was faced with a centrally facing opening a couple of feet wide in front of him, through which he could access the particular set of drawers presented to him by the bot at the front of the que at his particular cage. His job was to reach into a particular drawer and grab out the product therein, place it in a box and then place the box on a belt, before hitting a button that would send the box away for labelling and sealing at a different part of the complex.

He was expected to pick a minimum of 350 plus products an hour and do this repeatedly for 12 hours. There was neither music nor radio to listen to, and headphones/mobiles were forbidden. As I say, no communication with his fellow workers was possible. At break times, a hooter would sound at which point the workers would exit their cages and move in single file to the canteen for their 20 minute lunch break. After lunch they would file in similar formation back to the cages. A constant monitoring of staff would highlight any individual who's picking rate was falling below the required number, or who was making too many mistakes or whatever, and that staff member would be subject to discipline. The unbroken round of pick, pack, send, pick, pack, send, would go on as I say, in constant and unbroken fashion for 12 hours (excepting during breaks).

The staff were in the majority of foreign origin, some with minimal grasp of the English language, and some of fairly advanced age. These individuals were pretty expendable and didn't tend to last very long. A young English guy like my coworker was a valuable asset and was likely to progress to a more senior supervisory role fairly quickly. My friend, after a couple of months, finished up as floor supervisor, in which role he could wear his headphones and listen to music. His job was to monitor the picking rates of the workers in the cages and execute the first 'dressing down' of workers falling below par in their constantly monitored work rate. A persistently problematic worker would very soon be called out for more serious disciplinary action or sacking. He hated this role, but did it in religiously because of the constant fear of being returned to the cages.

This my friends, is work in twenty first century Britain. How, with our much vaunted employment laws and human rights, is such a thing allowed? If anyone is able to contemplate that people will today in this country, be heading off to enter their cages for 12 hour shifts of endless repetition with neither music or conversation to divert them, without feeling horror and incredulity, then my friend you are made of different material than me.

That's all I can say.

-----0-----

And to thankfully finish on a lighter note, how beautiful the newly revealed face of Our Lady of Paris looked, following 5 years of restoration and cleaning, post the terrible fire that nearly destroyed this treasure and testament to mans capabilities.

She is absolutely glorious, her roof bathed in golden light and her walls cleaned of the accumulated patina of ten centuries of constant exposure. I defy anyone not to be stirred by feelings of deep 'spirituality' - something more than that of the simple material splendour if you like - when looking at her. The restorers have done sacred work here, and I mean that in the broadest possible manner, insofar as they have surpassed themselves, each and every one of them. The whole result is more, so much more, than its constituent parts, and it is in this additional portion that the divine may be glimpsed. The divine I refer to is the achievement of man alone, when he puts his best capabilities forward. There is no requirement for anything more than man for the word divine to still be apposite.

God in his heaven would not deny man the credit for his achievement in what he has done here and if he is there, you can be sure that looking down at this he will be smiling.

[peter]

Vlodymyr Zelensky sat down with a Sky News interviewer yesterday and spoke openly for the first time in terms of Ukraine being prepared to cede territory to the Russians in order to secure a negotiated end to its conflict with Russia.

This is massively significant and a huge step away from its initially stated aims of driving Russia out of all of its territory, including the Crimea.

Suddenly Zelensky has developed, it seems, feelings for the people of Ukraine, who he said "must come first", over and above territory.

It's late in the day, but I absolutely agree with him. Over half a million Ukrainian and Russian lives could have been saved had this thinking prevailed at the start of this conflict when the Istanbul agreement was reached (prior to Boris Johnson visiting Kiev and telling Zelensky and the Ukrainians to "Fight on!"). Much of the now lost territory would still be in Ukrainian hands had he been kicked out on his arse, but that is by-the-by - he wasn't and now Ukraine is where it is.

There is little doubt that Ukraine is in deep waters in its war against Russia. Frankly, it has lost and it needs this peace. But Zelensky was putting forth ideas that seemed to me nieve, in his plans for a negotiated end.

He seemed to believe he could temporarily cede territory to Russia, in return for a guarantee of its return at some future point, and this tied in some way to a retention of the idea of Ukraine joining Nato when that 'reunification' took place,. Half a country, he said, could not join Nato, and thus reunification with the ceded territory would be a prerequisite of doing so.

What was he talking about here? It seemed almost incoherent to me. Putin is clearly never going to agree to any kind of settlement that sees Ukraine as anything other than a neutral buffer zone on Russia's border. As for one that includes its joining Nato at a future point - forget it. This is for the birds. And Russia taking territory that it then agrees to hand back....so that the reunified Ukraine can join Nato???? It borders on inanity to even suggest it. If this is truly Zelensky's idea of what a negotiated settlement with the Russians is going to look like, then he's quite simply away with the fairies. Sure - you start a negotiation from a position of your full wish list and then work towards a middle position of compromise to both parties. But you have to be sensible or the negotiations simply will not happen.

But at least if nothing else, Zelensky is beginning to see the inevitably of Russia's victory and his own need to begin to sue for peace. He will emerge from this a rich man (or, I'm afraid to say, dead: his capitulation will be seen as a betrayal by the hardened right in his country), with his private banking account awash with Western dollars. But it is the Ukrainian people who will have paid the price. They will be generations in the recovery - those that return - and will have a mammoth job ahead to rebuild their country. A smoking pile of testament to the foolishness and failure of Western foreign policy for the last three decades (or even longer if you like).

But before we can look at the results of our actions and begin the process of mending, we must first get to the negotiated settlement. And this is going to require the participants to be reasonable and realistic. We keep hearing how "Putin won't stop!". Stop it! It's nonsense. Propoganda. Rubbish spouted by the hawks who would see every Ukrainian dead before they'd see the income stream from the conflict brought to a close. Let's just get to peace as quickly and reasonably as possible. Then we can take measure of the situation and begin what we should have been doing with Russia for every day since the fall of the Soviet Union. Trade, trade, trade.

Time for the adults to get into the room.

(As an aside, the Sky News presenter, following clips of the Zelensky interview, then handed over to their resident geopolitical commentator who immediately warned of the message that ceding territory to Russia would send to China, North Korea and Iran etc. That the West was weak and would capitulate if challenged. Immediately once again having to see the world framed in terms of us versus them. Why can't they get it. None of these so-called enemies have any imperial intentions whatever. That's our remit, not their's. Russia doesn't intend to march through Europe and China doesn't want to take over the world. The American hegemony that has always been based upon these lies is finished. Crumbling away to dust. Let it go for goodness sake. It's done us no good and spread misery and death around the planet for three quarters of a century. Let it end.)

[peter]

The UK is currently too gripped by the scandal of tv MasterChef presenter Greg Wallace's alleged misdemeanours (walking into the studio wearing only a strategically placed sock over his meat and two veg and the like) to think much about anything else. Or so the 6pm news on the BBC last night seemed to imply. They barely mentioned the rebel offensive in Syria that has brought this country suddenly crashing into the forefront of the Middle Eastern scenario.

I think you could be forgiven for looking askance at Whitehouse National Security Council spokesman Sean Savatt when, a picture of innocence, he says, "The United States has nothing to do with this offensive."

Okay son. We believe you. No doubt the US is as innocent of any behind the scenes jiggery pokery regarding the sudden rebel offensive in Syria as Hunter Biden is of buying a firearm while floating on a headfull of crack-cocaine, but you can hardly blame us for thinking it can you?

The BBC news report that did eventually get around to mentioning the affair - not like it's of any importance or anything - did it's work explaining that these guys, the rebels, were extremist Muslims with former ties to al-Qaeda .....but avoided mentioning that this would not in any way stop the US from being happy to use them to foment problems for the hated (by the US) government of Bashar Al-Assad. No -no mention of American covert ops in this report.

This sudden and unexpected resurgence of the Syrian conflict, which has been grumbling away behind the scenes, despite being pretty nailed down since Russia and Iran won back all of the major Syrian cities for Assad some years ago, couldn't come at a more significant time. It simply goes to cement the alliances on either side of the West-Israel versus a Russia-Iran-Syria separation. It also forms a bridge bringing the Ukrainian conflict into step with that in the middle east. A theatre is emerging in which the various combatants are aligning across the board into two broad but connected camps.

Nato boss Mark Rutte is at the same time warning Donald Trump that America will face a significantly raised threat from the China-Iran-North Korean front, if he - Trump - negotiates a deal advantageous to the Russians, in order to bring an end to the Ukrainian conflict. "We cannot have Kin, Xi and Iran high-fiving," he said, "because we came to a deal which is not good." He went on to say that this could give Xi "thoughts about something else," clearly referring to Taiwan.

So slowly, slowly the world divides, separates out into 'our side and yours'. Like in Orwell's 1984, we have our Ociania, Eurasia and Eastasia, and this is just how our masters like it. They look back on the post cold war with sentimental attachment. When American hegemony of the world order was briefly unquestioned. The unipolar world with the West forming the capstone of the pyramid and the USA at its pinnacle. It took hot wars followed by cold wars followed by collapse to get to that point, and if necessary the cycle must repeat itself. It has the additional benefit of keeping the population (again, as in Orwell) discombobulated, confused and maleable: enemies 'out there', benevolent paternalistic governance at home, and don't try to understand, less even to influence or interfere, because the West knows Best.

Just concentrate rather on what naughty Greg Wallace has been up to in the MasterChef kitchen - taking his shirt off and all that, making inappropriate comments to 'women of a certain age' and all that.

Yes - that's what you lot should be thinking about, talking about. As for the rest of it - nothing to see here!

Now away with you!

[peter]

The mobile phone might now be the centre of our lives, eclipsing conversation, focused attention and even the simple common sense of looking where one is going, but surely it's most undermining effects are felt in the workplace.

It is now seen as an almost insulting intrusion into a person's very being, that they should be separated from their phone, even for the shortest of periods. Within the shop where I still occasionally make an appearance (most usually at times when other people don't want to be working), it is almost taken as read that people will have their phones with them at all times, and will be tapping away at the screens thereon while engaged in whatsoever task that they might also be giving cursory attention to - ie the one they are being paid to do.

One chap who has recently joined the workforce has a particularly good phone and on a recent shift, I ventured to see what he was so deeply engrossed in while standing behind the till. He was watching the Monaco Grand Prix (or some such) on live tv broadcast and proudly showed me how clear and sharp his picture was. He'd been working for the shop for a week, and this was our first shift together. It never seemed to occur to him that perhaps this might be taking it a bit too far - he seemed to assume that this was simply normal practice. Since then other people have commented that he does this - watches his tv - even while serving customers, giving them and their purchases only the minimum of attention.

I say this not in chagrin, but in bemusement. His is just the normal, I think, attitude that young people bring to work. The phone has become an adjunct which they cannot do without. And this is becoming normalised. Already the manager of the shop doesn't feel empowered to say anything to this fellow, because she herself is never parted from her phone. That she doesn't watch tv on it is not because she wouldn't, it's because she can't.

I don't know - maybe these people think that because the shop only pays them half of what (they think) they are worth, they will only give it half their attention. More likely they simply don't think at all (at least not on this subject). But either way, the situation is becoming so commonplace now that barely anyone would think to comment upon it. The collective effect of this in terms of the national productivity must be huge. And if it's as bad as my experience of it, across the whole in the national workplace, think how much worse this drag the cumulative productivity of the nation will be when you add in the effects of those working from home. Because whatever we see on the floor of the workspace will be magnified by multiples in the privacy of people's own homes.

Sorry guys, but we are become a nation of inattentive workshy skivers. This is the plain fact. I'd ban the mobile phone from schools (and that means from even being on the premises, teachers and kids alike, and from the workplace. If someone wasn't prepared to turn off their phone and leave it in their bag for the duration of their shift, I wouldn't want them employed in my business. Being caught using a phone during ones working period should be a sacking offence as serious as theft, because that is essentially what it is - a theft of the business's time.

It's time people learned to live at a distance from their phones and put them back into the box of being an adjunct to their lives, and not the central reason for existing in them.

[peter]

While I've been diverted with other things, events of momentous consequence have been unfolding in Europe - things which I've barely registered.

There had been news of political upheaval in Germany, what with the sudden collapse of its coalition government led by the Social Democratic Party Chancellor Olaf Scholz, but I confess I hadn't taken much notice of it.

Now suddenly the French National Assembly is plunged into chaos with the collapse of the government led by PM Michel Barnier and the French polity thrown into turmoil as the three major groupings - pretty evenly balanced - all fight against each other like rat's in a sack, with no clear party ascendant amongst them.

This is significant stuff. I don't know what the internal problems are that have caused these collapses in the two major polities which uphold the European Union, but it's not rocket science to guess what might be behind it. It's got to be 'the economy, stupid', and policies on both the war in Ukraine and the Middle East won't be far behind. Put that together with falling standards of living across the board, increasing energy and food costs, and the view that a small elite at the top of the systems are coining it while the rest of the sclepps take the heat, and you have the recipe for a 'trouble-bubble' in which political opportunities arise and political opportunists make their moves.

And this don't bode well for the future of European unity, including, but beyond, the EU. If the EU were a three-legged stool, France and Germany would be two of them, with the other 25 countries compromising the other. If the two legs go, how far behind can the rest be. When it comes to European militaries, you have France and the UK, and that's about it. And the whole thing seems to have decided to go into collapse right now.

Putin must be chuckling into his bowl of cornflakes this morning as he reads his Rossiyskya Gazeta. You've got Trump heading into the Whitehouse, claiming he's going to pull funding from Ukraine as soon as he gets there, and the very European unity that holds Ukrainian support together folding up like a wet paper bag as each country turns its attentions inward, towards dealing with the domestic fallout, economic and political, of the mess that provoking a conflict with Russia has caused. You couldn't have scuppered your own stability, shit a bigger turd into your own nest, if you'd tried. The debacle is showing European unity for what it always has been - a thin marriage of convenience that would be forgotten in an instant the moment individual concerns demanded the dissolving of commonly shared goals. 'Look after number one and devil take the hindermost' - a return to business as usual.

And it all goes back to Nato eastward expansion and American foreign policy that has stirred up unrest and conflict in country after country after country, since the end of World War 2. Millions dead and a bloody swath cut across whole regions of the globe. Why do you think millions of people are fleeing their own countries in the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa if not because of this? Of America's decision that if you don't want a government that favours our interests over anybody else's, then we'll simply keep undermining your governments until you do? Here are the fruits of that policy coming to rest in our own laps in Europe. Immigrants and screwed economies. Our living standards in decline, our polities fragmented, and extremist voices shouting out those all too common shibboleths upon which their populist argument can always depend, the denouncing of 'the other', appear as predictably as cuckoo's on a Swiss wall clock. Far from being 'the World's policeman', misguided American foreign policy has ensured the collapse of the EU, the rise of European instability to the point of actualization of war on it's lands once more, and the brining of the world to the very edge of the abyss that it should have avoided at all costs.

I've always said that America is a nation of children. It thinks with the mind of a child, the biggest bully in the playground. In the slow collapse of Europe that is unfolding, we see the truth of that idea laid bare before our eyes. If the current crisis in Ukraine doesn't do for us, then expect the countries of Europe to be at each other's throats again before a generation has passed. Foreign policies don't work in months and years - they work in decades. Our MSM are not going to call this out and neither are our politicians. But we're seeing the results of multiple decades of American mismanagement of foreign policy bearing fruit at last. The policeman has turned out to be corrupt, and now he'll hide in the hills while we harvest the bitter gall of his mismanagement for generations to come.

[peter]

Kier Stamer yesterday tried to carry out a reset on his faltering governance of the country, in the hope of tackling both his and his party's plunging ratings in the polls, and effecting some kind of turnaround.

Needless to say he fluffed it. Even his own Work and Pensions Secretary said that, "You can overcomplicate things," presumably in reference to the (quick check) seven pillars for growth, six milestones for change, five missions already in play, and three foundations upon which the whole juggling act balances (but which, try as I might, I couldn't find out what they were). [Edit; economic security, secure borders, national security - thanks BBC website.]

Well okay - a man's grasp should outreach his....whatever it is...., but c'mon. Seriously? Haven't we had enough of bullshit pledges and bucket-lists of promises? The only thing that these sound good shit-bites tell us is that a government is in trouble or that an opposition is useless. And Stamer's administration is barely half a year old! (God - doesn't it seem longer?) Stamer tells us to judge him on whether living standards rise quickly in the UK. Well, they won't for the one and a half million pensioners who lost their winter fuel payments will they mate? Or for the countless numbers who'll fetch up on the dole in April when the effects of the budget kick in?

But this "judge me at some future point" is a clever trick as well. It sort of fixes it in people's minds that Stamer is here for the duration. It shifts attention away from the idea that he's actually removable. That if enough people make enough noise in enough places, then he could dissapear faster than you can say "Liz Truss's forty day premiership." I have a feeling that in the new year there's to be a parliamentary debate on when another general election can be called or something; I'm sure I've heard that recently. Certainly over 2.5 million people have signed a petition calling for another general election, but it's unlikely that Kier Stamer would take any notice of that. At what point did politicians ever take heed about what the people actually want? No, any move to shift Stamer would probably have to come from within the Labour Party itself, and with them so recently having taken power after so long in the wilderness, it's unlikely that sufficient momentum could be gained by any individual or groupings to mount a serious leadership challenge. The Tories certainly wouldn't be up to it. But still, from Stamer's point of view, it never hurts to divert attention away from such unwelcome ideas, however fanciful they might be.

But as to his reset: good luck with that son! Trust me - it ain't happening. If you think that Boris Johnson had a rough time of it in office then you ain't seen nothing yet! Time will come when you'll wish you'd beaten Truss in the race to be shortest ever serving Prime Minister, of that I promise you. The press are universal in their hatred of you. The people are wise to your cod-honesty and untrustworthy nature. The events of the day are against you and if that lot wasn't enough, the people have become addicted to upheaval; they can no longer cope with the boredom of workaday politics. They now demand instability and fear like a heroin addict demanding smack. And the media, like their pusher, will cater to that demand. So the idea that you can reset the dial to day one, start again with a clean slate, and that it'll all be halcyon days of roses from now on..... well that's for the birds. Buckle up sonny. Things are going to get rough.

[peter]

Oh my God, here they all come.

It's December and all the usual suspects are being wheeled out for Christmas. Jamie Oliver and the rest of the tired old TV chefs, mugging up to the cameras and giving us the same tedious instructions on "How to cook a turkey" (follow the frikkin instructions dummie - how hard can it be) that they do every year.

The endless repetition of same old Christmas songs, Noddy bleeding Holder screaming out "It's Chriiiiistmas!!!!!" at the top of his fucking lungs - it's enough to make you scream. How hard would it be for someone to (wait for it - you might want to sit down) write a new Christmas song. I know - it's revolutionary isn't it....but think about it. Just one new Christmas song to increase the regular playbook with. I mean. That'd be hundreds of hours of new repetition to introduce into the radio output every season for decades to come. Think of the money, the royalties, the mullah. Yer can't fukkin loose!

But even I'm not hard hearted enough to begrudge Princess Katherine her annual Christmas carol service - not this year. I feel for her three kids, George, Louis and Charlotte, done up like little mini-me versions of their parents for the cameras, but Kate herself looked relaxed and smiling, and I for one was pleased to see her looking somewhat recovered from what has clearly been a difficult period in her life.

But as for the rest of it - Christmas ads, pruriant journo tales of 'Christmas parties past' (we were still drinking at 7am), celebs pushing the same old fragrances, Doctor (who?) and an update on the latest round of patronising Africa on the BBC - you can keep it. At work on Friday and Saturday nights, the works do's girls and boys will be out (boys will be 'hanging out of their arses' tomorrow morning and girls looking through running mascara and false eyelashes at the broken remembrances of fumbling around in broom-closets). A real laugh.

No - count me out. It's a hackneyed old chestnut, but Christmas is simply too commercialised and dull to get my interest. "It's for the children." Yeah? Well they can keep it. Take it from me; 'Grinch' is too small a word. Still, at least King Chas will get to make one of those Christmas speeches that his mother used to excel at. Mind you - she had enough practice and she had fuck all else to do except ponce around being queen all year. I mean it's not like a job or anything is it?

One good thing in the offing this year Notre Dame is being officially reopened - today I believe. Even I'm up for that. Prince William is being dispatched off to shake Donald Trump's hand at the service (just as well it isn't Kate - that hand has a mind of its own when there's a woman in front of it), in the hope that the American President Elect can be induced to forget Stamer and Lammy's previous insults (what was it David - a "neo-nazi woman-hating sociopath"?). Nice one....idiots! But the star of that show will be the Lady of Paris herself. Not even Kate could outshine that particular Lady, and the orange glow from Trump will dissapear for sure against the gold of the setting it finds itself in.....and that's doing some heavy lifting. He won't like it, but even he'll play second fiddle to something bigger than himself today (if it is today - can't be bothered to check).

And let's remember most of all this Christmas, that it won't be Christmas day in Gaza. (Don't see Saints Bob and Bono singing a ditty for that one.) There it'll be business as usual. That'll be one demolition job that won't be paused for the Christmas break. Make no mistake about that.

[Savor Dam]

Compared to the Christmas songbook when we were each young, there have been a lot of new songs. Some few better than others; possibly enduring among the classics. Some lot eminently forgettable, or that one might fervently desire to forget.

Take care in what is wished for...

(Surely someone can do better than Adam Sandler in crafting a Hanukkah song!)

[peter]

Damn SD - you're up early fellah!