Ukraine Extortion - Trump Fans Silent

There is no finer example of how populist politics is a total crock of crap than the reaction of its leading British practitioners to the brazen attempt by Combover Crybaby Donald Trump and his gang to extort a significant amount of Ukraine’s mineral resources, while giving that country no security guarantee. To this, the Trump fans in the UK have fallen silent.

As Josh Rogin told his followers on Twitter, X, or whatever Muskrat’s calling it this week, “Multiple lawmakers here in Munich told me the U.S. Congressional delegation presented Zelensky with a piece of paper they wanted him to sign which would grant the U.S. rights to 50% of Ukraine’s future mineral reserves. Zelensky politely declined to sign it”.

Do go on. “This plan, which I have now seen, was presented to Zelenskyy by U.S. Ambassador Bridget Brink several days ago, in advance of Secretary Bessent’s trip to Kyiv … In today’s meeting with U.S. lawmakers, Zelensky was telling them about this paper, which many of them didn’t already know about, not the other way around. Zelenskyy said he could not sign it because it didn’t contain any security guarantees for Ukraine”. That’s extortion.

Added to the outburst by alleged Vice President and confirmed moron J D Vance, and the talks about Ukraine that have not included invitations to any European countries - or Ukrainians - and we see the intended endgame of the Trump gang - to sell both Ukraine and the rest of Europe down the river.

Quite apart from the immediate loss of US soft power, and indeed influence, this dereliction of duty to its allies had the FT’s editorial writers concluding “Europeans need to start preparing fast for the day when the US security guarantee to Europe is definitively removed … It should also mean a European mutual defence pact, outside NATO, that extends beyond the EU”.

There was more. “Trump will use any leverage he has to force America’s European allies into compliance on issues from trade and security to their domestic politics. That means that Europe must now start the painful process of ‘de-risking’ its relationship with the US, looking for areas of dangerous dependence on America and stripping them out of the system”.

Which is a way of saying it’s serious. So what of the Trump cheerleaders? Former alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, who was, let us not forget, kicked out by his own party in disgrace, has tried a little too hard to spin his way out of it: “Trump is not betraying Ukraine”. Fraid he is, Bozo. But that bit doesn’t get a mention. Not in selective Bozo world.

But at least he admits Europe will have to “step up”. Something that does not trouble Liz Truss, the very temporary Prime Minister who was outlasted by a lettuce. She’s too busy recycling rubbish from the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph. So what of Farage, biggest Trump fan of all?

Nige is banging on about putting a windfall tax on renewable energy, in a move which would increase household bills significantly. That’s the level of populist idiocy coming out of Reform UK. Oh, and he’s still whinging about nearly losing his Coutts bank account. No word on Trump’s attempt to extort a significant amount of Ukraine’s GDP in return for nothing at all.

Farage’s delusion extends to portraying Himself as the next Prime Minister. But not a peep on his pal Donald selling the whole of Europe down the river, so not a peep on what he would do when faced with a whole host of those Difficult Decisions about a European army that he’s been frightening the crap out of his target audience over. Not that he’s a Putin apologist, you understand.

Whatever your opinion of Keir Starmer, he is prepared to tackle the problems posed by the Trump gang ripping up the USA’s security guarantees that have helped keep the peace since 1945. Bozo is editing it out, Liz Truss isn’t talking about it at all, and Farage … don’t make me laugh. Mr Thirsty is more concerned about his current account status to bother with that.

Populism meets political reality. And promptly scuttles off elsewhere.

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Labour, Pensioners, And Cruelty

One hates to come over all Neil Kinnock, but right now we have A Labour Chancellor - A Labour Chancellor - scuttling around media outlets trying pointlessly to justify taking pensioners’ winter fuel allowance from them. It is a move which, it is claimed, will placate The City. But The City does not need to be placated. And the move will hurt the Labour Party yet more.

That’s as in, more than the two child benefit cap. More than the alienation of now former activists following the abandonment of Keir Starmer’s “ten points” pledge. More than the alienation following all the expulsions and other needlessly authoritarian behaviour. More members walking away, and not returning any time soon to help canvass and leaflet.

A Government with a huge majority, but only because of parties like Reform UK, domain of Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage, eating into the Tory vote. Labour’s share of the popular vote, after posting opinion poll ratings well into the 40s during the campaign, was a miserable 33.7%. 1.6% better than 2019. 6.3% down on 2017. Less than convincing.

And, coming hard on the heels of the refusal to lift the benefit cap, has come another measure guaranteed to generate No Additional Economic Activity At All. As this blog has pointed out more than once, giving the less well off more money is a sure-fire way to generate more economic activity. These are the people with the highest propensity to spend. They will spend that money.

It is no use at all to anyone interested in generating more economic activity to allow that money to be retained by the very well off, those with the highest propensity to save. It is also no use at all to stretch peoples’ credibility beyond its structural limit by claiming that leaving the winter fuel allowance in place will somehow precipitate a run on Sterling, which it will not.

Add to this the pointless misquoting of Keynes, seemingly to suggest that he would have approved of Rachel Reeves’ policies (which he certainly would not), and the authoritarian response of the Labour leadership to anyone demonstrating the slightest empathy towards the least well-off (vote for this cruelty or you lose the whip), and you have a party in imminent disarray.

No surprise, then, to see Zarah Sultana reminding us “We need to defend universalism. Universal benefits like Winter Fuel Payments & demands like Free School Meals for All ensure no-one falls through the cracks. It builds solidarity, reminding us that we all belong to the same society & deserve warmth, food security & dignity”. And avoids the humiliation of means tests.

And Richard Murphy telling “I am so bored of hearing Labour ministers talking about ‘difficult decisions’ they didn’t want to take when there is no reason whatsoever for them to have taken them”. With Mick Lynch of the RMT adding “We cannot balance the books by cutting off the heating for our pensioners. Labour has to find a better, fairer way”.

On top of that is the inevitable charge of hypocrisy, Paul Lewis bringing the inconvenient reminder “Chancellor tells her MPs to blame Conservatives for her decision to raid Winter Fuel Payment … so she is blaming the party that in 2017 said it would do that but backed down when Labour said it would kill 4000 pensioners. Oh dear”. This whole charade is pointless.

Worse for Labour, the steady alienation of members will only accelerate. It was clear during the General Election campaign that some constituencies would have gone to The Red Team, if only more canvassers and other activists could have been mustered. Next time, there will most likely be even fewer of them. Added to a disheartened and disillusioned electorate.

Who suggested this path? Did anyone in Downing Street, or any of those advising the Labour leadership, bother to think through what consequences might flow from imposing more misery on the least well off? One has to credit the brains behind New New Labour with the notion that, if they did all this to a deliberate plan, they must have also figured a way out of it.

Because if they haven’t - no. Just no. You don’t want to go there.

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Hello BBC - Your Team Lost

Winston Churchill once said that he knew very little about economics, but he did know that shooting Montagu Norman would have been a good thing. Churchill had relied heavily on the advice of the then Governor of the Bank of England when he was made Chancellor of the Exchequer by Stanley Baldwin in the latter’s 1924 to 1929 Government. The sentiment concerned one issue.

A most unfortunate juxtaposition

Norman had been highly supportive of returning Sterling to the Gold Standard, and at the pre-World War 1 rate of one pound to 4.86 US Dollars. The obvious problem was that Sterling was by this time worth no more than around $4.40. The initially lauded return to Gold had the effect of increasing the cost of UK exports by around 10%. So those abroad went elsewhere.

Norman and his counterparts from France and Germany then went to the USA to ask if the folks Stateside could perhaps alleviate the situation by a little loosening of monetary policy, which they duly did. From that point, rather a lot of the easier money went on purchasing common stocks, with the result that an overheated stock market crashed in late 1929.

Now, I know very little about the internal machinations of the BBC, but I do know that removing Robbie Gibb - permanently - from the Corporation would be a good thing. Anyone who is comfortable sharing a platform with the luminaries of the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance, and the rest of the Tufton Street alphabet soup brigade, has no place at our national broadcaster.

Looking at the Beeb’s website this morning, one could be forgiven for concluding that it was the Tories who won last week’s General Election, such is the glaring bias in coverage. The faux “equivalence” is there in the first UK News headline: “Starmer heading to Scotland as Jenrick says Tories failed to deliver”. Who gives a flying foxtrot what Robert bloody Jenrick thinks?

Scroll down a little and it gets worse: “Who could replace Rishi Sunak as party leader?” Only in the sub-heading does the word CONSERVATIVES appear. Default party = Tory party. Scroll down a bit more, to Latest Updates. “A quick guide to the PM who only lasted 45 days” is followed by “A very quick guide to Penny Mordaunt” and “A quick guide to Rishi Sunak”.

Not only are those features about Tories, but the first two lost their seats. And what’s this? “Gloomy in Looe as fishermen reflect on Labour coup”. Tanks on the streets, was it? It didn’t get any better when the Laura Kuenssberg show had its first post-election airing. Jenrick was one of two Tories given a platform. That’s the party with just 121 MPs. As opposed to Labour with 411.

Ed Davey, whose party put on another 61 MPs to reach a record high for them of 72, was greeted by the grudging “Congratulations, I suppose”. Former Chief Prosecutor Nazir Afzal summed it up: “Laura Kuenssberg seems to be finding it hard to be in opposition”. So Jenrick is kicking off the Tory leadership race? Who cares? They’re out of it. Stop promoting them.

Likewise, the effective awarding of a season ticket for Question Time and other shows to Reform UK Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage has to stop: his is a fringe party with just five seats. If he and his pals get access, so should the Greens. So they got a lot of votes. So did the Liberals in 1974, and the Liberal-SDP Alliance in 1983. Did the Beeb give them season tickets, too?

Giving the Tories such prominence despite their drubbing last week, and worse, giving a platform to the kinds of Tories who belong firmly in the wacko fringe, is out of order. Questionable displays of “impartiality” - pitting those with comprehensive knowledge of a subject against lobby group activists with bad faith talking points - should also be brought to an end.

That means serving up news and current affairs in a genuinely even-handed manner. No Astroturf lobby groups, especially those who decline to say who funds them. Fact check those known to peddle assertions of dubious veracity. No more Question Time audience plants. And let the Tories run their own leadership contest. They’ve got enough pals in the press as it is.

Robbie Gibb at the BBC was for a time, but not for all time. Order the taxi.

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Don’t Mention The War, Sorry, Brexit

Perhaps the most surreal aspect of the General Election campaign is that the party most likely to form the next Government - Labour - is steadfastly refusing to recognise the elephant in the Economy room. The Elephant which has resulted in higher taxes, a decline in the UK’s ability to trade freely with its nearest neighbour, and therefore its attractiveness and competitiveness.

The name of the Elephant is Brexit. And Labour would rather not mention it, so frit are they of the fury that would rain down upon them from the general direction of our free and fearless press should they dare to Go There. This level of cowardice before gaining power gives every impression of enduring after Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves take up residence in Downing Street.

But at some time, Labour will have to talk about the Elephant. Meanwhile, the Lib Dems are unencumbered by Labour’s cowardice, and John Sweeney, who is now fighting Sutton Coldfield for them, has put it directly: “I remember listening to the Brexit result in my little backyard and then it started to drizzle. Our wonderful country was conned something rotten: we have ended up with a broken economy, a blighted future and our national security endangered”.

And his solution? “The sooner we are back in the European Union the better and, if elected, I shall campaign for that … Vote for me and I shall fight for you”. Fight is the right word. Because the overmonied and intolerant part of the media class, less affected by Brexit, will fight to keep it.

They will always be able to summon a member of the punditerati to tell whoever reads the final article that the UK imposing economic sanctions upon itself is a small price to pay for the benefit of keeping all those FORRINS from making decisions that affect Brits. Screwing over farmers? Throwing the fishing industry under the nearest bus? Not their problem.

While the comfortable part of the media class can still dine at their reassuringly upmarket restaurants, can still summon tradespeople to patch up their over-valued properties, can still get domestic help without breaking the upmarket bank, and can still use the app to hail a private hire vehicle and therefore keep the hoi polloi away from them, Brexit will be excellent.

Typical of that media class is one Iain Martin, who claimed “‘The Office for Budget Responsibility says UK GDP will be around 4% lower every year than it would have been had we remained inside the EU,’ reports the [Observer]. This is not what the OBR says”, only to be Community Noted and for Jonathan Portes to tell him “This is *precisely* what the OBR says”.

In the meantime, Edwin Hayward, who has written a little on the subject, has put together a thread (HERE) where he groups the benefits of EU membership under the headings of Economic Benefits, Freedom of Movement, Education and Research, Consumer Rights and Protections, Health and Safety, Workers’ Rights, Environmental Protection, Citizenship and Legal Rights, Data and Digital Rights, Cultural and Creative Industries, Trade and Business, Security, Political Influence, and Future Potential.

Put yet more directly, improving the lot of all those Ordinary and Hard Working People without sinking yet deeper into decline and a vicious cycle of higher taxation, and without Sterling losing all remaining credibility, is going to be, er, challenging without returning to the EU. With or without another poll.

It will also involve not giving con men like Nigel “Thirsty” Farage and his ability to talk well, but lie badly, equal status with leaders of democratically constituted political parties (which Reform UK, being a limited company with no internal democracy, cannot claim to be). Treat him on merit. Or lack of it.

But above all, Labour has to have the courage to talk about the EU. To be straight with the voters. This may well risk the bad faith lobbyists who lied and conned their way to success last time to crawl out of the Tufton Street woodwork. So what? They will have to be faced down whatever happens.

The average Polish citizen will soon be better off than their British counterpart. John Sweeney is right. The UK has to rejoin. That is all.

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Nigel Farage - You’re A Fraud

The potential collapse of Tory support, to the point where consideration is being given to the idea of the Lib Dems becoming the opposition after next month’s General Election, has also seen an increase in poll ratings for Reform UK and its self-appointed Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage. But with the poll ratings has come - at last - serious scrutiny.

Our free and fearless press, and those in the broadcast media, have woken up to this potential threat to the UK: Farage urged what became Brexit for so many years, and the result has been to hobble the country’s economy, to precipitate a state of national decline of the likes not seen before. Now he wants more. That this may mean more decline has not passed unnoticed.

So what never got done in the past - genuine scrutiny of Farage, his team, and his backers - is now happening. After all, that same media gave a free pass to disgraced former alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson too, and look where that got us. Now Farage is under pressure, and the edifice of bonhomie is cracking. He is being exposed as a fraud.

Worse, his sometimes wacko ideas on how the world is ordered have provoked ridicule, and from the right-wing press, disgust. Today’s Mail goes for Mr Thirsty, howling “FARAGE: THE WEST ‘PROVOKED’ PUTIN … Fury as Reform leader suggests Nato was to blame for invasion”.

There is a problem with Reform UK and its supporters claiming that Ukraine looking to join Nato, and indeed the EU, was what triggered the invasion by those in the service of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and his gangsterist régime in Moscow, one of timing: Ukraine’s move to join Nato and the EU came AFTER the invasion. So it could not have been some kind of provocation.

On the domestic front, Reform UK’s Contract With Britain (or perhaps that should be Contract ON Britain) has seen the BBC’s Nick Robinson tell Farage “In your manifesto there are promises to spend more on health, more police, more soldiers, tax cuts for this group, tax cuts for that group, tax cuts for the rich, tax cuts for the poor, everybody gets everything they want. It's like Christmas”, telling him he’s offering 50% more than Labour in 2019.

Exit ... stage right

Worse still, the promise to leave the World Economic Forum is unachievable - mainly because Britain is not a member of the WEF. And the long-standing commitment to leave the ECHR is worrying, given that this membership guarantees the right to a fair trial, the right to due process - when Farage spends so much time talking up deportations. And it gets worse still.

As David Clark has pointed out, apropos the Farage flagship feature, “This is why Reform UK deserves the designation far right. By talking about ‘invasion’ and framing immigration as an issue of national security, Farage is endorsing the conspiracy theory that it is being driven by a hostile foreign interest. It’s a fascist dog whistle”. Couple that with leaving the ECHR.

He blames Net Zero for “de-industrialising Britain”. Because it can’t be Brexit that done it. He claims exports are up, Britain going from 7th to 4th in the export league. Except this is only in services, not goods. Robinson pulled him up again on the infamous and swiftly-reversed Liz Truss “mini-budget”.

“You're laughing but you said on the day of the mini budget: Today is the best Conservative budget since the 1980s.. Is that the judgment of someone who deserves to be Prime Minister?” Ah well, responded Mr Thirsty, “Some of the thinking was right, the delivery was wrong, the timing was appalling”. No, the thinking was wrong too: handing rich people a tax handout is not the way to go for growth. Propensity to save v propensity to spend, and all that.

Also, Reform UK’s stance on climate change is in the wacko category. But, although the increased level of scrutiny is welcome, the thought enters that this may have been too late. Maybe Farage will win in Clacton. Which would, perversely as it may seem, be a good thing. Because then he would have to turn up to the Commons. Where he would get ridiculed more often.

And would finally be exposed as a fraud. Pity the country is screwed, mind.

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Whingeing In The Rain

The tell-tale signs had been there earlier yesterday, as more than one cabinet minister ducked out of media and other appearances. So when amateur Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stepped out of 10 Downing Street into a torrential downpour - there’s a bad omen if ever one was needed - it was obvious that he was about to do what Denis Healey once called “cut and run”.

Sadly for Sunak, such was his Billy No Mates presence that there was not even someone to hold an umbrella. Nor was his team sensible enough to change the venue to the Downing Street media room. And so it was that the electorate was told that the Tories were out of ideas, and out of time. There would be a General Election on the fourth of July. Independence Day, eh?

That date is also Independence Day in Rwanda. Oh the irony! Such was Sunak’s timing that, together with a Labour commitment to end the farce of deportations to that country, that no deportation flights will happen. Even though Sunak had said they would. Instead, his briefing to the assembled media was turned into a whingefest directed at Keir Starmer.

Not that too many will have remembered that, after someone (wasn’t Steve Bray, was it?) blasted the 1997 New Labour signature anthem “Things Can Only Get Better” from the end of Downing Street. The Guardian’s Pippa Crerar mused “Inauspicious start to campaign”, while even Laura Kuenssberg had to admit Sunak’s presentation was “not the authority of credibility”.

Meanwhile, after the Tories continued to alienate the media by chucking Sky News out of Downing Street, came Starmer’s response. James Chapman was impressed. “Well that Starmer speech was streets ahead of Sunak's, both in terms of the optics and content, with a compelling change narrative. I suspect Starmer is going to surprise on the upside in a campaign”.

That alienation, as Rachel Cunliffe of the Staggers pointed out, was not trivial: “It's not just journos but MPs, spads, MINISTERS who got the green light from No10 that the summer was safe. That's a lot of ill will to kick off a campaign with. From those on your own side”. Then came a truly wacko intervention by Christopher “No” Hope of GB “News”.

“Some furious Conservative MPs are tonight working on a plot to CALL OFF the general election by replacing Rishi Sunak as leader before Parliament is dissolved next Thursday”. But all it tells us is that there are those in the right-leaning media who are prepared to spray their credibility up the wall by recycling anything the Tories tell them. While backing The Blue Team.

Just what that will look like can be seen from this morning’s front pages. The Murdoch Sun brings us the news while avoiding using the photo of Sunak getting drenched outside No 10. Not quite “The Sun backs Blair”, is it? And the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph was also on message.

Obedient pundits were grovelling from the off, with Jeremy Warner declaring “The economic stars are aligned”, and wacko Janet Daley claiming “Starmer will be worrying now”. The Daily Brexit, still called the Express, told its faithful readers “The Prime Minister made a rallying cry for Express readers to get behind him”, and the Mail pontificated “Rishi seizes the initiative”. Like heck he did. Also, the Mail has more inside. Maybe too much more.

Sarah Vine obediently tells “This is about Sunak the man taking control and fighting his case head on”, while deeply unfunny churnalist Richard Littlejohn, live from North Vero Beach in Florida, concludes “Time for Rishi to summon up the blood, go for broke”. Not for nothing did Michael Heseltine decide “It is going to be the most dishonest General Election of my lifetime”.

The Tories are going to get a shellacking. But they might get a worse shellacking later. Hence Sunak deciding he had to turn and face his pursuers, despite teeing off many on his own side. And his media pals will back him to the hilt, despite the UK having been made a laughing stock over the past 14 years of inept and indeed corrupt leadership. That’s who they care about.

Rich people paying the desperate and greedy of the media to support their continued enrichment. This time the voters might just ignore them.

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Net Zero - Tories Lying AGAIN

The desperation of The Blue Team, as a General Election looms ever closer and the polls get ever worse, has now extended to flat-out lying about their main opposition. This has necessitated quoting the lobby groups in and around Tufton Street as if they were reliable sources, and not yet more highly partisan bad faith actors. Today has brought an excellent example.

Just after 0800 this morning, the Conservatives feed on Twitter, X, or whatever Muskrat is calling it this week, declared “Labour’s green pledge costs over 4X MORE than they previously admitted, according to new reports. Energy experts this morning say Labour’s flagship policy is now ‘infeasible’". And how many “new reports” was that, then? Er, just the one, actually.

Could we have a source for that? Here is where the balloon of remaining Tory credibility was instantly deflated. The “source” was an article on the website of the Daily Brexit, still called the Express. And the article did not contain a citation, or link to the “report” quoted. But it did tell readers “Energy experts unveil 'true' £116bn cost of Labour's 'infeasible' 2030 net zero plan”.

And there is the warning sign, the hint that this may not actually be true: the use of quote marks to do the heavy lifting. Even the supporting article doesn’t make sense: “The money required is more than double the funds required under a net zero by 2035 scenario, modelling by Aurora Energy Research for think tank Policy Exchange has said”. TUFTON STREET ALERT! Do go on.

“Iain Mansfield, director of research at Policy Exchange, said: ‘To decarbonise the power grid by 2030 is simply not feasible. Given the state of the public finances it is hard to see how any Government could find the additional £93 billion required ‘ but even if the money were made available, it is simply not possible to build new renewable generation at the pace required’”.

But that assumes all the funding in the Labour proposal will be provided out of taxpayer funds, which it will not. Even the idea that the name Aurora Energy Research makes the Policy Exchange stance credible is rendered useless when we read “The paper’s author, Thomas Cabot, research fellow at Policy Exchange”. ONE OF THEIR OWN RESEARCH FELLOWS WROTE IT.

How much credibility does Policy Exchange have in the bank? Very little, sadly - ever since Tim Leunig’s wacko assertion that cities in the north of England, like Liverpool, had failed, and therefore their inhabitants should all move to London. Another fact not helping its credibility is that one of the group that founded Policy Exchange was Michael “Oiky” Gove.

Nor is this snippet from Policy Exchange’s Wiki entry: “Transparify's report ‘How Transparent are Think Tanks about Who Funds Them 2016?’ rated them as 'highly opaque,' one of 'a handful of think tanks that refuse to reveal even the identities of their donors’ … In 2022 it was revealed that the organisation is partially funded by ExxonMobil”.

Worse, and a sure sign that the Tories really, really want this hokum to be true, at 1100 hours came the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog to tell anyone not yet asleep “Labour’s bonkers £116 Billion Black Hole … LABOUR’S BLACK HOLE JUST GOT BIGGER”.

It did? How so? “Analysis by Aurora Energy Research has found that Starmer’s pledge to decarbonise Britain’s electricity grid by 2030 will cost £116 billion over the next 11 years. More than double the cost of the government’s current target of 2035 … The report concluded that even if Labour scraped the funds together, the policy is still ‘unfeasible’ due to the supply chain constraints, skills shortages and lead times”. There was more.

“No one believes going green is possible by 2030, though Starmer will bankrupt us trying. As Bim Afolami said, ‘Labour’s unfunded spending commitments just got bigger’”. No citation. Not even for the quote from Afolami. No mention of Policy Exchange. So much for the provisional wing of CCHQ and its dubiously talented convocation of lame propagandists.

Thus the true level of Tory desperation. It still won’t move the poll numbers.

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The Mail - Politics’ Malignant Cancer

As the dust settles on the bad jobs news from South Wales, with between 2,500 and 3,000 due to lose their livelihoods this year as the Port Talbot steelworks makes the transition from coal-fired to electric arc furnaces, there is our free and fearless press telling the electorate what to think about the news, with the inmates of the Northcliffe House bunker in the vanguard.

Who might have caused vaccine uptake to fall?

And the Mail hacks are carrying out their orders despite their having called this one wrong. It is the Mail way: call it wrong, be called out, double down, smear those doing the calling out, demonise anyone of inconvenient thought, then at a convenient distance down the track, play the other side of the field, coming over all righteous over something they advocated in the first place.

So what’s caused the job losses at Port Talbot, owned nowadays by Indian company Tata Steel? Mail pundit and former Murdoch editor Andrew Neil was in no doubt. “Port Talbot is the latest victim of the Tory Government's headlong rush towards Net Zero carbon emissions which has pushed up British energy prices and made what's left of our heavy industry uneconomic”.

This evidence-free claim has been taken up by the Mail on Sunday’s political editor Glen Owen: “Critics have argued that the Net Zero target of eliminating additional greenhouse emissions by 2050 was helping to cripple the UK's industrial base. The job losses at Port Talbot, Britain's biggest steelworks, follow the replacement of its blast furnaces with an electric arc furnace that will emit less CO2”. What did former First Minister Carwyn Jones think?

It was put to him that Tory MPs and the likes of former Brexit Party Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage had blamed the job losses on “Net Zero hysteria or climate policy”. His response? “Why is it that the Netherlands’ plant at IJmuiden, and Tata’s operations elsewhere in the EU, are not being affected … it’s the UK’s operations that are talking the brunt”.

There was more. “We’ve seen what’s happened in the EU, we’ve seen what’s happened in the UK, why the difference? Brexit has created all this uncertainty … When you leave one of the world’s biggest markets, it is inevitable that you will not have the same ability to export unless you put in place … arrangements to enable you to do as you did before”.

Which had not happened. But for the Mail titles, this could not be admitted, as the Daily Mail had shilled for Brexit. Therefore it could not be Brexit’s fault. Worse, had the Government not bunged Tata £500 million to make the electric arc transition, Port Talbot would most likely have closed completely.

And what happened last time there was a Lawson Boom?

That would have been 8,000 jobs down the pan. And the previous day, the Mail was bemoaning “UK GRIPPED BY MEASLES CRISIS … ‘National incident’ declared over disease we wiped out in 2016’”. Not a shred of self-awareness: the Mail spent years demonising the MMR jab. So take-up fell.

Then Mail pundit Melanie “not just Barking but halfway to Upminster” Phillips churned out article after article. “MMR safe? Baloney” she told, on the back of no medical qualifications whatever. No matter: the Mail declared her to be a “top writer”. Now, people are contracting measles and some will die from it. The Mail does not care. Nor does it care about its backing of dud leaders.

It backed Liz Truss. I’ll type that one again: IT BACKED LIZ TRUSS. It launched a virulently anti-Semitic attack on then Labour leader Ed Miliband - then came over all righteous when Miliband’s successor was smeared as an anti-Semite. It backs the most inept, corrupt and malign Government the UK has known. And today it is openly backing another political wrong turn.

“HUNT: TAX CUTS WILL SPARK NEW LAWSON BOOM” it today’s headline. Except, as Jonathan Portes has observed, “The ‘Lawson Boom’ was a catastrophic episode of macroeconomic mismanagement that ended in economic and political disaster”. Which preceded a painful recession. Only after Black Wednesday and the ignominy of another Sterling devaluation did the economy begin to recover. The Mail wants a bit more of that.

Whatever the Mail wants, the UK suffers when it happens. This is not a newspaper. It is a malignant cancer on the body politic. That is all.

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Telegraph - It’s Not Worth Saving

Once again, the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph is devoting part of its front page to promoting Itself Personally Now in the face of a takeover bid from Redbird IMI, a company which, it claims today, is “a private equity joint venture that is three quarters funded by the Gulf autocracy [they mean Abu Dhabi]”. And lots of MPs back their stance, honestly.

It’s just that very few names are pitched. Instead, we read that “A Cabinet minister and frontbenchers from both major parties are among 73 MPs known to oppose the bid … One Cabinet minister [unnamed] told the Telegraph: ‘I do not support the sale and hope it won’t go ahead’ … Four other Conservative ministers are also understood to have concerns”. No citation. No evidence.

So is the Tel worth keeping out of the hands of dastardly Forrins? Sadly, one look at the rest of today’s front page tells you the answer, and that answer is a resounding NO. Gone is the paper of record, its reputation trashed by pursuit of profit and the abandonment of any delineation of News and Comment. Consider three items teased or discussed on that front page.

We see Dan, Dan The Oratory Man having another go at the NHS, in his effortless stuck record manner. Hannan has been telling stories of, shall we say, variable veracity on the subject since before Zelo Street started up, which means for at least fifteen years. If keeping the Tel away from Jeff Zucker and his backers means keeping Hannan, it ain’t worth it.

Nor is the peddling of climate change denialism dressed up as “News”, as in the headline “Councils in ‘antidemocratic’ dash to beat Net Zero targets”. This piece is underpinned by “Research by … Climate Debate UK”. Yeah, they only want a debate about it! FREEZE PEACH!! Let’s hear from CDUK, then.

“New sales of petrol and diesel cars are set to be banned, and ordinary people are being priced off the road [doesn’t follow - no citation]. The domestic gas boiler is due to be replaced with expensive and inferior heat pumps [pejorative - no citation], requiring extensive retrofits of our homes at yet more expense [no citation]”. Got any actual evidence?

“Governments, technocrats and ideologues pursue ever more intrusions into our lives, with plans to control our diets and change our behaviour [flat out lying]. Smart meters will ration our energy use through time-of-day pricing, and will switch off our appliances at the push of a button in some far-away office [more lying]. We are going to be confined to ’15 minute neighbourhoods’ [and yet more lying]”. So that’s NO actual evidence, then.

CDUK then pull another whopper by claiming dissenting voices are being shut out, when, with the assistance of the wacko part of our free and fearless press, dissenting voices are all we hear. And with the main headline in today’s Tel, it gets worse. “Sunak: I’ll cut tax by curbing welfare … Help for taxpayers in spring to be followed by additional pledges in run-up to election”.

Which means, as Adam Bienkov of Byline Times observed, “So a plan to cut support for some of the poorest people in the country in order to cut taxes for the wealthiest four per cent of estates”. Many of those on Universal Credit are also in work. What is Sunak proposing? Hitting the disabled, the long term sick, and carers? More likely, this is what the Tel is pushing.

As to the idea that Telegraph Media Group, which owns the Tel, and the increasingly alt-right Spectator magazine, is some kind of British institution, here’s a snippet from its Wiki entry: “In June 2023, the group was put up for sale, after its parent company B.UK, a Bermuda-based holding company, went into receivership”. A Bermuda-based holding company. Yes, well.

Moreover, the idea that Tel equals News is for the birds. As Dave Hill of OnLondon put it, “The [Telegraph] is more and more closely resembling a rogue media organisation - extremely misleading ‘stories’ if not outright lying and a sinister far-right political agenda”. It’s no longer a newspaper, but yet another propaganda outlet, filled with falsehood and misinformation.

Which means it’s not worth saving. Sold to Mr Zucker and his pals!

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Strong Hint - Ceasefire NOW

Hundreds of thousands of those showing solidarity with the Palestinian people have gathered in central London today. It looks as if the 300,000 total reckoned to have attended last week’s march has been exceeded: maybe not the million some are suggesting, but probably around half that. Why there should be such a large presence today is not hard to figure out.

Beginning yesterday evening, the state of Israel cut off Internet connection to the whole of Gaza, along with power. In the darkness, the rocketing, bombing and shelling of a defenceless civilian population continued, intensified, and rained down death and destruction through the night. Supposedly safe areas were targeted as indiscriminately as others. Including hospitals.

This last came after Binyamin Netanyahu claimed, possibly with a straight face, “Hamas-ISIS is sick. They turn hospitals into headquarters for their terror. We just released intelligence proving it. Here it is”. A slick graphic accompanied the Tweet. But just as Hamas and ISIS are two different organisations, reality and Bibi’s claim are most likely also very different.

Later, the IDF claimed that they had killed a Hamas commander, as if this justified trashing whole areas of Gaza. Meanwhile, in the dark and with no means of communication, ambulances could do no better than drive towards the area of the latest bombardment. The death toll, previously at 7,000, with well over 1,000 missing beneath the rubble, will have risen yet further.

Collective punishment. An occupying power cutting off essential services, including power and water. Preventing aid from getting through. Around 3,000 of those 7,000 dead are children. While our lame political leaders - both Tory and Labour - sit on their hands and hope it will all go away, others make their feelings known. Overnight, that meant the USA and Australasia.

As Jewish Voice for Peace told, “HAPPENING NOW AT NYC'S GRAND CENTRAL STATION: THOUSANDS OF JEWS AND ALLIES HOLD AN EMERGENCY SIT-IN, DEMANDING A CEASEFIRE IN GAZA. WE'RE TAKING OVER THE GRAND CONCOURSE. WE'RE REFUSING TO ALLOW A GENOCIDE BE CARRIED OUT IN OUR NAMES. CEASEFIRE NOW! NEVER AGAIN FOR ANYONE!” The iconic concourse packed solid.

Why so? Quds News Network: “On the left side of the picture is Bilal Saleh, a Palestinian farmer. This morning, he was picking olives in his land in the village of Sawiya, north of the occupied West Bank, a few minutes before Israeli terror settler militias raided his land and shot him dead in cold blood”.

He wasn’t anything to do with Hamas. And those who murdered him will face no criminal sanction. The West Bank has seen a steady stream of bloodshed, with Palestinian houses demolished, as settlers appropriate more land from those who have previously lived there. Yet there are organisations wanting to shut down protests, occasionally deploying easily disproved claims.

Like the so-called Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, which howled “Tomorrow there is yet another ‘National March for Palestine’. As we said at our demonstration, [The Metropolitan Police] must impose conditions under s.12 of the Public Order Act. Central London cannot be allowed to become a no-go zone for Jews every weekend. Make arrests, not excuses”. However.

Jewish Voice for Labour had already shot that particular fox. “March for Palestine: Jewish Block … Join Jewish Comrades on Saturday 28th October 11:30 to demand CEASEFIRE NOW … Meeting point: Cleopatra’s Needle, Embankment, WC2N 6NU”. Some “No-go zone for Jews” that was, with seven Jewish organisations joining the march. CAA research fail. Again.

Meanwhile, LBC host James O’Brien asked the obvious question: “How can calling for a ceasefire be controversial? It’s literally asking people killing civilians to stop. You can ignore the calls, disagree with them or try to explain why the killing ‘must’ continue, but trying to silence calls to end this carnage goes against all our values”. It cannot be answered with “look over there”.

What part of “CEASEFIRE NOW” do our political leaders not understand?

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Gaza - Starmer Behind The Curve

A quote attributed to Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin, one of the leaders of the 1848 Revolution, was the probably apocryphal “There go the people. I must follow them, for I am their leader”. The leader who is behind the curve, only making their mind up after everyone else has made up theirs. The quote could so easily have been attributed to Labour leader Keir Starmer.

There are ever louder calls for a ceasefire in the Israel and Hamas conflict, which would mean, mostly, the IDF desisting from its round-the-clock rocketing, bombing and shelling of Gaza, where whole neighbourhoods have been levelled and over 7,000 killed, including more than 3,000 children. But here Starmer is as the proverbial rabbit in those approaching headlights.

It has been claimed that he is reluctant to move until the USA has joined the ceasefire call. This may dismay some, but is understandable: ever since the Suez débàcle, Israel has known to which country its wagon should be hitched, and that country is not the UK or France, with whom it joined in the deception that ended the brief premiership of Anthony Eden.

Eden thought he could win over Gemayel Abdul Nasser; he learned some of the language, had done that sort of thing before. He won no-one over: Egypt seized the Suez Canal, Eden, the poshest of PMs, denounced Nasser as a “fah-sist”, and cooked up the deception with the French and Israelis, which was bust when US President Eisenhower told them all to desist.

It was a re-election year; Ike wanted to present himself as a man of peace. From that point on, the UK followed the US, sometimes managing not to look too slavish, but on occasion, as with Tony Blair backing Dubya Bush over Iraq, showing just how far, and at the expense of a serious amount of credibility, UK Governments were prepared to go to please Washington DC.

Starmer has already shown himself to be less than totally nimble when challenged on the behaviour of Binyamin Netanyahu and his pals. We are now being told that when he said Israel was within its rights to cut off power and water to Gaza, he was misrepresented. He was not. The audio is out there. Cutting off water and power to an occupied territory is a war crime.

That’s as in Section 33 of the Geneva Convention. Not only have Starmer and his team tried to rewrite reality, they are now in the Ledru-Rollin camp over calls for a ceasefire. One by one, senior Labour figures are calling out their leader, and with the certainty of night following day, are stating unequivocally that a ceasefire has to be called for.

Starmer’s latest headache has been induced by London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who has demonstrated his considerable abilities by getting his own ducks in a line first. Like the Community Security Trust, who met Khan and later Tweeted approvingly “Thank you, Sadiq Khan, for challenging antisemitism and all forms of hate crime.” They could hardly denounce him after that.

And so it came to pass that the Mayor told earlier today “Thousands of innocent civilians have already been killed in Israel and Gaza. With the humanitarian crisis set to deteriorate even further, I’m calling for a ceasefire”. Full stop, no ifs, no buts. Which puts his party leader in one of those Very Difficult Positions. He can hardly suspend Khan. What does he do?

His minders can’t retrospectively redefine reality: the claim he was “misrepresented” will join other chin-stroking moments on shows like HIGNFY and be repeated relentlessly. He can’t sit this one out. On Israel and Gaza, he cannot get away with standing for nothing. 7,000 dead in Gaza, 1,000 unidentified bodies buried under the rubble, and counting. DO SOMETHING.

Remember Galbraith’s definition of leadership. “All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership”. Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has now confronted that anxiety. He has called for a ceasefire.

Quit waiting for the USA. Get off the fence and show some leadership.

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Spectator Bigot Goes To Portugal

After making my move to Portugal earlier this year, it was inevitable that others would follow: with the inevitability of night following day, the UK is becoming more run down, more indebted and more unloved as the Tories, still backed by our free and fearless press, foul everything up yet more. So it was that someone out there on the right made the same decision.

Lionel Shriver. Now resident in the EU

Not just on the right, too: from the increasingly alt-right Spectator magazine, the only slightly bigoted Lionel Shriver has admitted that she and her husband should now be somewhere in the country, having penned “I’m leaving Britain - and I feel guilty” earlier this month and assuring readers “Our movers arrive tomorrow”. Did she ask how long that process would take?

Because if her house worth of goods is part of a Groupage, it’ll be several weeks before she sees any of it again. And then there are all those Customs declarations and maybe extra charges. Still, she makes sure to tell “Beautiful beaches extend a 15-minute stroll from our new house, roomier than anything we could afford in Britain; from our awaiting back balconies, the sea glistens on the horizon”. Slow moving mass of water nearby? Mosquitoes, anyone?

Then we get that bigotry. “Not to get stuck into Suella Braverman’s whole multiculturalism palaver, but Portugal is still culturally coherent. The population is only 11 million, and most of them are Portuguese. In the London neighbourhood we’re leaving behind, we have not been living among the English”. Would that mean people who are not white? Surprise, surprise!

Yes, 92.5% of those resident in Portugal are Portuguese nationals. But that does not mean they are all white. Before the expiry of the Estado Novo in 1974, the country held doggedly on to its colonies, claiming that they weren’t really colonies, but parts of a Greater Portugal, honestly.

There was also, until 1961, a Portuguese foothold on the Indian sub continent, in the shape, mainly, of Goa. The Indian Government seized Goa in a brief military operation; the Government of António de Oliveira Salazar attempted to invoke the old alliance with Britain, but Perfidious Albion was conflicted, as the former colonial power. So the UK sat on its hands long enough for Goa to fall. Those talking of old alliances should note that well.

Praça do Comércio, Lisbon. With the Barreiro ferry arriving

Portugal’s Prime Minister António Costa has Goan heritage. Many other citizens have African heritage. Ms Shriver may be about to discover the hard way that multiculturalism does not end at the Channel. She is also going to find her other assumptions do not stand up well. Like on energy.

“I’ve watched with growing horror for 25 years while coal and nuclear power plants have gone offline with no serious reinvestment in reliable energy sources”. What’re you doing moving to Portugal, then? The last coal power plant has ceased generation, and there never was commercial nuclear power. But there is an emphasis on renewables, especially hydro power.

Do go on. “I’ve increasingly had the sensation of living in a country that is falling apart”. Like how, and what? “The NHS is in a state of collapse”. There are continual concerns about the SNS, the Portuguese equivalent. Have another go. “For the last year, the prevalence of strikes has been positively Gallic”. Have I got news for you, Ms S! Strikes, you say. Yes, well.

This year’s rail strikes dragged on, but they’ve all been settled. Doctors and other medics? Still going on. Try again. “With a fierce and worsening housing shortage”. Not moving anywhere near Lisbon, then. And then comes “Although improved weather beckons”. Moving just in time for the weather to break, sorry. Starting later this week. And did I mention bureaucracy?

Just wait until she gets to the till at the local supermarket and the person there asks “Contribuinte?” Getting a Social Security number is its own aptitude test. So is being sent somewhere like Viana do Castelo to pursue the all-important residence permit. And getting a bank account? I’ll have to assume she passed that test. After all that, Bem-Vindo a Portugal.

Hopefully nowhere near Pinhal Novo, mind. There are limits to tolerance.

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So Farewell Then Rupert Murdoch

As the dust settles, and we see clearly a political landscape ravaged by hatred, bigotry, paranoia, division, denialism, faux populism, and an Overton Window dragged deliberately and relentlessly to the right, those elected to serve may take responsibility for the impoverishment of debate and livelihoods, and they may not. But they are just the fall guys.

Out goes the old face of evil ...

In the English-speaking world, from his native Australia to the UK to the USA, which gave him citizenship, one individual bears responsibility for poisoning the well, and his name is Keith Rupert Murdoch. Here we have had a mafia boss to outrank all other mafia bosses, whose empire has messed up whole countries, and with no comeback to worry about. Let that sink in.

So when the news came yesterday that Don Rupioni was finally relinquishing the reins of power to his favourite son Lachlan, and some commentators began to praise the old tyrant, one could be sure that this reflected only the emptiness and amorality of so much of the media class. Rupert Murdoch was not just an unelected foreigner. He was the embodiment of pure evil.

One need only consider the kinds of people that the Murdoch mafiosi have willingly employed: the deeply unpleasant Kelvin McFilth, their UK CEO Rebekah Brooks (twice), the singularly repellant Dan Wootton, and over at Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse) there were wackos like Glenn Beck, Jeanine Pirro, Laura Ingraham, and Tucker Carlson.

When the new media idiocy like Darren Grimes (not at all craftily) say of him “Rupert Murdoch has been a force for good in the world throughout his life and through his media empire”, you can deduce two things: Grimes is full of crap (which you probably knew anyway), and he is desperately trying to gain the attention of someone in the Baby Shard bunker - to score some money.

This is not an isolated example: as with the central premise of Terry Southern’s Magic Christian, people will do anything for money; everyone has their price. The Murdoch empire added fear to that equation: do as you’re told and you’re paid well, don’t do as you’re told and you become a journalistic Unperson in very short order. And don’t even think about whistleblowing.

... and in comes the new one

So while the BBC report on Rupe kicking himself upstairs is procedural and anodyne (the Beeb is also scared of him), the Guardian’s Dan Sabbagh has brought us “Power and scandal: how Murdoch drove the UK, US and Australia to the right”, which is rather more revealing, reminding us that phone hacking is still a thing, and Fox News is in big defamation trouble.

He notes “The Sun, whose Page 3 topless photographs lasted 44 years, turned from Labour to supporting Margaret Thatcher. Murdoch bought the Times titles with a supportive government in the background and fought the print unions at Wapping - before switching later to Tony Blair, eagerly backing him over the invasion of Iraq and sticking with him long after it had been revealed to be a disaster”. Hundreds of thousands dead. A failed state.

Every Murdoch newspaper backed the Iraq War. All 170 plus of them. The idea that all those editors came to the decision independently is pure tosh. Sabbagh again: “When the polls turned again, the papers, always with the proprietor making the final call, backed David Cameron, then Brexit, a once marginal cause that had been kept alive by a handful of rightwing newspapers … until it eventually went mainstream”. Another disaster.

And another disaster for which Don Rupioni does not have to face any kind of judgment. He is a politician unanswerable to electorates, the ultimate example of Stanley Baldwin’s “Power without responsibility”.

What, then, of favourite son Lachlan? He is just as far to the right as his father. He also, it seems, would continue the now loss-making Sun. The editorial line at Fox News is unlikely to change. The hatred, bigotry, paranoia, climate change denialism and faux populism will carry on. The elected politicians will bow down before the new Capo di Tutti Capi.

Unless the Murdoch family indulge in a little infighting. That’s your only hope.

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Rishi Sunak Slags Off Himself

With the Tories still well north of 20 points behind Labour in the polls, amateur Prime Minister Rishi Sunak needed something to take to Conference season, something his loyal followers could sell on the doorstep. So-called Inaction Man had to become active. So what would a sensible PM have done? What would an honest PM have done? What would Nietzsche have done?

"Honest" Sunak - not waving but drowning

Such is the desperation of not only the Tories, but their cheerleaders in and around our free and fearless press, that the answer consisted not merely of talking well, but lying badly, but a retrospective redefinition of reality, so that Sunak could claim he was ditching a host of policy commitments that had not existed in the first place. And the press followed him down his rabbit hole.

Here’s the claims put out on Sunak’s behalf. “We’re stopping heavy-handed measures … Taxes on eating meat … New taxes to discourage flying … Sorting your rubbish into seven different bins … Compulsory car sharing … Expensive insulation upgrades”. The first four of those five points do not exist, so to claim they are being stopped is a flat-out lie.

And the fifth, on insulation upgrades, is firstly a “no citation” claim (how is it ‘expensive’?), and secondly, the beneficiaries are in most part going to be the landlord class - the already well off. So the only real change proposed will not benefit working people. “There is nothing to be scrapped.. You're making a series of claims that aren't true” he was told on the Today programme.

His response? “I don't think its right to chase the short term headlines, just assert some goal for the future without a clear plan to deliver it and without being honest”. But that is exactly what he is doing. And the short-term headlines are just as he would have wanted, with the Daily Brexit, still called the Express, leading the way with the fantasy and propaganda.

“‘HONEST’ RISHI: NATION WON’T AND CAN’T PAY NET ZERO BILL”. Putting “HONEST” in quote marks? OH WHAT A GIVEAWAY! The Mail was also bending reality to suit itself, with “I’LL SPARE FAMILIES RUINOUS COST OF NET ZERO, VOWS RISHI … PM takes on eco-zealots in bold move that could transform Tory fortunes”. But the Sun went one worse.

“Sun Campaign Victory … Rishi delays bans on new cars & boilers … Scraps meat & flight tax in eco pushback … Given us a brake!” As Harold Macmillan almost said many years ago, could we have an English translation of that? The supporting article, under the by-line of the odious flannelled fool Master Harry Cole, still pretending to be a journalist, maintains the dishonesty.

“THE PM hailed The Sun tonight as he delayed crippling net zero targets”. What makes them “crippling”, Master Cole? You wouldn’t be just recycling a Downing Street press release, would you? He also claims “he bins petrol car ban” when no ban on petrol cars is proposed. He should have said NEW petrol cars. So “Drivers have a five-year reprieve from going electric” is crap.

Then we get “A ban on gas boilers was binned, along with taxes on meat and flying”. Would that be NEW gas boilers? So misleading again. And those taxes on meat and flying don’t exist. So that’s lying to boot. And it got worse. “Mr Sunak … announced ‘BONKERS proposals for seven household bins, forced car pooling and taxes on meat and flying would never return’”.

There is no proposal for seven household bins, or forced car pooling. But the non-existent taxes on meat and flying get another mention. So why is the Sun going all-in with the whoppers? “Writing in The Sun today, the PM added: ‘Hard-pressed families shouldn’t have to pay an unaffordable price to reach net zero’”. Ah, the Murdoch mafiosi get a press release, sorry article, out of it.

And what makes current Net Zero proposals “unaffordable”? It’s just another example of what Peter Oborne called “shovelling it on” - don’t bother with doing any analysis, don’t interrogate your source, just recycle what they feed you. Master Cole gets called a “Political Editor”, yet all he and his contemporaries are doing is recycling press releases for the Tories.

It’s the only recycling scheme the press can agree on. So it will continue.

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Mail Climate Change Disconnect

Some out there still believe that newspapers really do seek to educate and inform their readers. That they do not is not always an easy sell. At times like this, though, the opposition often comes riding to your rescue, and this morning, the inmates of the Northcliffe House bunker have come galloping.

The subject, not for the first time this summer, is man-made climate change, and its manifestations. The BBC is reporting currently on “At least 20 dead after torrential South Korea rain”, alongside “A third of Americans under extreme heat advisories”, and closer to home, “Heatwave prompts red alerts in 16 Italian cities”. That report tells “Periods of intense heat occur within natural weather patterns, but globally they are becoming more frequent, more intense and are lasting longer due to global warming”.

And while there are still some pretending that it’s not happening, or that there is no link to the burning of fossil fuels, others are taking matters into their own hands, with groups like Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil protesting, taking direct action in order to shake the public out of their complacency.

This the Mail will not take seriously. Hence headlines such as “'Get out of the road!': White van man tells Just Stop Oil protesters exactly what he thinks of them as traffic speeds past their latest London slow-march protest” and “Just Stop Oil eco zealot with a TAG on her ankle is seen being led away by police - as angry motorists resort to driving around activists and over pavements during yet another slow march”. The demonisation is off the scale.

Hence calling the protesters “eco zealots”, “eco clowns”, “pathetic and tedious”, and of course giving a good kicking to anyone who expresses sympathy with them. We have also had the sad sight of Labour’s Rachel Reeves dissing JSO in order to curry favour with the likes of the Mail.

But then came the heatwaves, and today all is changed, as the Mail’s front page howls “MELTDOWN … Holiday crisis as strike threatens to cripple Gatwick … Second walkout could hit one in three flights across Europe … and if you do get there, it’ll be a sweltering 45C!” There was more.

The supporting article told “A third blow to the holiday industry comes from record heatwaves on the Continent. Temperatures are tipped to exceed 45C (113F) ‘ making it too hot to go to the beach at popular resorts … Millions of families are now questioning whether an increasingly costly foreign break is worthwhile, with research showing that only 25 per cent of those considering one have actually booked”. Yes, it’s now affecting Mail readers.

So it has to be taken seriously. The paper is even conceding “Household budgets are also being stretched by sky-high inflation and soaring mortgage repayment costs”, although this is subject to the same disconnect as the heatwaves: the ineptitude of the Mail’s preferred Government cannot be cited as contributing to the inflation, and food and mortgage costs.

Headlines such as “Cerberus's inferno: Europe is set to hit its hottest temperature EVER within days as 48C double heatwaves that are named after mythological guardians of Hell leave continent boiling in sweat … British tourists across the Mediterranean are being warned of deadly temperatures reaching highs of 48.8C … Now, Italian meteorologists are warning the continent may be hit by another brutal heatwave next week” are generated.

It was bad then. It's worse now

Only grudgingly does the Mail admit the causes: “What's causing Europe's heatwave? Scientists reveal how scorching temperatures across the continent are being driven by a high-pressure anticyclone and El Niño - as well as climate change”. Climate change tacked on as an afterthought.

And never linked to Extinction Rebellion or Just Stop Oil, who are both there to be sneered at and viciously demonised. What do the Dacre doggies think drives climate change? Any chance of them suggesting to their readers that the protesters are not mere “zealots” or “clowns”, that they are sincere and have a valid point to make? Any chance of dealing in reality?

Any chance of the Mail behaving responsibly? Nah, that’ll never happen.

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