Society
Even in Euroland you can spend and tax…
Better late then never… this is an ITV piece from last October on the Italian ‘Superbonus’ scheme , of which I was previously unaware. This is a scheme that allows householders to insulate everything, replace windows and doors, install a heat pump and solar panels and be given, up to approximately 20,000 Euros to pay... Read more
Environmental cloud cuckoo land
A worrying report form the International Energy Agency states that last year: The increase in global CO2 emissions of over 2 billion metric tons was the largest in history in absolute terms, more than offsetting the previous year’s pandemic-induced decline. Apparently: The emissions increases in those two years in China more than offset the aggregate... Read more
More things Ukraine has taught us
I think this a very informative article on how we got here. While I’m certainly not excusing Putin’s forces’ callous and in all probability, war crime cruelty, towards civilians in Ukraine, it does rather seem that Russia’s continued lack of democratic control is down to the economic reforms of the past, which failed to pay... Read more
Confusing by Thatcher quotations
I see the FT has published a letter from Carol Wilcox headlined ‘A Labour Government can ditch the deficit myth’. Why, she asks, “does the UK government need to borrow its own money?” Quite. So shouldn’t progressives be repeating their own ‘mantra’? Just as the Tories do? The latest evidence was this speech by Sajid... Read more
Home Office Visa Profits
What d’ya mean you didn’t know it was a profit centre? Under the Conservatives every stream of government money invariably has a private beneficiary: And the British embassy in Brussels doesn’t issue visas – that’s done by a private company opposite Brussels station – this is the picture of the UK Brussels visa office: Run... Read more
‘Under any normal administration that would be a resigning matter’ – Sir Roger Gale
No less, who rightly indicts, Home Secretary Patel: This a Kent (remember the boats) Tory MP. Good for him – and us… Although for our dysfunctional democracy there is, unfortunately, precisely no result.... Read more
Russia sanctions are demonstrative of how the UK government has been bought
Remarkably to me, both Ikea and M&S are pulling out of Russia. Perhaps less remarkably, the following are not: Starbucks, KFC, McDonalds, Burger King, Pepsi and Coca Cola. All these are easy to avoid, but we should note that Coca Cola also owns: Schweppes, Sprite, Fanta, Vitamin Water, Lilt, Power Ade, Appletise and Dr Pepper.... Read more
We are ensuring an impoverished nation:
As this chart shows: Quite amazing and horrifying, as that’s getting on for a third of UK families . So automatically disadvantaging them . What a really caring government… or not… we have Of course the government, care, except for themselves, largely about money. Just not people. Yet it is cheaper – even in monetary... Read more
Tory MP names lawyers…
I thought this extract was interesting – A Tory MP from true blue Isle of Wight, getting worried about some lawyers’ concsciences. It seems to have escaped him that lawyers work within the law and he’s one of the legislators who make it. Rather than criticising those that practice it, shouldn’t he be suggesting that... Read more
How Ukraine may have changed us
First, surely we now realise that we have been played by President ex KGB, Putin… Putin has wished to destabilise anyone or any country who he thinks could upset his aims. In this he has surely been wildly successful. Brexit has found him willing partners – as has the French Presidential hopeful, Marine LePen and... Read more