Gross bias on Radio 5 Live. Norman Smith giving his personal opinion as if it counted for anything. It doesn't. I paraphrase but he said, in interview with Egregious Emma, something to the effect: "It is dangerous to speak in hostile terms of what Parliament has been doing as anti-democratic because Parliament is the democratic fulcrum of our politics." That Norm is simply your political opinion, not an objective fact. There are numerous examples around the world of national assemblies, including democratically elected ones acting in undemocratic ways e.g. at the end of the Weimar Republic, in Moscow more recently, in Ankara and elsewhere.
The idea that it is democratic for a Parliament to block implementaton of a referendum result that nearly all its members declared to be legitimate and definitive, is not democratic. Neither is forcing a government to jump through Remainer hoops while refusing to allow an election to be called.
Norm, you're entitled to your opinion, but reserve it for home and down the pub. When broadcasting on the BBC, restrict yourself to reporting facts and other people's opinions, not giving us your (very predictably, pro-Remain) views.
Would it be democratic for parliament to put through another 'three-day' bill for a fixed parliament? After all the plebs don't know what they voted for so why bother letting them vote ever again? We are living in very strange times when all the 'checks and balances' seem to be turned against the will of the people.
Exactly. Emergency procedures are being used in a non-emergency. We are large well developed country that has chosen to leave the EU - we can do that without catastrophic consequences of the type painted by Fanatical Remainers.
Sue, you haven't heard the last of this! I am crowdfunding an appeal to to the ECHR. We of the September Open Thread will not be silenced! (I have got Gina Miller on the phone right now!)
What's a "source" for the goose is not allowed to be a "source" for the gander, according to the BBC. :)
BTW why is no-one querying that ridiculous WW2 style codename "Yellowhammer" for the Hammond Project Fear analysis of a no deal impact? Absurd hysteria. While we've been in the EU Dover port has been blockaded by French fishermen on numerous occasions and sometimes for days on end...overall effect? Er - no one noticed apart from the people of Kent trying to get about on their motorways, which were used as lorry parks. If there was a "National Lettuce Crisis", I don't remember it.
Our government needs to grow up and stop frightening the children with ghostly-ghoul-murder-most-foul made up stuff.
And since when did a "worst case scenario" become a "forecast" - well when Norman Smith is doing the "analysis" (or rather, opinionating)...he slipped that in to help the Remain cause. I might think that a worst case scenario for the weather this autumn might be a repeat of the Great Storm of 1986 (?)...it doesn't mean I am forecasting it.
The Remainer fanatics are taking us to a very dark place. The Lunatic Letwin is now talking about delaying an election until the Summer, to ensure Boris agrees an Abject Surrender Treaty with the EU. The Remainiacs in Parliament have dismantled our constitution, kidnapped our government and are now holding it to ransom on behalf of the EU mafia.
As far as the BBC are concerned Letwin is a good guy.
BBC, Guardian and Independent are reporting a speech by Bercow 'insisting that Boris Johnson must obey law and ask for Brexit extension', going on to compare Boris with a bank-robber giving the proceeds of his crime to charitable causes. There's no doubt that Bercow thinks he has the whip hand over Boris. He seems to be planning to ensure the derailment of Brexit before he leaves office.
The 'news' of Bercow's speech is still being featured strongly this morning on BBC radio news and the BBC News website.:
... 'Bercow pledges 'creativity' to stop no-deal Brexit' ...
We know that the BBC has abandoned any pretence of impartiality over Brexit - now it seems, so has the reputedly impartial Speaker of the HoC. Now, we can see the smart Alec craftiness from Bercow which resulted from his decision to quit, but not before he put a spoke in the wheel of Brexit.
In business, if an employee is suspended, sacked or resigns, it is perfectly normal to take from them their means of access to the company and its databases, customers, colleagues, management etc in order to prevent them from causing damage to the company. Why do similar restrictions not apply to the Speaker, when his intention to cause damage is patently obvious.
There's a thought: The Speaker is traditionally dragged 'reluctantly' from the benches to the Speaker's chair at the start of his/her term. Instead of the faux reluctance, we might see some of the real McCoy if the same method was used to eject him from the chamber.
Michel Barnier approves of the BBC's Brexitcast programme. Well there's a surprise...And the BBC are proud that he's pleased...like some insufferable teacher's pet pleased to receive a gold star. There's another surprised...
Do BBC journalists normally mock people who have been imprisoned for reporting on trials - even more, mock them for their appearance? In this case the answer is a resounding YES.
Casciani here seems to be taking TR's presence outside HMP Belmarsh personally - surely this is a hate crime, but then with the BBC hate only travels one way - from the far-right.
Guido has a clip of the BBC's golden one Steph McGovern caught on mic poking fun at Boris Johnson. Apparently she was compèring the event. I'm not sure if it was a BBC production or whether she was moonlighting - as most of them do. Either way, I believe she should be reprimanded for these insolent words directed towards the PM. As with many other BBC reporters, she won't be - she'll put it proudly on her resumé and in due course receive promotion and a bonus.
It was an IPPR event in Rotherham - she was probably therefore moonlighting unless the BBC have helped to stage the event. The BBC News website report
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49690613
... 'Boris Johnson 'won't be deterred' from Brexit on 31 October' ...
features the following:
... 'During the PM's speech, at the Convention of the North in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, he was heckled by an audience member who told him to "get back to Parliament" and "sort out the mess that you have created".' ...
This sounds like a QT style staged heckle. The BBC report fails to mention that it was a 'Convention' sponsored by IPPR - a Labour supporting think tank? Boris needs to learn fast how to cut out the middleman and speak directly to the electorate.
Steph McGovern's words were: “For the record, I am a girly swot and I’m proud of it… let’s see who’s in the job the longest”.
Yes, you could have been flipping burgers down the local MacDonalds for all the light you shed on the Brexit process. That said, he's not as annoying as the other Chris.
Sam Smith, the male singer has said he is non-binary. The BBC website story refers to him as ‘they’ to confirm this gender type. It is the first time I have seen this on the BBC.
It looks like we may about to see the end of ‘he’ and ‘she’ as the only BBC pronouns for gender.
Welcome to the parallel universe of the wokesphere. If gender, as trans activists keep shouting at everybody is merely a social construct, you would have to conclude that their own definition of gender is also a construct. Constructed by themselves. Gender really doesn’t mean anything at all. Sam Smith now apparently wishes to be referred to by they or them. Is this a recognition that he now sees himself in the plural, or just bad grammar? Serious question, given the proposition by a BBC BBC resource for children that there are “more than 100 genders”.
In many ways the people who this absurd argument from woke activists about pronouns hurts the most are genuine transexuals. I would imagine that after all pain and trauma they have gone through in transitioning to the opposite sex they would want to be be referred to as him or her.
Points taken but just to be pedantic, Shakespeare used "they" to denote an individual and it is used commonly in English. It's quite convenient to denote an individual rather than saying he/she especially when describing formal procedures and the like. That said, to use it in a personal way with friends and family seems more problematic to me. "Is Sam coming over for Christmas dinner?" "I don't know I'll give them a call and check...It would be nice to see them and their partner." Sounds wrong to me.
I recall that Evelyn Waugh felt a tremendous sense of relief in 1939 when the Nazi-Soviet Pact was announced because all the real enemies of civilised society came into view.
Gotta say the last week or so feels the same way to me. We now see them all lined up: John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Jo Swinson ("I want a second referendum but I will not honour its result if it goes against me"), Nicola Sturgeon ("populist nationalism is Far Right racist unless it's my populist nationalism"), the IRA ("we'll blow up your non-existent border posts"), Dominic Grieve (Legion d'honneur), John Bercow (ex Monday Club cryto-fascist), Olly Robbins (now employed by no. 1 Remainer outfit on the planet, Goldman Sachs), Oliver "Lunatic" Letwin (thinks he can "prorogue" an election for the next 10 years until he gets his way), Anna Soubry (gin, straight)... etc etc
Yes we can now see them all clearly...
They are the ENEMY. And if you call them the enemy they will say you are being horrible to them...even though they call YOU the ENEMY!!!
Your list of 'enemies' should include the party leaders: Kinnock, Clegg, Beckett, Harman, Farron, Miliband and Hague - all have come out as being strongly anti Brexit. Together with May and your list above, indications of solidarity for EU membership from all major parties has evolved over decades. It has only been since the the 2016 referendum and now, when the chips are down, that the extent of the political establishment's love affair with the EU has become apparent.
Had my side (Leave) in the 2016 Referendum lost...
1. I was prepared to accept the result.
2. I had no expectation that the winning side would be required by ex Prime Ministers, the BBC or the Guardian to "accommodate the views of the 48% who wanted to leave the EU" in such a scenario. And even if I had thought that might be sensible, I would wonder how the hell you could make that sort of accommodation.
3. I would not have supported anyone trying to launch legal actions to overturn or impede the result of the referendum being put into operation...even if they were very rich, very telegenic and supported every inch of the way by the BBC.
4. I would not have tried to launch a "Project Fear" through the mainstream media and the BBC suggesting that the EU was heading for an economic meltdown (even though the ECB has just had to resort to quantitive easing to head off an economic meltdown) or suggested we were facing a repeat of the million migrant catastrophe of 2015 (even though Turkey has announced that is exactly what is going to happen).
On the assumption that books are launched in the first two weeks in October to hit the shops in time for the Christmas buying spree, it might appear that the launch of David Cameron's memoirs have been fast-tracked. From the point of view of Brexiteers, this move can only be interpreted as a damaging intervention from Cameron and/or his publishers.
The choice of launch date may of course be purely a commercial decision, but with comments from Cameron about how he regrets ever having called the referendum, and how he bemoans the outcome every day, his intervention can be seen as a move intended to damage Boris Johnson and his own party, joining in with the clamour to prevent Brexit at all costs by whatever means there are.
Cameron's hypocrisy is quite stunning. He complains that Boris wasn't a real Leaver and opted leave to further his political career. This from the guy who claimed to be a "Eurosceptic"!!! and then campaigned to stay in the EU despite his complete failure to obtain anything like reform from the EU. He only claimed to be Eurosceptic in order to get selected for his seat and to win the leadership. He is not by any definition a Eurosceptic, as we now see with his complete exoneration of the EU and hateful comments about Leavers.
Cameron complains that the Leavers made use of the possible accession of Turkey as an issue in the campaign. This was quite proper after the UK had seen such a huge influx of migrants from newly acceded countries like Poland and Romania. But of course Cameron was highly deceptice during the campaign by claiming that there was "no chance" of Turkey joining despite Cameron himself enthusiastically supporting their membership application on numerous occasions both personally and formally within the EU.
Cameron suggests he handicapped himself in the media by not wish to launch Blue on Blue attacks. Two points there: firstly, the Conservatives in the Leave campaign launched no personal campaigns against him (so maybe that was more self-preservation than anything honourable) and, secondly, Cameron had virtually the whole of the UK media on his side.
Cameron claims that the BBC mistook "balance" for "impartiality". He gives as an example the fact that most businesses supported the Remain campaign but the BBC would got to the minority of businesses that supported Remain in order to achieve a "balance".
This is a return to the BBC's own ideas that it can act as an objective arbiter in political disputes (strangely, nearly always coming down on the left-liberal side of the debate).
The reality was that during the Referendum campaign the BBC was incredibly biased to the Remain side as often shown here with stopwatch analyses and the like. There was a pattern where the BBC would nearly always lead with a Remain talking point. The Remain spokesperson(s) would be given more time than the Leave people. The Remain comments would be described in rational terms "the CBI has warned that x,y,z...experts consider there is a high risk of blah-blah"...But the Leave response would be described in emotional terms: "The Leave spokesperson reacted angrily to the suggestion and lashed out at the CBI stating..." etc etc .
Cameron is one of our biggest of the lying PMs. I think May was probably the worse, Major second and Cameron third. Brown and Blair not so bad but still big liars.
So, despite an unprecedented level of verbal assault and personal abuse from ex PMs, treacherous fellow party members, the BBC and other MSM, the Speaker, opposition party leaders, EU officials, foreign leaders and others against a current PM, Boris still extends his lead.
So, forget your little homilies, Kirsty, Emily and Emma...Boris is on the right track.
I sometimes have thoughts that I dare not express (something to do with living in an illiberal liberal world). I had one such thought last week – driving through Dewsbury after listening to a discussion on Today about Margaret Atwood’s sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale. The discussion had been along the lines that MA’s novel might become a reality in the US. I’d thought “FFS, here it IS a reality already – why doesn’t anyone else see it that way?” And then, this morning, in The Sunday Times, Sarah Baxter has written (p.28) what I thought. A couple of pages further on (p.32) Suzanne Moore reviewed the latest production from another of the BBC’s heroines; Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s solo show. PW-B is praised or worshiped (not sure which) in the piece for talking about how she uses porn and masturbates to the sound of Barak Obama’s voice. And I had another of those thoughts. Dare I ask what sort of review would have been written if a male had referenced Kirsty Young in a similar manner?
I read that Sarah Baxter article. It was surprising. I wondered if perhaps she is retiring from ST...because it's nowhere near the usual bland stuff she comes out with. She even quotes approvingly a sentence stating that the 9/11 attackers were Muslim men, seeking as they saw it to further their religion...arguing we need to describe such things accurately. Under Baroness Warsi's definition that could be construed as a hate crime punishable by a custodial sentence.
Lib dem: It'll be hard to win this seat. Everybody's white and British and voted leave. Presenter: How will you win those votes? LD: Warn about the far right and nationalism P: What's that got to do with Brexit? LD: Err...
P: "As you can see, they will have to do a lot better than that to win seats in leave areas..."
Summary: BBC shows balance by being mean to those remainers who are not talking a good enough game about winning at remain votes.
Talking of skin colour - which the BBC does all the time - I was outraged to see how hideously white the Lib Dem conference is. Surely, the BBC should be launching an undercover Panorama investigation to find out what's going on...
BBC have been reporting on the new Kavanaugh accusations....but then not really, as is their revolting wont of late. Tim Pool's video on where this story came from : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yYecoZKtz0
Topic for bbc: Parliaments State Capture of the Leave Vote(aka brexit hard/soft due to/inspite off and variations off eh bbc through withdrawel agreements, and back stops to "no deal" all the narrative[taqiyya] driven by the bbc remain propaganda outfit) bbc rats nest of communists.
BBC Newsnight - only one narrative...the empty podium was a humiliation for Boris Johnson...then they review the papers and Emily is reminded that there is another narrative: this demonstrates the bullying pathetic nature of the EU, and explains why we are determined to exit.
They keep using biased think tank spokespeople and giving the impression these are independent bodies. Firstly they had the usual "Institute for Government" talking head telling us Why Boris Is Wrong (as per usual). The Institute for Government is a totally Remainiac oganisation funded in the millions and controlled by Remainer-in-Chief Lord Sainsbury.
The IfG spokespeople are allowed to speak uninterrupted and unchallenged of course.
We also had a "Eurasia Group" spokesperson on. The Eurasia Group is linked to George Soros not least via Lord Malloch Brown (ex Gordon Brown Minister). I hadn't realised quite how important Lord Malloch Brown was to the Soros operation.
Why do the BBC keep covering for Jo Swinson? They never show the video of her in Parliament committing to an In-Out Referendum on Brexit on their lead news programmes.
(BTW - couldn't find this when I searched on You Tube - the Globalists must be hiding it.)
Imagine if this was the other way round and there was video of Boris saying in Parliament it would be a catastrophe for the UK to leave the EU - the BBC would play it non-stop on a loop and all their correspondents would mention it!
Newsnight tonight was interesting - at least in the sense that it was instructive to see how much ex BBC man John Sergeant hates Boris. It was at a pathological level. If it wasn't for the mollifying effects of the green room hospitality Sergeant might have started biting the carpet.
The debate on the Supreme Court deliberations was the usual loaded affair. Four Remainers (including of course Emily Maitlis, as she makes abundantly clear) against one Leaver (Gisela Stuart).
I am surprised Maitlis didn't take umbrage at Falconer's lordly mansplaining of the constitution to the only woman on the panel . But I suppose the need to "Get Boris" trumps everything else.
It's clear which side the BBC News website is on. The headline about the court proceedings shows a mass of banners telling us that Boris Johnson is in the dock, and the article itself has large images of Gina MIller and Joanna Cherry both looking confident,
Prompt action by the pic editors on the BBC News website - the leading image referred to above (now relegated to the Politics page) has been replaced by a split image showing banners promoting both sides of the argument. This crafty move follows the familiar pattern by the BBC News website of subtly changing emphasis before a story is archived.
Prominent positioning of pics of protest placards with insulting, libellous, dishonest, simplistic claims text on them are the ideal way for the BBC to get across their message while being able to claim they are "just reporting".
To be fair, this sublimimal propaganda technique is also used extensively by Sky and ITV.
You know it is their intention to propagandise in this way, because they have the choice of using more distant shots with placards slightly out of focus, if they wish.
Also, whenever they show what they would call "Far Right" protests, they ensure the writing on the placards is generally not seen.
Yes, every time the UK PM steps out his is met by activists who parade placards and now heckle - and dear Aunty churns this out as news. Today's heckler present when BJ visited a hospital was according to Guido a well-known Labour activist.
What the Hammonds, Grieves and Benns of the world don't seem to understand is that they are fuelling the fervour of these EU flag-waving, placard-holding and Boris-hating activists at the expense of democracy.
ITN are still running the story of the heckler at the hospital. They add that he is a Labour activist, but he is angry with Boris 'as a father' - right - it sounds like a late editorial change to me.
The anti-Boris faction are a mixture of Remainers left-wing activists hiding behind Granddad. There can be nothing honourable to be found in the actions of Bercow, Grieve etc because they have (possibly unknowingly) allied themselves to an extreme and dangerous left-wing group. The BBC are playing their tune.
In fact, Grieve, Hammond, Bercow, Benn etc have positioned a trojan horse into which have climbed the extreme left-wing anti Tory element of the Labour Party. They didn't see that one coming!
There's more to report on the split image being used at the head of:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news
... 'Prorogation carried out in bad faith court told' ...
The banner on the right of the split image is chosen in order to carry a negative message about the pro Brexit group. The banner says 'make Britain great again' a clear reference to the Trump MAGA message. The people shown are white males, and there is a group of policemen watching. The subliminal message is that the group may need the police to intervene.
It's second nature to BBC staff to do that sort of thing...along with finding someone obese on a mobility scooter to put the case for Leave when doing the Vox Pops! lol
There was an interesting turn of phrase on the BBC website this morning regarding a fall in inflation, "Inflation growth slowed sharply in August to 1.7%". Almost as if inflation had "crashed", rather than a lower rate of increase of prices. See https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49738869
Saw some of the BBC confessional on Cameron tonight.
Despite our brains being given the soft soap massage by the BBC, didn't alter my view: he is a Notorious Big Liar.
One of his classic lie lines is to say "People criticise me for X,Y,Z but A,B,C" whereas the reality is people criticise him for P,Q, R and A,B,C are no answer to P,Q,R!
To be more specific - he made all sorts of claims about how he was criticised for resigning after the Referendum result. But the real criticism (that he did not mention at all!) is that DURING the Referendum campaign he constantly reiterated to the British public he would NOT resign if the vote went against him. Strangely, the BBC could find no footage of him doing this, to illustrate the point...He made this solemn promise to the British public - that he would see the result through and implement it, whether Remain or Leave - and then reneged on that solemn pledge.
That lie was for me the beginning of the "Big Deceit" (that the Referendum "Leave" result would be honoured). Cameron now states he resigned in order to facilitate a "soft" Brexit. "Soft" for Remainers means "tied to the EU in perpetuity" in case you didn't realise!
I am not trusting in Boris, but I am hoping he brings an end to this sorry chapter of low deceit in British politics. We shall see in the next few weeks...
Lost a post earlier...I was just making the point that Katya Adler has spent the last year nearly telling us the EU cannot possibly change the Withdrawal Agreement with its all-important Backstop. I have said BS to that several times here.
I wonder how she feels about her credibility as a journalist now that Juncker has told Sophie Ridge on Sky that the Backstop can be replaced with something else?
Adler is a spokesperson for the EU not a reporter about the EU. The same goes for virtually all MSM reporters out in Brussels now. James Mates is just a loudspeaker for the EU.
The BBC promotes the idea of decapitating our Prime Minister as "entertainment"...and they don't even know the difference between "compliment" and "complement" - not sure which is worse:
"Complimenting Dave's victory, this year's Mercury Prize ceremony had a chaotic urgency that has been missing from award shows since the heyday of Britpop.
Post-punk band Idles leapt into the crowd, while one of the members of Black Midi ran headfirst into a piano, before attempting, and failing, to perform a somersault.
But Northampton-based rapper Slowthai caused the biggest stir by performing with a dummy of Boris Johnson's severed head, which he held aloft as he performed Doorman, a track about wealth disparity in modern Britain.
Speaking to the BBC, he explained the song, like the rest of his album, aimed to give a voice to "the people from small communities that have been forgotten about". "
"It's time to let people in," he said. "Everyone, the lower class, the middle class, and even the ones in the upper who feel their life is hard."
Right now I understand - the Broadwater Farm community were quite keen on decapitation as well, as I recall.
Only yesterday there was a report on the BBC News website about the increase in far-right hate crime. We need a new definition of hate crime, because the event described above surely is such a crime. The BBC, by promoting far left messages, are complicit in the celebration of anti Conservative hateful sentiments: Remember The Witch is Dead and Liar Liar and affronts to JRM and his family. Redistribution of wealth as a reason for violent protest has diminished, because many of the monied elite are in fact the recipients of super-salaries bestowed upon them by the PC establishment (that includes you BBC).
... 'The Guardian’s deputy music editor Laura Snapes has described a stunt by rapper ‘slowthai’ – in which he waved around a severed effigy of Boris Johnson’s decapitated head during a performance – as “amazing“ '...
Guardian, BBC, there's not much difference in their outlook.
Douglas Murray on his new book...and not just selling his book I think...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BhhKxXBP84
I think he's making an astute point re how people who are being made poorer in the "West" as a result of PC (can't get on the housing ladder) are being invited by PC ideology to feel aggrieved.
I'm rarely charmed by politicians, & mostly regard them as prey. But Iraq's PM, Adil Abdul-Mahdi, an exception when I met him today. Clever old boy (my age), frank. Danger of war between US/Saudi & Iran now v great, he says. And Israel has definitely used drones against Iraq
How does the impartial BBC deal with the spokesperson for a death cult, which is attempting to force our society to adopt policies that would lead to the immediate collapse of the economy, the destruction of the NHS, turning our farms over to weeds, the early deaths of thousands who require medication, mass unemployment and universal misery? I am referring to Extinction Rebellion which insists we have to remove all CO2 producing elements from our economy within the next four years (meaning we cut CO2 emissions by 25% per annum).
Well "like this" is the answer, as though Greta is wondrous example to be followed by us all!
She's not a moral exemplar, she's a hypocritical kid political activist. Is her boat jacket made of plastic? Of course it is. Are the ropes on the boat made of nylon? Could she have saved many more carbon emissions by not undertaking a self-publicising transatlantic journey in a millionaire's boat? Of course.
“Broadcaster John Humphrys savages bias at the BBC as he accuses the ‘Kremlin’ style corporation of being out of touch
The veteran broadcaster spent 33 years on Radio 4’s flagship news show Today In an explosive memoir serialised in the Daily Mail today, he pulls no punches Humphrys says BBC bosses ‘badly failed’ to read the nation’s mood on Europe And says he is now free of ‘the BBC Thought Police’ and its ‘liberal-Left image’ ”
John took a long time to say it, didn't he? I guess when you are on million a year thanks to the BBC, that does tend to have an anaesthetic effect on the tongue!
Anyway he seemed to be very much part of the problem.
Just like to add a thought or two on climate alarmism and green energy...
As with so much the Left has moved in on this area and tried to ensure debate takes place on its own terms. That sometimes creates a "knee-jerk reaction" from non-Leftists.
The BBC are banging the drum for the Far Left anti-capitalist Extinction Rebellion movement/death cult.
I totally reject the ER policies which would collapse our economies and create untold misery.
Climate alarmism is absurd and irrational (for one thing it never counts as a positive the pluses of rising temperature e.g. fewer deaths from hypothermia in colder regions of the planet, more rainfall for crops, greening of the planet etc).
However, it is rational to think that we simply don't understand how our planet's climate really works and to take a precautionary attitude of trying to keep to historical atmospheric parameters, rather than testing nature's patience...
So I do agree we need to move from carbon based energy to non-carbon green energy.
The good news is that that is going to happen thanks to market forces. The (unsubsidised) costs of onshore wind energy are already below carbon forms and offshore is now following suit. It's pretty clear that, as the cost of storage also falls dramatically, we will be able to rely on wind and solar energy (the latter is also already cheaper than new nuclear and will continue to fall in price) to supply all our electricity. Converting all our vehicles and trains to electric power can follow over the next 20 years or so. That will replace anbother 25% of the overall energy load with green energy. In time, electric central heating will become a cheap alternative to gas power, lopping off another 10-20%.
It's clear to me that Trump or no Trump, green energy is going to win out. The only question is how quickly. Investment is expensive, so you can't just change from one infrastructure to another overnight.
This isn't a Left v Right issue. In the 2012 US Presidential elections, nearly all the Republican candidates were strong supporters of green energy.
Green energy supports our national independence. It is revitalising our East Coast ports as they service the large off shore wind turbines. In time it will greatly reduce air pollution in our big cities, so improving the health of tens of millions. And it is going to be cheaper across the board, including the costs of storage, before long.
It is no doubt 'a good thing' to use wind/solar power rather than burning fossil fuels BUT there is an important concept called 'energy density' [see https://xkcd.com/1162/], i.e. how big a volume is needed to produce the power that we need. A teaspoon of coal has more energy in it than all the air in the HoC moving at 20 mph, for instance. Fossil fuels are not just energy dense, they can be stored until needed and transported as required. I don't think there will ever be a magic breakthrough in battery technology, (I might be wrong but I believe there are theoretical limits regardless of what chenistry is employed). The simplest method of cutting energy consumption would be to stop migration world-wide. Migrants invariable adopt a higher energy life-style than the one they left behind and then add to that the 'need' to maintain air links to the rest of their family - Emirates operate 36 weekly flights to Pakistan from Birmigham, somehow I doubt if many of those are made by the descendants of the 'Peaky Blinders'!
And don't forget the big ellie in the room, the one that cannot be talked about, that might offend, which is population growth. The BBC are very, very frightened of any mention of that.
Anon 1 - re energy density, it's not that straightforward. Your comparison doesn't work.
The internet tells me "approx. 8 kWh of heat can be generated from 1 kg of coal" So for 5kgs of coal that would be 40 Kwhs. A 5 kg metre square solar panel might generate 2 Kwhs per day. But it will do that for 20 years not just as a one off. The solar panel equivalent will generate something like 14000 Kwhs compared with the coal's puny 40 Kwhs.
Obviously it's more complicated than that. There is a problem with energy density of chemical battery storage.
You might be confusing the "energy density" argument with the "return on energy investment" argument which is stronger for coal (but that is subject to a lot of caveats).
Anon 2 - Yes population growth is never addressed by BBC in any meaningful way because it immediately links to mass immigration.
M/B I can assure you that as a chartered engineer I don't confuse anything when it comes to energy! You are trying to compare the mass of the generation equipment with the mass of the energy store, apples versus pears, we don't burn solar panels, we can burn coal. There are limits to how many solar panels or windmills we can install, that could be expressed as kW per square metre of land surface. Fossil-fuelled generators could be rated as kW per cubic metre, i.e. there is an area limit as to how much power the UK can generate with renewables, but for a fossil-fuelled generator it just depends on how high we are prepared to build. When it comes to energy storage the energy density (kWh per kg) is key. We can store energy in a spring or water held at height but we couldn't use that energy to power a car, the energy density just isn't high enough. What is remarkable is how we have progressed as energy consuming societies by exploiting ever higher energy densities, solar and wind power takes us backwards, (think tea clippers versus container ships! I'm not an electro-chemist but I believe there are theoretical limits to battery technology, similar to the way we know how much electricity is needed for the electro-plating process, say. The electric car only starts to become viable because the motor is about three-times more efficient than an internal combustion engine and is reversible, making it possible to recover some of the kinetic energy 'stored' in the moving vehicle. "Sustainable Energy - Without The Hot Air" https://www.withouthotair.com/download.html by the late Professor Sir David MacKay gives a good politics-free account.
You rather make the point - we don't burn solar panels. The energy "fuel" is free - photons - and conveniently transports itself to the energy generation site at no cost.
If you are saying it's apples and pears I don't know why you first raised the issue of the energy density in coal in relation to green energy. In terms of green energy, the energy density of coal is really only relevant to biofuels and storage solutions.
Regarding solar energy, we have plenty of land space available - roofs - and solar energy land use can in any case co-exist with other uses such as dairy farming. As regards wind turbines, they again are pretty low impact in terms of land use being located either in underutilised hill country or out at sea.
Coals, ports, railways and the like certainly can't be located on roofs and don't co-exist with dairy farming very well.
There you go again - comparing the energy density of coal with wind and solar energy systems! Storage cannot be examined in isolation.
The price of solar and wind are falling so rapidly that I think ultimately the storage solution will be to manufacture carbon neutral methane from CO2 in the atmosphere and H2O. We already have the methane ("natural gas") infrastructure in place, so this is a perfect match. That is a few years off but if you have a price difference of say 2p between green energy and fossil fuels this becomes a definite possibility.
There are theoretical limits to chemical battery efficiency I believe. Not sure about density. Pumped storage is very efficent (around 90%).
Green energy of course has far fewer hidden costs in terms of climate change (if you accept the majority science view on carbon emissions), and negative health impacts.
Cows eat grass, grass needs sunlight to grow. Cows, solar panels, choose.
Methane at atmospheric pressure needs 13,000 times the volume of diesel oil containing the same energy.
Solar power is very variable. It is reckoned that under ideal conditions South-West England can be self-sufficient and indeed a net exporter of power. However if it clouds over that all changes. Worse still if the grid connection is lost all solar power will disconnect too as network synchonisation goes. Most of that power will not auto-start if the grid comes back on. The same is very much true of windpower, which tends not to be produced near load centres so relies on long connectors to the grid. Water storage is so good that you would need to elevate a litre of water some 4,800 km to store the same energy as in a kilo of diesel oil. That is why energy density is important.
You have an odd way of arguing. What possible point are you making by comparing the energy of density of methane at atmospheric pressure with that of diesel oil, given that methane is never stored at atmospheric pressure? Methane is hugely cheaper than diesel oil.
I don't know of anyone who claims wind and solar are not intermittent energy sources, so the issue is only one of how successfully one can use storage (in various forms), substitution (e.g. hydroelectric, bio fuels and energy from waste) or imported energy.
In the case of the UK, at any one time we could probably provide 15% of our electricity from a combination of energy from waste, bio fuels and hydro (they can all, to a certain extent be "ramped up" when there is a shortfall). In the future you might add in some significant geothermal, tidal, sea current and wave energy. With continental grids you can import elecricity from surplus countries as Germany does from Denmark and Scandinavia.
For the worst case scenarios we need to rely on methane generation and chemical battery storage. Initially we can use natural gas generators but in time these can be fuelled by manufactured methane, which will be carbon neutral. As the cost of battery storage continues its steep decline (
Pugnazious on BBBC heard the same bit of The Emma Barnett Show as I did, where she declared:
‘The Conservatives have just prorogued Parliament and are in the supreme court now…Labour should be streets ahead [in the polling]’
Why? Why should a party led by a Far Left pro-terrorist anti-patriotic Marxist be ahead in the polls just because the Conservatives have some difficulties as a result of obstruction by extreme anti-democratic Remainers?
It reminded me of Hillary Clinton's comment about how she should be 50 points ahead in the polls... er no...not if you are such a poor candidate.
As Pugnazious observes, the BBC just don't get it do they? The real question is why do a hardcore 25% of the electorate still vote for Labour, given the poor quality of the Shadow Cabinet, their insane economic policies (destroy the rented sector, abolish independent schools, tax the rich so they all leave the UK, support Extinction Rebellion's ruinous policies, reduce the working week by 20%, allow paid leave for any number of "conditions" such as the menopause, nationalise anything that moves and some things that don't - total cost gazillions a Labour government won't have...equals total fiscal meltdown).
Absolutely scandalous how the courts have treated Brexiter legal challenges. Tilbrook obviously had a worthy case because two judges have actually taken different viewpoints on it. But the worst aspect of this is that Lord Justice Hickinbottom, a Fellow of the European Law Institute (an pro-EU activist group that receives money from the EU) was allowed to hear this pro-Brexit case...
Pea brain Chris Morris embarrasses himself with yet another completely biased and non-factual "Reality Check":
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49688420
The whole thing is riddled with errors but here are few howlers and biased items of nonsense:
1. He claims that to argue that "no deal" is a misleading term, because a series of mini-deals has already been done is wrong because these are "unilateral actions" by the EU. He then further claims they will need to be "renegotiated" after a temporary period. How do you "renegotiate" something that was "unilateral", eh Chris? And is Morris seriously suggesting that the EU won't extend arrangements that allow UK planes to fly into their airspace? Really, Chris?
2. Morris states: "So the only way the UK could really have a clean-break Brexit is if it were prepared to walk away, at least for a while, from any kind of stable relationship with the EU, which accounts for roughly half of all UK trade. "
Really, Chris? WTO rules are not a stable basis for trade? We better tell India, the USA and China then...
3. He argues that to not have a "stable relationship" with the EU means our food supply from the EU would be in jeopardy? Really, Chris? Are you really arguing the Spanish won't sell us their tomatoes and oranges? Meanwhile, we can pick and choose. We can have tomatoes from Morocco, Kenya and the USA if we prefer. But it's all nonsense, the EU will be more than happy to carry on providing us with agricultural produce. Anyone who claims otherwise is really just lying - there's no other word for it. They know such claims are entirely false.
4. Morris rehearses the tired old project fear arguments about Northern Ireland. He claims we will have to carry on talking about the border after we leave on a clean Brexit. Of course we will. For one thing it relates to the Good Friday Agreement. But it's not us who will be putting up infrastructure on the border. The Republic won't either, for sure, whatever the lying EU claim now.
It would be a pity if we denied EU nations access to our side of the North Atlantic air traffic control wouldn't it?
'Some say' that certain wealthy individuals in Ireland rather like the differences in currency and taxes either side of the border that exist now and post-Brexit that could only get better. The funny thing is it is these same individuals that reputably control the people with guns that are going to get upset if we leave 'the single market' i.e. the one with different currencies and taxes. Should anyone start constructing a 'hard border' it would make more sense for these shadowy people to blow up the border posts rather than plant bombs in London or Belfast.
"Kier Starmer tells politico that Labour’s second referendum would lower the voting age to 16 and look at including foreign nationals in the franchise too."
I have always said this was part of the Blair-Macron-Soros plot for the rigged rerun. The so-called "second referendum" proposal was already illegitimate but this makes it even more so.
But I am sure the BBC will greet the proposal enthusiastically and only inquire why votes aren't weighted according to age-related longevity, so a 16 year old's vote is worth 5 times that of an 80 year old. :)
So proof positive now that even the Supreme Court, not just the role of Speaker in Parliament, has been captured by extreme Remainiacs determined on constitutional innovation in order to block and revoke the Referendum decision. Remember, Johathan Sumption a retired Supreme Court judge - clearly a Remainer - had absolutely no doubt that the Government had acted lawfully. This is a judgement that can only have a political motivation.
BBC will have a field day of course. But then they have never placed any importance on our constitution.
This decision is an absolute disaster for the country. It means the Supreme Court which has no democratic input but is rather simply a self-perpetuating like-minded club, is now an active player on our political scene...in a most fundamental sense.
How can Jonathan Sumption, only recently retired from the Supreme Court have such a very, very clear view of what the law is but then the Supreme Court unanimously tell him he's wrong! Sumption must have been the last connection to a pre-politicised judiciary (and only to a degree, since he cuts a very political figure on our news programmes as well).
As far as I am concerned, this was a politically motivated judgement. The motivation was to disrupt Brexit. The biased judges clearly consider it unconscionable that MPs should not be given time to undo the statutes they passed into law overwhelmingly themselves a year or two back, despite the fact they've had ample time to do so if they wished. A Leaver simply doesn't accept that motivation is valid. So it's a Remainer-inspired judgement.
Regarding mad catwoman Lady Hale, people have been observing that she has taken to wearing a spider brooch of late. She is of a certain age and so will certainly remember The Who song, "Boris the Spider". One verse goes:
"There he is wrapped in a ball Doesn't seem to move at all Perhaps he's dead, I'll just make sure Pick this book up off the floor"
I've just seen the end of Politics Live on BBC2. Summing up at the end of the programme, Jo Coburn played a short clip of Geoffrey Cox defending Boris Johnson's actions. The sub-titles of what Jo Coburn said read: "Weaselly words ... [from Geoffrey Cox]". I do hope this was one of the howling errors that appear on sub-titles from time to time, but if not ... Bias! I noticed the wording because I didn't think 'weaselly' was a word, but spellcheck says it is.
Not a fan of Geoffrey "Booming" Cox as a rule but today the boy did well...he knew he was fighting for his own reputation, as much as Boris and his government or the decent majority of the electorate, and that probably helped.
So Jonathan Sumption was on Today, Radio 4 today putting a face saving gloss on his previous pronouncements.
He now says that the Supreme Court were entitled to overturn established constitutional law on Prorogation because the Government's behaviour had been "shocking"...
Really? "Shocking"? To me that is redolent of a judgement delivered by a gaggle of Guardian-readers ing gathered around an Islington dining table.
My way of viewing it, and I think this is backed up by tens of millions of people, is that Parliament has had 3 years to deliver Brexit but has failed. It was intent on sabotage of the executive's efforts to seal a deal and so the Government's behaviour was sensible and defensible, in not giving Parliament more time to work its sabotage than was stictly necessary.
So, Sumption is now saying that the law must follow the Guardian-approved sentiments of top judges, rather than a strict application of well established constitutional principles.
Thus these idiot judges have completely politicised our judicial processes. It's a truly horrific vista that has opened up.
Jonathan Sumption, supposedly an intelligent chap well versed in law, stated that "52% can expect to get 100% of the spoils". What a crass thing to say in relation to a binary choice Referendum! Someone immediately commented whether he was therefore saying that Scotland should have been awarded 45% independence after its Referendum because only 55% voted to stay in the Union? Would Sumption also apply that to Supreme Court decisions so that if the Court arrives at its decision 6 to 5, against the plaintiff, the plaintiff will nevertheless be found to be deserving of something like 45% of what they were asking for?
These dim-wits seek to interefere in our democratic politics! Unbelievable!!
Obviously the quote was "52% CAN'T expect to get 100% of the spoils".
Such an illuminating statement...who among those voting in the Referendum thought that they would be carrying off "spoils". That's how the elite think. Not ordinary people. Ordinary people thought they were being asked to make a choice between two paths for the future of our country.
Noted that every BBC news report about the failure of Ulster bus builders Wrightbus, mentioned that they built the new London Routemaster ordered by Boris Johnson. Maybe they expect Boris to resign and apologize for putting business their way ?
Speaker Bercow, despite his long, supercilious and tendentious interventions about behaviour, has allowed the House of Commons to come to resemble a farmyard. He did nothing to suppress the applause tactic used by Labour's Far Left and Virtue Signallers on several occasions over recent years. Now the Conservatives have joined in, resulting in something resembling total anarchy.
Maitlis has got her mojo back - completely biased partisan questions...question after question to Bernard Jenkins suggesting Boris is a villain...absolutely awful. Jenkins is a twat to have allowed himself to be put into the stocks so Maitlis and her mate from the Lib Dems, Labour and the whoever can throw rotten cabbages at him.
On to Layla Moran - Lib Dems...the soft questions start. She's not asking "Why did Jo Swinson support an in-out referendum in ten years ago?"
On to whispering Barry Gardiner...Maitlis has rubbished the Conservative leader. Will she mention Corbyn's support for terrorist organisations, lying about his support for leaving the EU, or his Communist affiliations? Er no of course.
Barry looks like he's been on the sauce...
Tory Traitor Antoinette Sandbach guffing away. Wants "compromise between Leavers and Remainers" - why? That wasn't how the Referendum was billed by the PM, by the parties, by the media, by the EU or anyone else. It was billed as a binary choice.
1. Bercow overturning constitutional norms on an ad hoc basis.
2. The Supreme Court overthrowing established constitutional precedent and marching into the political arena.
3. House of Commons descending into a farmyard farce thanks to Bercow's failure to exert authority.
4. Swinson, who campaigned for an in-out referendum, now campaigning for overturning the in-out referendum and wanting to go "straight to Revoke".
5. Corbyn lying every day about his views on the EU. 30 years of opposition to the EU, 30 years of wanting to get us out of the EU...following by a couple of years of pretending that never happened.
6. Eco Deceit propaganda being pumped out 24/7 by our media. Greenland ice sheet is melting!!!! Er yes - it's always melting by the sea...but is it getting any smaller? Er no. Greenland is still has more precipitation than melting. The ice sheet is growing and our media are lying.
Then they are off to the Solomon Islands..."rising sea levels" - er no...changes in local wind systems (pushing more water from the sea on to the land) and land rising.
What liars they are!
7. Trump Impeachment...BBC, ITV, Sky all on board! Trump had legitimate questions to ask as President having seen Biden boast about how he exerted diplomatic pressure to ensure Ukraine's anti-corruption squad didn't go after his son. In fact, this whole nonsense might just be about the DNC ensuring Biden (no hoper) gets kicked off the ticket.
All the above - just some of the madness we have to contend with...some more amusing than some others...
Emily tells us that Labour people abhor extreme language.
OK - try these:
1. "We would rather die than join any other party" - Emily Thornberry.
2. "Brexit has unleashed fascists and racists..." Anna Soubry.
3. Boris Johnson is "behaving like a demagogue". Dominic Grieve.
4. "Brexit: How Britain was undone by the religious fervour of a deluded few." Rachel Sylvester.
5. “Johnson, Fox, Gove, Davis, Rees-Mogg should be hung, drawn and quartered, with each quarter being sent to the 4 corners of the UK to be burned at the stake”. Galen Milne (Lib Dem candidate)
6. John McDonnell told the hustings audience that he had said at the time that he would have liked to go back to that era and "assassinate Thatcher".
7. At a rally in London in 2003 to commemorate IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands, John McDonnell said that it was “about time we started honouring those people involved in the armed struggle”.
“It was bombs and bullets and sacrifice made by the likes of Bobby Sands that brought Britain to the negotiating table. The peace we have now is due to the action of the IRA,” he added at the rally.
I could go on, but you get the picture.
The BBC is not interested in the extremist language of Remainers and Leftists.
Has Emily ever got worked about this sort of "extreme language". No. She never references these sorts of quotes.
OK...this is interesting...a programme on Radio 4 coming up called "Muslim Pride"...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008wsp
I can only presume "Sayeeda Warsi" is "Baroness Warsi"...
From the promo blurb...
"Sayeeda Warsi asks why Islam and same-sex attraction are often presented as black and white - binary opposites - when the picture has many shades of grey."
Really? Last time I looked, all the four main schools of Sunni Islam and Shia Islam as well taught that the penalty for male homosexual activity was death and the penalty for women expressing lesbian identities was home arrest under the control of their families.
Perhaps the BBC knows better?
"The question could not be more timely. Protests outside primary schools in Birmingham have highlighted the often testy relationship between homosexuality and Islam, a problem which several of the contributors in Sayeeda’s previous documentary on Radio 4 - about women and Islam - said required urgent attention."
OK, I am loving that "testy" BBC...must remember that one...Crusaders and Saladin had a "somewhat testy relationship". Bomber Harris and the Luftwaffe had a "somewhat testy relationship". The Ayatollah and Salman Rushdie had a "somewhat testy relationship"!
"And now, speaking to five Muslims who experience same-sex attraction, Sayeeda will give it that attention. This is more than just a theological question: it comes laden with practical problems – from keeping their sexuality and relationships hidden, choosing whether, when and how to come out, and in the case of one of Sayeeda's interviewees, rejecting his attraction to other men altogether, choosing instead to marry and have children - telling neither his wife nor his family.
But their problems aren’t limited to being gay whilst Muslim. It’s often also challenging to be Muslim whilst gay, and Sayeeda will hear about the discrimination some of them have experienced in gay communities, as they try to balance and reconcile their different identities, to themselves and others."
Call me cynical but I don't think the actual programme will be anything like the blurb. It will be a modern take on the traditional teachings of Islam with a lot of verbiage designed to gull the gullible.
Where do you go to find a homosexual who has kept his homosexuality secret from his own wife and kids ? Or is it simply that everybody knows he's gay except his wife and kids ?!
There's an extraordinary headline in the Guardian:
'MPs' fury as Johnson claims to speak for Britain on Brexit'
If Boris doesn't speak for Britain, then why not hold a GE to find out who does, Guardian. In Politics Live yesterday, one of the panel differentiated between the traditional Labour voter - and 'a Labour voter from Hampstead'. Therein lies the difficulty facing Labour's credibility. The London Labour voter has a completely different set of values to those of the traditional Labour heartlands.
There is a time in politics to go for the jugular. The Conservatives need to remind the public of Corbyn's record of supporting terrorists, anti-semitic comments, support for anti-semitic organisations, touring of East Germany on his motor bike with Diane Abbott at the height of the Cold War, lying about his attitude to the EU and his support for Venezualan economic policies. Same with McDonnell, remind the public of how he joked about assassinating Margaret Thatcher and lauded IRA terrorists. Don't just do it once, do it all the time, in the same way Labour and their allies use the repetition tactic.
Gross bias on Radio 5 Live. Norman Smith giving his personal opinion as if it counted for anything. It doesn't. I paraphrase but he said, in interview with Egregious Emma, something to the effect: "It is dangerous to speak in hostile terms of what Parliament has been doing as anti-democratic because Parliament is the democratic fulcrum of our politics." That Norm is simply your political opinion, not an objective fact. There are numerous examples around the world of national assemblies, including democratically elected ones acting in undemocratic ways e.g. at the end of the Weimar Republic, in Moscow more recently, in Ankara and elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteThe idea that it is democratic for a Parliament to block implementaton of a referendum result that nearly all its members declared to be legitimate and definitive, is not democratic. Neither is forcing a government to jump through Remainer hoops while refusing to allow an election to be called.
Norm, you're entitled to your opinion, but reserve it for home and down the pub. When broadcasting on the BBC, restrict yourself to reporting facts and other people's opinions, not giving us your (very predictably, pro-Remain) views.
Would it be democratic for parliament to put through another 'three-day' bill for a fixed parliament?
DeleteAfter all the plebs don't know what they voted for so why bother letting them vote ever again?
We are living in very strange times when all the 'checks and balances' seem to be turned against the will of the people.
Exactly. Emergency procedures are being used in a non-emergency. We are large well developed country that has chosen to leave the EU - we can do that without catastrophic consequences of the type painted by Fanatical Remainers.
DeleteDawn Butler for God Empress!
ReplyDeleteNot a BBC headline. Well, yet.
Sue, you haven't heard the last of this!
ReplyDeleteI am crowdfunding an appeal to to the ECHR.
We of the September Open Thread will not be silenced!
(I have got Gina Miller on the phone right now!)
Jeremy Vine mocks (twice) kwasi Kwarteng for using the 'some say' defence, 'we can all read between the lines!'
ReplyDeleteYes BBC, we can, (day after day after day).
What's a "source" for the goose is not allowed to be a "source" for the gander, according to the BBC. :)
DeleteBTW why is no-one querying that ridiculous WW2 style codename "Yellowhammer" for the Hammond Project Fear analysis of a no deal impact? Absurd hysteria. While we've been in the EU Dover port has been blockaded by French fishermen on numerous occasions and sometimes for days on end...overall effect? Er - no one noticed apart from the people of Kent trying to get about on their motorways, which were used as lorry parks. If there was a "National Lettuce Crisis", I don't remember it.
Our government needs to grow up and stop frightening the children with ghostly-ghoul-murder-most-foul made up stuff.
And since when did a "worst case scenario" become a "forecast" - well when Norman Smith is doing the "analysis" (or rather, opinionating)...he slipped that in to help the Remain cause. I might think that a worst case scenario for the weather this autumn might be a repeat of the Great Storm of 1986 (?)...it doesn't mean I am forecasting it.
The Remainer fanatics are taking us to a very dark place. The Lunatic Letwin is now talking about delaying an election until the Summer, to ensure Boris agrees an Abject Surrender Treaty with the EU. The Remainiacs in Parliament have dismantled our constitution, kidnapped our government and are now holding it to ransom on behalf of the EU mafia.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the BBC are concerned Letwin is a good guy.
BBC, Guardian and Independent are reporting a speech by Bercow 'insisting that Boris Johnson must obey law and ask for Brexit extension', going on to compare Boris with a bank-robber giving the proceeds of his crime to charitable causes. There's no doubt that Bercow thinks he has the whip hand over Boris. He seems to be planning to ensure the derailment of Brexit before he leaves office.
DeleteThe 'news' of Bercow's speech is still being featured strongly this morning on BBC radio news and the BBC News website.:
Delete... 'Bercow pledges 'creativity' to stop no-deal Brexit' ...
We know that the BBC has abandoned any pretence of impartiality over Brexit - now it seems, so has the reputedly impartial Speaker of the HoC. Now, we can see the smart Alec craftiness from Bercow which resulted from his decision to quit, but not before he put a spoke in the wheel of Brexit.
In business, if an employee is suspended, sacked or resigns, it is perfectly normal to take from them their means of access to the company and its databases, customers, colleagues, management etc in order to prevent them from causing damage to the company. Why do similar restrictions not apply to the Speaker, when his intention to cause damage is patently obvious.
There's a thought: The Speaker is traditionally dragged 'reluctantly' from the benches to the Speaker's chair at the start of his/her term. Instead of the faux reluctance, we might see some of the real McCoy if the same method was used to eject him from the chamber.
DeleteMichel Barnier approves of the BBC's Brexitcast programme. Well there's a surprise...And the BBC are proud that he's pleased...like some insufferable teacher's pet pleased to receive a gold star. There's another surprised...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-49681893/brexitcast-michel-barnier-says-he-ll-always-be-watching
Tommy Robinson out of prison:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLIFPP78TZc
Gone hipster! lol
Not on BBC yet.
Do BBC journalists normally mock people who have been imprisoned for reporting on trials - even more, mock them for their appearance? In this case the answer is a resounding YES.
Deletehttps://twitter.com/BBCDomC/status/1172461303337758720
Casciani here seems to be taking TR's presence outside HMP Belmarsh personally - surely this is a hate crime, but then with the BBC hate only travels one way - from the far-right.
DeleteGuido has a clip of the BBC's golden one Steph McGovern caught on mic poking fun at Boris Johnson. Apparently she was compèring the event. I'm not sure if it was a BBC production or whether she was moonlighting - as most of them do. Either way, I believe she should be reprimanded for these insolent words directed towards the PM. As with many other BBC reporters, she won't be - she'll put it proudly on her resumé and in due course receive promotion and a bonus.
DeleteIt was an IPPR event in Rotherham - she was probably therefore moonlighting unless the BBC have helped to stage the event. The BBC News website report
Deletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49690613
... 'Boris Johnson 'won't be deterred' from Brexit on 31 October' ...
features the following:
... 'During the PM's speech, at the Convention of the North in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, he was heckled by an audience member who told him to "get back to Parliament" and "sort out the mess that you have created".' ...
This sounds like a QT style staged heckle. The BBC report fails to mention that it was a 'Convention' sponsored by IPPR - a Labour supporting think tank? Boris needs to learn fast how to cut out the middleman and speak directly to the electorate.
Steph McGovern's words were: “For the record, I am a girly swot and I’m proud of it… let’s see who’s in the job the longest”.
The BBC News website article above fails to mention that their very own golden one was compèring this IPPR event. Watch out Boris! Beware the BBC!
DeleteChris mason's twitter describes him as "beyond fortunate to be a BBC correspondent"
ReplyDeleteYou can say that again!
Yes, you could have been flipping burgers down the local MacDonalds for all the light you shed on the Brexit process. That said, he's not as annoying as the other Chris.
DeleteSam Smith, the male singer has said he is non-binary. The BBC website story refers to him as ‘they’ to confirm this gender type. It is the first time I have seen this on the BBC.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like we may about to see the end of ‘he’ and ‘she’ as the only BBC pronouns for gender.
The BBC are at the forefront of this nonsense.
Welcome to the parallel universe of the wokesphere. If gender, as trans activists keep shouting at everybody is merely a social construct, you would have to conclude that their own definition of gender is also a construct. Constructed by themselves. Gender really doesn’t mean anything at all. Sam Smith now apparently wishes to be referred to by they or them. Is this a recognition that he now sees himself in the plural, or just bad grammar? Serious question, given the proposition by a BBC BBC resource for children that there are “more than 100 genders”.
ReplyDeleteIn many ways the people who this absurd argument from woke activists about pronouns hurts the most are genuine transexuals. I would imagine that after all pain and trauma they have gone through in transitioning to the opposite sex they would want to be be referred to as him or her.
Points taken but just to be pedantic, Shakespeare used "they" to denote an individual and it is used commonly in English. It's quite convenient to denote an individual rather than saying he/she especially when describing formal procedures and the like. That said, to use it in a personal way with friends and family seems more problematic to me. "Is Sam coming over for Christmas dinner?" "I don't know I'll give them a call and check...It would be nice to see them and their partner." Sounds wrong to me.
DeleteI'm all for pedantry:)
DeleteNigel tells it like it is re the BBC (from about 9:30 onwards)...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTNETV-ssUg
I recall that Evelyn Waugh felt a tremendous sense of relief in 1939 when the Nazi-Soviet Pact was announced because all the real enemies of civilised society came into view.
ReplyDeleteGotta say the last week or so feels the same way to me. We now see them all lined up: John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Jo Swinson ("I want a second referendum but I will not honour its result if it goes against me"), Nicola Sturgeon ("populist nationalism is Far Right racist unless it's my populist nationalism"), the IRA ("we'll blow up your non-existent border posts"), Dominic Grieve (Legion d'honneur), John Bercow (ex Monday Club cryto-fascist), Olly Robbins (now employed by no. 1 Remainer outfit on the planet, Goldman Sachs), Oliver "Lunatic" Letwin (thinks he can "prorogue" an election for the next 10 years until he gets his way), Anna Soubry (gin, straight)... etc etc
Yes we can now see them all clearly...
They are the ENEMY. And if you call them the enemy they will say you are being horrible to them...even though they call YOU the ENEMY!!!
Your list of 'enemies' should include the party leaders: Kinnock, Clegg, Beckett, Harman, Farron, Miliband and Hague - all have come out as being strongly anti Brexit. Together with May and your list above, indications of solidarity for EU membership from all major parties has evolved over decades. It has only been since the the 2016 referendum and now, when the chips are down, that the extent of the political establishment's love affair with the EU has become apparent.
DeleteA Personal Statement:
ReplyDeleteHad my side (Leave) in the 2016 Referendum lost...
1. I was prepared to accept the result.
2. I had no expectation that the winning side would be required by ex Prime Ministers, the BBC or the Guardian to "accommodate the views of the 48% who wanted to leave the EU" in such a scenario. And even if I had thought that might be sensible, I would wonder how the hell you could make that sort of accommodation.
3. I would not have supported anyone trying to launch legal actions to overturn or impede the result of the referendum being put into operation...even if they were very rich, very telegenic and supported every inch of the way by the BBC.
4. I would not have tried to launch a "Project Fear" through the mainstream media and the BBC suggesting that the EU was heading for an economic meltdown (even though the ECB has just had to resort to quantitive easing to head off an economic meltdown) or suggested we were facing a repeat of the million migrant catastrophe of 2015 (even though Turkey has announced that is exactly what is going to happen).
'It matters not who won or lost, but how you played the game'. Graciousness in defeat used to be an enviable quality - not any longer it seems.
DeleteOn the assumption that books are launched in the first two weeks in October to hit the shops in time for the Christmas buying spree, it might appear that the launch of David Cameron's memoirs have been fast-tracked. From the point of view of Brexiteers, this move can only be interpreted as a damaging intervention from Cameron and/or his publishers.
ReplyDeleteThe choice of launch date may of course be purely a commercial decision, but with comments from Cameron about how he regrets ever having called the referendum, and how he bemoans the outcome every day, his intervention can be seen as a move intended to damage Boris Johnson and his own party, joining in with the clamour to prevent Brexit at all costs by whatever means there are.
Cameron's hypocrisy is quite stunning. He complains that Boris wasn't a real Leaver and opted leave to further his political career. This from the guy who claimed to be a "Eurosceptic"!!! and then campaigned to stay in the EU despite his complete failure to obtain anything like reform from the EU.
DeleteHe only claimed to be Eurosceptic in order to get selected for his seat and to win the leadership. He is not by any definition a Eurosceptic, as we now see with his complete exoneration of the EU and hateful comments about Leavers.
Cameron complains that the Leavers made use of the possible accession of Turkey as an issue in the campaign. This was quite proper after the UK had seen such a huge influx of migrants from newly acceded countries like Poland and Romania. But of course Cameron was highly deceptice during the campaign by claiming that there was "no chance" of Turkey joining despite Cameron himself enthusiastically supporting their membership application on numerous occasions both personally and formally within the EU.
Cameron suggests he handicapped himself in the media by not wish to launch Blue on Blue attacks. Two points there: firstly, the Conservatives in the Leave campaign launched no personal campaigns against him (so maybe that was more self-preservation than anything honourable) and, secondly, Cameron had virtually the whole of the UK media on his side.
Cameron claims that the BBC mistook "balance" for "impartiality". He gives as an example the fact that most businesses supported the Remain campaign but the BBC would got to the minority of businesses that supported Remain in order to achieve a "balance".
This is a return to the BBC's own ideas that it can act as an objective arbiter in political disputes (strangely, nearly always coming down on the left-liberal side of the debate).
The reality was that during the Referendum campaign the BBC was incredibly biased to the Remain side as often shown here with stopwatch analyses and the like. There was a pattern where the BBC would nearly always lead with a Remain talking point. The Remain spokesperson(s) would be given more time than the Leave people. The Remain comments would be described in rational terms "the CBI has warned that x,y,z...experts consider there is a high risk of blah-blah"...But the Leave response would be described in emotional terms: "The Leave spokesperson reacted angrily to the suggestion and lashed out at the CBI stating..." etc etc .
Cameron is one of our biggest of the lying PMs. I think May was probably the worse, Major second and Cameron third. Brown and Blair not so bad but still big liars.
It's a terrible record.
Besides the near complete silence from the BBC on Salvini's removal, there's also this.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTNETV-ssUg
What an amazing organisation.
"Tories extend poll lead to 12% despite week of political chaos" The Guardian!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/sep/14/tories-extend-poll-lead-to-12-despite-week-of-political-chaos
They don't sound best pleased...
So, despite an unprecedented level of verbal assault and personal abuse from ex PMs, treacherous fellow party members, the BBC and other MSM, the Speaker, opposition party leaders, EU officials, foreign leaders and others against a current PM, Boris still extends his lead.
So, forget your little homilies, Kirsty, Emily and Emma...Boris is on the right track.
I seem to have missed any mention of Battle of Britain Day September 15th. Not on Andrew Marr, World at One or Today?
ReplyDeleteI sometimes have thoughts that I dare not express (something to do with living in an illiberal liberal world). I had one such thought last week – driving through Dewsbury after listening to a discussion on Today about Margaret Atwood’s sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale. The discussion had been along the lines that MA’s novel might become a reality in the US. I’d thought “FFS, here it IS a reality already – why doesn’t anyone else see it that way?” And then, this morning, in The Sunday Times, Sarah Baxter has written (p.28) what I thought. A couple of pages further on (p.32) Suzanne Moore reviewed the latest production from another of the BBC’s heroines; Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s solo show. PW-B is praised or worshiped (not sure which) in the piece for talking about how she uses porn and masturbates to the sound of Barak Obama’s voice. And I had another of those thoughts. Dare I ask what sort of review would have been written if a male had referenced Kirsty Young in a similar manner?
ReplyDeleteI read that Sarah Baxter article. It was surprising. I wondered if perhaps she is retiring from ST...because it's nowhere near the usual bland stuff she comes out with. She even quotes approvingly a sentence stating that the 9/11 attackers were Muslim men, seeking as they saw it to further their religion...arguing we need to describe such things accurately. Under Baroness Warsi's definition that could be construed as a hate crime punishable by a custodial sentence.
DeleteYes, a pleasantly surprising piece.
DeleteLink here.
heard on radio 4 this morning:
ReplyDeleteLib dem: It'll be hard to win this seat. Everybody's white and British and voted leave.
Presenter: How will you win those votes?
LD: Warn about the far right and nationalism
P: What's that got to do with Brexit?
LD: Err...
P: "As you can see, they will have to do a lot better than that to win seats in leave areas..."
Summary: BBC shows balance by being mean to those remainers who are not talking a good enough game about winning at remain votes.
Talking of skin colour - which the BBC does all the time - I was outraged to see how hideously white the Lib Dem conference is. Surely, the BBC should be launching an undercover Panorama investigation to find out what's going on...
DeleteBBC have been reporting on the new Kavanaugh accusations....but then not really, as is their revolting wont of late.
ReplyDeleteTim Pool's video on where this story came from :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yYecoZKtz0
Additional video from today :
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InJdY_nAv64
The BBC reported this story yesterday more than once...... 'further allegations'.
Total codswallop.
Topic for bbc: Parliaments State Capture of the Leave Vote(aka brexit hard/soft due to/inspite off and variations off eh bbc through withdrawel agreements, and back stops to "no deal" all the narrative[taqiyya] driven by the bbc remain propaganda outfit) bbc rats nest of communists.
ReplyDeleteDifficult to understand, but I think I agree : )
DeleteBBC Newsnight - only one narrative...the empty podium was a humiliation for Boris Johnson...then they review the papers and Emily is reminded that there is another narrative: this demonstrates the bullying pathetic nature of the EU, and explains why we are determined to exit.
ReplyDeleteJust imagine if Boris said it was all off and we are staying in the EU. It would 24/7 'humiliation' on the BBC until the next election.
DeleteAnother thing about Newsnight...
ReplyDeleteThey keep using biased think tank spokespeople and giving the impression these are independent bodies. Firstly they had the usual "Institute for Government" talking head telling us Why Boris Is Wrong (as per usual). The Institute for Government is a totally Remainiac oganisation funded in the millions and controlled by Remainer-in-Chief Lord Sainsbury.
The IfG spokespeople are allowed to speak uninterrupted and unchallenged of course.
We also had a "Eurasia Group" spokesperson on. The Eurasia Group is linked to George Soros not least via Lord Malloch Brown (ex Gordon Brown Minister). I hadn't realised quite how important Lord Malloch Brown was to the Soros operation.
Why do the BBC keep covering for Jo Swinson? They never show the video of her in Parliament committing to an In-Out Referendum on Brexit on their lead news programmes.
ReplyDeletehttps://order-order.com/2019/09/16/jo-swinsons-brexit-referendum-u-turn/
(BTW - couldn't find this when I searched on You Tube - the Globalists must be hiding it.)
Imagine if this was the other way round and there was video of Boris saying in Parliament it would be a catastrophe for the UK to leave the EU - the BBC would play it non-stop on a loop and all their correspondents would mention it!
Newsnight tonight was interesting - at least in the sense that it was instructive to see how much ex BBC man John Sergeant hates Boris. It was at a pathological level. If it wasn't for the mollifying effects of the green room hospitality Sergeant might have started biting the carpet.
ReplyDeleteThe debate on the Supreme Court deliberations was the usual loaded affair. Four Remainers (including of course Emily Maitlis, as she makes abundantly clear) against one Leaver (Gisela Stuart).
I am surprised Maitlis didn't take umbrage at Falconer's lordly mansplaining of the constitution to the only woman on the panel . But I suppose the need to "Get Boris" trumps everything else.
It's clear which side the BBC News website is on. The headline about the court proceedings shows a mass of banners telling us that Boris Johnson is in the dock, and the article itself has large images of Gina MIller and Joanna Cherry both looking confident,
DeletePrompt action by the pic editors on the BBC News website - the leading image referred to above (now relegated to the Politics page) has been replaced by a split image showing banners promoting both sides of the argument. This crafty move follows the familiar pattern by the BBC News website of subtly changing emphasis before a story is archived.
DeleteWell spotted Arthur.
DeleteProminent positioning of pics of protest placards with insulting, libellous, dishonest, simplistic claims text on them are the ideal way for the BBC to get across their message while being able to claim they are "just reporting".
To be fair, this sublimimal propaganda technique is also used extensively by Sky and ITV.
You know it is their intention to propagandise in this way, because they have the choice of using more distant shots with placards slightly out of focus, if they wish.
Also, whenever they show what they would call "Far Right" protests, they ensure the writing on the placards is generally not seen.
Yes, every time the UK PM steps out his is met by activists who parade placards and now heckle - and dear Aunty churns this out as news. Today's heckler present when BJ visited a hospital was according to Guido a well-known Labour activist.
DeleteWhat the Hammonds, Grieves and Benns of the world don't seem to understand is that they are fuelling the fervour of these EU flag-waving, placard-holding and Boris-hating activists at the expense of democracy.
ITN are still running the story of the heckler at the hospital. They add that he is a Labour activist, but he is angry with Boris 'as a father' - right - it sounds like a late editorial change to me.
DeleteThe BBC is in full cred crisis mode over this.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that all the rest are nailed too is irrelevant.
The anti-Boris faction are a mixture of Remainers left-wing activists hiding behind Granddad. There can be nothing honourable to be found in the actions of Bercow, Grieve etc because they have (possibly unknowingly) allied themselves to an extreme and dangerous left-wing group. The BBC are playing their tune.
DeleteIn fact, Grieve, Hammond, Bercow, Benn etc have positioned a trojan horse into which have climbed the extreme left-wing anti Tory element of the Labour Party. They didn't see that one coming!
Delete... Remainers and left-wing activists ...
ReplyDeleteThere's more to report on the split image being used at the head of:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news
... 'Prorogation carried out in bad faith court told' ...
The banner on the right of the split image is chosen in order to carry a negative message about the pro Brexit group. The banner says 'make Britain great again' a clear reference to the Trump MAGA message. The people shown are white males, and there is a group of policemen watching. The subliminal message is that the group may need the police to intervene.
It's second nature to BBC staff to do that sort of thing...along with finding someone obese on a mobility scooter to put the case for Leave when doing the Vox Pops! lol
DeleteThere was an interesting turn of phrase on the BBC website this morning regarding a fall in inflation, "Inflation growth slowed sharply in August to 1.7%". Almost as if inflation had "crashed", rather than a lower rate of increase of prices.
ReplyDeleteSee https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49738869
Saw some of the BBC confessional on Cameron tonight.
ReplyDeleteDespite our brains being given the soft soap massage by the BBC, didn't alter my view: he is a Notorious Big Liar.
One of his classic lie lines is to say "People criticise me for X,Y,Z but A,B,C" whereas the reality is people criticise him for P,Q, R and A,B,C are no answer to P,Q,R!
To be more specific - he made all sorts of claims about how he was criticised for resigning after the Referendum result. But the real criticism (that he did not mention at all!) is that DURING the Referendum campaign he constantly reiterated to the British public he would NOT resign if the vote went against him. Strangely, the BBC could find no footage of him doing this, to illustrate the point...He made this solemn promise to the British public - that he would see the result through and implement it, whether Remain or Leave - and then reneged on that solemn pledge.
That lie was for me the beginning of the "Big Deceit" (that the Referendum "Leave" result would be honoured). Cameron now states he resigned in order to facilitate a "soft" Brexit. "Soft" for Remainers means "tied to the EU in perpetuity" in case you didn't realise!
I am not trusting in Boris, but I am hoping he brings an end to this sorry chapter of low deceit in British politics. We shall see in the next few weeks...
Lost a post earlier...I was just making the point that Katya Adler has spent the last year nearly telling us the EU cannot possibly change the Withdrawal Agreement with its all-important Backstop. I have said BS to that several times here.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how she feels about her credibility as a journalist now that Juncker has told Sophie Ridge on Sky that the Backstop can be replaced with something else?
Adler is a spokesperson for the EU not a reporter about the EU. The same goes for virtually all MSM reporters out in Brussels now. James Mates is just a loudspeaker for the EU.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-49754224
ReplyDeleteThe BBC promotes the idea of decapitating our Prime Minister as "entertainment"...and they don't even know the difference between "compliment" and "complement" - not sure which is worse:
"Complimenting Dave's victory, this year's Mercury Prize ceremony had a chaotic urgency that has been missing from award shows since the heyday of Britpop.
Post-punk band Idles leapt into the crowd, while one of the members of Black Midi ran headfirst into a piano, before attempting, and failing, to perform a somersault.
But Northampton-based rapper Slowthai caused the biggest stir by performing with a dummy of Boris Johnson's severed head, which he held aloft as he performed Doorman, a track about wealth disparity in modern Britain.
Speaking to the BBC, he explained the song, like the rest of his album, aimed to give a voice to "the people from small communities that have been forgotten about". "
"It's time to let people in," he said. "Everyone, the lower class, the middle class, and even the ones in the upper who feel their life is hard."
Right now I understand - the Broadwater Farm community were quite keen on decapitation as well, as I recall.
Only yesterday there was a report on the BBC News website about the increase in far-right hate crime. We need a new definition of hate crime, because the event described above surely is such a crime. The BBC, by promoting far left messages, are complicit in the celebration of anti Conservative hateful sentiments: Remember The Witch is Dead and Liar Liar and affronts to JRM and his family. Redistribution of wealth as a reason for violent protest has diminished, because many of the monied elite are in fact the recipients of super-salaries bestowed upon them by the PC establishment (that includes you BBC).
DeleteFrom Guido:
Delete... 'The Guardian’s deputy music editor Laura Snapes has described a stunt by rapper ‘slowthai’ – in which he waved around a severed effigy of Boris Johnson’s decapitated head during a performance – as “amazing“ '...
Guardian, BBC, there's not much difference in their outlook.
Douglas Murray on his new book...and not just selling his book I think...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BhhKxXBP84
I think he's making an astute point re how people who are being made poorer in the "West" as a result of PC (can't get on the housing ladder) are being invited by PC ideology to feel aggrieved.
John Simpson tweet :
ReplyDeleteI'm rarely charmed by politicians, & mostly regard them as prey. But Iraq's PM, Adil Abdul-Mahdi, an exception when I met him today. Clever old boy (my age), frank. Danger of war between US/Saudi & Iran now v great, he says. And Israel has definitely used drones against Iraq
How does the impartial BBC deal with the spokesperson for a death cult, which is attempting to force our society to adopt policies that would lead to the immediate collapse of the economy, the destruction of the NHS, turning our farms over to weeds, the early deaths of thousands who require medication, mass unemployment and universal misery? I am referring to Extinction Rebellion which insists we have to remove all CO2 producing elements from our economy within the next four years (meaning we cut CO2 emissions by 25% per annum).
ReplyDeleteWell "like this" is the answer, as though Greta is wondrous example to be followed by us all!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-49756280
She's not a moral exemplar, she's a hypocritical kid political activist. Is her boat jacket made of plastic? Of course it is. Are the ropes on the boat made of nylon? Could she have saved many more carbon emissions by not undertaking a self-publicising transatlantic journey in a millionaire's boat? Of course.
H/T to JamesG
ReplyDelete“Broadcaster John Humphrys savages bias at the BBC as he accuses the ‘Kremlin’ style corporation of being out of touch
The veteran broadcaster spent 33 years on Radio 4’s flagship news show Today
In an explosive memoir serialised in the Daily Mail today, he pulls no punches
Humphrys says BBC bosses ‘badly failed’ to read the nation’s mood on Europe
And says he is now free of ‘the BBC Thought Police’ and its ‘liberal-Left image’ ”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7487661/Broadcaster-John-Humphrys-lifts-lid-institutional-liberal-bias-BBC.html
John took a long time to say it, didn't he? I guess when you are on million a year thanks to the BBC, that does tend to have an anaesthetic effect on the tongue!
Anyway he seemed to be very much part of the problem.
He's speeded up. Just two days after his long goodbye and his tongue is wagging like nobody's business.
DeleteJust like to add a thought or two on climate alarmism and green energy...
ReplyDeleteAs with so much the Left has moved in on this area and tried to ensure debate takes place on its own terms. That sometimes creates a "knee-jerk reaction" from non-Leftists.
The BBC are banging the drum for the Far Left anti-capitalist Extinction Rebellion movement/death cult.
I totally reject the ER policies which would collapse our economies and create untold misery.
Climate alarmism is absurd and irrational (for one thing it never counts as a positive the pluses of rising temperature e.g. fewer deaths from hypothermia in colder regions of the planet, more rainfall for crops, greening of the planet etc).
However, it is rational to think that we simply don't understand how our planet's climate really works and to take a precautionary attitude of trying to keep to historical atmospheric parameters, rather than testing nature's patience...
So I do agree we need to move from carbon based energy to non-carbon green energy.
The good news is that that is going to happen thanks to market forces. The (unsubsidised) costs of onshore wind energy are already below carbon forms and offshore is now following suit. It's pretty clear that, as the cost of storage also falls dramatically, we will be able to rely on wind and solar energy (the latter is also already cheaper than new nuclear and will continue to fall in price) to supply all our electricity. Converting all our vehicles and trains to electric power can follow over the next 20 years or so. That will replace anbother 25% of the overall energy load with green energy. In time, electric central heating will become a cheap alternative to gas power, lopping off another 10-20%.
It's clear to me that Trump or no Trump, green energy is going to win out. The only question is how quickly. Investment is expensive, so you can't just change from one infrastructure to another overnight.
This isn't a Left v Right issue. In the 2012 US Presidential elections, nearly all the Republican candidates were strong supporters of green energy.
Green energy supports our national independence. It is revitalising our East Coast ports as they service the large off shore wind turbines. In time it will greatly reduce air pollution in our big cities, so improving the health of tens of millions. And it is going to be cheaper across the board, including the costs of storage, before long.
Forget Greta but support Green Energy.
I agree.
DeleteIt is no doubt 'a good thing' to use wind/solar power rather than burning fossil fuels BUT there is an important concept called 'energy density' [see https://xkcd.com/1162/], i.e. how big a volume is needed to produce the power that we need. A teaspoon of coal has more energy in it than all the air in the HoC moving at 20 mph, for instance. Fossil fuels are not just energy dense, they can be stored until needed and transported as required. I don't think there will ever be a magic breakthrough in battery technology, (I might be wrong but I believe there are theoretical limits regardless of what chenistry is employed). The simplest method of cutting energy consumption would be to stop migration world-wide. Migrants invariable adopt a higher energy life-style than the one they left behind and then add to that the 'need' to maintain air links to the rest of their family - Emirates operate 36 weekly flights to Pakistan from Birmigham, somehow I doubt if many of those are made by the descendants of the 'Peaky Blinders'!
DeleteAnd don't forget the big ellie in the room, the one that cannot be talked about, that might offend, which is population growth. The BBC are very, very frightened of any mention of that.
DeleteAnon 1 - re energy density, it's not that straightforward. Your comparison doesn't work.
DeleteThe internet tells me "approx. 8 kWh of heat can be generated from 1 kg of coal" So for 5kgs of coal that would be 40 Kwhs. A 5 kg metre square solar panel might generate 2 Kwhs per day. But it will do that for 20 years not just as a one off. The solar panel equivalent will generate something like 14000 Kwhs compared with the coal's puny 40 Kwhs.
Obviously it's more complicated than that. There is a problem with energy density of chemical battery storage.
You might be confusing the "energy density" argument with the "return on energy investment" argument which is stronger for coal (but that is subject to a lot of caveats).
Anon 2 - Yes population growth is never addressed by BBC in any meaningful way because it immediately links to mass immigration.
M/B I can assure you that as a chartered engineer I don't confuse anything when it comes to energy!
DeleteYou are trying to compare the mass of the generation equipment with the mass of the energy store, apples versus pears, we don't burn solar panels, we can burn coal.
There are limits to how many solar panels or windmills we can install, that could be expressed as kW per square metre of land surface. Fossil-fuelled generators could be rated as kW per cubic metre, i.e. there is an area limit as to how much power the UK can generate with renewables, but for a fossil-fuelled generator it just depends on how high we are prepared to build.
When it comes to energy storage the energy density (kWh per kg) is key. We can store energy in a spring or water held at height but we couldn't use that energy to power a car, the energy density just isn't high enough. What is remarkable is how we have progressed as energy consuming societies by exploiting ever higher energy densities, solar and wind power takes us backwards, (think tea clippers versus container ships!
I'm not an electro-chemist but I believe there are theoretical limits to battery technology, similar to the way we know how much electricity is needed for the electro-plating process, say. The electric car only starts to become viable because the motor is about three-times more efficient than an internal combustion engine and is reversible, making it possible to recover some of the kinetic energy 'stored' in the moving vehicle.
"Sustainable Energy - Without The Hot Air" https://www.withouthotair.com/download.html by the late Professor Sir David MacKay gives a good politics-free account.
You rather make the point - we don't burn solar panels. The energy "fuel" is free - photons - and conveniently transports itself to the energy generation site at no cost.
DeleteIf you are saying it's apples and pears I don't know why you first raised the issue of the energy density in coal in relation to green energy. In terms of green energy, the energy density of coal is really only relevant to biofuels and storage solutions.
Regarding solar energy, we have plenty of land space available - roofs - and solar energy land use can in any case co-exist with other uses such as dairy farming. As regards wind turbines, they again are pretty low impact in terms of land use being located either in underutilised hill country or out at sea.
Coals, ports, railways and the like certainly can't be located on roofs and don't co-exist with dairy farming very well.
There you go again - comparing the energy density of coal with wind and solar energy systems! Storage cannot be examined in isolation.
The price of solar and wind are falling so rapidly that I think ultimately the storage solution will be to manufacture carbon neutral methane from CO2 in the atmosphere and H2O. We already have the methane ("natural gas") infrastructure in place, so this is a perfect match. That is a few years off but if you have a price difference of say 2p between green energy and fossil fuels this becomes a definite possibility.
There are theoretical limits to chemical battery efficiency I believe. Not sure about density. Pumped storage is very efficent (around 90%).
Green energy of course has far fewer hidden costs in terms of climate change (if you accept the majority science view on carbon emissions), and negative health impacts.
Cows eat grass, grass needs sunlight to grow. Cows, solar panels, choose.
DeleteMethane at atmospheric pressure needs 13,000 times the volume of diesel oil containing the same energy.
Solar power is very variable. It is reckoned that under ideal conditions South-West England can be self-sufficient and indeed a net exporter of power. However if it clouds over that all changes. Worse still if the grid connection is lost all solar power will disconnect too as network synchonisation goes. Most of that power will not auto-start if the grid comes back on. The same is very much true of windpower, which tends not to be produced near load centres so relies on long connectors to the grid.
Water storage is so good that you would need to elevate a litre of water some 4,800 km to store the same energy as in a kilo of diesel oil. That is why energy density is important.
You have an odd way of arguing. What possible point are you making by comparing the energy of density of methane at atmospheric pressure with that of diesel oil, given that methane is never stored at atmospheric pressure? Methane is hugely cheaper than diesel oil.
DeleteI don't know of anyone who claims wind and solar are not intermittent energy sources, so the issue is only one of how successfully one can use storage (in various forms), substitution (e.g. hydroelectric, bio fuels and energy from waste) or imported energy.
In the case of the UK, at any one time we could probably provide 15% of our electricity from a combination of energy from waste, bio fuels and hydro (they can all, to a certain extent be "ramped up" when there is a shortfall). In the future you might add in some significant geothermal, tidal, sea current and wave energy. With continental grids you can import elecricity from surplus countries as Germany does from Denmark and Scandinavia.
For the worst case scenarios we need to rely on methane generation and chemical battery storage. Initially we can use natural gas generators but in time these can be fuelled by manufactured methane, which will be carbon neutral. As the cost of battery storage continues its steep decline (
Pugnazious on BBBC heard the same bit of The Emma Barnett Show as I did, where she declared:
ReplyDelete‘The Conservatives have just prorogued Parliament and are in the supreme court now…Labour should be streets ahead [in the polling]’
Why? Why should a party led by a Far Left pro-terrorist anti-patriotic Marxist be ahead in the polls just because the Conservatives have some difficulties as a result of obstruction by extreme anti-democratic Remainers?
It reminded me of Hillary Clinton's comment about how she should be 50 points ahead in the polls...
er no...not if you are such a poor candidate.
As Pugnazious observes, the BBC just don't get it do they? The real question is why do a hardcore 25% of the electorate still vote for Labour, given the poor quality of the Shadow Cabinet, their insane economic policies (destroy the rented sector, abolish independent schools, tax the rich so they all leave the UK, support Extinction Rebellion's ruinous policies, reduce the working week by 20%, allow paid leave for any number of "conditions" such as the menopause, nationalise anything that moves and some things that don't - total cost gazillions a Labour government won't have...equals total fiscal meltdown).
Absolutely scandalous how the courts have treated Brexiter legal challenges. Tilbrook obviously had a worthy case because two judges have actually taken different viewpoints on it. But the worst aspect of this is that Lord Justice Hickinbottom, a Fellow of the European Law Institute (an pro-EU activist group that receives money from the EU) was allowed to hear this pro-Brexit case...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvjwrPHTkck
Pea brain Chris Morris embarrasses himself with yet another completely biased and non-factual "Reality Check":
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49688420
The whole thing is riddled with errors but here are few howlers and biased items of nonsense:
1. He claims that to argue that "no deal" is a misleading term, because a series of mini-deals has already been done is wrong because these are "unilateral actions" by the EU. He then further claims they will need to be "renegotiated" after a temporary period. How do you "renegotiate" something that was "unilateral", eh Chris? And is Morris seriously suggesting that the EU won't extend arrangements that allow UK planes to fly into their airspace? Really, Chris?
2. Morris states: "So the only way the UK could really have a clean-break Brexit is if it were prepared to walk away, at least for a while, from any kind of stable relationship with the EU, which accounts for roughly half of all UK trade. "
Really, Chris? WTO rules are not a stable basis for trade? We better tell India, the USA and China then...
3. He argues that to not have a "stable relationship" with the EU means our food supply from the EU would be in jeopardy? Really, Chris? Are you really arguing the Spanish won't sell us their tomatoes and oranges? Meanwhile, we can pick and choose. We can have tomatoes from Morocco, Kenya and the USA if we prefer. But it's all nonsense, the EU will be more than happy to carry on providing us with agricultural produce. Anyone who claims otherwise is really just lying - there's no other word for it. They know such claims are entirely false.
4. Morris rehearses the tired old project fear arguments about Northern Ireland. He claims we will have to carry on talking about the border after we leave on a clean Brexit. Of course we will. For one thing it relates to the Good Friday Agreement. But it's not us who will be putting up infrastructure on the border. The Republic won't either, for sure, whatever the lying EU claim now.
It would be a pity if we denied EU nations access to our side of the North Atlantic air traffic control wouldn't it?
Delete'Some say' that certain wealthy individuals in Ireland rather like the differences in currency and taxes either side of the border that exist now and post-Brexit that could only get better. The funny thing is it is these same individuals that reputably control the people with guns that are going to get upset if we leave 'the single market' i.e. the one with different currencies and taxes. Should anyone start constructing a 'hard border' it would make more sense for these shadowy people to blow up the border posts rather than plant bombs in London or Belfast.
Tom Harwood is reporting that:
ReplyDelete"Kier Starmer tells politico that Labour’s second referendum would lower the voting age to 16 and look at including foreign nationals in the franchise too."
I have always said this was part of the Blair-Macron-Soros plot for the rigged rerun. The so-called "second referendum" proposal was already illegitimate but this makes it even more so.
But I am sure the BBC will greet the proposal enthusiastically and only inquire why votes aren't weighted according to age-related longevity, so a 16 year old's vote is worth 5 times that of an 80 year old. :)
So proof positive now that even the Supreme Court, not just the role of Speaker in Parliament, has been captured by extreme Remainiacs determined on constitutional innovation in order to block and revoke the Referendum decision. Remember, Johathan Sumption a retired Supreme Court judge - clearly a Remainer - had absolutely no doubt that the Government had acted lawfully. This is a judgement that can only have a political motivation.
ReplyDeleteBBC will have a field day of course. But then they have never placed any importance on our constitution.
This decision is an absolute disaster for the country. It means the Supreme Court which has no democratic input but is rather simply a self-perpetuating like-minded club, is now an active player on our political scene...in a most fundamental sense.
How can Jonathan Sumption, only recently retired from the Supreme Court have such a very, very clear view of what the law is but then the Supreme Court unanimously tell him he's wrong! Sumption must have been the last connection to a pre-politicised judiciary (and only to a degree, since he cuts a very political figure on our news programmes as well).
ReplyDeleteAs far as I am concerned, this was a politically motivated judgement. The motivation was to disrupt Brexit. The biased judges clearly consider it unconscionable that MPs should not be given time to undo the statutes they passed into law overwhelmingly themselves a year or two back, despite the fact they've had ample time to do so if they wished. A Leaver simply doesn't accept that motivation is valid. So it's a Remainer-inspired judgement.
Regarding mad catwoman Lady Hale, people have been observing that she has taken to wearing a spider brooch of late. She is of a certain age and so will certainly remember The Who song, "Boris the Spider". One verse goes:
ReplyDelete"There he is wrapped in a ball
Doesn't seem to move at all
Perhaps he's dead, I'll just make sure
Pick this book up off the floor"
She certainly picked up the book and made sure...
I've just seen the end of Politics Live on BBC2. Summing up at the end of the programme, Jo Coburn played a short clip of Geoffrey Cox defending Boris Johnson's actions. The sub-titles of what Jo Coburn said read: "Weaselly words ... [from Geoffrey Cox]". I do hope this was one of the howling errors that appear on sub-titles from time to time, but if not ... Bias! I noticed the wording because I didn't think 'weaselly' was a word, but spellcheck says it is.
ReplyDeleteNot a fan of Geoffrey "Booming" Cox as a rule but today the boy did well...he knew he was fighting for his own reputation, as much as Boris and his government or the decent majority of the electorate, and that probably helped.
DeleteDEATH OF DEMOCRACY UPDATE...
ReplyDeleteSo Jonathan Sumption was on Today, Radio 4 today putting a face saving gloss on his previous pronouncements.
He now says that the Supreme Court were entitled to overturn established constitutional law on Prorogation because the Government's behaviour had been "shocking"...
Really? "Shocking"? To me that is redolent of a judgement delivered by a gaggle of Guardian-readers ing gathered around an Islington dining table.
My way of viewing it, and I think this is backed up by tens of millions of people, is that Parliament has had 3 years to deliver Brexit but has failed. It was intent on sabotage of the executive's efforts to seal a deal and so the Government's behaviour was sensible and defensible, in not giving Parliament more time to work its sabotage than was stictly necessary.
So, Sumption is now saying that the law must follow the Guardian-approved sentiments of top judges, rather than a strict application of well established constitutional principles.
Thus these idiot judges have completely politicised our judicial processes. It's a truly horrific vista that has opened up.
EVEN DEADER...
DeleteJonathan Sumption, supposedly an intelligent chap well versed in law, stated that "52% can expect to get 100% of the spoils". What a crass thing to say in relation to a binary choice Referendum! Someone immediately commented whether he was therefore saying that Scotland should have been awarded 45% independence after its Referendum because only 55% voted to stay in the Union? Would Sumption also apply that to Supreme Court decisions so that if the Court arrives at its decision 6 to 5, against the plaintiff, the plaintiff will nevertheless be found to be deserving of something like 45% of what they were asking for?
These dim-wits seek to interefere in our democratic politics! Unbelievable!!
Obviously the quote was "52% CAN'T expect to get 100% of the spoils".
DeleteSuch an illuminating statement...who among those voting in the Referendum thought that they would be carrying off "spoils". That's how the elite think. Not ordinary people. Ordinary people thought they were being asked to make a choice between two paths for the future of our country.
Since these turkeys won't vote for Christmas, why don't we refer to his anti-democratic assembly as "The Turkey Parliament".
ReplyDeleteBBC not reporting that Brendan Cox has today criticised MPs using murdered Jo Cox's name in their debate.
ReplyDeleteNoted that every BBC news report about the failure of Ulster bus builders Wrightbus, mentioned that they built the new London Routemaster ordered by Boris Johnson.
ReplyDeleteMaybe they expect Boris to resign and apologize for putting business their way ?
"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty"
Delete"Relentless bias is the price of PC ideology."
NEWSNIGHT WATCH
ReplyDeleteSpeaker Bercow, despite his long, supercilious and tendentious interventions about behaviour, has allowed the House of Commons to come to resemble a farmyard. He did nothing to suppress the applause tactic used by Labour's Far Left and Virtue Signallers on several occasions over recent years. Now the Conservatives have joined in, resulting in something resembling total anarchy.
Maitlis has got her mojo back - completely biased partisan questions...question after question to Bernard Jenkins suggesting Boris is a villain...absolutely awful. Jenkins is a twat to have allowed himself to be put into the stocks so Maitlis and her mate from the Lib Dems, Labour and the whoever can throw rotten cabbages at him.
On to Layla Moran - Lib Dems...the soft questions start. She's not asking "Why did Jo Swinson support an in-out referendum in ten years ago?"
On to whispering Barry Gardiner...Maitlis has rubbished the Conservative leader. Will she mention Corbyn's support for terrorist organisations, lying about his support for leaving the EU, or his Communist affiliations? Er no of course.
Barry looks like he's been on the sauce...
Tory Traitor Antoinette Sandbach guffing away. Wants "compromise between Leavers and Remainers" - why? That wasn't how the Referendum was billed by the PM, by the parties, by the media, by the EU or anyone else. It was billed as a binary choice.
1. Bercow overturning constitutional norms on an ad hoc basis.
ReplyDelete2. The Supreme Court overthrowing established constitutional precedent and marching into the political arena.
3. House of Commons descending into a farmyard farce thanks to Bercow's failure to exert authority.
4. Swinson, who campaigned for an in-out referendum, now campaigning for overturning the in-out referendum and wanting to go "straight to Revoke".
5. Corbyn lying every day about his views on the EU. 30 years of opposition to the EU, 30 years of wanting to get us out of the EU...following by a couple of years of pretending that never happened.
6. Eco Deceit propaganda being pumped out 24/7 by our media. Greenland ice sheet is melting!!!! Er yes - it's always melting by the sea...but is it getting any smaller? Er no. Greenland is still has more precipitation than melting. The ice sheet is growing and our media are lying.
Then they are off to the Solomon Islands..."rising sea levels" - er no...changes in local wind systems (pushing more water from the sea on to the land) and land rising.
What liars they are!
7. Trump Impeachment...BBC, ITV, Sky all on board!
Trump had legitimate questions to ask as President having seen Biden boast about how he exerted diplomatic pressure to ensure Ukraine's anti-corruption squad didn't go after his son. In fact, this whole nonsense might just be about the DNC ensuring Biden (no hoper) gets kicked off the ticket.
All the above - just some of the madness we have to contend with...some more amusing than some others...
Emily tells us that Labour people abhor extreme language.
ReplyDeleteOK - try these:
1. "We would rather die than join any other party" - Emily Thornberry.
2. "Brexit has unleashed fascists and racists..." Anna Soubry.
3. Boris Johnson is "behaving like a demagogue". Dominic Grieve.
4. "Brexit: How Britain was undone by the religious fervour of a deluded few." Rachel Sylvester.
5. “Johnson, Fox, Gove, Davis, Rees-Mogg should be hung, drawn and quartered, with each quarter being sent to the 4 corners of the UK to be burned at the stake”. Galen Milne (Lib Dem candidate)
6. John McDonnell told the hustings audience that he had said at the time that he would have liked to go back to that era and "assassinate Thatcher".
7. At a rally in London in 2003 to commemorate IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands, John McDonnell said that it was “about time we started honouring those people involved in the armed struggle”.
“It was bombs and bullets and sacrifice made by the likes of Bobby Sands that brought Britain to the negotiating table. The peace we have now is due to the action of the IRA,” he added at the rally.
I could go on, but you get the picture.
The BBC is not interested in the extremist language of Remainers and Leftists.
Has Emily ever got worked about this sort of "extreme language". No. She never references these sorts of quotes.
Paula Sherriff had a 'testy' exchange with Boris Johnson!
DeleteOK...this is interesting...a programme on Radio 4 coming up called "Muslim Pride"...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008wsp
I can only presume "Sayeeda Warsi" is "Baroness Warsi"...
From the promo blurb...
"Sayeeda Warsi asks why Islam and same-sex attraction are often presented as black and white - binary opposites - when the picture has many shades of grey."
Really? Last time I looked, all the four main schools of Sunni Islam and Shia Islam as well taught that the penalty for male homosexual activity was death and the penalty for women expressing lesbian identities was home arrest under the control of their families.
Perhaps the BBC knows better?
"The question could not be more timely. Protests outside primary schools in Birmingham have highlighted the often testy relationship between homosexuality and Islam, a problem which several of the contributors in Sayeeda’s previous documentary on Radio 4 - about women and Islam - said required urgent attention."
OK, I am loving that "testy" BBC...must remember that one...Crusaders and Saladin had a "somewhat testy relationship". Bomber Harris and the Luftwaffe had a "somewhat testy relationship".
The Ayatollah and Salman Rushdie had a "somewhat testy relationship"!
"And now, speaking to five Muslims who experience same-sex attraction, Sayeeda will give it that attention. This is more than just a theological question: it comes laden with practical problems – from keeping their sexuality and relationships hidden, choosing whether, when and how to come out, and in the case of one of Sayeeda's interviewees, rejecting his attraction to other men altogether, choosing instead to marry and have children - telling neither his wife nor his family.
But their problems aren’t limited to being gay whilst Muslim. It’s often also challenging to be Muslim whilst gay, and Sayeeda will hear about the discrimination some of them have experienced in gay communities, as they try to balance and reconcile their different identities, to themselves and others."
Call me cynical but I don't think the actual programme will be anything like the blurb. It will be a modern take on the traditional teachings of Islam with a lot of verbiage designed to gull the gullible.
Where do you go to find a homosexual who has kept his homosexuality secret from his own wife and kids ?
DeleteOr is it simply that everybody knows he's gay except his wife and kids ?!
Amazing to hear good sense from the media - well it's Sky News Australia (not our Sky News sadly)...
ReplyDeleteGreat take-down of the Greta phenomenon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DticpNH3a2Q
There's an extraordinary headline in the Guardian:
ReplyDelete'MPs' fury as Johnson claims to speak for Britain on Brexit'
If Boris doesn't speak for Britain, then why not hold a GE to find out who does, Guardian. In Politics Live yesterday, one of the panel differentiated between the traditional Labour voter - and 'a Labour voter from Hampstead'. Therein lies the difficulty facing Labour's credibility. The London Labour voter has a completely different set of values to those of the traditional Labour heartlands.
There is a time in politics to go for the jugular. The Conservatives need to remind the public of Corbyn's record of supporting terrorists, anti-semitic comments, support for anti-semitic organisations, touring of East Germany on his motor bike with Diane Abbott at the height of the Cold War, lying about his attitude to the EU and his support for Venezualan economic policies. Same with McDonnell, remind the public of how he joked about assassinating Margaret Thatcher and lauded IRA terrorists. Don't just do it once, do it all the time, in the same way Labour and their allies use the repetition tactic.
DeleteBut they would need to get past the impartial gatekeepers, Maitlis, Marr, Husain, etc.
Delete