What interests Politically Homeless
Articles, videos and more that I have consumed this week
25th November 2024
I hope everyone had a lovely weekend. Here are some of the articles and videos I have been reading / watching this week.
Article: The Daily reports on government adviser Tim Spector’s change of heart over the lab leak theory
Life can come up you really fast especially after you have been shouted at, banned and generally derided for daring to come to this theory later than some but before most of the population. It feels like the lab leak theory is now front and centre and will likely become a real subject when Trump takes over. We should really see a wall of resignations but that would require a sense of pride and honour that appears to be absent from modern life.
Article: Professor Peter Ramsay in Unherd discusses how the UK should respond to any US trade war
Peter rightly points out that these difficult times requires a government which is capable and willing to think about the national interest first and foremost.
“The decision requires a government which is able to think ruthlessly about where the national interest lies, to think politically. Labour should be ready to abandon its reflexive Europhilia and instead consider how it might take advantage of both a Brexit and an American president that it instinctively despises in order to get the best deal available from both sides.”
I found this part especially pertinent.
“We must stop fantasising about Britain’s role as a leader in confronting global challenges and instead attend to the intricate demands of negotiating our way through the accelerating fragmentation of the old world order.”
We need to stop trying to be a liberal world power and just return to being a successful country which is very much ironically what the US is doing as it is attempts to retrench from imperial overreach during the unipolar moment. As Peter quite rightly says we elect our politicians to represent us not other institutions.
Article: Wired reports on the fact that we don’t know for sure if any nuclear weapons still work
A fascinating article on the challenges of maintaining nuclear weapons when testing has been banned. Will they still go bang and whether the delivery systems i.e. the missiles will still fire as expected. There appears to be some concern they will not. This is definitely a point of concern for the UK which maintains an active at sea deterrent especially as the last two missiles we have tested have failed. Fascinating, interesting and more than a little worrying.
Article: The Mirror reports on a tortoise that survived in an attic for 30 years
A tale of plucky survival against all odds. The poor little fellow was lost by the family in decades past and was found 30 years later still going strong. I felt sorry for the little guy but found it quite uplifting to see how life finds a way.
Article: Joel Kotkin writes for Spiked on the publics turn away from the “green revolution”
The turn away from green blobbery was always going to happen as the public was being offered nothing but immiseration and national decline. The big winner as Kotkin correctly points out is China.
“he only major country set to benefit from the ‘energy transition’ is China, which continues to spew more greenhouse gases than all advanced countries combined. It is using efficient, cheaper fossil fuels to dominate the solar-panel industry, building its battery capacity to roughly four times the size of America’s while exercising effective control of rare-earth minerals and the technology for processing them.”
Well that turn away is arriving now and will only gather force over the coming years. European elites especially who have spent the last 2 decades parading their green credentials are going to have to find something else to virtue over or perhaps just piss off out of public life.
Here is hoping.
Article: Tom McTague in Unherd writes about the rise of Jeremy Clarkson and what he represents in British politics
Tom gets under the skin of Clarkson and the farmers protest and what they mean and represent. From a small “c” socially conservative movement which is central to national life to a group of people who in many ways represent a pre-mass migration Britain. Either way they are upset and their emergence - one of many is a warning to Starmer and co about the gathering forces which are unhappy with the economically and socially liberal status quo.
“Clarkson represents the national system; Starmer and Reeves the philosophical one. If I were Starmer, I would be worried that this is the wrong side to be on today, especially in this era of Trump. Clarkson’s politics, it seems to me, are like T.E. Utley’s self-professed brand of Toryism: “at once traditionalist and populist, which holds sway in every public bar in the kingdom and is almost entirely denied parliamentary expression by the Establishment”. Just because Clarkson’s politics do not map onto the prejudices of the two main parties today — being neither pro-European nor pro-global free trade — does not invalidate them, but rather, potentially, elevates them.”
Article: Tim Black for Spiked Online also covers the farmer protests
Tim outlines the mounting anger in the UK but across the EU about the attacks on farming via new laws and regulations. I would disagree with his idea that there is no link with the protests in other countries. Yes the trigger has been different each one but the overall the anger is towards an out of touch elite which wants to micro manage people’s lives - this is a mounting friction everywhere and across society and one which is getting worse each year due to the net zero farce.
“The difference now is that Starmer and Reeves enjoy nothing like the lukewarm support New Labour did two decades ago, before farmers and hauliers reminded them who really keeps society moving. Painfully estranged from so much of working Britain, Labour faces a challenge here far greater than it realises. All power to the farmers.”
Indeed - danger danger Will Robinson though I just don’t think Labour is clever enough to see it.
Article: Gareth Roberts goes two feet in on Blue Sky for Spiked Online
I have watched the liberal flounce off of Twitter with mounting amusement and satisfaction especially as they will nearly all come in due course. I mean Jon Sopel didn’t even make 24 hours! It for me underlines the intellectual bankruptcy of a group of people who just can’t cope with being told no. Whatever I think I thought this piece by Gareth was superb as he starts as he means to go on.
“The ‘nice’ version of Twitter is a breeding ground for status-craving sociopaths and thin-skinned snitches.”
Beautiful.
From Twitter: Amazing to visit from around the world
Truly magnificent places around the world which take your breath away.
Picture of the week: If only my wife did cook for me!
That is everything for this week
Have a lovely week and try and share some love.