Absolutely Not The Daily Troll-o-Graph

 Close ally of Rishi Sunak believes in green agenda but wants to shield people from the huge financial costs Source - Daily Telegraph - 31/08/23 Link Rishi Sunak on Thursday appointed one of his closest friends in politics to head up his net zero department amid indications of a subtle change of policy from the Government away from green causes. Senior figures indicated the Tories will look at ways to protect ordinary families from the huge cost of green policies as part of a bid to create a dividing line with Labour before the next election. Claire Coutinho, who was appointed Energy Secretary to replace Grant Shapps, has championed environmental issues in the past, such as encouraging the growth of wild rural spaces and protecting the green belt. But she has also stood up for the thousands of people who use oil boilers. The fact that the Prime Minister has promoted such a key ally into the role suggests he may be considering a challenge to Sir Keir Starmer’s position on the enviro...

 An uncontrolled crowd packing the streets at a free festival on a bank holiday weekend is a recipe for trouble   Police officers at such huge and politically loaded events are in an impossible position   The glorious show must go on – but it’s time to close the curtains on criminals who exploit it Source - Capx 30/08/23 Link Some qualified good news for residents of London’s W10 and 11 returning to their homes after this year’s Notting Hill Carnival. Westminster council have generously offered to clear their gardens of festival clutter for free! Unfortunately, those returning to an outdoor latrine where their garden flat was are excluded. If that’s your lot, get on the Marigolds. Shit happens. That sentiment, expressed in various degrees of sophistry, seems to be the default response to anyone who questions the sacred right of the Carnival to take place, whatever the toll in human waste, garbage, incivility or violence. On social media, the reactions to 275 arrests and 7...

 With yet more strikes coming up and yet more journeys ruined, all passengers want is to travel on time without spending a small fortune Source - Daily Telegraph - 27/08/23 Link Another bank holiday, another train strike. Because heaven forfend that anybody should be able to get away easily for their long weekend, perhaps using a mode of transport that doesn’t entail sitting for hours in a traffic jam on the M1. But no, Saturday saw another strike by the wretched RMT, affecting all 14 main train operators on a weekend when 14 million drivers were also planning to hit the roads.  “We want a decent pay rise” whined Mick Lynch (current salary £84,174, plus benefits), who also claimed that “we’re not greedy” (yeah, right) and that the RMT is “not prepared to fund these very modest pay rises through... cuts to the services that will affect our members, but also affect the travelling public”. How the hell does he think the travelling public are not going to be affected if they can’t...

Overpriced childcare, wokery in schools, an unfair tax system: that’s what UK parents have to put up with Source - Daily Telegraph - 27/08/23 Link Britain is an increasingly difficult, expensive and unattractive place to raise children. Getting one child to 18 will now cost, on average, over £200,000. The tax system is unfair towards families: couples with the same overall income can end up paying wildly different amounts of tax depending on how earnings are divided between them. Our society cannot decide if it wants children to “grow up” or to perpetually infantilise them. We expected young people to make crushing, life-changing sacrifices to protect the elderly during the pandemic, yet we are creating a Peter Pan generation who won’t be able to afford their own homes until their mid-30s and could be making withdrawals from the Bank of Mum and Dad for far longer.  Parental choices in how to raise children are narrowing as the scope for state monitoring increases. There is now a pe...

 EXCLUSIVE: Allegations the SNP accepted donations in exchange for ­Westminster seats are being probed by police. Source - Daily Record 27/08/23 Link Officers in Manchester have confirmed they received a complaint after the ­publication of the party’s accounts last week by auditors in the city. The complaint to police, seen by the Sunday Mail, has made claims of money laundering with unregistered cash gifts to the party being put down as money brought in by fundraising. It states: “Donations that there are no records of...hundreds of thousands of pounds of ­donations that ­allegedly were raffles, ­fundraising etc. Humza Yousaf 'not up to the job' of being First Minister, claims Anas Sarwar “I believe these were actually cash gifts as part of a cash for seats operation to place people who made substantial ­donations to them into seats to gain elected office.” The report was assigned a reference number and it’s understood police contacted the complainer to follow up. A spokesman ...

 The London mayor is torturing ‘the science’ to ram through his punishing car tax. Source - Spiked - 24/08/23 Link London mayor Sadiq Khan’s planned expansion of the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) to outer London has been met with an incredible amount of resistance. The objections to the £12.50 per day car tax are legion. It punishes the poorest who can’t afford a new low-emission car or van. It hurts the disabled and the elderly who have difficulty using public transport. And all of this pain is amplified in outer London, where train, bus and Tube links are sorely lacking. Yet the London mayor has consistently waved all these objections aside. If you oppose ULEZ, he says, then you’re on the side of smog, asthma and diseased lungs. Perhaps you’re a far-right conspiracy theorist, too. Most of all, in the eyes of City Hall, to be against ULEZ is to be a denier of science. Except, over the past week, it has become all too clear that ‘the science’ that’s supposed to be driving the ULEZ...

 Despite the wails of the left, fiscal responsibility matters Source - Daily Telegraph 24/08/23 Link It's all Margaret Thatcher’s fault. Before her decade in power, British politics was less about accountancy than about ideas. Sure, Jim Callaghan and Denis Healey struggled with the nation’s finances, and were regularly traduced by Mrs T for spending more than what she thought the country could afford. But elections in those days tended to focus on the virtue, rather than the cost, of policy.  It was only in the 1980s that Labour finally started to get the message that uncosted manifesto pledges were a gift to their opponents. And we were well into the 1990s before a Labour leader emerged who genuinely understood that the party’s eagerness to say “yes” to every supplicant was undermining the chances of ever delivering on those commitments. There could be no better illustration of Mrs Thatcher’s political legacy than Pat McFadden’s warning to his front bench colleagues to rein i...

 Dame Alison resigned after admitting she leaked private banking information to the BBC Source - Daily Telegraph 23/08/23 Link NatWest’s plan to hand Dame Alison Rose a £2.4m payout has been branded a “sick joke” by Nigel Farage. The banking giant said on Wednesday that its former chief executive was in line to receive her £1.2m salary for the year, as well as another £1.2m in shares over a five-year period and £115,566 in pension payments. The pay deal totals £2.43m, although NatWest said it reserved the right to “claw back” payments depending on ongoing investigations. Dame Alison is currently seeing out her 12-month notice period after resigning last month. In a video posted on Twitter, Mr Farage said: “When I heard about it I thought perhaps it was a sick joke. “Surely you can’t break client confidentiality, surely you can’t breach virtually every important rule in the FCA codebook, and you can’t then lie about it after you’ve briefed the BBC and still receive a £2.43m payout,...

 The Mayor has denied claiming a white family does not represent 'real Londoners'   'Diversity politics' just means preferential treatment for some groups   Radical progressive doctrine makes no room for the white-British mainstream Source Capx - 21/08/23 Link Not content with blaming the so-called ‘culture wars’ for the recent homophobic attack in Clapham, Sadiq Khan has now cemented his position as Labour’s identitarian-in-chief by embroiling himself in a race row.  It has been reported that on the Mayor of London’s website included a photo of a young white family with the caption ‘does not represent real Londoners’. Quite remarkable, given the image appeared in a guide to the Mayor’s personal brand, which describes the capital as ‘a city for all Londoners’ and promises to appeal to all – irrespective of racial identity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, and family structure. Khan has said the caption was added by a member of staff and that it isn’t reflective...

 Trans activism is turning back the clock on gay rights. Source - Spiked 15/08/23 Link Jenny Watson’s lesbian speed-dating events were a hit. Two weddings, numerous engagements and countless romantic dalliances are testament to that. The events also offered a welcome boost in trade for the College Arms pub in central London, which had been struggling post-Covid. Having between 30 and 40 lesbians drinking for several hours on a Friday night was obviously great for business. There was, however, a hitch. A man showed up one evening. He claimed that he identified as a woman and as a lesbian. His appearance and behaviour were disturbing and he had to be reprimanded by Jenny for inappropriate and unwanted touching of a woman in the venue’s toilets. It need hardly be said that, at a lesbian event, being touched by a man is always inappropriate and unwanted. The man in question was reprimanded by Jenny later that evening and asked not to return. She also added a notice to her website makin...

 There is seemingly no issue the Labour leader can’t find a way to flip-flop on Source - Daily Telegraph 19/08/23 Link Most politicians U-turn from time to time. But it has begun to feel like Sir Keir Starmer has made U-turns the key plank of his campaign. Having first pledged to change the law to allow gender self-ID, Starmer rapidly backtracked after watching Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP implode into infighting and division after the practical consequences were made clear.  He now appears to be engaging in the bizarre process of reversing his reverse ferret. At an event in Rutherglen last week, Sir Keir said that he would not have blocked Sturgeon’s proposals, accusing government ministers of misusing their powers under devolution. The millions of women who wanted to vote Labour but felt unable to do so because of his support for this noxious, morally offensive policy will once again be seething.  They will not, however, be surprised. Starmer has accumulated more U-turns than ...

 It’s time to address the anti-work culture that has gripped our post-pandemic economy Source - Daily Telegraph - 16/08/23 Link Wage growth is accelerating. Employers are paying more to fill vacancies and retain staff. And perhaps, just perhaps, inflation might just fall far enough to deliver real growth in living standards. There is a catch to the latest data on the UK’s tight labour market, however. Some employers are finding that there are limits to the ability of higher wages to elicit greater effort on the part of workers; some would prefer to put in fewer hours instead. This could be bad news for the Bank of England, struggling valiantly to bring down inflation, and for the UK’s hopes of addressing its critical labour shortages. Ever since the pandemic, people have been quitting the labour market in vast numbers. Many took early retirement, leaving the rat race behind. That roughly half have found themselves living in relative poverty rather than enjoying the life of yoga cla...

 The alliance with the Greens is hurting the nationalist cause – and making Scotland poorer Source - Daily Telegraph 18/08/23 Link How to mitigate good news? It’s not a question most of us have to ask ourselves, but these days it’s a common one for the SNP. Having made so many contradictory pledges over the past few years, good news is not always something the Party can celebrate. And this week was no exception. The publication of the Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland (Gers) report revealed that Scotland has finally seen some progress in reducing its spiralling deficit.  The country’s gap between what it collects and what it spends came in at £19.1bn last year, down from the £23.7bn gap in 2021. Its deficit is still higher than pre-pandemic levels, but this £4.6bn drop is significant, not least for a country with such a loose grip on its public finances. Scotland’s deficit still amounts to 9pc of the country’s GDP, compared to just over 5pc for the UK as a whole. The...

Across the Western world, anger at a woke ruling elite is benefiting the Right – apart from in Britain Source - Daily Telegraph - 16/08/23 Link These are not happy times. Across the West, the vast majority of voters are fed up with the status quo, furious at the political class and desperate for alternatives. They believe society to be broken, that the post-industrial economy and globalisation generally aren’t working for them, and are angry at the vast cultural, social and technological changes that they feel have been foisted upon them.  Almost wherever one looks, from New Zealand to the Netherlands, hundreds of millions no longer feel in control, valued or even consulted by the self-satisfied ruling class. In the UK, 70 per cent believe the country is moving in the wrong direction, a YouGov poll reveals. An NBC poll found 74 per cent of Americans saying their country is on the wrong track.  We have entered the lengthiest period of prolonged popular disenchantment since the ...

 Honourable resignations appear to be a thing of the past. Just look at Northern Ireland’s chief constable Source - Daily Telegraph - 15/08/23 Link Summer wouldn’t be summer without some hapless government minister or top public official being prised from their Tuscan villa or Greek beach to attend to a crisis in their department or organisation. Sometimes they resist the demands to return to their cost.  Two years ago, Dominic Raab as foreign secretary, stayed on holiday in Crete amid the debacle of the Afghan withdrawal. Arguably, it lost him his job since he was replaced by Liz Truss in the next reshuffle. If you are in charge when something goes wrong but are sunning yourself abroad, it is wise to hot-foot it home simply to avoid the “where are you?” question, whether you think it’s fair or not. Simon Byrne, chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) did just that when it emerged that the personal data of his entire force had been posted on the intern...

 Backbenchers in traditionally Labour-voting seats won by the Tories urge Prime Minister to give public a say Source - Daily Telegraph - 14/08/23 Link Red Wall MPs have urged Rishi Sunak to put the Government’s 2050 net zero target to a referendum. Britain is legally obliged to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 100 per cent over the next 27 years, an objective signed into law by Theresa May.  Mr Sunak has committed to achieving it in a “proportionate and pragmatic” manner, but backbenchers in traditionally Labour-voting seats won by the Conservatives at the last election have urged him to give the public a say on the 2050 date. It comes amid a wider debate about net zero following a surprise Tory victory in the Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election last month, which both main parties attributed to the backlash against Sadiq Khan expanding London’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez). Marco Longhi, the MP for Dudley North, said: “Given the complexity of this issue and its far-...

Source - Conservative Home 12/08/23 Link Conservative MPs in the moderate 'One Nation' group have agreed to up their game and re-assert their influence, as concern grows at the centre of the party that Rishi Sunak's lurch toward right-wing rhetoric and policy positions could do more harm than good at the ballot box. The One Nation caucus, home to the Conservatives' centre-ground MPs, was formed in early 2019 and originally chaired by former cabinet ministers Amber Rudd and Nicky Morgan, who remain influential figures in the world of self-styled moderate Conservatism. Damian Green, the veteran MP for Ashford, is the group's current chair. Their socially liberal, environment-conscious and pro-Europe politics had been Tory orthodoxy since former prime minister David Cameron became party leader nearly 20 years ago. But Brexit, particularly Boris Johnson's unyielding approach to negotiations, demoralised the Europhile One Nation group, and divided its MPs over Johnso...