Absolutely Not The Daily Troll-o-Graph

 The government has approved 27 new oil drilling licences in the North Sea   Despite the obvious benefits for our energy security, the usual eco-zealots are predictably unhappy   The government should play hardball with those who want to see Britain run on rainbows and tantric chants Source - Capx -30/10/23 Link Pragmatists who recognise that there is no chance whatsoever of the UK weening itself off oil and gas by 2028 have welcomed the approval of 27 new drilling licenses in the North Sea. The enthusiasm with which companies like Shell have snapped up the new licenses is surely a riposte to worries that the 75% windfall tax on energy companies would undermine investment. The diversification of supply will reduce our dependency on imports, improve our energy security, and create revenue for the Treasury, which in turn can be used for purposes like investment in a lower carbon future. Win-win-win. However, not everyone is happy. The usual suspects have been out in force, ...

 We have imported hatreds and lost our common identity. Policy will have to be more muscular as a result Source - Daily Telegraph 29/10/23 Link The most despicable thing about the rolling anti-Israel protests in London is that they first began not in response to Israeli military action, but to the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7.  For three consecutive weekends now, around 100,000 people have lined the streets of London to show their opposition to Israel. In the words of Lord Austin, who witnessed Saturday’s march, there were “lots of signs calling for Israel to be eradicated. [But I] didn’t see any calling for peace, a two-state solution, Gaza to be freed from Hamas or hostages to be released.” For this is about hatred, not peace. Many of those attending the protests are unembarrassed about supporting the rape and murder of Israeli civilians. Some were content to cry “Allahu akbar!” and chant for “jihad”, a term that the police are eager to explain might sometimes ...

Too many institutions are now run by people who want to please a progressive agenda, not their customers Source - Daily Telegraph 29/10/33 Link Dame Alison Rose was back in the news last week, her flagrant breaches of client confidentiality over Nigel Farage’s former bank account at Coutts having been exposed. Dame Alison is emblematic of our times: the senior executive for whom a job is apparently not solely about satisfying customers, but arguably a means of exerting a political ideology, and of rampant virtue-signalling. The latter is carried out not for the public, but to impress fellow members of a progressive elite for whom customers are merely useful idiots. When Dame Alison became chief executive of NatWest she made much of her political commitments: tackling climate change, and furthering LGBT rights. Her shareholders might have preferred a commitment to improving their dividends. On Friday those shares tanked, losing 12 per cent of their value. Sadly, we are all becoming used...

 Defeat isn’t inevitable, if only they realised there’s no shortage of causes the Right could champion Source - Daily Telegraph - 26/10/23 Link This weekend, 100 speakers and 1,000 delegates from 72 countries will convene in London for perhaps the largest gathering of the global centre-Right in recent British history. The star attraction is Jordan Peterson, an academic who is later speaking to a £60-a-head audience at the O2 Arena. Jacinta Price, the Aboriginal Australian and referendum winner I wrote about last week, will be in attendance. Kemi Badenoch and Michael Gove have slots, as does Kevin McCarthy, the recently ousted speaker of the US House of Representatives. It could be a festival of conservatism but for one thing: no one is really using the c-word. It’s hard, now, to speak of conservatism in terms of a set of ideas. Rishi Sunak is now defining himself against a “30-year status quo” which, by definition, lumps together Labour with the Tories. He’s quick to imply that his...

Toyota hope to speed up production of the solid-state batteries in the coming years Source - GB News - 25/10/23 Link Range anxiety could be a thing of the past after a major manufacturer claimed that electric cars with a range of almost 750 miles could be seen within years According to Toyota, solid-state batteries could see electric cars have a range of 745 miles and a charging time of just 10 minutes. The manufacturer and other transport experts are hoping that EVs powered by solid-state batteries could hit the market in 2027 or 2028. The estimated range of 1,200km would be more than twice the range of Toyota’s current electric car range. There are some issues in the production process of such solid-state batteries, as the layers of material inside need to be stacked quickly and with high precision, according to the Financial Times. The average range of electric vehicles has been growing, with the first mass-market EV, the Nissan Leaf, having a total range of just 109 miles when it w...

 Source - Daily Telegraph letters -  Link SIR – I’m afraid Tim Stanley is right that the Conservative Party is doomed (Comment, October 23). What perplexes me is the self-destructive behaviour on its backbenches. It was given a majority of 80 to enact its policies, but every time the serving prime minister has tried to bring forward sensible legislation to improve the country (on fracking, housing, immigration or anything else), a rebellion has killed it off. Apart from backing all the absurd pandemic restrictions, Tory MPs don’t seem to have a sense of loyalty anymore, and useful governance has been rendered impossible. Valentine Guinness London W12 

 When Labour wins, it will double down on kneeling and rainbow flag waving, even as the rest of the world lurches Right Source - Daily Telegraph - 23/10/23 Link The Far-Right – as the cliché has it – is on the march. In Italy, Giorgia Meloni’s government is further to the Right than any since Mussolini. In Germany, the AfD has achieved an unprecedented surge. Far-Right parties are propping up coalitions in Finland, Sweden, and Slovakia. A victory for Marine le Pen could well be on the cards in France. Meanwhile, progressive leaders including Jacinda Ardern, Justin Trudeau, and Joe Biden have haemorrhaged popular support. Donald Tusk’s coming return to power in Poland has provided some relief for progressives, hailed as a sign of Poland’s “democratic health” (always remember the iron law of progressive commentary: when Right-wing parties lose it’s thanks to “democracy”, and when they win it’s thanks to “misinformation”.) But don’t mischaracterise the Polish result. Tusk is well to t...

 What is the point in voting for a Conservative Party that promises higher taxes and immigration? Source - Daily Telegraph - 23/10/23 Link Fans of Coronation Street are mourning the death of fraudster Stephen Reid, who was by far the best thing in it. Yes, he murdered three people; but most of those kills were accidental and all the victims were irritating, and one always admired how – after nudging a business competitor off some scaffolding – he would convince himself things would somehow turn out okay.  As an optimist and a hard worker, Steve serves as a metaphor for a Tory government that refuses to acknowledge its time is up, and will probably finish, as Steve did, screaming “I still love you!” at his closest friends while holding them hostage outside the Rovers Return. Which brings me to those half-term contests at Tamworth and Mid-Beds. The Tories say: governments always lose by-elections, they tell us nothing. Yet as recently as 2021, the Government was gaining seats fr...

 First Minister’s plan to issue bonds takes the SNP’s financial ineptitude to new heights Source - Daily Telegraph - 21/10/23 Link It runs a budget deficit of 9pc of GDP. It has no idea what currency it wants to use. It has a track record of epic financial mismanagement, and its former leader has been arrested over an investigation into missing party funds. But, heck, never mind any of that. Humza Yousaf, the leader of the SNP, has decided that Scotland should start issuing its own bonds. If it happens, Zimbabwe and Argentina may have some competition for the worst credit rating in the world. Scottish bonds, or “kilts” as they are already known in the financial markets, will prove a catastrophe. There is no more brutally honest judge than the bond market, and even if he doesn’t realise it, Yousaf has just killed off the prospect of Scotland breaking away from the United Kingdom forever. It may have seemed like a grand announcement for his first party conference speech as leader of ...

 Sunak has much more in common with Sir Alec Douglas-Home than a shared love of cricket   Douglas-Home proved that a year was long enough to turn the polls around   Like the 14th Earl of Home, Sunak should have the guts to change the way Tories elect their leader Source - Daily Telegraph - 19/10/23 Link 60 years ago today, the late Queen kissed hands with Britain’s greatest post-war Prime Minister. Apologies to the Thatcher fanatics, condolences to the Blair groupies, and commiserations to the Attlee devotees. But Sir Alec Douglas-Home was undoubtedly the finest occupant of Number 10 since Winston Churchill – and an excellent role model for Rishi Sunak.  Admittedly, my claims for the primacy of the erstwhile 14th Earl derives mostly from one particular fact – he was the only First Lord of the Treasury to have played first-class cricket. Described by Wisden as having been ‘a useful member of the Eton XI’ at school, he later represented Oxford, Middlesex, and the MCC. ...

Starmer has dealt the far-Left a blow, but hasn't defeated it entirely. The Gaza war could reopen old wounds Source - Daily Telegraph - 19/10/23 Link Two weeks ago, Labour – and Sir Keir Starmer – appeared to be cruising to inevitable success. Rishi Sunak’s conference speech had failed to rally the Tory troops while Starmer’s support was booming, his campaign to detoxify the party of its recent Corbynite past having made it electable once more. Since then, a great fat stake has been driven into heart of the party, reminding everyone of the Left-wing orthodoxies which continue to bubble just below the surface. The resignation of councillors aggrieved at Starmer’s support for Israel may still be a trickle, but it is gathering pace and is occurring across the country. One wonders how many MPs are biting their lips, weighing up what they value most: their principles or the chance to hold office? It is hard to under-estimate just how divisive Israel and Palestine are within the Labour p...

 The speed with which so many gleefully rushed to judgment over the hospital attack was disgraceful Source - Daily Telegraph - 18/10/23 Link We have just been subjected to a grotesque masterclass in misinformation, moral inversion, anti-Semitic hate-mongering and hypocrisy.  Within minutes of Hamas claiming, with zero proof, that Israel had bombed a hospital, the world erupted into instant, unequivocal condemnation of the Jewish state. The pent-up rage on social media, the utter certainty with which the allegations were repeated on the broadcast media, the uncritical acceptance of the vilest propaganda from terrorists, the willingness to attribute the worst possible motives to a tiny democracy fighting for its survival: it was a chilling spectacle – the successful whipping-up of a global lynch-mob, a terrifying glimpse into the darkest corners of the human psyche. Millions of people in Britain, Europe, America and the Middle East knew – they just knew – that Israel must have b...

 The failure of Australia’s indigenous ‘voice’ referendum is a victory for common sense Source - Daily Telegraph - 17/10/23 Link It's difficult to spoil an Australian election. And by spoil, I don’t mean “undermine its fairness”. I mean its public appearance and role in the country’s civic life.  Voting in in all elections – including referendums – is compulsory. Australians vote a lot and are an unusually well-informed electorate. Elections, always held on a Saturday, are beautiful, carnivalesque celebrations of democracy. Australians stream out of their houses and workplaces, buy snacks (including the famous “democracy sausage”) and drinks at polling places, collect glossy how-to-vote cards – advisory only – from booth-workers who stand outside and represent different political parties, and then vote in a spirit of general bonhomie. Saturday’s referendum on whether “to alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres...

Humza Yousaf is now grappling with pipe dreams, not the real issues facing Scotland Source - Daily Telegraph -  16/10/23 Link The SNP’s annual conference in Aberdeen could hardly have come at a worse time for the separatist party. On this occasion last year, Nicola Sturgeon was still leader awaiting the outcome of a court decision on whether a new independence referendum would be lawful if not agreed by Westminster.  The judges decided it wouldn’t be, whereupon Ms Sturgeon said she would turn the next general election into a vote on Scotland’s future. In the peroration to her speech, she said the SNP could look forward with “optimism, confidence and determination”. It has not quite turned out that way. Ms Sturgeon has stepped down and faces questions along with her husband about the party’s finances. Her successor Humza Yousaf has struggled to build a profile and has presided over the disastrous loss of Rutherglen and Hamilton West at a recent by-election, as well as the defec...

 The former Labour leader was suspended from the party in 2020 Source- GB News - 15/10/23 Link Jeremy Corbyn has suggested he may run for London mayor after he told party guests: "You're going to be seeing me around". It is the former Labour leader's strongest hint yet that he could be returning to politics in a move likely to see Labour incumbent Sadiq Khan defeated. Corbyn, who is banned from standing as a Labour MP, was speaking at the 70th birthday party of his former girlfriend Diane Abbott. He reportedly told guests at the birthday party: "You're going to be seeing me around – I'm not going anywhere." The remark implies he is "leaving the door ajar" to a bid for the Mayor position, according to friends of Corbyn. His comments come in response to a question about whether he was planning to stand as an independent in his Islington North constituency or run against Khan. Poll ratings for the Labour Mayor has plummeted after the expansion...

 Describing Hamas as terrorists is not a subjective act, but legal fact Source - Daily Telegraph - 15/10/23 Link I admire John Simpson, the BBC’s world affairs editor, for his expertise and for the courage he has shown reporting from war zones. For 30 years I have counted him as a friend. However, I simply cannot agree with the defence he has made of the Corporation’s decision not to call Hamas “terrorists” or to describe the savagery with which it butchered babies, elderly women and others as “terrorism”. Parliament designated Hamas in its entirety as “a proscribed terrorist organisation” in November 2021. Its members or anyone recruiting for it in the UK risk up to 14 years in prison. Simpson notes that, in the Second World War BBC staff were told not to call the Nazis “evil or wicked”, but could call them “the enemy”. He makes my point for me. The Nazi regime was the enemy because we had declared war on it, legitimising the term. Hamas is proscribed in the UK – the country the B...

 The party conferences changed little because the two sides seemed to be offering too much of the same thing Source - Daily Telegraph - 13/10/23 Link We are not ideologically committed to limiting government in all circumstances.” So says the summary to a new report on the Future of Conservatism for the Onward think tank, with a foreword by Michael Gove. No, really? In a way it’s a tribute to the strength of tax-cutting in the Tory brand that, having presided over the highest tax and spend burden since the Second World War and a state that spends a trillion pounds every year, some party figures still feel the need to rebut it.  The real question is whether anyone at all in British politics actually is committed to limiting government – not just taxation, but the whole panoply of the regulatory state, and the government-knows-best policies that encroach on every aspect of our lives and show no sign of shrinking.  Obviously Labour won’t do that. This week, Sir Keir Starmer ...