Absolutely Not The Daily Troll-o-Graph

Disgraced MP Mike Amesbury won’t spend a day behind bars, while childminder Connolly was jailed for 31 months over a tweet Daily Telegraph 27/02/25 Link On Monday, the disgraced ex-Labour MP Mike Amesbury was sentenced to 10 weeks in prison, for beating up a constituent in the street. Incredibly, as a result of an appeal by Amesbury, he has now been spared even that surprisingly short time behind bars, with a judge agreeing to suspend his sentence for two years. This is extraordinary. Consider the following facts. For beating up a constituent in the street, Amesbury has been given a 10-week sentence that has now been suspended. Yet last year, for tweeting something nasty about asylum seekers in the wake of the Southport murders, a childminder named Lucy Connolly was sentenced to two years and seven months in prison. The wife of a Tory councillor, Lucy Connolly, was arrested for racial hatred after tweeting rioters should set fire to all the migrant hotels in the wake of the Southport m...

To defend itself, the UK needs to be rich. If we continue on our current path, penury and servitude beckon Daily Telegraph Link Who cares whether we spend two, three or five per cent of GDP on defence when our GDP is flatlining? Growth is no longer just about material comfort; it is essential to our national security. The global order enshrined in the Atlantic Charter, the order we have defended since August 1941, is over. The US has not so much retreated into isolationism as switched sides, backing Russia in Ukraine while making threats against Canada and Denmark. Everything we thought we knew about our place in the world has become obsolete. All our isms are wasms. The only certainty is that we need stronger Armed Forces. This means that we need a stronger economy. Our position in the world never rested on mass mobilisation. Between 1689 and 1802, England won its intermittent wars against France, a country with four times its population, by being better at finance. The United Kingdom...

A brutal tax assault will have swift and unavoidable consequences Daily Telegraph  Link Meteorologists give names to storms these days so people take heed of the warnings about the risks to their lives and property. We are going to need a name for the financial storm that will make landfall during the first week of April. While the Chancellor’s first Budget was delivered at the end of October last year, the real and tangible impact of most of her measures will not become manifest until the new tax year, which begins on April 6. There are also some tax changes that take effect on April 1 – so the tax storm starts to build up gradually from the Tuesday and reaches gale force on the Sunday. We’re calling it “tax horror week”, but maybe it should be called “Storm Rachel”? There have already been five Storm Rachels in the last 40 years – did we really need to have another? This time it will mean horrifying tax increases inflicting severe damage to the economy, to businesses and to the w...

The German elites were wrong about everything. Spiked - 22nd February 2025 Link As Germany’s federal elections approach this weekend, chancellor Olaf Scholz and his Social Democrats (SPD) are bracing for their worst results since 1887. The SPD is battling with its equally unpopular coalition partner, the Green Party, for a humiliating third place, behind the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and the right-populist Alternative for Germany (AfD). The coming bloodbath for Scholz’s government speaks to far more than the haplessness of his leadership or the unpopularity of his party. Germany has just endured two years of recession – the longest economic slump in its postwar history. Industry is in freefall, shedding almost a quarter of a million manufacturing jobs since the start of the pandemic. A series of terror attacks by Islamists and asylum seekers has made many Germans wonder if the state can do its basic duty to keep them safe. Talk of German efficiency and punctuality now soun...

Investing in green technology unlikely to reverse long-term decline of British industry Daily Telegraph  Link Ed Miliband’s claim that net zero will create hundreds of thousands industrial jobs is vastly overstated, Sir Tony Blair’s think tank has warned. The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) said investing in green technology was unlikely to reverse the long-term decline of British industry and warned that ministers must not “over-state the job opportunities from green manufacturing”. The think tank added that it was a “mistake” to let net zero dominate the Government’s entire economic strategy as it would deliver only a meagre boost to growth. It said: “It must be a pillar of the UK’s growth strategy, but it cannot be the whole strategy.” The assessment comes after tensions emerged within the cabinet over the net zero agenda. Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, said last month that carbon emissions had too often been used as an excuse “not to invest” in an apparent split wi...

Zelensky is not a dictator. But Britain can only offer Ukraine fake outrage and pledges it cannot afford Daily Telegraph Link This is a critical moment that calls for heroic leadership, and yet we are saddled with a Cabinet of hypocrites, phoneys and cowards. Donald Trump is pulling the plug on Ukraine, and seemingly attempting to oust Volodymyr Zelensky (who he has wrongly dubbed a “dictator”), but Britain has nothing useful to contribute other than fake outrage, sentimental chest-beating and pledges it cannot afford. Trump appears to be conceding far too much to Russia, and yet we can’t do anything about it. Labour’s sanctimoniousness cannot hide its complicity in Ukraine’s betrayal: our political class is no better than the rest of Europe’s freeloading political elites. If Keir Starmer really cared about the security of the West, and the fate of Kyiv, he would tear up his entire agenda. He would announce a rearmament programme à la 1934, and the reconstruction of a homegrown militar...

Britain has become the most unloved market in the world as the economy struggles in the wake of Rachel Reeves’s Budget. Daily Telegraph Link A survey of global fund managers found Britain was not only the least attractive nation to invest in, but was also less popular than bonds, cash, energy and utilities. Sentiment towards Britain is now at an 11-month low, according to Bank of America’s monthly survey of fund managers. Elyas Galou at the investment bank said Britain’s stagnant economy and stubborn inflation problem were to blame. He said: “The UK is the living definition of stagflation. On the one hand you have subdued growth, which is related to very low productivity, and the other big reason is inflation.” The UK economy grew by just 0.1pc in the final quarter of 2024. The private sector shrank but surging government spending proved just enough to stop GDP from contracting. Business investment has collapsed in the wake of the Budget, which included a £25bn raid on employers’ Natio...

Panic in Kyiv as US president demands higher share of GDP than Germany’s First World War reparations Daily Telegraph Link Donald Trump’s demand for a $500bn (£400bn) “payback” from Ukraine goes far beyond US control over the country’s critical minerals. It covers everything from ports and infrastructure to oil and gas, and the larger resource base of the country. The terms of the contract that landed at Volodymyr Zelensky’s office a week ago amount to the US economic colonisation of Ukraine, in legal perpetuity. It implies a burden of reparations that cannot possibly be achieved. The document has caused consternation and panic in Kyiv. The Telegraph has obtained a draft of the pre-decisional contract, marked “Privileged & Confidential’ and dated Feb 7 2025. It states that the US and Ukraine should form a joint investment fund to ensure that “hostile parties to the conflict do not benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine”. The agreement covers the “economic value associated with r...

Helping to guarantee Ukraine’s security is helping to guarantee the security of our country and our continent Daily Telegraph  Link We are facing a once-in-a-generation moment for the collective security of our continent. This is not only a question about the future of Ukraine – it is existential for Europe as a whole. Securing a lasting peace in Ukraine that safeguards its sovereignty for the long term is essential if we are to deter Putin from further aggression in the future. To achieve it, Europe and the United States must continue to work closely together – and I believe the UK can play a unique role in helping to make this happen, just as we did this past week in stepping in to convene and chair the Ukraine Defence Contact Group. First, Europe must step up further to meet the demands of its own security. So I am heading to Paris with a very clear message for our European friends. We have got to show we are truly serious about our own defence and bearing our own burden. We hav...

Our leaders believe the myth that private school parents can afford fees effortlessly Daily Telegraph  Link Tax rises can be painless and without consequence – only the undeserving rich, the very antithesis of Labour’s cherished “working people”, will pay and they can easily cough up. That seems to be the underlying myth behind Rachel Reeves’s myriad tax hikes. Imposing VAT on school fees fits this way of magical thinking perfectly. Up to £1.5bn would be raised and 6,500 new teachers would be conjured up for the state sector to somehow transform millions of disadvantaged children’s lives. Why 6,500 extra teachers, when there are already over 460,000 working in the state sector, would make any significant difference has never been adequately explained. This term’s bills are the first to include VAT and we can begin to see their impact. Labour’s pain-free policy is proving the very opposite. The state sector, we were told, could easily accommodate extra demand when parents were price...

The Attorney General and his ilk find virtue in every country’s point of view save their own Daily Telegraph Link Be it through the appalling Chagos deal or his work on behalf of Shamima Begum, Attorney General Lord Hermer has proven his dedication to putting Britain last Credit: Future Publishing via Getty Breaking news: Lord Hermer, the Attorney General and the Prime Minister’s best friend from his barrister days, announced today that, as part of a package of measures to restore the country’s international reputation, the UK would be handing over the Falkland Islands to Argentina by June at the latest. As part of a “very reasonable deal”, similar to the Chagos Islands giveaway which he helped to negotiate, the Government’s chief legal adviser said Britain would offer Argentina £20 billion upfront as an acknowledgement of past error while promising to buy all its corned beef in perpetuity. Lord Hermer went further, committing Sir Keir Starmer’s administration to a package of slavery r...

Britain’s Right is fractured and it is not just about personalities. Only one side looks set to triumph Daily Telegraph  Link British politics is presently in a new era, certainly as far as the opinion polls are concerned. These show a steady rise in support for Reform UK and a slight but sustained decline for the Conservatives, plus a fall for Labour. The result is something we have not seen since the 1920s, a three-party split, with Reform, Conservatives and Labour all having roughly the same vote share, in the low 20 per cent range. (The remainder is divided between three or four options such as Liberal Democrats and Greens). The response to this seems obvious if you see yourself as being on the Right: the two Right parties (Conservative and Reform) should at least form an electoral pact and agree not to compete with each other. That would give them together just under half of the total votes and, given the way the two parties’ support is geographically distributed, a crushing a...

Andrew Gwynne’s replacement believes people can self-identify as llamas – I’m told she’s already requested straw bedding in her office Daily Telegraph  Link Is nothing sacred?! WhatsApp is meant to be as private as the confessional, but the leaking of Andrew Gwynne’s messages – racist, sexist, what we used to call “light entertainment” – triggered a knee-jerk sacking by the PM. In one missive, Mr Gwynne hoped that an elderly constituent would die before the next election. In some Labour areas, of course, that wouldn’t disqualify her from voting. Gwynne is replaced by Ashley Dalton, who is on record saying people should be able to self-identify as a llama if they so wish. Labour’s gone from bigot to barmy in 24 hours. No wonder so many backbenchers looked nervous come Monday morning, doubly so after Oliver Ryan also lost the whip over his outrageous WhatsApping (face of a cherub, but he’s no angel). The only person in Westminster who appears unafraid is Ms Dalton, who, I’m told, has...