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Such a lovely idea, eh?

That matters because real security is not created by weapons alone. A country is secure when its society is stable, cohesive, and resilient. That depends on the quality of its health service, its education system, its social security arrangements, its infrastructure, and its housing. These are not peripheral issues; they are the foundation of any meaningful concept of defence.

J. Foreigner won’t invade as long as we have Our NHS.

And, well, no?

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Andrew C
Andrew C
19 days ago

Off topic but on Spud’s latest video, he’s pinned a begging comment to the top of the column. It means he’s bound to read any replies.

salamander
salamander
19 days ago
Reply to  Andrew C

I have never understood why these monologuing youtube say that it is a significant cost to produce the videos. You write up what you want to say, practice it for a few times, record two or three takes, edit the best bits together and you are done. One days work, tops?

dearieme
dearieme
19 days ago
Reply to  salamander

significant cost” Oh aye, and what does it signify?

“Significant” has largely become a blether word – people think it’s more high-falutin’ than ‘big’ or ‘large’.

Ironman
Ironman
19 days ago
Reply to  salamander

Or, if it’s that significant, maybe the world can do without the sound of your voice for a day or two.

Bongo
Bongo
19 days ago
Reply to  Andrew C

Also off topic: he confessed at his Cambridge rally to earning £2-£3 an hour in the last year. Tax Research LLP has 3 employees. While limited company directors don’t have to get the minimum wage, does this exemption extend to LLP directors. Asking out of nosiness.

dearieme
dearieme
19 days ago
Reply to  Bongo

If he “worked” 2,000 hours then his “earned” income would have been no more than £6k. So he would presumably have avoided paying income tax.

Tax dodger Murph.

Andrew C
Andrew C
18 days ago
Reply to  Bongo

LLPs have members (partners) rather than directors. They are (according to HMRC rules) usually self employed so the NMW wouldn’t apply.

I say usually, because it’s possible that an LLP member could be classified as a ‘worker’ under some complicated ‘salaried members’ rules. It’s unlikely that anyone in a two or three member LLP would fall foul of these rules. A ‘worker’, whilst not having quite the same status as an employee, would need to be paid the NMW.

Of course, someone who isn’t a Member (and Tax Research only has two members) and is employed should be paid NMW. Family businesses sometimes think they are exempt from NMW – and there is an exemption for family members – but that only applies to unincorporated businesses. PARENTS can employ their children and pay less than NMW but incorporated bodies (Ltds and LLPs) can’t have children(!) and so don’t fall under the exemption.

The Tax Research notes to the accounts are a nauseating resume of Murphy telling everyone how great he is. He even claims that he only ‘resigned’ from Sheffield Uni because he was so busy making videos when we know he started making videos after he had been ‘let go’ by the Uni. Pompous windbag.

Norman
Norman
18 days ago
Reply to  Andrew C

Interesting. When my wife and I started our ltd. company with a pal 26 years ago we were all directors but not employees. We’d all been freelancers so we continued doing just that, billing the company for our services. We continued this way for several years until turnover could support us as employees, all with the approval of our highly experienced accountant. We even passed a VAT inspection.

As anyone who has started a company knows, you pay yourself what you can afford to.

Interested
Interested
18 days ago
Reply to  Andrew C

Isn’t it some sort of offence to make untrue statements in your accounts?

Interested
Interested
19 days ago

I actually agree with him – real security is not created by weapons alone. You can leave a pile of rifles lying around and they won’t make you secure.

He’s also right when he says that a ‘country is secure when its society is stable, cohesive, and resilient’ and it helps if you have decent education and infrastructure, too.

(All the other bollocks about the health service and social security arrangements is much more arguable.)

The question is how do you define and arrive at a ‘stable, cohesive, and resilient’ society in which men are prepared to pick up those rifles and fuck up anyone who threatens it, and that’s by instilling patriotism and pride (and a team ethic at the forces level) in a high trust group of reasonably physically fit people.

Everything the left has been fighting against, and Murphy hates.

Western Bloke
Western Bloke
19 days ago
Reply to  Interested

I think that countries lose a lot of patriotism as threats dissipate. Lots of politicians want to create a wartime spirit, of the country coming together, but you can’t create it. New Yorkers that yelled at each other in traffic became a caring society on 9/11. A few days or months later, back to yelling at each other in traffic. Why are people in villagers kind to one another and people in cities not? Because people depend more on one another than on transactional service providers. You run out of eggs, you ask a neighbour because the shops are shut like they aren’t in a city.

People absolutely will pick up rifles if Le Pen decides to invade Kent.

If you want a stable, cohesive and resilient society, the first thing is to make people responsible. We need a lot less lawfare, a lot less government involvement in people’s lives. We need a very basic welfare state. Why does Japan have vending machines everywhere? Because theft is punished. Because the welfare state barely exists. So, women wait for marriage to have children. 97% of Japanese children are born to married couples. It’s around 53% in the UK. Which means there’s a Dad around to correct teenagers. Britain used to have vending machines outside shops, in the era before lefty liberalism and “it’s not their fault”. I’m not, in some ways, disputing that. A boy that is not corrected might live a wasted life, but you have to create the right incentives so you don’t get that boy in that situation.

Growing numbers of cousin fuckers is just bad for society. It was something declining. People on the fens got cars and could leave Wisbech for King’s Lynn to meet a bird. We need to make it illegal at this point. Not an anti-muslim thing, but an anti-numbers thing. The odd person doing it is fine.

BTW in the list of famous people that married their cousin, almost none are alive. There’s the former Miss Peru, the former PM of Japan and Greta Scacchi. That one is bloody weird. Even when she was late 30s there were men that would walk over a mile of broken glass to do Greta Scacchi.

Steve
Steve
19 days ago
Reply to  Western Bloke

People absolutely will pick up rifles if Le Pen decides to invade Kent.

Rifles are a wise choice, because Le Pen is mightier than the sword.

Western Bloke
Western Bloke
19 days ago
Reply to  Steve

Noice.

Bloke in the Wash
Bloke in the Wash
19 days ago
Reply to  Western Bloke

I would have cuts on my feet!

Bloke in North Dorset
Bloke in North Dorset
19 days ago
Reply to  Western Bloke

People absolutely will pick up rifles if Le Pen decides to invade Kent.

People will pick up rifles if it’s their daughters, sisters, mothers, wives, grandmothers who will be raped and tortured.

(Another reason why the Labour needs to be very careful over the grooming scandals and some of the rapes being carried out by illegal immigrants. There comes a time when the population will snap.)

dearieme
dearieme
19 days ago

By the time the population is ready to snap it will already be outnumbered in the age group that matters – young men. We are doomed.

Steve
Steve
19 days ago
Reply to  dearieme

Jesus only needed 12, and one of them was a ginger rotter.

Israel is vastly outnumbered by its neighbours, yet its borders are secure.

D’ye see what I mean?

One stout-hearted and true British lad is worth 40 of theirs. It’s leadership that’s currently missing. Never give up, never surrender, never despair.

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Andrew C
Andrew C
18 days ago
Reply to  Steve

Amelia for PM

Amelia-for-PM
PJF
PJF
18 days ago
Reply to  Andrew C

Did you see the leftie twats try again? This is Labour’s “banned” party political broadcast that is supposed to undermine Reform in the upcoming local elections. Could be Amelia’s mum or older sister.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaErL9SxDHw&t=40s

Lol

Mr Womby
Mr Womby
18 days ago
Reply to  PJF

I saw a similar one yesterday, just a man sat in front of some union-branded banners warning that a vote for Reform would result in the country being worse than it was under Thatcher. No indication of who the publisher was.

Western Bloke
Western Bloke
19 days ago

For most people, Rochdale is far away and medieval knuckle draggers can’t afford to live in Wilmslow. So they aren’t a threat.

If you paid for a free immigrant bus to drive people to Marlborough, Henley, Clifton etc, it wouldn’t take long before they were voting Reform or trying to explain why the bus needs banning.

Interested
Interested
19 days ago
Reply to  Western Bloke

There are lots of delightful videos on a related point.

Western Bloke
Western Bloke
19 days ago
Reply to  Interested

Middle class white liberals are actually less integrated than everyone else.

Go to one of their dinner parties, everyone is white. Go for a beer with an ex-squaddie, he’ll have a couple of black friends.

Bloke in Callao
Bloke in Callao
19 days ago

People will pick up rifles if it’s their daughters…”

They haven’t so far.

Interested
Interested
19 days ago
Reply to  Western Bloke

If Le Pen decides to invade Kent I expect quite a lot of collaborators.

Last edited 19 days ago by Interested
Jonathan
Jonathan
18 days ago
Reply to  Western Bloke

 Why does Japan have vending machines everywhere? Because theft is punished.

Only partly.

Japan can have unattended vending machines everywhere because Japan is still overwhelmingly Japanese and the Japanese are a high IQ, conscientious, high-trust people. They haven’t, yet, totally succumbed to the ‘Diversity Is Are Strength’ brigade.
Britain used to be more like Japan, but since WW2 we’ve had to accept millions of third-world people who mostly behave exactly as they do at home. Because reasons…

Western Bloke
Western Bloke
19 days ago

The NHS is one of the founding beliefs of modern Britain. As someone observed, no-one outside the UK could understand the thing of dancing nurses in the Olympic ceremony. But I think every country has this. Like Americans love the manned space programme.

dearieme
dearieme
19 days ago
Reply to  Western Bloke

That’s a thought: which is the bigger waster of money? I suppose it depends on whether the manned space programme is all faked by Hollywood. Alas, it isn’t.

Bloke in Wales
Bloke in Wales
19 days ago
Reply to  dearieme

The manned space programme doesn’t kill tens of thousands of people every year through incompetence and neglect.

Rishi Sunak has defended the NHS after a report said it is performing “substantially less well” than similar countries on life expectancy and other healthcare outcomes,.

Commissioned by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry and written by The King’s Fund, it said the UK health system’s poor performance on avoidable deaths should be a serious concern for political leaders and policy-makers.

https://www.itv.com/news/2023-06-26/nhs-substantially-behind-similar-countries-on-life-expectancy

Western Bloke
Western Bloke
19 days ago
Reply to  Bloke in Wales

Artemis has killed approximately 700 people, if measured on cost per life at $13.7m. And it only carried 7 people. So, it has a 99% death rate.

Bloke in Wales
Bloke in Wales
19 days ago
Reply to  Western Bloke

Artemis has killed approximately 700 people

??

Do you mean statistically, if the cost of the programme had been spent on healthcare?

rhoda klapp
rhoda klapp
19 days ago
Reply to  Bloke in Wales

Postponable deaths, surely.

Last edited 19 days ago by rhoda klapp
Bloke in Wales
Bloke in Wales
19 days ago
Reply to  rhoda klapp

There was a study from 10-ish years ago that I couldn’t find in the 30s of googling a blog comment can justify. It compared on a per-treatment basis the NHS with various health services from comparable countries.

It found IIRC that the NHS killed around 60,000 people every year that would have lived had they been treated in those other countries.

Nessimmersion
Nessimmersion
18 days ago
Reply to  Bloke in Wales

Medically preventable mortality.
UK is 7th highest in spending of OECD on health.
Results speak for themselves.
Bang those pans:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1286618/mortality-rates-from-treatable-causes-oecd-countries-by-country/

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The Original Jim
The Original Jim
18 days ago
Reply to  Bloke in Wales

There was a big study done some years ago by (I think) Leicester NHS Trust. They formed a panel of expert medical types, and went through every death that occurred in the hospital, or within a certain number of days of someone being admitted to hospital. And gamed each case – looked why the person was admitted, what the reported symptoms were, and stated what medical procedures and treatment they would have required, and compared that to what actually happened. In some very large % of cases (my memory wants to say 30%) they discovered serious errors in the treatment given, that would have materially affected the survival chances of the NHS victim patient. The basic conclusion was that their NHS trust was killing hundreds of people per year. Just one trust out of 200 nationally.

To be honest I’m surprised they ever made the findings public. Its been entirely memory holed since of course.

Norman
Norman
18 days ago

“Expert medical types.”

Whereas the treatment is usually done by junior doctors, with a registrar wafting by if you’re lucky and a consultant if there’s an R in the month. If you’re not, it’s a weekend and you’re in Grimsby you’ll be treated by my Year 1 daughter, looking after 120 patients all by herself. That’s what happened last Sunday.

No wonder there are serious errors in the treatment given.

Western Bloke
Western Bloke
19 days ago
Reply to  dearieme

The manned space programme.

The only thing worse than the government running a thing badly is government involved in things it should have nothing to do with. Some people have a boner for space, like others do for sport, cuisine or opera. Pay for your fun/bragging rights.

Boganboy
Boganboy
18 days ago
Reply to  Western Bloke

One thinks of the manned sea programme back in the 1400’s.

Both Portugal and Spain pissed money away on this. I’m sure that any Injuns left these days feel that the dosh should have been spent on booze.

Steve
Steve
19 days ago

A country is secure when its society is stable, cohesive,

Probably should have thought of that before handing out British passports like confetti to retarded savages.

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JuliaM
19 days ago
Reply to  Steve

The squeals of ‘Police brutality’ over this arrest from the middle aged white women lanyard classes (in the main) have been absolutely delicious, Whining about a few kicks to the head to try to get him to drop the knife he was holding, when in any other country they’d be plucking it out of his hands when they rolled his bullet riddled corpse over..

Steve
Steve
19 days ago
Reply to  JuliaM

Julia, the ones I saw were mostly “men” trying to virtue signal their too-stupid-to-live politics over this one. But even Twitter wasn’t having it, they all got ratioed hard.

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Theophrastus
Theophrastus
19 days ago
Reply to  JuliaM

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Norman
Norman
18 days ago
Reply to  Steve

He stabbed a copper and his dog 18 years ago when he was 27. Now he’s a fat cunt and still here. What’s he been doing? Smoking khat and fuck all else, probably. Apparently he has “mental health” issues. Of course he does. He’s Somali.

M
M
18 days ago
Reply to  Tim Worstall

Mental image of smoking a sausage.

Norman
Norman
18 days ago
Reply to  Tim Worstall

Fair cop guv

Norman
Norman
19 days ago

A country is secure when its society is stable, cohesive, and resilient.

This is a consequence of a population having a clear, homogenous, high-trust monoculture which recognises that the country exists in the first place. This country was far more secure than now in the years before all the other things he mentions even existed.

dearieme
dearieme
19 days ago

when its society is … cohesive …” Cohesive, eh?

Is he lining up a switch to an anti-immigration position in case The Left adopts that view?

Norman
Norman
19 days ago
Reply to  dearieme

No. He’s pointing out that we’re all going to have to become Somali.

Jack C
Jack C
19 days ago
Reply to  Norman

Not sure Somali is a good choice as their Civil War is around 40 years old and counting. Maybe something else?

Interested
Interested
19 days ago
Reply to  Jack C

It’s a good choice if you want to divide and rule.

jgh
jgh
19 days ago
Reply to  Jack C

On the the other hand, Somaliland broke away and is stable, safe, prosperous………. and unrecognised by the rest of the world.

PJF
PJF
18 days ago
Reply to  jgh

Israel officially recognises Somaliland, and Taiwan partially.

It’ll only stay prosperous, stable and safe for as long as its neighbours are too weak to destroy it.

Paul, Somerset
Paul, Somerset
19 days ago
Reply to  dearieme

Richard Murphy has said it: “Diversity is our weakness.”

JuliaM
19 days ago

A country is secure when its society is stable, cohesive, and resilient.”

Since Labour (and to a lesser extent the Tories) have spent their times in office doing their best to ensure the opposite, can we now start sizing up lampposts?

Marius
Marius
19 days ago

the quality of its health service, its education system, its social security arrangements, its infrastructure, and its housing.

All things that the public sector has spent hundreds of billions on, and fucked up.

PJF
PJF
19 days ago

J. Foreigner won’t invade as long as we have Our NHS. 

Whereas the reality is J. Foreigner is invading precisely because they can have the NHS, and more besides.

john77
john77
18 days ago
Reply to  PJF

France won’t invade to have our NHS – if they want a decent health service they’ll take over Belgium instead.

Theophrastus
Theophrastus
19 days ago

The claim that defence and “security” depend upon the quality of its health service, its education system, its social security arrangements is a good example of the No True Scotsman fallacy…

Gamecock
Gamecock
19 days ago

A country is secure when its society is stable, cohesive, and resilient.

So Latvia is secure. Someone tell Putin.

Steve
Steve
18 days ago
Reply to  Gamecock

Make Livonia A Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Again.

Anon
Anon
18 days ago
Reply to  Gamecock

Latvia has a lot of ethnic tension between the Latvians and the Russians who got left there post-1991 but didn’t fancy heading back to Muscovy.

jgh
jgh
19 days ago

Stable and cohesive requires it to not be fragmented and fractured. So glad Lord Spud is so supportive of machine gunning the the small boats and trebucheting the ones that have got here, both illegally and legally.

Agammamon
Agammamon
19 days ago

China is stable, cohesive, and resilient – I wouldn’t consider anyone living there to be ‘secure’ or ‘safe’ when the government can disappear anyone at any time for any reason.

Matt
Matt
18 days ago
Reply to  Agammamon

Spud would.

Gamecock
Gamecock
18 days ago
Reply to  Agammamon

‘Secure’ is commie speak for government control.

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