After it went off-air, Adams was seen only infrequently on TV, with small one-off parts in dramas such as Bergerac and Doctors, although he returned when in 2001 ITV decided to revive Crossroads. To his pleasant surprise, the show was given a decent budget for the first time, with an editing suite and even a wardrobe department. Throughout the earlier iteration, he had been required to wear his own clothes.
Some sex workers’ groups and campaigners have advocated a return to certified brothels as a solution to the difficulties they now face.
Prostitutes have had to work in parks and other potentially dangerous places as a result of a 2016 law intended to improve their lot.
Ho Hum.
Three days earlier, on 2 September, he was reported to have given a verbal order for a drone strike against two unidentified men desperately hanging on to the smoking pieces of their shattered boat in the Caribbean after nine members of their crew had already been blasted. “Kill everybody,” was the order, according to the Washington Post on 28 November. It was the first of 21 strikes that the Pentagon states have so far killed 82 people who are said to have been “narco-terrorists”, though their identities are unknown. Hegseth denied knowledge of the second strike.
Can’t say I’m in favour of either the first or the second strike myself. But that’s not the point here.
The question of whether Hegseth had committed a criminal act was immediately raised in response to the Post report in a statement issued on 29 November by the Former Jags Working Group, which “unanimously considers both the giving and the execution of these orders, if true, to constitute war crimes, murder, or both. Our group was established in February 2025 in response to SECDEF’s firing of the army and air force judge advocates general and his systematic dismantling of the military’s legal guardrails. Had those guardrails been in place, we are confident they would have prevented these crimes.”
This international war crimes law is really very clear. If you’re not at war – meaning declared war against a sovereign state – then you cannot commit war crimes.
Murder is obviously possible, piracy is not – piracy is by definition something done by a non-state actor. Genocidal crimes are obviously possible and so on. But war crimes require there to be a war.
Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton,
Unbiased source there, right?
Its most recent action was to slap a €120m fine on Elon Musk’s X (formerly known as Twitter) for making users pay for blue tick authentification without doing any effective verification.
As opposed to, say, trying to fine into oblivion anyone saying things against the current political zeitgeist.
A great Uncle (Hmm, he miught have been mother’s cousin?) had exactly this job. Gilbert and Ellice islands, Anguilla, Montserrat, Turks and Caicos. It’s not especially high ranking (Note the CMG, not KCMG for example) and it’s Commonwealth Office, not FCO (to the extent that the difference still matters):
Augustus James Ulysses Jaspert, Gus for short, arrived in Tortola, the largest of the British Virgin Islands, on 21 August 2017, just two weeks away from catastrophe. Jaspert, who was in his late 30s, had recently been appointed governor by Queen Elizabeth II, on the recommendation of the Foreign Office in London. The BVI is an overseas territory of Britain, with only partial independence, and the governor effectively acts as a backstop to the locally elected legislature. For Jaspert, a career civil servant, it would be his first hands-on experience of governing – and his first time in the British Virgin Islands. Any trepidation was outweighed by the prospect of moving to the Caribbean. “If you’re sitting in an office in London and someone says, ‘Go to Tortola,’ you look it up on a screen and think, ‘OK, I can do that,’” Jaspert told me.
Then the local PM of the 15 member assembly and 30k (or whatever) population is suspected of being in the drugs trade.
Ho well, and? Now, with G Uncle this didn’t happen. I think at lesat it didn’t happen. But there ws that fun time that the Governor of the next islands over from the BVI, Turks and Caicos, was woken to be informed that the US Feds had just arrested his PM for fueling drug planes. The PM was the owner of the only fueling company at the airport on that obvious route from Latin America up to Florida and, well?
Fun times, fun times.
In 1936, John Scott, son of the late Guardian owner and legendary editor CP Scott, did something unheard of for a media heir: he gave up his stake for the greater good.
After inheriting the newspaper, Scott renounced all financial benefit – bar his salary – in the Guardian (worth £1m at the time and around £62m today) and passed ownership over to the newly formed Scott Trust. The Trust would evolve to have one key mission: to secure the financial and editorial independence of the Guardian in perpetuity.
That means the Guardian can’t be bought.
They’ve been dodging inheritance tax for 89 years now.
A boom in exports that has pushed China’s trade surplus past $1tn for the first time reveals the extent to which its economy is still overwhelmingly reliant on foreign markets – and the difficulty figures like Donald Trump will have in trying to rebalance global trade.
So the people who import things are bad because they rely upon foreign production and are being beaten by China! And, China is in a bad place because it is reliant upon foreign markets for its exports!
Trade is bad, see!
But anyone who buys anything is reliant on someone else to do the production. And anyone who produces anything at all is dependent upon markets for their revenue. That there’s a national border in there somewhere only brings the idiocies of politics into this.
But there are people out there who think that trade itself is bad and they’re not all Victorian aristocrats. There’s a very dignificant green and lefty line that thinks we should all be self-supporting peasants on a bit of common land.
Except for the elite, of course.
But this idea that international trade is bad is that same idea write a little smaller. Swapping stucff with the slant-eyed crafties is bad, d’ye see? This just leading to the ultimate question of how rotten do you like your winter turnips?
Independence is about democracy, dignity, and direction. It is about deciding together what kind of country we want to be. And for that decision to mean anything, the power to create and allocate money must belong, through capital controls, to Scotland and to the people who call it home.
Who are the fascists?
Nigel Farage has been reportedly referred to police over his electoral expenses amid claims that thousands of pounds worth of spending were not accounted for.
In July last year Farage finally became an MP after winning the Essex coastal seat of Clacton with an 8,405 majority at the general election.
It was his eighth attempt at doing so and represented the start of his return to the front line of British politics. He subsequently became leader of Reform UK and the party has consistently led in the polls since April.
However, Richard Everett, a whistleblower who was a member of Farage’s campaign team, claimed that Farage had failed to register all his election expenses.
Everett, who has since left Reform, obtained copies of Farage’s electoral returns, which covered £20,299.80 worth of expenses.
It’s the people supposedly in your own party you’ve got to be wary of. They’re the vile shits who will stab you in the back given half a chance. When I stood for Ukip two of the people who came lower down the party list than me tried to report me for not being resident in the UK. By the standards required for standing (being on the electoral roll) I was but they tried anyway.
As with my experience of the Soviet Union having turned me alarmingly free market, my actual experience of politics up close and personal makes me despise the entire enterprise.
This is not just some personality disorder, the more I know of something the more I hate it. I met a roast leg of lamb yesterday, some part of it is slowly becoming me in fact and I’m wholly in favour of roast legs of lamb.
Country folk have a new reason to hate Londoners: drivers from the capital are significantly more likely to be involved in collisions on rural roads.
A survey of 2,000 motorists found that 38 per cent of those from the capital had been in a crash on a country road, compared with 23 per cent of the general population.
Londoners actually driving in London move at an average pace of 8 milles an hour or whatever. They’re thus unable to cope with speeds of about a determined stride out.
Local authorities in England and Wales have warned their finances are at “breaking point” with more councils expected to fall into bankruptcy in future, as they face a nervous wait to discover their government funding this month.
So we should assume that it’s all being pissed away, right?
Right.
For if they’re taking ever more off us and yet still going bust then they’re spending even even more, right?
New rules on access to single-sex spaces could pose a significant risk to the mental health of trans and non-binary people, according to 15 of the UK’s most respected mental charities.
Organisations including Samaritans, Mind, Centre for Mental Health and the Royal College of Psychiatrists have written to the equalities minister, Bridget Phillipson, to express their “deep concern” about guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) that is awaiting approval from the government.
….
The organisations, which also include the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition, Beat, the Mental Health Foundation and the Association of Mental Health First Aiders, are concerned about the impact on access to inpatient wards as well as community-based and crisis services.They write: “Living in fear of abuse, discrimination or humiliation is a major risk factor for poor mental health, and trans and non-binary people already experience some of the highest rates of mental ill health in the UK, driven by stigma, exclusion and barriers to affirming care.”
A list of those who are, shall we say, unbalanced on the issue?
A new media landscape has hoved into view. Most of the debacle has been litigated on Substacks, independent podcasts and personal websites. Lizza claimed his belated revelations on his own newsletter about Nuzzi’s infractions, which, he said, included her helping RFK Jr in his run for president by sharing intel from sources, were in the public interest – the public in this instance being those signed up to Lizza’s Substack, who first gained free tidbits before being ushered to a paywall. Nuzzi herself, barring one glossy profile in the New York Times, has given her exclusive updates to other newsletter writers and podcasters. The froth of it all swirled on social media. Step back, and ask: “But is it journalism?” The answer is: definitely not. But I’m still not sure what it is.
But journalism is important! shrieks the Guardian columnist. Journalists are important! Who sucks who in journalism is important!
Because if that’s true then the passing synapse-fries of a Guardian columnist are important, see?
If, on the other hand, we were to take a rational view. Journalism is that effort to fill in the white gaps between the advertisements. And journalists have always been regarded as the scum they are – a journo shagging someone? Blimey, eh?
But, you know, whatever comforting lies help youi do your job, Honey.
A United Nations committee has warned New Zealand is at serious risk of weakening Māori rights and entrenching disparities for the Indigenous population, in its most critical review of the country’s record on racial discrimination.
Last month, the UN’s committee for the convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination (CERD) examined New Zealand’s record as part of its eight year review cycle for signatories to the convention.
Its 14-page report, released on 5 December, expressed concerns over multiple government policies affecting Māori, including the disestablishment of the Māori Health Authority, cuts to public funding for Māori services and minimising the role of the Treaty of Waitangi – the country’s founding document that is instrumental in upholding Māori rights – in schools and governance arrangements.
So the peeps claiming to eliminate all forms of racial discrimination are against the abolition of racist discriminations? That the Maori do not have a separate but equal health care thing is racist discrimination rather than the removal of it?
And there is why we should pay the UN no mind….
The alternative
Suppose we did something really different. Suppose we began economic planning. We do not do that now, at least, not in any serious way. In essence, all the government does now is guess the outcomes of others’ actions that it thinks are beyond its influence or control. But suppose instead that it decided what it wanted, and presumed that it could, at the very least, change the economic environment so that these things might happen. They would start by asking:
What have we got?
What do we need?
How do we use the power of the state to bridge the gap?
Then, depending on the answers, you would decide what might be required to achieve that outcome. That would mean plans would be required for:Innovation
Invetsment
Skill creation
Attracting those who have those abilities if we are short of them
Enabling those who want to work
Redirecting effort to where it is needed
Planning sustainable use of finite resources
Reducing risk instead of creating it
Delivering full employment to increase income and reduce dependency
We could do that. Instead of gambling on the outcomes of actions over which it is assumed to have no control, the government could decide the outcomes it wants and plan to have them, rather than leaving them to fate.
He’s not grasped what Hayek was on about, has he?
Fourth, capital controls are a defence of democracy. Without them, governments are constantly held hostage by the threat that markets might withdraw funds if they disapprove of policy choices. With them, economic policy can be oriented toward public well-being rather than placating global finance. Controls weaken the power of hot money to veto democratic priorities.
You should only be allowed to do with your own money what The Sage of Ely approves of.
That is what tax can be in an MMT system: a safety valve for inflation, as money is printed into the economy. No fireman would light up a steam engine without a working safety valve on the loco Grahame. No chancellor should let money into the economy without balancing that with taxes. Credit or base money.
And when in an inflationary environment the MMT loons still insist we should not have a balanced budget because this would be taking money out of the economy. Which is what the problem with MMT is. They all love spending the money but don’t follow through with the other half of the policy set.
Any attempt by the Lords to block a bill backed by the Commons would breach long-established constitutional conventions because it would subvert the authority of the elected chamber.
The Lords can’t refuse a finance bill nor, in the end, a manifesto committment. A private members bill? Have at it, maties.
Peers’ delay of assisted dying bill ‘could lead to constitutional crisis’
Opponents are playing with fire with 1,100 amendments, critics say, as filibuster tactics to defeat Kim Leadbeater’s law ‘threaten the upper chamber’s future’
They’re lying.
We also discovered a Kurdish asylum seeker working in a shop stacked with illegal tobacco hidden in secret compartments. Across the country we found asylum seekers working 14-hour shifts in minimarts for £4 an hour.
At least, the real minimum wage cannot be any higher than this, could well go lower.
