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Skittles do fall just right for him, don’t they?

Man arrested over threat to shoot Farage
Police detain suspect over social media post that said ‘I am going to shoot you in the head if you win’

So two weeks back the press was in full cry hunting him for accepting money to pay for security. Now this.

This is only a comment as with Napoleon’s desire for generals who are lucky. It’s not about what has actually happened at all. Rather, that he just is lucky in that everyone starts shouting about him over x and then y happens that shows that x was, in fact, quite right.

Further, the harder he works at it the more this luck happens.

There’s also the fun that apparently this is a Hindu Lib Dem terrorist. Which is a new one….

Bollocks

Starmer said: “British Steel is part of the fabric of our nation and a cornerstone of Britain’s industrial strength.

“Today’s decision secures the future of steel making in the UK, protects skilled jobs and safeguards a vital national capability. This government will always act in the national interest to support British industry, strengthen our economy and ensure the industries we rely on can thrive long into the future.”

It’s a technology well past its use date and is worth less than nothing. Which is why we’ve all got to subsidise it, obviously.

Sigh.

Fuck off, Honey

Layla Moran, the committee’s chair and a Liberal Democrat MP, highlighted the widespread advertising and availability of unhealthy food, and urged ministers to take strong action

We’ve only just solved humanity’s most basic problem – do we have enough food? – and now you want to ban the stuff?

It happens

IBM is on track for its biggest share price slump on record after warning that AI is eating into its business.

More than $68bn (£50bn) was wiped off the company’s value at the start of trading on Tuesday after the company said customers were ploughing money into the AI boom rather than its products.

Eventually – and this may not be that, yet – every technology is replaced by a newer one. Takes a long, long, time – the London Hydraulic Power Company still had an installed base into the 1960s – but it does happen.

To whom?

The main reparations committee for Caribbean nations has called on the UK to return the British Virgin Islands

Got a few Arawaks, Caribs in mind? Or is this a demand to hand it over to colonial products like those of African descent?

Bold assertion

Those with privilege carry half the risk of childhood obesity that those in deprived groups have.

This is the real cost of the toleration of income and wealth inequality, discrimination, and the failure to recognise the impact of neurodivergence, since all those subject to these are more likely to be in the deprived groups.

The lumpen are fat because we’re not nice to the autistic.

Well, could be I guess. But I think we’d require some proof, no?

Pity that not all science works this way

Museum loans were also problematic, Carr said.

“The problem is that a privately owned fossil can be recalled from a museum at any moment back into an owner’s home, so the principles of availability and replicability are not guaranteed.”

Indeed many journals now stipulate that research papers must be based on fossils housed in permanent public repositories.

“When we publish research, we need to make sure that research is repeatable, meaning that other scientists can check our data and results and verify our conclusions, or not,” said Brusatte. “The only way for our research to be repeatable is if the dinosaur fossils we study are in a museum, where other scientists are guaranteed access to them.”

Insert your own list of those that don’t here…..

Maybe, maybe not

​Jim Glennie, who has died aged 100, was one of a dwindling number of surviving veterans of Operation Overlord, the landings in Normandy in June 1944, the largest amphibious assault in history.
James Glennie was born at Turriff, Aberdeenshire, on August 19 1925. Always known as Jim, aged 16 he joined the Home Guard. In 1943, after completing his training he joined the 5th/7th Battalion Gordon Highlanders at Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire.

Right regiment but is it the right battalion? For the McAuslan stories by George McDonald Fraser are about that regiment at exactly that time….well, OK, they’re a collection of things that happened right across the Highland Division as the little note at the end of the last book shows. But M-F was G Highlanders…..

This seems fair

How a convicted fraudster became Andy Burnham’s right-hand woman

If every reference to George Cottrell is “th convicted moneylaunderer” or watever it is they’re using then and therefore:

Louise Haigh, the convicted fraudster.

Always, every reference.

Now this could be fun

George Cottrell and Stephen Cottrell are, respectively, mates with Nige and the Archbishop of York. Names don’t lie, they’re connected!

I shall soon be launching an investigation into how Big Church is controlling Reform. Send money now to fund this!

Should women have the vote?

The 2022 election brought a record-breaking gender gap between men and women, and the latest statistics show that in September the gulf is likely to be even wider: a recent survey by Statistics Sweden found that twice as many men as women support the far-right Sweden Democrats, while female support for the Social Democrats is 10 percentage points higher than its male equivalent.

That entire feminisation of politics raises that interesting question, no?

One is led by Sweden’s first female prime minister, Magdalena Andersson, and has promised smaller school-class sizes, more housing and free dental care for young people. The other, led by Jimmie Åkesson, has neo-Nazi roots and has pledged to lower taxes, improve public safety and treat “anti-Swedishness” as a hate crime.

I do tend to think the world would be further right if only men had the vote. Of course, dependent upon your own stance this might be ewlcome. But it all has made a difference, no? And as with any difference made it’s possible to muse on whether it’s a Good Thing or not.

That’s why it’s being suggested. Of course.

Reform UK would have held just 15% of the donations it received last year if a proposed £100,000 cap on political donations had been in force, according to analysis shared with the Guardian.

The analysis by Friends of the Earth using Electoral Commission data highlights the party’s reliance on a handful of wealthy backers in advance of a showdown over political funding.

Can’t have outsiders challenging the establishment of the uniparty now, can we?

Not that I believe this in the slightest

The heatwave that affected England and Wales in June killed about 440 people a day during its three-day peak, scientists have estimated. Across the whole of the June heatwave, plus the one in May, about 2,700 people lost their lives prematurely.

The data starkly illustrates the danger of extreme heat, which is being supercharged by the climate crisis. More than 40% of the people affected would not have died without the 1.4C of human-caused global heating to date, according to the analysis.

Now compare and contrast with those killed by cold snaps. As Our Man Bjorn has been known to note.

Cry more indeed

As her comments made the rounds on social media, two MEPs from rightwing populist parties shot back at her online. “Cry more,” wrote the Finnish MEP Sebastian Tynkkynen, of the Finns party, in response to a clip of Al-Sahlani addressing parliament, while the Danish MP Kristoffer Storm, of the Denmark Democrats, said she “should go home”.

On Wednesday, Al-Sahlani said she had filed a police complaint against Storm, accusing him of using racist speech as well as hate speech against her. Her complaint had only focused on the Danish MEP, she said, as Swedish police were unsure of how to handle Tynkkynen’s social media post.

Still, fun to see that the EU Parliament is, at least, home to some robust political debate.

And reporting this to the police? Gerrouttofit.

Not really, no

The issue that should be convulsing France is Le Pen’s legitimacy as a public representative.

If the voters vote for her, knowing what they know, then she’s in. ‘S democratic that way, see?

Odd this

Because what is taking place is not an aberration, not a deviation, but a norm that is enacted and blessed explicitly by successive generations of Israeli politicians and, it seems, by Israeli society. Until that fact is confronted, Palestinians will continue to be detained, disappeared, tortured and sexually abused, and the abusers asked politely, concernedly, occasionally, to please investigate themselves.

We actually have film of Hamas doing all of these things to Israelis. To kids at a music festival. Nesrine’s been most vocal about investigating that, right?

Trans-terrorism?

A militant transgender group has urged supporters to target Wes Streeting’s office as part of a direct action campaign.
In a guide distributed to activists, Bash Back instructs them to cause “direct harm” with “lasting effect”.
Borrowing the methods of direct action campaigns organised by pro-Palestinian and environmental activists, the group is urging supporters to identify “transphobic” targets and then “hit them repeatedly until they desist from their activities”.

Erm, doesn’t trans mean “not”?

But, anyway, if prominent politicians require protection why should this only be for those politicians in office? Why not also for Establishment outsiders?

Or have we already answered that question?