Broken Britain, Dark Money and the Irony of Foreign Influencers
As a new year dawns British politics is shape-shifting and collapsing before our eyes, with dark money, social media and grievance populism feeding new forms of far-right politics. Some of the pious left have scolded anyone warning of the dangers of Trumpism as a new form of fascism, downplaying its extremism and arguing it’s not real fascism.
But here it is – the year after the summer of riots – Elon Musk is hosting an X event promoting the Neo-Nazi AfD Party ahead of the German elections, and called Jess Philips a “rape genocide apologist”.
Musk signaled his support for AfD in mid-December, writing in a post on X that “only the AfD can save Germany.” He also penned an op-ed in a German newspaper last week, describing the party as the “last spark of hope” for the country.
For some reason the mainstream media, who seem transfixed by Musk – are promoting the personal views of a foreign billionaire who has nothing to do with this country:
Elon Musk calls on King to dissolve parliament amid row over grooming gangs https://t.co/kvObYAAh6p
— ITV News (@itvnews) January 3, 2025
Musk has seized the momentum to urge support for Nigel Farage’s hard-right Reform party. He’s also called for the far-right activist Tommy Robinson (currently in jail for contempt of court) to be freed. A multi-billionaire is backing neo-nazism and has control over the public sphere through his much depleted platform X, which he acquired in late 2022, since when, according to one estimate, has lost nearly 80% of its value. But the world’s richest bully doesn’t need the money, he craves power and influence, and even a spoiled and broken Twitter gives him some of that.
With Broxtowe being a sign of the times and vast sums of money now lining up behind Farage’s latest political project, how does this play in Scotland?
We have polling showing a potentially sizeable pro-independence majority at Holyrood and support for independence in the ascendancy (‘Support for the Union slips as backing for independence edges upwards‘). But we also have the bizarre spectacle of Alba supporters, and potential leader Ash Regan, allying themselves with the far-right:
‘Restoring Normality’ is doing a lot of heavy-lifting here, but what we can see is Regan – who has already made overtures to Musk about locating a Gigafactory in Scotland – trying to align the backlash against trans people’s rights – with Musk’s disgraceful narrative about ‘grooming gangs’.
To be clear, this is the politics of the gutter.
Also, to be clear, while any ‘grooming’ is to be condemned and prosecuted – the narrative of this being an exclusive or predominant ethnic issue is an entirely false one as evidence shows:
Data from report here: https://www.csacentre.org.uk/app/uploads/2024/02/Trends-in-Offical-Data-2022-23-FINAL.pdf?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR170_VbaPKwKRVQp4AzSUWNQmizTyGf_ixVfLz0N-XI5s1ciRaCR-WF-pY_aem_Fi-0cw5QkXWpx3Ib4ZZTew
That Alba would flirt with the far-right in a desperate search for electoral impact is not surprising, any nationalism which does not ground itself in a wider politics and deeper values can be undermined – as Alba has shown.
In an exchange with one Alba supporter, when I pointed out Musk’s support for the AfD they responded saying: “The AfD seem to just want to protect Germany and keep citizens safe. Their leader is a lesbian who is in a relationship with a Sri Lankan woman. Doesn’t sound very nazi to me. Immigration is out of control right now. We can’t just take everyone in like you lefties want.”
To be clear as Chris Walker on Truthout points out: “AfD is an extreme right, neo-Nazi organization. The party is vehemently anti-immigration and is particularly bigoted against Muslim migrants. Its leaders have also expressed antisemitic sentiments, and have downplayed the atrocities by Nazi German leaders, going so far as to demand museums and schools change how the Holocaust is taught in schools.”
What we are seeing then is the convergence of toxic politics – wrapped-up in a faux solidarity for women (“I will protect you” – Trump) – despite the fact that much of the far-right is steeped in hyper-traditionalism and the politics of the manosphere – with the Islamophobia that has been nurtured in the petri-dish of post-Brexit Britain. Added to this we see the dark irony of the people who oppose immigration and rail against the influence of ‘outside forces’ welcoming with open arms the cash and influence of Elon Musk.
As Sam Moore and Alex Roberts write in Post-Internet Far-Right:
“In the UK, the most prominent form of racism on the far right continues to be Islamophobia, present across the political spectrum in one form or another, but intensifying on the conservative right, among far-right civic nationalist street movements, through the identitarian movement, and onwards into ethnonationalism. Widespread it comes in many forms: hatred of Muslims spurred by the fear of terrorism, the association of Islam with with sexual violence, and the fear of changing demographics, with Muslims imagined as a growing population who will come to ‘replace’ whites. These three variants of Islamophobia are associated with increasingly extreme far-right groups, and increasingly totalising conspiracies among them.”
X marks the sport where the Scottish nationalist left, and progressive forces within Scotland need to make a stand and lay down a politics which is explicitly anti-fascist, anti-racist and shows solidarity with both exploited women and girls and those under attack from the far-right.
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Naive politicians playing with fire. On ch4 news last night John Curtice rebuked the news frontman for over reporting Trump/ Musk. Pursuing the odious even though they’re seen as newsworthy is something we need to push back. Your comment on the need for Scottish movement for self determination to have some social programme is spot on. As ever Thankyou
Much needed article- thanks.
I am depressed by how many people are happy to support or defend authoritarians as a means of either expressing disillusionment with current situation or as a means of advancing their own political interests. I would add Putin and Netanyahu to Trump & Musk in this respect.
The demonisation of Muslim’s in our community by many politicians is growing – Peter Osborne writes some articles worth reading on this development in Tory Party. Labour are not completely innocent on this charge either.
I am struck by how similar the way the IDF justifies indiscriminate bombing of hospitals and killing innocent civilians etc by claiming there are Hamas fighters inside to how the Nazi’s meted out punishment to civilians in France on basis that they might be or support resistance fighters.
Very well put John, it is depressing indeed. I would just like to give a shout out to my friends of Turkish & Turkmen origin some of whom are 2nd, 3rd or even 4th generation Scots also who kept me alive during my last stint as a supposed student in Aberdeen. Far better craic than a lot of the dour Presbyterian mob so many of us must leave teuchter land to escape. Also, in consideration of how poorly wur national side wis daen at the time it wis fine tae appreciate the stellar performance of Turkey in Euro 2008. People are people unless by some accumulation of crimes against humanity they wind up with that much in the bank they begin to assume a Godlike aura of authority which I feel needs to be strongly discouraged. I mind one of my Turkish pals telling me he wis away tae vote for Alex Ferguson afore he realised his mistake & corrected it tae Salmond, possibly he should’ve stuck wie his original choice since fitba fur all its faults is far mair interesting than the waffle that goes on amongst the suits. Peace to all.
I appreciate comments either supporting or criticising what I have written.
Please don’t you my comment to tell us a little anecdote with virtually no relevance to topic being discussed.
My congratulations on your having made such a wonderful recovery following your sense of humour bypass.
Aye right – as long as you think your funny!
Go join the Comedy Club then mate.
I cannot help but feel if more and appropriate attention was paid to the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry, a more accurate picture would already be in the public mind (particularly the institutional abuse):
https://www.childabuseinquiry.scot/
And of course the appalling abuses throughout colonial times. In some respects, this seems to be another form of #karmaphobia
I think you underestimate how right wing & conservative Scotland, the Scottish Government & the Scottish Nato Party actually are. I think with a couple of major referendums under the belt in these islands all we’re really seeing is the rancid hatred that had always been boiling under the surface reach daylight. Might it have been better never to have had either referendum, quite possibly.
So conservative that they came within 5 points of bringing down the British State. As for ‘the rancid hatred that has always been boiling under the surface’ maybe you are just in love with the mirror.
Not sure why you would take my comment so personally, also, your own comment is absurd since the Scottish parliament is merely a devolved parliament subservient to Westminster & therefore is a significant wheel in the machinery of the British State which is playing a rather cruel game with those spending too much time online by deluding you into thinking any significant change is possible when in fact all they’re ever going to do is stitch the bag up tighter with you in it. PS. If you were as handsome as myself you’d spend all day admiring yersel in the mirror as well.
Hard agree, with one correction. Rape gangs ARE an ethnic issue. White British ethnicity is the only ethnicity that is doing more than its population share of raping, as per your stats. A white British man is more likely than any other ethnicity to rape or sexually assault.
This is misleading. There is an issue with gangs from Pakistani minorities in specific places, mainly targetting white girls. The evidence is clear for this and in fact has been accepted and *not* ignored in the enquiries that have happened. That does not alter the overall picture that it is white men that are the bigger problem. There is a danger of mistaking the national stats for localised issues. The same thing happened with arguments during the Brexit debate about foreign workers – yes they contribute significantly above their ‘cost’ to the country but some localised imbalances were an issue and those close to that knew this and became frustrated by being told they were mistaken.
Niemand – as this is a site primarily about Scotland it is worth pointing out that there have not been any reports of rape gangs in Scotland (as far as I am aware).
Brexit was rejected by electorate in Scotland by a near 2:1 majority including all regions.
This would indicate that there are some sociological and political differences between Scotland and England?
Lol, how completely naive, Scotland continually returns its protest vote whenever the supposed opposite/enemy/oppressive region o’er the border i.e., England is known via polling to be going in a particular direction, in just such a way it remains content in its supposed duality which is merely an excuse to remain as if not more right wing, authoritarian, racist & imperialist as its southern neighbour, just look at the number of PMs, major players & party donors (i.e., war mongering sods) Scotland has gifted Westminster o’er the centuries. Scotland has zero right to claim exemption from the crimes committed by & on behalf of the British State & the devolution settlement, the referendum post snp endorsing nato & this whole journalistic online industry that has grown legs, wings, tentacles & antennae since mid 2012 is the biggest piece of nonsense & double speak I have personally had the misfortune to witness. Talk about an absolute sham, five minutes research is about enough for anybody with half a brain to realise it’s all just hot air with zero substance & a fkn shitload to answer for in terms of the havoc wreaked on a global & local scale.
You don’t have to reply to every comment I post fan boy!
That may have made sense in yer ain heid.
i’m not your fan, I think you’re a twat
Pot, kettle, black fanboy.
Yeah but I was responding to what J. Hargreaves wrote. The general point about localised matters verses the bigger picture stands i.e. the former cannot be dismissed because of the latter. The Brexit point was merely an illustration of the general problem.
It is hard to speculate about the comparison between sexual abuse and ethnicity in Scotland and England given the huge disparity in populations. In fact it is pretty hard to speculate generally since all we can ever go on is reported crime which may well give a quite distorted picture.
Niemand – it is difficult to compare due to demographic differences in the affected areas of England with similar areas of Scotland.
I believe one issue that had been highlighted in investigations is the fact that Child social care workers do not have to be registered in England. In Scotland and Wales while they cannot work without being registered.
precisely, why would anyone go & report a crime tae the polis anyway considering they likely live as much in fear ae police corruption as they do ae criminals & when our sad little so called society is largely governed by law makers i.e., politicians who flout, bend & break the law on a regular basis
ah, the anglaise & thir camp sense of ‘style’ oan yersel bumboy
Such abuse doesn’t stop at the border, John. In 2020, Barnardo’s and the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA) published a national report into the scope of child sexual exploitation (CSE) in Scotland. The report found CSE cases on the ‘party flat’ model in 27 of Scotland’s 32 council areas and acknowledged ‘that it is reasonable to expect that the extent and circumstances of child abuse will be similar in Scotland to the rest of the UK’. The SCRA also reported that child sexual exploitation by grooming gangs has been identified as a ‘concern’ at 635 separate hearings for children placed on the Child Protection Register since 2016.
The 2020 study also found that victim-blaming was widespread in the Children’s Hearing system, with multiple references to ‘risky sexual behaviour’ on the part of children who were being groomed, passed around, and raped by adults. Children should not be blamed for the abuse they suffer.
In total, the report made 15 recommendations for the Scottish Government, the police, councils, and the SCRA, with SNP ministers told they must take overall responsibility.
Despite the call for an urgent end to victim-blaming, the Scottish Government continues to tell police and social workers to look out not for signs of grooming and exploitation, but for ‘children engaging in harmful sexual behaviour’. Guidance published in as late as April of last year states that a young person ‘having sex with strangers (adults)’ should be regarded as a red flag for unsafe behaviour on the child’s part.
To be fair, the Scottish Government did set up a National Child Sexual Exploitation Group (NCSE) in 2016, with the aim of making Scotland ‘a place where sexual exploitation of children and young people is eliminated’. The group was set up ‘to learn the lessons’ following two major police investigations into grooming gangs operating in and around Glasgow, code-named ‘Operation Cotswold’ and ‘Operation Dash’.
Cotswold, launched in 2011, identified at least 26 victims of gang grooming and sexual exploitation in the city, before it was expanded into Dash, which involved 12 councils and four health boards across the west of Scotland. However, unlike in England and Wales, these operations never led in Scotland to a large-scale grooming gang ‘showtrial’, where multiple offenders are brought before the courts at the same time. The government disbanded the Group in 2020, and has done next to bugger-all since.
Moreover, in 2015, Glasgow City Council published a document called ‘The Rotherham Report – Implications for Glasgow’, in which it warned that abuse by grooming gangs was a ‘day to day practice’ in the city. This document was prepared by Moira McKinnon, who was later appointed head of the NCSE.
Also in 2020, just as the government was disbanding the NCSE, the existence of another police investigation into grooming gangs in Glasgow, called Operation Cerrar was revealed (by the Scottish Daily Express, of all people). The gangs had at least 44 victims, including a core group of six youngsters. Police believed one girl had been raped by as many as 28 different men over several years. Operation Cerrar had taken place in 2016 and was kept under wraps for years, until the Express’s defective investigative journalists uncovered it.
In the light of the current stushie, the Scottish Government should be asked to explain how many of the recommendations of the NCSE, and the more recent Barnardo’s/SCRA reports, have been implemented. All that seems to have happened is that a new ‘Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation National Strategic Group’ has been set up in recent weeks, which met for the first time on November 18 and again on December 11. ‘[This] Group,’ according to the Scottish Government’s blurb, ‘brings together key stakeholders, including social work, police, health and education, local authority representatives, expert practitioners, charities, and research and academics’ to conduct another inquiry.
Children need action, not further inquiry and consultation. And we should have no truck with a misinformed Scottish exceptionalism that claims we don’t groom and rape children here.
Western Europe’s, which includes the UK, has for decades been on a downward spiral, moving away from democracy and national sovereignty towards a technocracy based government. The covenant and trust between the ruling classes and the working class had irrevocably broken down.
Across Europe we are seeing extreme levels of over regulation, taxation, borrowing, growth of the public sector with the poorest performance in every aspect of service. We are seeing mass immigration, sexual and violent crime increases, loss of free speech, and breathtaking levels of dishonesty by public servants.
We are seeing extreme oikophobia by the very privileged entitled intellectual classes.
The rapid growth of populism in recent times is like Brexit. It seems to baffle and bewilder the middle class intelligentsia. The obsession with blaming all on an elusive far-right stops you from actually listening to what the majority of the non-graduate working classes have been trying to tell you.
Neo-Marxist and post-modernist ideology are nothing more than academic viruses that have escaped academia, and infected the technocracy and society as a whole. It has taken on a religious form, and created fear and confusion at every level of society.
It was only a question of time before the sleeping giant (the ordinary people) would awake and rebel against the post-war intellectual revolution.
The technocracy has failed to deliver safety, security, well being, prosperity, equality of opportunity, and respect for the hard-won democracy and freedoms earned with blood and sacrifice.
Britain and many other European countries are now considered low-trust nations, and the masses no longer trust anyone in authority, the media, the institutions, and even neighbours or nearby communities.
I come from the world of engineering, where empirical data, testing and proving theorems, designs, functionality, etc., requires the readiness to abandon beliefs when confronted with facts, data and results.
If you start from a place of dogmatic belief, then you will be unable to see the iniquity of a flawed theory. For example, Critical Race Theory starts from the position that there already exists (not if) system racism, disparity, inequality and discrimination by white people, white culture and institutions. With CRT you will view every thing in society in terms of race, and particularly as white racism. Yet, be utterly blind to its presence in “global majority” people’s.
When challenged, the CRT proponents declare questions to be proof of that racism or of unconscious bias. We are told that only those trained in CRT can see and identify this particular injustice. This is like a religion, where only the priests can determine the truth or belief in any situation.
How often are those who promote such extreme critical social justice ideas say that they are being tolerant and kind, yet they routinely use the most hateful language and behaviour towards the heretic or non-believer. “Kill the TERF” is a favourite of the Trans-activist.
It takes courage to challenge the perceived wisdom of your group; courage to listen to that nagging inner voice about whether the belief you share with your tribe may actually be wrong. Human society relies on shared beliefs and customs for survival of the group and the individual.
When I read this article all I could see was a desperate attempt to explain away current events, amidst the impending collapse of the graduate elite belief system.
Have you noticed people like (Sir) Stephen Fry inching his way away from the Woke doctrine he previously espoused and is now moving towards the views and position of people you’d call the Far-right?
People like Sturgeon, Humza Yusaf, Starmer, Jess Phillips, et al are floundering, unable to comprehend where they have gone wrong, and believing that evil Far-right forces are mesmerising and fooling the unthinking working classes.
None of these clever people have actually asked “the people” what concerns them, or what they want.
You will probably not allow this comment to be published. Or, if you do allow it to be posted then your regular readers (who think exactly as you do) will pile in and dismiss what I say in terms of my being stupid, a gammon, or misled by right wing evil sorcerers – Elon Musk, Farage, Putin, Mosely (dec.) et al.
Like a ship that was going in the wrong direction and dangerously heading for the rocks, society is beginning to correct course. The shift was inevitable. There is nothing you can do about it. Enjoy the ride.
hmm, I think we might want to re-read or re-watch Remains of The Day & have a think as to whether Adolf & his mob actually won the war in these islands despite the version of official political history intended tae mak wursels oh so virri proud of wur ancestral accomplishments, also I’m a wee bit concerned at this division of society into various categories of being as tho we were all various brands of tinned soup, beans or ravioli on the supermarket shelf, just because one’s old boy happened tae work in a factory & you also work in a factory does not necessarily mean you have never read a book, perhaps even what one might consider an intellectual artistic work such as Crime & Punishment or a few of Kafka’s challenging works which I think you are underestimating in what they have done for folk in terms of increasing the likelihood that humanity might yet triumph over mechanistic adversity in the shape of technocratic bampots one only ever hears rather than sees because they at least have the wisdom to realise that their views are anathema to the majority of folk & therefore keep themselves oot ae harms way.
Aye; I worked as a miner for 30 years before I took my first degree. In my experience, it’s the lumpenproletariat (the unorganized and unpolitical lower orders of society who’ve no interest in revolutionary advancement) that resent proletarians developing their class consciousness through education.
ye canna win really, having experienced baith blue & white collar work I’d have to say I found the amount of backstabbing, infighting & downright nastiness going on in the academic environment even worse than working amongst folk who I could at least get the craic wie maist days
“How often are those who promote such extreme critical social justice ideas say that they are being tolerant and kind, yet they routinely use the most hateful language and behaviour towards the heretic or non-believer. “Kill the TERF” is a favourite of the Trans-activist.”
What’s a TERF? The people who literally quote Mein Kampf at their rallies? The people who said the Nazis were right to persecute Magnus Hirschfeld? The people deeply invested in undermining human rights, especially the right to privacy? The people who literally demand that queer kids be outed to the people statistically most likely to be their abusers and call that “safety”? The people who scapegoat trans people for just about anything and everything? Golly gee, can’t imagine why anyone would mistake them for far right.
Stop pretending that’s “just having an opinion” you unbelievably disingenuous little freak.
@Captain Manwhoring, I thought your background was performing mercenary services for sado-regimes? I mean, engineering is a graduate discipline, and who underpins our technology-based society but computer engineers, chip designers and data scientists?
When you say:
“We are seeing mass immigration, sexual and violent crime increases, loss of free speech, and breathtaking levels of dishonesty by public servants.”
you could be channelling the voices of the many millions of victims of European colonial expansion. Fearful of reaping the hurricane, eh?
#karmaphobia
I mean the European imperial origins of the World Wars of the last century seem to have also slipped your notice. Despite being a golden age of anti-wokism, presumably.
I did encounter a recently-written book (of garbage philosophy) that falls squarely into your criticism of ‘cultural Marxist post-modernism’ etc. I’m not going to publicise it by naming title or author. But are academic works like those really influential? Or do they tend to be widely mocked once their ideas and mannerisms become better known? Philosophy has always had its evil twin of Sophistry.
Your whole spiel ignores the vast empirical research that has emerged since the wane of old-school (racist, misogynist, classist) imperial propaganda, which factual uncovering and witness bearing is the real challenge to authoritarian ideologies. The idea that authoritarian regimes ever governed wisely or justly or in the interests of the many can be exploded once we can check their records. No theory required. Just like your simple engineering paradigms. Sometimes all you have to do is count the graves, to start asking the right questions.
Yep; for the past 100 years, critical theory has been pointing out that instrumental reason (ways of thinking that focus on finding the most efficient means to achieve a goal, often by ignoring other factors like morality or sustainability) lead to technocracy.
Some of us reckon:
a) that any politics (of the ‘left’, ‘right’, or ‘centre’) parasitical on populism are a cultural expression of instrumental rationality;
b) that the dichotomy between instrumental rationality and value rationality, technocracy vs. democracy, populism vs. utopianism, in postmodern politics and society has supplanted the old left/right dichotomy of modern times, rendering all political discourse that appeals to those traditional battle lines anachronistic.
I agree, just think of how fast technology is superseded & the old stuff thrown in the scrap heap, i.e., betamax, vhs, dvd, blu ray all the way tae whateffer the latest is these days, how can anyone put their faith in such nonsense, only a nonsensical shower ever would & I have to say that is largely what the angry mob that insist on the system we have pretty much must be.
You are a man “SteveH”, who despises education (your hated”graduate elites”).
So, here’s some down-to-earth Common Sense for you:
When a man points to the least powerful in your society and tells you that “THEY are to blame…” it is because he is stealing from you.
He will tell you that the Blacks/Irish/Scots/Immigrants/Disabled/Homosexuals/Unemployed/Christians/Muslims/Jews/Gypsies, whatever, are taking your housing, your women, your jobs, your money, your society’s morals.
While you are getting your knickers in a twist about all this, the man steal your land, your future, your sanity, your love, your human rights, your community, your peace, your air, your water, your happiness, your humanity and your ability to feed, cloth and shelter your family.
He will also steal your ability to do anything about his theft.
Lucky for Alba, Kenny looks to be maintaining his current position as leader not Ash, but car manufacturers have never been that progressive from ford to Elon, don’t over egg your custard Mikey boy. There’s plenty of Muslim members of Alba.
@Stuart Jackson, presumably some people would consider a People’s Car project to be progressive?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen
Well, not myself, obviously. Another humanist tyranny over nature. But electric delivery vehicles would be a better approach. And separating Tesla from Musk for a moment: didn’t Tesla open-source some of their technology? If so, why do we need Tesla here?
problem with too much delivery is that folk lose their ability tae walk frae huis tae shop & also the social interaction on the road there & back, also it engenders the type of master servant relationship between consumer & delivery person that should have gone oot wie the ark, consumers in their click happy manner safely ensconced behind the keyboard or smartphone are doing immense damage in their delusional sense of being in total control of the universe via their mastery of internet technology, how much of what is delivered via mail order is used or worn once then re-packaged by the consumer & returned back to amazon/ebay or whoever almost immediately, answer: a substantial bit. So this is essentially an unnecessary industry used largely by piss takers at great cost tae the rest ae us. Slainte.
@mark leslie edwards, well, there’s certainly something in what you say about over-delivery, but I was comparing it with driving to the shops in personal vehicles. I agree that your picture is healthier if we can get urban designs like 15-minute cities where walking to the shops is comfortable for the majority who can. Home and hub deliveries are still part of that picture. Electric vehicles won’t be an environmental disaster on that scale.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15-minute_city
We still have to think of rural areas, those with mobility problems, the reality of current locations, whether some kinds of delivery make more sense that shopping trips etc. I agree that over-consumption is a very real and toxic problem. We need to think about fair and environmentally-sustainable trade too. But I was largely thinking about daily groceries.
You can look up Tesla’s own statements on open source and patent pledges. The first should be legally binding but I wonder how the latter could be.
electric vehicles shall be a disaster, too much lecky is very detrimental to the nervous system, also the batteries in these silent cars make them deadly for pedestrians & as is increasingly becoming the case the entitled owners of such vehicles are unlikely even to notice they’ve even run o’er a couple ae plebs on thir sunday drive hame frae waitrose
@mark leslie edwards, hmmm. Your prediction may come to pass, but a wiser culture would use electric-powered vehicles in a healthier way. We are all electrically-powered in our own way, of course. Apart from those who aren’t, whoever they may be.
Who said anyone apart from Ash did? But politicians who favour market economies tend to ask anyone be it Chinese companies or Indian companies like Tata steel etc, we all use phones, any pretence of ethical consumption has go out the window since digitalisation. On another point despite being infrastructure heavy, why don’t we switch to hydrogen?? Not that I know much about these things but like oil electric cars are a resource disaster aren’t they?
they need charging too often, lecky causes cancer, they are too heavy and also silent therefore pose a huge risk to innocent pedestrians, in other words, they are shite
I’m not sure that the issue is ‘progressive car manufacturers’ Stuart but fascist billionaires and Britain’s far-right.
He’s a blow hard, don’t get your knickers in a twist. This has been in terms for over two decades now.
I wonder how in the works became in terms!? In the works I meant to say.
Conflation seems to be mike’s yardstick of prosaic flan making.
Could you give me a link to the source of Table 4 Mike.
Yes that’s what I was wondering. It’s really useful data- but not without the source.
Source of table:
“Child sexual abuse in 2022/23: Trends in official data” by Kairika Karsna and Paige Bromley, see page 38
https://www.csacentre.org.uk/app/uploads/2024/02/Trends-in-Offical-Data-2022-23-FINAL.pdf
The Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse (CSA) is a multi-disciplinary team, funded by the Home Office and hosted by Barnardo’s.
Here it is Bradley, I’ve updated the graphic: https://www.csacentre.org.uk/app/uploads/2024/02/Trends-in-Offical-Data-2022-23-FINAL.pdf?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR1QiBKbaFnsC5GvGuf8UEbfEtU2CEVSMNzPCMFiR8DzP_GTnLcGXkyNWC0_aem_1mxkmPd7Vw0Y3G1mNQyf_A
Hi – yes of course – sorry – I’ve updated the graph with a link to the report from the Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse
Thanks Mike.
Interesting report this week from the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) about the last General Election. It highlights the low participation (just above 50%) and the much higher rate of participation by home owners as opposed to renters.
It makes some interesting recommendations including:
Reducing the voting age to 16, limiting political donations to £100,000K per annum and various actions to increase participation.
Interesting that it highlights that so many people are dissatisfied with current political system and how it doesn’t work for them. This is undoubtedly a factor in rising support for far right politicians who feed on this discontent. The recommendation to limit political donations would be of great benefit towards improving accountability and reducing corruption in politics. I am sure majority of public would support this move but politicians may not especially the rich backers of Reform who claim to be supporters of ordinary people.
Why should I vote for any party which is going to inveigle these islands in further overseas warfare which all available political parties with any chance of winning a UK election have a proven track record of doing. I think anyone who votes should be fucking ashamed of themselves quite frankly.
Why should anyone living in these islands vote unless they wish to see further overseas warfare, destruction & slaughter of innocent civilians, all political parties with any chance of winning an election in the UK have a track record of this, therefore anyone in the UK who does go out & vote should in my humble opinion be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.
It may be flawed but the democratic process is still preferable to all other alternatives.
My comment was acknowledging that not only myself but others are concerned by how the electoral system is not working for a substantial section of society and how it can be improved and made more representative.
Your comment, with respect, reminded of a 15 year old trying to appear cynical to show off to their peers. It adds nothing to the conversation except making you look like rather immature and self opinionated.
It is not preferable, we’re supposed to be a kingdom, let the king make the decisions then, why annoy ordinary punters & by surreptitious means & invidious schemes get their endorsement for mass slaughter of innocent people with many being so indoctrinated they barely realise nor acknowledge that they have blood on their hands. Any such system is incapable of improvement.
Also, tho I am flattered that you acknowledge my youthful vitality even at my ripe auld age this is only achieved thru my taking expert care of mind body & kick ass moves. More seriously, your argument now contains a massive flaw in that you advocate for a lowering of the voting age whilst disapproving of what you consider an adolescent response which is in fact simply a statement of clear sighted fact rather than the wilful blindness of accessories to murder such as yourself, time all you voters were prosecuted tae the ful’ extent ae the law alang wie the eejits ye regularly elect tae pul’ the triggers fur ye!
There’s no fool like an old fool as your incessant self obsessed posts prove.
Ah, so maturity is now judged according to whether one is willing to cast a vote that by definition endorses a political system known to be suspect in order to decide who shall form those government(s) we know shall be abhorrent, immoral & fundamentally corrupt, simply because at the moment we have no better way of judging whether you have reached that stage of maturity where by your vote you willingly endorse the murder of innocent folk you’ve never even met on what for the sake of argument a shower of career minded money grubbing arseholes will call, for want of a better term, ‘your behalf’. Do you have any idea how insane your argument actually is?
Still craving my attention fanboy!
Makes you wonder why the billionaires wasted their money buying Twitter, buying elections, murdering journalists, lobbying, bribing politicians, owning newspapers and TV stations etc.
When all along the “sleeping giant” of “working people” would have happily awoken, unprompted, to the fact that their local shopkeeper is the “enemy within” and not those busy reaping billions from the work of others.
I very much agree with most of this article.
I notice the latest is that Musk has said Farage is not good enough to lead Reform to power. Haha, and only hours after Farage defended those terrible tweets from Musk on free speech grounds, failing entirely to say he did not agree with Musk calling Phillips a rape genocide apologist (and should be jailed) and Starmer ‘complicit in the rape of Britain’. It is a sign of real moral bankruptcy that you can hide behind a free speech defense rather than address what is actually said.
One thing though, the ‘backlash against trans people’s rights’ is wrong. It is not about trans people’s rights which are the same as anyone’s already. What it is about is adding new trans rights and their contradiction of specific rights that women already have in law for their sex that they they want to retain. Regan sucking up to Musk on this issue is however, really stupid.
It’s important to be specific: the Gender Recognition Reform bill reduced the age at which someone could change their legal gender from 18 to 16, removed the requirement of a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria, and reduced the waiting time for living in the acquired gender. These changes were hedged with various safeguards. Those are the facts.
You imply that these changes amount to ‘new trans rights’. That’s a matter of opinion. The distinction between fact and opinion is important, especially in view of how the whole issue has been weaponised by the likes of Musk and Regan.
Well, we do not know what the article means by ‘trans people’s rights’. And that is part of the problem since as we have shown, it can be interpreted in quite different ways and the ‘rights’ could mean a number of different things.
You also wrote “It is not about trans people’s rights which are the same as anyone’s already.” I don’t think this is correct. Trans people have the right to obtain legal recognition of the gender they live in, through a Gender Recognition Certificate. This right, specific to people who are trans, applied in the UK before the GRR bill was introduced in Scotland – the aim of which was to simplify and humanise the procedure for getting a GRC. The likes of Musk object to this right. Thus, Mike was absolutely correct in referring to the backlash against trans rights.
None of this was made explicit and people often talk about trans rights in very vague terms as a way of making a political point. Without saying what you mean, it has little value.
I mean yes, there is a specific right to officially transition but anyone can in theory access that right if they wish to transition. This is part of the whole argument in fact – on what grounds can that happen? If simple self-ID should be grounds, then many people would object, not just the likes of Musk / hard right. Female sex-based rights are by definition, exclusive to the female sex. At least in theory, and there lies a problem that cannot be glossed over with talk of ‘trans rights’ – what about the rights of women?
as was salmond’s sookn up tae trump & the scottish government’s intervention forcing local council in aberdeenshire to allow trump’s destruction of a unique protected site of scientific interest at balmedie tae be converted intae yet anuthir golf course, unfortunately as far as scotland, the scottish government & the scottish nato party is concerned cash is not only king but god in the short term & far does a’ this cash go? Straight intae the accounts ae thimsels & thir bum chums, fit changes fur yer ordinary punter trying tae git by withoot causing mayhem & destruction tae thir environment or fowk they’ve nivir even met & huv nay problem wie, absolutely fk all changes except they git shafted a’ the mair the aulder they git by these fkn reptiles
It was actually Lord McConnell who did the initial sookin up tae Trump.
ah, I stand corrected, how many sookers up in total do we have in scotia at the last heid count?
Here’s what one of the UK Parliament’s MP’s said yesterday:
——————————-
2:26pm, 04/01/25 Robert Jenrick MP:
“To sustain order in multicultural Britain, the state considered it necessary to apply the law selectively.For decades the most appalling crimes from predominantly British-Pakistani men were legalised and actively covered up to prevent disorder.
The rule of law was abandoned to sustain the myth that diversity is our strength, destroying the lives of thousands of vulnerable white working class girls in the process.
This appalling affair is the final nail in the coffin for liberals who still cling to the argument that Britain is an integration success story.
The scandal started with the onset of mass migration. Importing hundreds of thousands of people from alien cultures, who possess medieval attitudes towards women, brought us here. And after 30 years of this disastrous experiment, we now have entrenched sectarian voting blocs that make it electoral suicide for some MPs to confront this. This scandal shows why we must end it.
The foreign nationals responsible must be deported – no ifs, no buts. And the officials that covered up must be sent to jail for their appalling cowardice.Even that won’t be enough for the victims.”
@Wul, isn’t it the Anglican Church who has exported its medieval attitudes to women across the globe and who has been rocked with child sexual abuse cases and leadership cover-ups? Doesn’t this Anglican Church have established sectarian voting rights in our Parliament? Isn’t the head of this medieval organisation still our hereditary theocratic monarch just like Henry VIII was? And aren’t Henry VIII powers still evidently used in the British imperial quasi-constitution? Isn’t the British Empire the real disastrous experiment here?
Perhaps Robert Jenrick MP is simply an appalling example of British education and the political class.
Aye, my first thought on reading Jenrick’s utter pish was that it is traditionally white men wearing ermine who are given the free-pass to commit sex crimes.
@Wul, verity.
Jenrick isn’t the sharpest tool in the drawer.
The table in the central part of this article has led to a number of strong comments and a call for clarification as to its source; which both the Editor and one reader have responded to.
Thanks.
Following up on that source, I note that immediately above the table in question in the original document is the following statement by the authors about the first line of the table, the second sentence of which statement does give considerable pause for thought it would seem:
‘Among these individuals,
five-sixths were White British (4,943) – a higher
proportion than in the general population of
England and Wales (see Table 4). This overrepresentation is likely to be related to the
overall under-identification of child sexual
abuse in minority ethnic communities.’
You need to use data and stats so much more carefully…
Your reading of the stats is not connected sufficiently to the criticism made re the child rape gangs. The criticism was that the criminals were not sufficiently proceeded against due to a desire to avoid upsetting the multicultural project and endgandgering community cohesion. The data you chose only considers those actually ‘proceeded against’ and hence misses the key point. Not saying who is right or wrong. Simply that the data you present is not useful to the decide this.
I see Alexis Jay, who chaired the Independent Inquiry Child Sexual Abuse enquiry in Rotherham (the same sort of local enquiry the UK government is saying it would support in Oldham), has weighed into the rammie, by warning against reducing sexual violence to a convenient stick with which one can beat one’s political opponents.
In a statement issued on the Survivors Trust website on Sunday, Alexis said: “Politicising the issue of sexual violence fails to acknowledge its lifelong impact and hinders the implementation of vital and urgent overhaul to our systems required.”
She also warned against spinning statistics in order misinform and mislead the public.
The IICSA’s final report was published in 2022 and set out 20 recommendations it said were necessary to reduce child suffering. They included setting up a national child protection authority, implementing tighter controls on who can work with vulnerable children, legislating to force tech firms to take stronger action over online abuse material, and making NOT reporting abuse a criminal offence.
Alexis has previously expressed frustration at the previous government’s failure to adopt the recommendations. She also said of her present intervention, that ‘Our mission is not to call for new inquiries but to advocate for the full implementation of IICSA’s recommendations’. She was also heartened by the present government’s ongoing work to implement the report’s recommendations in full.
As well as ‘working at pace across government’ to implement the recommendations, the Home Office has rejected Oldham Council’s request for a government-led inquiry into historical child sexual exploitation in the town in favour of a locally-led investigation like that of the Rotherham enquiry.
Instead of weaponising sexual violence against out political competitors, we should listen to what the likes of Alexis Jay are saying.
Indeed, I was just typing in a short comment on the same.
https://www.iicsa.org.uk/recommendations.html
As well as implementing mandatory reporting and the other recommendations, we should also be calling for past government cover-ups to be declassified and published in full.
100% agree. The call for a national enquiry seems almost entirely political. We have several enquiry reports and clear recommendations from them. Implement those, not waste even more time (years probably) and indeed huge expense in another enquiry.
ttf. if half these folk actually did the jobs they were paid to do the majority of these inquiries wid nivir huv tae happen, and what is the point of them anyway, they absolve the guilty, cost the tax payer a fortune & naybdy is any further forward
I have a relative who was a victim in this scandal.
The main message I got from her was that not only did the police ignore her complaints about perpetrators and how she was being treated by police but they regarded her as a criminal rather than a victim. It would appear that she was judged on her sex and social background rather than being treated as a victim.
this does not surprise me however I have taen the huff wie you so am saying nowt & would advise you, best response would be the top 2 worder, ‘no comment’
No comment fanboy
This chimes with the Inquiries’ findings.
@Lord Parakeet the Cacophonist, but the IICSA was “a statutory inquiry for England and Wales, established in 2015 under the Inquiries Act 2005” and concerned with a much wider remit (state and non-state institutions) than the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham which ended around 2014. Alexis Jay has chaired and produced reports for both.
The failure by both Conservative and Labour governments to implement its recommendations is absolutely political.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/feb/05/child-sexual-abuse-survivors-england-criticise-failure-make-reporting-mandatory
Yes; she did indeed chair both.
But the point is that the present UK government is supporting Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council in commissioning a local Independent Inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Oldham similar to the one that Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council commissioned into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham in 2013. What would be the point of the UK government commissioning another national Inquiry, when the last one it commissioned in 2014, reported only as recently as 2022?
And, yes; it’s scandalous that the recommendations of the last national Inquiry haven’t yet been implemented and that it’s taken a change of government for that work to begin.
There is – in principle – a solid case for political parties intervening where their opponents have failed in the exercise of power. This applies as much in the case of child sex abuse as in the case of the delayed building of new ferries or following the wrongful imprisonment of people working in the Post Office.
Interestingly, after Alexis Jay issued her report on sex abuse in Rotherham in 2014, the (Tory) government replaced Rotherham’s elected officers (ie Labour councillors) with five unelected commissioners. To the best of my knowledge, the then Labour leader, Ed Miliband, did not object to this.
Then and now, voters have to decide whether the intervention is principled or opportunistic.
You’ve been misinformed. florian. As I remember it, Alexis Jay’s report prompted the resignations of Roger Stone, the (elected) leader of Rotherham Council, and Martin Kimber, its (unelected) chief executive. Joyce Thacker, the council’s (unelected) director of children’s services, and Shaun Wright, the (elected) Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) for South Yorkshire Police, at firsrt refused to resign and eventually did so only under pressure from the Home Secretary, Theresa May, members of his own party, and Rotherham’s Labour MP, Sarah Champion. Wright also resigned from the Labour Party after an ultimatum by the party to do so or face suspension.
Roger Stone was suspended from the Labour Party, as were councillors Gwendoline Russell and Shaukat Ali, and former deputy council leader Jahangir Akhtar.
perhaps bum boy john might volunteer his services since his contributions on this particular thread so far have been utterly shite
According to BBC News 26 February 2015,
‘Five Government Commissioners have been selected to run Rotherham Council after a report found the local authority ‘not fit for purpose’ over its handling of child sexual exploitation.’
This was to last for 4 years and, I believe, did so.
My reference to Ed Miliband was clearly in reference to the extreme measure of replacing elected councillors with an unelected commission.
The UK government commissioned the five (three former CEOs of other councils, a Rotherham-based businesswoman, and an experienced director of children’s services with a track-record of ‘troubleshooting’ in other failing councils) to take over the executive functions of the Rotherham Council’s (unelected) officers, not elected councillors. The only elected councillors to be replaced were those who lost their seats in the 2016 council elections. Ed Miliband had fuck-all to do with the replacement of the civil servants concerned.
Agree, confidentiality & confidence in that service should be out with the reach of opportunists who seemingly stop at nothing, & sink to any depths in pursuit of their own ego driven agenda, a 6 month stint cleaning the cludgies on minimum wage would dae them the power ae gude.
I would recommend that if anyone wants to actually understand how some this developed early on (c.2007-13) in relation to the vital role the ‘mainstream’ media played in exposing this scandal (The Times especially but also the BBC) and how the Times reporter then worked with the CPS (unprecedented) to make serious changes to bring about prosecution and face the issue of grooming gangs head on, then the latest edition of The Media Show on R4 is excellent.
It shows what a bunch of very damaging total lies are being spread right now by Musk, Reform, the Tories and their enablers. It really is disgraceful. And if you want a Scottish angle just hope over to Wings to see how the racists there are lapping it up.
This lady [below], who apparently resigned from the police over complacency was not at all positive about the extent to which the Jay report, which seems to be relied on here, is reliable, not least given the fact that she claims that 8.5 out of 9 days spent on the issue of grooming gangs was wasted.
Interview starts at 14:00
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0026nkg
The same lady is far from giving Sir Keir a clean bill of health in this recent newspaper interview
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/maggie-oliver-keir-starmer-whistleblower-grooming-gangs-b2673591.html
[ I do know the Tories are even worse; but that’s no criterion]
Finally, following on the comments in the BBC interview by the ex-detective to the effect that there never was/ still is not any stomach in the UK for an independent review, a glance at the archives as to quite how/ why the predecessor of Professor Jay as chair of this inquiry, NZ Judge Lowell Goddard [herself at the time the THIRD chair appointed to the still to begin inquiry] is revealing/ instructive/ weird/ surreal/ unbelievable?
‘… the THIRD chair appointed to the still to begin inquiry] is revealing/…’
Correction:
‘… the THIRD chair appointed to the still to begin inquiry] QUIT is revealing/…’
Mea culpa.
“Immigration is out of control right now. We can’t just take everyone in like you lefties want.” Sounds very much like the opinion of someone who is probably not thinking about the Baby Boomer generational spike in pensions, and who is going to pay for those pensions.
250107 7 January 2025 10. 22. pm
The Commissioners were appointed by the Secretary of State for Housing for four years. This was no stop-gap intervention. The Commissioners reported to the Secretary of State every three months. They were taking power from elected councillors because the latter could not be trusted; immediately to appoint new senior executives.
Ed Miliband, in normal circumstances, would have been expected to stand up for the integrity of his fellow Labour elected politicians. In this case, sensibly, he did not.