Being an extremely boring person with no friends, no love and no social life, I was looking at some figures yesterday. That’s the kind of thing I do to fill my empty days.
I looked at the growth/reduction in CO2 emissions for several countries for the period 2014 to 2024 and compared these to growth/reduction in GDP per Capita for these countries.
CO2 is, of course – depending on your viewpoint:
a wonderful gas which is the basis for all life on Earth and increases in atmospheric CO2 levels are leading to a greening of the Earth
an evil poison which will destroy mankind due to CO2’s role in supposedly causing ‘Global Boiling’.
Here are the 5 countries with the greatest increase in CO2 emissions for the period 2014 to 2024:
Vietnam – CO2 emissions up 106% – GDP per Capita growth over 65%
Indonesia – CO2 emissions up 63% – GDP per Capita growth over 40%
India – CO2 emissions up 49%% – GDP per Capita growth over 72%
Turkey – CO2 emissions up 40% – GDP per Capita growth over 24%
China – CO2 emissions up 23% – GDP per Capita growth over 75%
And here are the five countries with the greatest reductions in CO2 emissions:
1. Britain – CO2 emissions down 29% – GDP per Capita growth over 10 years about 4%
2. Germany – CO2 emissions down 28% – GDP per Capita growth over 10 years about 11%
3. Japan – CO2 emissions down 24% – GDP per Capita growth over 10 years about minus 12%
4. Italy – CO2 emissions down 14% – GDP per Capita growth over 10 years about 9%
5. Brazil – CO2 emissions down 13% – GDP per Capita growth over 10 years about minus 16%
(Please note that the GDP per Capita growth/decline rates for the above five countries are not ‘per year’, they are the total for the ten year period)
Obviously each of these countries will have specific political and economic reasons for the level of GDP per Capita growth or decline over the 10 years from 2014 to 2024. But there nevertheless seems to be a correlation that most people will find blindingly obvious – the countries with the highest increases in CO2 emissions generally have the highest growth rates while the countries with the greatest reductions in CO2 emissions have the worst growth/decline rates.
We all could have guessed this. But please nobody tell ‘Mad’ Ed Miliband otherwise he will double down on cutting Britain’s CO2 emissions in order to impoverish us all even faster than he is so successfully doing at the moment.
Most of our media and talking heads all agree that President Trump is ‘mad’, ‘deluded’, ‘unpredictable’, psychologically unbalanced’, unfit to be president’ etc etc etc
But they deliberately overlook his successes:
He virtually stopped illegal immigration over the US’s southern border and has deported tens of thousands of illegals, many of them dangerous criminals. Perhaps our Trump-criticising rulers might tell us why they have failed to do this in Europe and the UK?
The US economy grew by 2.1% in 2025 compared to the EU’s 1.5% and the UK’s 1.4%. Under the rule of Mr Merz, the German Chancellor, who has been outspoken in his criticism of Trump, the German economy grew by about 0.2% in 2025. Perhaps our Trump-hating rulers could explain why Trump’s America has a better growth rate than their countries? It would also be interesting to hear from Mr Merz as to why Trump’s America’s growth rate in 2025 was over 10 times that of Herr Merz’s Germany? How about it, Herr Merz?
Trump has criticised NATO countries for hiding behind American military might, backed the other NATO countries into a corner over their failure to spend enough on their defence and several are now rapidly increasing their defence spending.
Trump has exposed the ‘Global Boiling’ scam for the nonsense it always was and has scrapped all the grifter subsidies which were pushing up US energy prices. Meanwhile the EU and Britain continue to pursue the ruinous, economically-suicidal ‘green’ policies which are destroying their industries, pushing up unemployment and turning their countries into post-industrial wastelands. Perhaps our Trump-hating loser politicians could explain why energy costs in the EU are around three times those in the US and energy costs in the UK are around four times those in the US? I’m sure a lot of people would be interested to hear an explanation? How about it Mr Starmer and Mr Miliband?
But it may be in foreign policy where Trump has been most successful. Taking out Venezuela’s Maduro and his wife was a move of genius. It has brought Venezuela under effective US control at minimum cost to the US and the US now decides where Venezuelan oil can go and how the country’s oil wealth can be spent. But the Maduro extraction and imprisonment also brought another benefit to the US – it has destroyed the Cuban economy and Cuba may soon be begging the US for help. I suspect the US will be only too willing to help Cuba providing the US gets significant control of the Cuban economy and political system. Trump got two birds with one stone.
Now everybody is blaming Trump for blundering into a war with Iran. But nobody seems interested in discussing what would have happened if America and Israel had not attacked. It’s clear now, from the vast number of ballistic missiles, drones and amount of enriched uranium that Iran had that Iran was intent on destroying Israel and bringing the whole Middle East under a nuclear- and missile-armed Iranian control. This had to be stopped.
Of course, defeating the suicidal, fanatical IRGC won’t be easy. The world found out how difficult beating death-obsessed, reality-denying fanatics can be when confronting Japan in WWII. And we all know the quote from some Prussian general “No plan survives first contact with the enemy” or, as MIke Tyson so eloquently said, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face”. So there will be some setbacks to come in the confrontation with the murderous lunatics controlling Iran.
But one side of the Iranian conflict many observers might be missing is its effect on the US’s greatest economic and military rival – China. We can’t trust any economic data published by the beloved Chinese Communist Party (CCP). But various sources suggest that unemployment is soaring in China with factories closing, real estate companies collapsing and tens of millions facing ruin. Somewhere between 6 and 10 million Chinese will spend the next 20 years paying off the debt they took on to buy properties which will never be completed. Youth employment is officially around 17% but is probably well over 25% as, due to the difficulty of finding jobs, some young people are paying for services to pretend they are working, with such companies appearing in major cities.
The CCP claims that China’s GDP grew by 5.0% in 2025, meeting the government’s, and in some cases exceeding, growth targets. Yet this was despite factory closures, a property sector downturn and weak consumer spending. I’m sure the CCP will claim GDP growth of 5%-6% for 2026. But by the end of 2025, China was importing up to about 1.4 million barrels per day (mbd) from Iran, representing 13% of its total crude imports and some 80% to 90% of Tehran’s oil exports. Moreover, prior to Maduro’s holiday in the US, China was the primary buyer of Venezuelan oil, with estimates suggesting at least 5% of China’s crude oil imports came from Venezuela – over 90% of Venezuela’s exports went to China.
Incidentally, Vietnam’s GDP growth in 2025 was over 8%, mainly due to companies moving manufacturing from China to Vietnam.
So, by grabbing hold of Venezuela and by pummelling Iran, Trump may be killing two birds with one stone – thrashing Venezuela and Iran while at the same time severely damaging America’s enemies – Cuba and China?
‘Sir’ Keir Starmer lets tens of thousands of illegal male migrants of military age often from countries which teach that all Jews should be killed to invade our country and then ‘Sir’ Keir is surprised when there is a rise in anti-semitic attacks.
‘Sir’ Keir promises to “smash the gangs” and “stop the boats” but does sweet FA. In fact, he ensures that Britain remains the most attractive destination in the world for illegals. Then ‘Sir’ Keir is surprised that people start to believe he is an impotent, putrid, lying PoS.
‘Sir’ Keir Starmer brings in new laws targetting landlords imposing new rules and regulations and then ‘Sir’ Keir is surprised when many landlords sell up, the number of rental properties fall, demand is much greater than supply and rental prices rise making it more difficult for people to find somewhere affordable to rent. Once again ‘Sir’ Keir is surprised.
‘Sir’ Keir Starmer deliberately distances Britain from our greatest ally, the US, in order to drag Britain back into the EU, which consistently exploits our country, and then ‘Sir’ Keir is surprised when the US questions whether Britain can be a trusted ally.
‘Sir’ Keir gives away strategically-important British territory, the Chagos Islands, and about £35 billion of British taxpayers’ money to a small corrupt country, Mauritius, largely run by the Chinese Communist Party and then ‘Sir’ Keir is surprised when people start to view him as a UK-hating, treacherous scumbag.
‘Sir’ Keir volunteers his time and professional knowledge to help his human rights lawyer chums pursue lucrative legal cases against British soldiers for events which happened decades ago, when many of the British soldiers were just young squaddies aged 19 or 20, and then ‘Sir’ Keir is surprised when our military feels they have lost the backing of the political class and the military have difficulty in recruiting. Yes, ‘Sir’ Keir is once again surprised.
‘Sir’ Keir’s hopeless Chancellor imposes huge tax increases on any business with employees and then ‘Sir’ Keir and his waste-of-skin Chancellor are surprised when businesses stop hiring, unemployment rises and the economy goes into recession. Yet again ‘Sir’ Keir is really surprised.
‘Sir’ Keir’s foul-mouthed, pig-ignorant gobshite former deputy prime minister crushes businesses with new restrictive labour laws and then ‘Sir’ Keir and the (tax avoiding?) gobshite are surprised when many companies are afraid to risk taking on new employees. Another surprise for ‘Sir’ Keir and his gang.
‘Sir’ Keir is both surprised and very very angry indeed when he finds out what everybody else has known for years – that his choice for UK ambassador to the US is a bit of a recidivist wrong ‘un. This time ‘Sir’ Keir is both surprised and extremely extremely angry that nobody told him what everybody already knew.
‘Sir’ Keir lets crazed eco-lunatic Mad Ed MIliband impose the highest energy prices in the developed world on British households and businesses due to Miliband Junior’s monomaniacal ‘renewable energy’ fantasies and then ‘Sir’ Keir is surprised when British oil refineries, steel works, chemical factories, glassworks and other industries close their UK operations throwing thousands of skilled workers out of a job. It’s all a bit of a surprise to ‘Sir’ Keir and madman Miliband.
‘Sir’ Keir also lets the (IMHO) mentally deranged, life-long parasite Miliband Junior block any new drilling for oil or gas in the North Sea and then ‘Sir’ Keir is surprised when Britain’s former thriving oil capital Aberdeen becomes an impoverished ghost town and Britain has to expensively import oil and gas from other countries. ‘Sir’ Keir is surprised as he never expected this might result from preventing Britain from using its own energy resources.
‘Sir’ Keir and his inept Chancellor keep borrowing and borrowing and borrowing money Britain can never pay back and then nasal robotic ‘Sir’ Keir and his equally nasal and robotic Chancellor are surprised when about 90% of the money we are now borrowing is needed just to pay the interest on the money we have already borrowed. That surprises ‘Sir’ Keir and his (IMHO) ponderous intellectually-challenged, serially-incompetent sidekick.
‘ Sir’ Keir gives massive handouts to those who contribute absolutely nothing to our country – the ever-expanding public sector and the ever-increasing armies of those who can’t be arsed to work – while asphyxiating the productive parts of our economy with constantly-increasing taxes and then ‘Sir’ Keir is surprised when businesses view Britain as hostile to private enterprise and decide to invest their money elsewhere. Just another surprise for ‘Sir’ Keir.
‘Sir’ Keir (and also allegedly Lady Victoria Sponger) take thousands of pounds of free stuff from Lord Alibaba and then ‘Sir’ Keir is surprised when people start to think he was lying when he promised a government of openness and integrity. Surprise after surprise for ‘Sir’ Keir.
‘Sir’ Keir sets up a two-tier ‘justice’ system in which White British are brutally punished for the slightest wrong-thought or wrong-speech while the invading masses are let off lightly however heinous their crimes and then ‘Sir’ Keir is surprised when people refer to him as “two-tier Keir”.
‘Sir’ Keir does almost everything in his power to block a public inquiry into the rape gangs brutalising tens of thousands of White British, often underage girls in order to keep the Muslim vote for Labour and then ‘Sir’ Keir is surprised when people think he is a brazen liar whenever he blethers on about protecting British women and girls.
There are many many other things which seem to surprise probably the most useless, loathed, incompetent, anti-British Prime Minister in our history. Life must be exciting for ‘Sir’ Keir as each day seems to bring a new surprise.
In the former Soviet Union, people used to joke: “We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us”.
But in Britain for many people the situation has become: “There’s no point working as they still pay us”.
Many jobs are interesting, intellectually satisfying and fulfil important social and financial needs. But many are not – they’re repetitive, boring, unsatisfying and often badly paid.
Unemployment in Britain is officially around 5.2%. That’s about 1.78 million people. But I think we all know these figures are nonsense. Approximately 9.1 to 9.4 million working-age people (aged 16–64) in the UK are economically inactive—meaning they are not working and not looking for work. This group includes students, those with long-term sickness, and people with caring responsibilities, representing roughly 21-22% of the working-age population. Of these more than 9 million, 2.8 million people are inactive due to health conditions, a 40% rise since 2019 and a figure which increases by thousands every week.
So real unemployment is probably at least 4.58 million – over 13% – but most likely even higher than that.
When we work, we are engaging in a trade – we’re selling our time and (hopefully) skills for money. Usually this is in the expectation that this money will allow us to buy a property, maybe start a family and live a reasonably productive life. But, if there is no hope of most jobs providing such things, why would many people want to work?
Buying a home has become an unaffordable luxury for many millions however hard they work:
And those who can’t afford to buy are being crucified by rents rising mush faster than wages:
Meanwhile those at the top seem to be grabbing ever more of our wealth:
With some company bosses being paid extraordinary amounts:
Looking at this situation, many people may feel all the cards are stacked against them.
Then when you add in the fact that benefits can pay more than full-time work, millions would be making a rational choice to just decide that it’s not worth bothering to go out to work.
At least one million people are now out of work and claiming overlapping sickness and housing benefits alongside Personal Independence Payment (PIP), according to analysis by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), following a surge in claims for mental health conditions.
The think tank warns that the rising tide of welfare dependency is being felt most acutely among young people, with almost one million under 25s now out of work or training. Recent CSJ research revealed that by 2026 there will be more than a £2,500 gap between earnings and combined benefit income. A full time worker on the National Living Wage (NLW) is expected to earn £22,500 after paying income tax and national insurance. By comparison, an economically inactive claimant on Universal Credit (UC) for ill health with the average housing benefit and Personal Independence Payment (PIP) would receive an income of around £25,000, rising to £27,500 for those awarded PIP’s highest rate.
And that’s just a brief glance at why we’re becoming a “There’s no point working as they still pay us”. country.
This may be fun for a while. But it inevitably leads to national bankruptcy. Time to get in the popcorn and a few beers.
Well, you won’t see this reported on the BBC or in any of the British mainstream media. A Florida senator has just issued a short video branding our great Prime Minister “a spineless coward”.
And while we’re on the subject of stories being carefully ignored/avoided by the British mainstream media, I propose that you go on to YouTube and search for Simon Webb’s ‘History Debunked’ videos. Most people probably aren’t aware that the trial of some young Ukrainian gentlemen started at the Old Bailey a couple of days ago. Simon Webb’s ‘History Debunked’ channel seems to be the only media reporting on the progress of the trial. I wonder why the trial has not been covered on the BBC and in the UK mainstream media? Surely they’re not trying to gaslight us?
In this blog, I attach a link to a 4-minute video talk given by the son of the former Shah of Iran. I realise that the former Shah wasn’t a terribly nice chap and not the kind of person you’d invite home to meet your mum and dad. After all, he rather liked having his secret police arresting, torturing and killing political opponents. But his son, Reza Pahlavi, seems like a decent sort and is probably the only figure who can help oversee the transition of Iran from an Islamic hell-hole to a modern democracy if the crazed mad mullahs and the IRGC can be overthrown.
I noticed a BBC report a few days ago in which the BBC correspondent claimed to be interviewing ‘ordinary Iranians’. Of course, all those interviewed said that they were against the war and that Donald Trump and the Americans were to blame. What the BBC didn’t mention was that, if those interviewed failed to declare their undying support for the mad mullahs and IRGC, they would be arrested, tried and hanged. The thought of a hangman’s noose is an excellent way to encourage loyalty.
I think I have also heard several BBC contributors refer to the IRGC as the “Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps” rather than the real title – “The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps“. This is quire a subtle way of the BBC’s quisling, Islamophiliac, Israel-hating garbage gaslighting us. The BBC may be trying to make it look like the murderous, corrupt IRGC are some kind of patriotic Iranian military force rather than an oppressive, fanatical and dangerous bunch of terrorists.
But the real problem with almost all western media reporting of the Iran conflict is probably Trump Derangement Syndrome. The media constantly claims that Trump has blundered, that Trump has started a “forever war” (it has only been going about 7 weeks), that the IRGC are winning etc etc etc. Our media seems to have brushed aside the slaughter of 5,000 or 10,000 or 20,000 or more innocent protestors in the streets of Iran’s cities and in hospitals because, when you loathe Trump (as most of our media do), the massacre of so many innocent Iranians is not something you wish to focus on.
Anyway, here’s Reza Pahlavi expressing his fury at the biased way western journalists are reporting the Iran conflict:
Most of us are probably fed up hearing about all the shenanigans around the appointment of Britain’s most honest and popular Lord, the Mandelson thing, as UK ambassador to Washington by Britain’s most honest and most popular prime minister – ‘Sir’ Keir Starmer. So, I won’t mention anything about this in today’s blog. Here’s something rather different.
Britain seems to have become the world’s welfare state – a welfare state with a country attached rather than a country with a welfare system
Approximately 46.7% of UK households pay more in taxes (direct and indirect) than they receive in benefits and public services, according to 2024 Office for National Statistics (ONS) data. Conversely, 53.3% of individuals live in households that are net recipients—receiving more in benefits, such as NHS care and education, than they contribute.
Income Concentration: Income tax is heavily concentrated among top earners. The top 10% of taxpayers contribute over 60% of total income tax receipts.
Top 1% Impact: The top 1% of UK taxpayers contribute around 33% of the total income tax collected
As of early 2026, approximately 9.1 to 9.3 million people aged 16 to 64 in the UK are “economically inactive,” meaning they are not in work and not looking for work. This represents a rate of roughly 21% of the working-age population.
What’s worse is that Labour are deliberately making this situation worse by:
increasing benefits for the skivers while increasing taxes on the strivers
blocking any attempts to reduce the rate of increase in the billions paid out in benefits
importing up to 50,000 pieces of largely uneducated, often unemployable, often rape-obsessed, often criminal pieces of Third-world garbage across the Channel each year by giving them more incentives than any other country to come to Britain – free hotels, free food, free money, free phones, free healthcare, free dentistry, free everything
Estimates for the lifetime cost of an “illegal migrant” to the British taxpayer vary significantly based on the assumptions made about their status (e.g., if they remain undocumented or are later granted amnesty) and their employment status.
Undocumented/Processing Phase Costs:
The Home Officehas estimated that supporting a single asylum seeker while their claim is processed for four years costs approximately £106,000.
Current daily costs for asylum accommodation (largely hotels) have been reported at roughly £6 million per day, or over £4 million per day for housing specifically, leading to an estimated £15.3 billion over the 10 years between 2019 and 2029.
Long-Term/Lifetime Impact Estimates:
Migration Watch UK Estimate: A 2010 report by Migration Watch UK estimated that if an illegal immigrant were granted amnesty (regularized), their net lifetime cost to the state would range from £220,000 for a single working person (though most of them will never work) to over £1 million for an unemployed family with two children.
But I expect most of us know that when you include all the social breakdown, trouble and criminality caused by our Third-world friends, the real costs of these people (parasites?) being in our country is much higher than these figures suggest.
Even the British government recognises that the present situation cannot continue. A government website tells us:
The UK asylum system is broken. The numbers arriving on small boats in 2022 exceeded 45,700, a 60% increase on the 28,500 who arrived in 2021..
These journeys are unnecessary, as those making these crossings are coming from safe countries, such as France, where they could have claimed asylum.
More recently, we have seen large numbers of people making these journeys who are from well-established safe countries, where it is clear they are not at risk of persecution.
It’s not fair that those coming to the UK with the intention of becoming economic migrants are able to exploit our asylum system, which should be prioritising those whose lives are genuinely at risk.
It’s also not fair on the British taxpayer. The current broken asylum system currently costs the UK some £3 billion a year and rising, including nearly £6 million a day on hotel accommodation.
We cannot continue, year on year, with this inexorable rise in the number of illegal arrivals adding unacceptable pressures on our health, housing, educational and welfare services.
But what is the British government doing about this catastrophe? Nothing, nada, zilch, zero. In fact, the British government seems intent on encouraging this Third-world invasion. We’re told race replacement is just a crazed conspiracy theory even though White British will be a minority in their own country by 2050 to 2060.
Of course, honest Sir Keir, that brave and noble knight of the realm, claims he is “smashing the gangs” and “stopping the boats”. But noble Sir Keir has never been known for his honesty.
I’m sure you’ll all fondly remember Darren “they’re mostly women and children” Jones. In a June 2025 Question Time programme, honest Mr Jones said (according to the BBC): “And when you see that the majority of the people in these boats are children, babies and women… you have got to take note.”
The actual figures at the time were (according to the BBC):
“In the first three months of 2025, there were 6,420 small boat arrivals where the age and sex of the person was recorded, according to Home Office figures. Of these, 81% (5,183) were adult men. In the same period, of the 531 child arrivals (aged 17 and under), 427 of them were male and 104 female. There is no further age breakdown, so we don’t know how many babies were amongst them.”
Of course, what the BBC didn’t mention was that many of the supposed under-17 children were actually men in their twenties just claiming to be children. So probably more than the BBC’s reported 81% were actually men?
So Mr Jones’s claim that “the majority of the people in these boats are children, babies and women” seems to be contradicted by the evidence.
Anyway, honest Mr Jones is in the news again today. Mr Jones apparently told MPs yesterday that a ‘leak inquiry” was underway to find out who told the Guardian newspaper that the Mandelcreature had failed security vetting.
I’m confused. I believe it was in September 2025 – over six months ago – that a journalist from The Independent newspaper sent this message to a contact in government:
This was followed by an article in The Independent about Mandelthing failing the security vetting.
So the Mandelmonster vetting failure was already in the public domain over half a year ago – over half a year before the Guardian ran the story.
Of course, it’s probable that the Independent article was based on rumour and in the last week or so someone leaked more details about the security vetting failure to the Guardian thus confirming what The Independent suspected.
So perhaps Monsieur Jones should have launched his leak inquiry six months ago into the leak to The Independent rather than waiting for last week’s Guardian article. It’s all very confusing.
Moreover, if The Independent knew about Mandelperson’s security vetting failure more than six months ago, it is (to use Starmer’s own word) “incredible” that Starmer now claims he only found out about this last week. Maybe Starmer’s claim of being left in the dark is even beyond “incredible”. Maybe Starmer’s claim to have only found out about the security vetting problem last week is unbelievable, inconceivable, unimaginable, implausible?
As for Mr Jones’s leak inquiry – that really seems to be a case of shooting the messenger.
As for Starmer, he really seems to have the ‘reverse Midas touch’: The opposite of the “Midas touch” (turning everything to gold/success) is the reverse Midas touch, also known as the Sadim touch (Midas spelled backward). This phrase describes someone who consistently turns valuable or successful ventures into failures, losses, or worthless situations:
I’m embarrassed to say that I watched (IMHO) slimey sleazeball Starmer’s weasel-worded squirming in the Commons yesterday over what he knew and (claimed) he didn’t know about the Mandelson security vetting debacle.
I hate to say it, but I thought (IMHO) Slimeball Starmer did a pretty good job. Let me briefly explain why.
There are many models of decision-making. A very basic one is that with any decision there is the process and the context. To give a stupid example: The captain of an oil tanker may decide to sail through the Strait of Hormuz and his ship gets sunk by the Americans or the Islamists. The captain could say that he followed the process – he sailed at the right speed, he stayed in the correct shipping lane and so on. However, the context was that there was a not insignificant war going on so it wasn’t so smart to sail there at that time.
What Starmer did brilliantly (IMHO) was bore MPs to tears with an excruciatingly detailed description of the process which was followed during the Mandelson appointment while totally avoiding the context. The process consisted of all the detailed discussions and letters and memos and suchlike. This bogged down his critics so that many MPs’ questions ended up being what the Finns call – “point fucking” – banging on and on about small details while totally missing the main issue.
The main issue was the context – namely Mandelson’s history of what some cynics might consider to be rather dodgy dealings:
being forced to resign twice from government
the extraordinary coincidence of the EU cutting tariffs on Russian aluminium at the same time as Mandelson was EU Trade Commissioner and friendly with a Russian aluminium billionaire
Petey Mandelson allegedly (but not proven) sharing confidential details of government policy with one or more of his banking chums
the main and possibly most lucrative clients of Mandelson’s advisory business being close to the Chinese Communist Party and jolly Mr Putin’s Russian regime
and, of course, Mandelson’s ‘friendship’ with billionaire that nice Mr Epstein
Pattern Recognition is a process in which we use multiple senses in order to make decisions. As we go through our day, our brain’s pattern recognition abilities help us recognise certain objects and situations. Without these abilities, it would be impossible to make progress, as we’d be living in a kind of Groundhog Day, where everything we encounter would appear completely new, over and over, and would therefore need to be learned and understood each time.
With Mandelson even the most modest use of Pattern Recognition would have screamed that Mandelson was a wrong ‘un. The adorable Diane Abbott was the MP who came closest to asking how on earth Starmer could have seriously considered making someone with Mandelson’s back story Britain’s ambassador to the USA. But every time an MP got near to this issue, Starmer just batted it away by saying something like “I made the wrong decision and I apologise for that“. Unfortunately no MP tried to probe the question as to why Starmer even considered Mandelson and whether someone (Monsieur Blair, par exemple?) told Starmer to appoint Mandelson. This would have been a much more interesting line of questioning.
So, by taking on his enemies on ground where he was strongest – boring detail after detail after detail of the process followed, pedantic lawyer Starmer managed to drag his critics into a kind of ‘how many angels can dance on the head of a pin’ kind of argument. Moreover, by claiming he had now changed the process of appointing and vetting ambassadors, Starmer had already disarmed most of his critics.
Conclusion: Britain’s worst ever prime minister lives on and, by focusing only on the details of the process rather than the context, has dumbfounded all those who claimed he would have to resign.
David Craig, on May 6th, 2026
