Utopia, you are standing in it!

During World War II a debate raged among allied strategists as to how much civilians should be targeted to defeat the Nazis.  As the Germans wreaked havoc on civilian populations throughout Europe and the United Kingdom the defeat of Hitler’s henchmen was deemed a necessity no matter the cost.  Max Hastings, a British journalist and historian, the author of numerous volumes ranging from World War I, the Battle of Britain, World War II, Winston Churchill and Vietnam tackles the issue of civilian casualties in his latest effort, OPERATION CHASTISE: THE RAF’S MOST BRILLIANT ATTACK DURING WORLD WAR II.

By May 1943 the British had accomplished little against the Nazis when compared to the effort and suffering of the Soviet Union which was finally making its push from Stalingrad westward.  Further, Winston Churchill was under a great deal of pressure to produce victories to stir the English people.  The allied…

The Coronavirus Act 2020, the UK’s most substantial legislative response to the Covid-19 pandemic, received Royal Assent yesterday after a fast-tracked procedure through both Houses. Indisputably, the pandemic falls within the range of situations under which it is constitutionally acceptable for Bills to be fast-tracked. While there is no corollary between an expedited piece of legislation and a bad piece of legislation, fast-tracking the Coronavirus Bill carries important implications for the constitutional relationship between Government and Parliament. Not least, parliamentarians had limited time to scrutinise legislation containing measures that have been described by the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law as ‘the most sweeping powers ever taken by the UK Government outside of wartime’. But, in this context, the implications for the balance between Government and Parliament extend beyond the immediate passage of the Act. Therefore, while Tierney and King stressed the dilemma between safeguarding public health and…

On 11 January 1979, the front-page of the Sun covered a press conference given by the prime minister, James Callaghan. The headline – ‘Crisis? What crisis?’ – was one of the most memorable and enduring. On the fortieth anniversary, this is an extract from Alwyn Turner’s Crisis? What Crisis? Britain in the 1970s (Aurum, 2008)…

It was, to start with, bitterly cold, the coldest January since 1963. Weeks of frost, freezing fog, hailstorms, sleet and snow were followed in early February by a combination of a sudden thaw and heavy rain that produced widespread flooding. And then came yet more blizzards. In Scotland there were reports of beer freezing in pub cellars and of frozen waves in Oban harbour as the temperature plunged to –25º Celsius, while the whole country’s transport system struggled to cope.

Edward Heath had at least been lucky with the weather in 1973–74; in 1979, James…

In the second half of her series on exiting the English Republic (part one available here) Dr Vivienne Larminie, Assistant Editor of the Commons 1640-1660 project, explores the dissolution of the Long Parliament…

On 16 March 1660 the Parliament which had begun nearly twenty years earlier, on 3 November 1640, agreed to dissolve itself. After well over 3,000 days of sitting, several forcible interruptions and a lengthy gap from 1653 to 1659, a great volume of unprecedented legislation, countless hours of novel executive committee meetings, many heated debates and much praying and listening to sermons, the assembly which had stood up to Charles I and defeated his forces in battle voted for its own demise. It did so explicitly in anticipation of fresh elections and the calling of a new representative body, to convene at Westminster on 25 April.

The end of the Rump Parliament on 21…

Robert I (July 11, 1274 – June 7, 1329), popularly known as Robert the was King of Scotland from 1306 until his death in 1329. Robert was one of the most famous warriors of his generation, and eventually led Scotland during the First War of Scottish Independence against England. He fought successfully during his reign to regain Scotland’s place as an independent country and is today revered in Scotland as a national hero.

Several members of the Bruce family were called Robert, the future king was one of ten children, and the eldest son, of Robert de Brus, 6th Lord of Annandale, and Marjorie, Countess of Carrick, and claimed the Scottish throne as a fourth great-grandson of David I of Scotland. His mother was by all accounts a formidable woman who, legend would have it, kept Robert Bruce’s father captive until he agreed to marry her. From his mother, he inherited…

The wind industry was founded on lies, built on myth and runs on subsidies. ‘Propaganda’ was conjured up by a Catholic Pope, employed with devastating effect by the Nazis and still maintains control over the masses in China. But it wasn’t until the wind industry switched into gear that propaganda really hit its straps. Being able to turn out lines such as “the wind is always blowing somewhere” and “the wind is free” was a mere doddle for the spin doctors and PR masters, who’ve worked overtime for nearly 20 years in an attempt to present wind power as part of an “inevitable transition” to an all wind and sun powered future.

As Dr John Constable details below, the wind industry has employed every euphemism, neutered every noun, assaulted every adjective and invalidated every verb in the English language. Or, as George Orwell put it, these propaganda masters have managed…

Guest post by Anna Boeles Rowland and Chanelle Delameillieure, 14 February 2020

“More things are necessary for a household than four naked thighs.”[1] In the middle ages the household was headed by a husband and his wife and was the centre of family life and economic productivity. So, in 1486 when John Wellis of London used the above retort upon hearing that his alleged betrothed Alice Billingham had publicly declared that they were married, he was chastising Alice for suggesting that they could legitimise their romantic relationship without the necessary social status and financial stability. Alice, however, had witnesses to the fact that John had asked her to be his wife on the feast of Saint Valentine that same year, asking for her hand so that she could be his “Valentyne for ever.”[2] Like today, the medieval feast day of the Roman martyr St Valentine was a celebration…

Mary of Teck (Victoria Mary Augusta Louise Olga Pauline Claudine Agnes; May 26, 1867 – March 24, 1953) was queen consort of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Empress consort of India as the wife of King George V.

Princess Victoria Mary (“May”) of Teck was born on May 26, 1867 at Kensington Palace, London, in the same room where Queen Victoria, her first cousin once removed, had been born 48 years earlier. Queen Victoria came to visit the baby, writing that she was “a very fine one, with pretty little features and a quantity of hair”. May would become the first British queen consort born in Britain since Catherine Parr.

Duke and Duchess of Teck with Princess Victoria Mary

Her father was Prince Francis, Duke of Teck, the son of Duke Alexander of Württemberg by his morganatic wife, Countess Claudine Rhédey von Kis-Rhéde (created Countess von Hohenstein…

The Endangered Species Act imposes significant regulatory burdens on anyone who owns land where endangered and threatened species or their habitats are found. The predictable result of such burdens is to discouragelandowners from accommodating rare species or maintaining habitat. A recent study confirms this prediction, finding that species already threatened with habitat loss have lost an additional 8.1% of their private-land habitat over the last 30 years.

Previously, this effect had been shown for individual species. For instance, a 2003 study by Dean Lueck and Jeffery A. Michael found that landowners accelerated timber harvesting in areas occupied by the red-cockaded woodpecker. To protect individual birds and habitat, the federal government limits timber harvesting in areas occupied by the species. However, red-cockaded woodpeckers prefer old-growth pine forests. Landowners who harvest their trees early can avoid creating these conditions and, therefore, avoid the federal regulations that accompany the bird’s presence. The…

In their sillier moments, renewable energy zealots pontificate about the end of fossil fuels, to be inevitably replaced by wind and solar (albeit, these days with the addition of $trillions worth of mythical mega-batteries).

No country has ever powered itself on wind and solar alone; no country ever will.

Instead, modern economies will continue to utilise thermal power and the more sensible ones, nuclear power.

Paul Driessen begs the question of how on earth they expect us to enjoy the benefits of reliable and affordable electricity by banishing fossil fuels, altogether.

How exactly do they plan to replace fossil fuels?
Watts Up With That?
Paul Driessen
16 March 2020

Berkeley, CA, Takoma Park, MD and other cities; California, Connecticut, New York, Virginia and other states; Germany, England and other countries; the European Union – all plan to banish oil, natural gas and coal within 10, 20 or 30 years. A number of…