Utopia, you are standing in it!

By Colin Talbot

Everyone expects a Vote of No Confidence (VONC) in the Boris Johnson when Parliament resumes in the autumn. Exactly when remains an issue of some doubt, and whether or not it would pass is anyone’s guess.

That has not stopped rampant speculation and heated debate about what happens if and when the VONC passes.

Prominent in this kerfuffle has been the idea put forward by Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters – especially John McDonnell – that Corbyn could simply take over. He has famously said he would “send Jeremy to Palace in a taxi and tell the Queen that we are taking over.” How credible is this?

On 28 September 2016, the automatic shutdown of wind turbines in South Australia during a spring storm delivered a statewide ‘system black’.

South Australia’s hapless Premier, Jay Weatherill led the wind industry’s propaganda charge, claiming that the collapse of a couple of power pylons in the state’s mid-North was what done it.

The collapse of a single transmission line could never has caused the collapse of the State’s entire power supply, but that didn’t stand in the way of a good pro-wind power PR story. The rest of the State’s transmission lines remained untroubled by the strong winds.

South Australia’s fleet of whirling wonders, did not fare so well, because they were never designed to. STT’s report on the story was posted before dawn the following day: Another Statewide Blackout: South Australia’s Wind Power Disaster Continues

Predictably, the renewable lobby went ballistic, as did plenty in the mainstream press.

The…

Last Tuesday, The New York Times published a very interesting article about former vegetarians and vegans who became butchers. The people profiled did so, according to The Times, because they wanted to revolutionize the U.S.’s current food system to embrace what they consider ethical practices. Regardless of their reasons, their efforts should be applauded and choice respected. Hopefully, they will stay well and safe. Unfortunately, three years ago owners of a vegan cafe in Los Angeles decided they were going to serve meat harvested from their northern California farm only to receive death threats shortly thereafter.

“The Vegetarians Who Turned Into Butchers”, by Melissa Clark, August 6, 2019, The New York Times

“At Western Daughters Butcher Shoppe in Denver, Kate Kavanaugh trimmed the sinew from a deep-red hunk of beef the size of a bed pillow.

“Flatiron steak is the second-most tender muscle in a steer’s body,” she said…

Granville Sharp’s Cases on Slavery

Andrew Lyall

The purpose of Granville Sharp’s Cases on Slavery is twofold: first, to publish previously unpublished legal materials principally in three important cases in the 18th century on the issue of slavery in England, and specifically the status of black people who were slaves in the American colonies or the West Indies and who were taken to England by their masters. The unpublished materials are mostly verbatim transcripts made by shorthand writers commissioned by Granville Sharp, one of the first Englishmen to take up the cause of the abolition of the slave trade and slavery itself. Other related unpublished material is also made available for the first time, including an opinion of an attorney general and some minor cases from the library of York Minster.

The second purpose, outlined in the Introduction, is to give a social and legal background to the cases and…

The age of criminal responsibility is the age which if a child falls beneath it they cannot be held to have committed a crime and cannot be held responsible for their actions.

Before the 13th Century and the medieval times of England, it was a generally held custom that children under the age of 12 could not be convicted of crimes. The reasoning behind this is archaic. From 12 years old, a person was expected to be in frankpledge. This was a sharing of joint responsibility towards your relatives or to a Lord you had given your oath of service.

Being in frankpledge meant that if you committed wrongful actions and were summoned for judgment before your local hundred-court, but did not turn up, your relatives and lord could be fined on your behalf. By necessity this meant a person of 12 years of age had to be responsible for…