Utopia, you are standing in it!

I was certain that this Labour Government was going to foist Hate Speech laws on us. There were six specific proposals:

1. Increase the number groups protected under the Human Rights Act, from the status quo protect groups based on their “colour, race or ethnic or national origins” to also include “sex, gender (including gender identity), religious belief, disability or sexual orientation.”
2. Introduce a new offence in the Crimes Act so that hatred is specifically a crime (in place of current laws which forbid intentionally inciting racial disharmony).
3. Make the crime of being a hateful bigot punishable by three years imprisonment or a fine of up to $50,000.
4. If the second proposal was enacted (the criminal offence), at the same time beef up the Human Rights Act so that complaints may be made about hatred under the Human Rights Act (grossly empowering the Human Rights Commission)
5. Make it illegal to…

If you believe that there is a £55 billion ‘black hole’ in the public finances, and if you believe this has to be filled with tax increases and spending cuts in order to reassure the markets, then Jeremy Hunt’s Autumn Statement was a reasonably fair way to go about it. But there are some mighty big ‘if’s in there.

Let’s begin with the positives. First, most of the tax increases and spending cuts do not bite until the later years of the forecast horizon. Spending is actually being increased this year and next, meaning that fiscal policy is providing a little more support to the economy now when it needs it the most.

What’s more, if the economy does better than expected, or other events intervene (including the next General Election), there is still time for the tougher measures to be diluted.

Second, there is more help for the most…

Renewable energy rent seekers and their political enablers keep telling us that wind and solar are free and getting cheaper all the time, but notionally wind-powered Germans, Danes, Californians and South Australians might beg to differ; they already suffer the world’s highest retail power prices, with worse to come.

Nowhere in the world is there a single case where reliance on wind and solar increased and retail power prices fell.

The reality on the ground, suggests that the figures thrown up by the wind and sun cult about the cost of wind and solar power delivered to consumers tend to overlook more than just a few of the more significant items that ought to feature in any fulsome accounting.

William H. Smith, Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Washington University in St Louis (with a PhD from Princeton) is a joint author of a paper ‘Full cost of…

Stardate: 5630.7 (2268)
Original Air Date: October 18, 1968
Writer: Jean Lisette Aroeste
Director: Ralph Senensky

“A madman got us into this and it’s beginning to look as if only a madman can get us out.”

The Enterprise has been assigned to convey the Medusan ambassador to the Federation back to his home planet. The Medusans are unusual alien creatures –their thoughts are said to be the “the most sublime in the galaxy” while their physical appearance is exactly the opposite. They are formless and apparently hideous, causing total madness to any human who simply catches a glimpse. While the Medusans beam aboard the Enterprise, Kirk and the others leave the transporter room as Spock remains behind wearing a unique visor intended to block any maddening effects caused by sight of the Medusan ambassador. A female telepath named Dr. Miranda Jones (Diana Muldaur) beams aboard –she…

Mary was courted by Philipp, Duke of Bavaria, from late 1539, but he was Lutheran and his suit for her hand was unsuccessful. Over 1539, the king’s chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, negotiated a potential alliance with the Duchy of Cleves.

Suggestions that Mary marry Wilhelm I, Duke of Cleves, who was the same age, came to nothing, but a match between King Henry VIII and the Duke’s sister Anne was agreed. When the king saw Anne for the first time in late December 1539, a week before the scheduled wedding, he found her unattractive but was unable, for diplomatic reasons and without a suitable pretext, to cancel the marriage.

Cromwell fell from favour and was arrested for treason in June 1540; one of the unlikely charges against him was that he had plotted to marry Mary himself. Anne consented to the annulment of the marriage, which had not been consummated…