7 November 2021
Once upon a time in the land of government Never-Never, that's we never tell the truth and you never believe us.

What an exciting week of total honesty in politics and how wonderful that I start this article with a total lie. Imagine, and this is the thing of fairy tales, that you have a independent commission that investigates people's behaviour in a certain profession. Imagine that this commission finds someone's behaviour has been wrong and suggests a punishment which might mean that the individual loses their job. Imagine that a committee within the professions endorses the findings of that independent commission.

Now we come to the real make-believe bit. The head of the profession in which this individual has been found guilty of wrong doing urges others in that profession to not only over rule both the commission and the committee but then announces that they will set up a new commission in which they, or their supporters, will have the casting vote. Oh come on, I hear you say, that's unreal.

But then imagine that when the leader discovers nobody likes his new idea and those who have supported him, he changes his mind and says we won't do that. And finally, the someone who was found to have done something wrong quits the profession. BOJO Christian Andersen and his fairy tales strikes again. You couldn't make it up.

Talking of not making things up, the following day the Education Secretary, NAZA, made an announcement that the government were going to introduce climate change to the school curriculum. Sadly this announcement didn't receive the publicity it was supposed to as NAZA had to answer questions about the U-turn over public standards when he did his PR round on Friday morning. I find it mildly amusing that the government is supporting introducing this to the curriculum so that young people are more aware of climate change when the first part of that syllabus should explain how governments are totally failing in their efforts to slow down climate change. I can see it now. We, the government, want you, the young people, to fully understand that we are useless in dealing with climate change, distort figures so you think we're not, make promises we'll never keep and generally are just trying to keep things as they are because some very nice people are making big money out of this

As if we needed proof of this, at COP26, a bit like a children's party for big wigs, where they all play pass the emissions, leaders bluff, musical statutes and then sing "Leaving on a jet plane", these leaders all made lots of pledges and announcements. The best one was that those who don't produce much coal have agreed to produce even less. The countries who produce most of the coal haven't signed up to that.

The buzz word is net-zero. This means basically for everything bad you do to harm the environment now, you will do something good that may not have any effect for about 30 years, if then. This has brought the wonderful news that Greta Thunberg has promised that she has decided to go net-zero on swear words and bad language. In the event that she should say something inappropriate, she will pledge to compensate that by saying something nice. Now here's someone who deals in the real world.

I wish to follow this ground-breaking idea. If I write anything nasty about any politician or world leader I will compensate that by saying something nice about me or get some else to say something nice about me (this is inline with the idea that you can reduce your carbon output by no longer producing the goods that result in carbon emissions yourself but buy them from another country).

You could not make this up. Oh, and thousands of young people march through Glasgow and there are hardly any problems. It was peaceful and very poignant. What a beautiful week for young people power and how wonderful I can finish this article with such a true statement.

14 November 2021
COPtivated by their inability to achieve anything meaningful

I used to think politicians must think us, the general public, to be stupid when they lied so much about things. I now know that it is in fact politicians who are stupid as they seem to think they are not lying but are genuinely pleased with what they achieve.

COP 26 was a total, complete, abject failure. Anyone, with the brain of a demented flea with Alzheimers, knows that in order to save our planet something needs to be done now. In fact anyone with half the brain of a demented flea with Alzheimers knows something should have been done 6 years ago at the latest.

And yet all COP 26 has done is to have produced a pact, an agreement, which basically says nothing except that next year countries must show how they are achieving their pledges which I thought was what they were supposed to show this year. There have been some countries pledging some things. Slight exaggeration (but not much), those that don't produce much coal have said they will produce less. Those that produce the most have not signed up to this.

Countries have agreed to stop deforestation but trees alone cannot solve our crisis. It is the carbon and methane emissions that must be stopped or radically reduced NOW.

I think the major economies of the world have promised that by 2023 they will do what they promised they would do in 2009. I wouldn't hold your breath for 2023.

The poorer countries of this world do not need to cut their carbon emissions because the amount they produce is really insignificant. They don't need our money to help them develop electric heat pumps; they need it to produce defences against rising sea levels, cope with more frequent violent weather and deal with the resultant crop failures (or should that read COP failures).

My generation and the one below it are pathetic. They come to a climate conference knowing air travel is a polluter and fly around the UK. We have trains. Before COP26 countries had pledged to reduce greenhouse gases by 52.4 gigatonnes. After COP26 the pledges are for a reduction of 41.9 gigatonnes. To keep global warming to 1.5° we need to reduce them to at least 26.6. We are nowhere near that.

The only hope for this planet, the only good thing to come out of this wasted fortnight, is that out there there are a whole bunch of young people who realise the seriousness of it all, who speak out about it and who are getting bloody angry. You all have my support.

21 November 2021
Our PM is not a goldfish

Only a short grump this week. I have, for some time, complained about the intelligence of our leading politicians, especially those who are, or became, Prime Ministers. Every Wednesday they take part in Prime Minsters Questions (PMQs) during which they are supposed to answer questions from their fellow MPs.

However, apart from being almost totally unable to give an answer to any questions on any subject at any time, they also have the annoying habit of answering with a question if the questions has come from one of the leaders of another party.

Finally, this week, the Speaker of the House, he who must be obeyed, got totally fed up with BOJO and reminded him that this was PMQs and he should not be asking questions of the Labour leader. A goldfish, so they say, has a very short attention span. I can now reveal our PM is a goldfish because he then did the same thing again less than a couple of minutes later, once again being reprimanded by the speaker. The only other alternative is that our PM thinks he is above the law or rules of the House.

Wait a minute, our PM is not a goldfish.

28 November 2021
Camp du Drap d'Or - see it on Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat

Just before leaving England to meet the King of France at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520, Thomas Wolsey advised Henry VIII to put a list on social media of all the wealth he was going to display and how the French King, Francis 1, couldn't possibly compete even though he only had to bring his gold etc across land. That will annoy him, Wolsey advised, and show our public at home how strong you are.

That is, of course, a bit of make believe on my part because, even 500 years ago, only an idiot would conduct diplomacy via social media and, how lucky we are, in England, to be governed by one such idiot.

Not content with looking a bumbling old fool at the CBI meeting, not content with making car impersonations at said CBI meeting, not content with regaling everyone about his visit to Peppa Pig World, our beloved PM has now succeeded in blowing Anglo-French relations out of the water.

It is almost impossible to think of anything less diplomatic than writing to a fellow leader and publishing said letter on social media. It is bullying, hoping said other leader will be shamed into taking full responsibility for a humanitarian crisis and you will look the "big boy" among your adoring public. But, as we know, bullying has never been condemned by this leader.

Our leader, BOJO, will also be happy to pass the buck and if he can pass it to an EU country that is so much better. The problem is that when we left the EU we took back control of our own borders, or so BOJO told me. The problem is that it now seems we can only control our own borders if someone else controls theirs. It's possible, and based on the Northern Ireland protocol he agreed it seems likely, that BOJO was unaware that Britain is an island.

I don't know whether he is aware that a vast amount of illegal drugs are smuggled into Britain each year. It seems we can't control our borders to stop that, however BOJO expects France to be able to control its northern maritime border to such an effect that we don't have to bother to control ours. If only the French had a policeman every five yards along their northern coast, alert for 24 hours a day, all would be solved. If only France could deploy CCTV cameras and rapid response vehicles along its northern coast, all would be solved. If only refugees stayed in their own country, all would be solved.

The worrying thing is that an idiot would believe each of those propositions and, how lucky we are, in England, to be governed by one such idiot. If you don't understand the problem, you cannot ever hope to solve it. The problem is not refugees in boats, that is an effect. The problem is far, far deeper and far more difficult to solve than by publishing your solutions on Twitter. Perhaps we should ask Mr Macron if we could have Calais back and then we could deal with the refugee camps ourselves.