Leon

My package was late … they sent me this video

What a nasty little country we have become

Who would you pick to play the next James Bond?

This (see below from Dominic Frisby) is an excellent perspective on the current Iran crisis and its effects on energy markets, and cause for some calm, but not complacency. Something I think could be added is a bit more about why oil is central to late C20th/onwards economies. Green thinking has created the view that there is something almost mystical about oil, and that "dependence" on it is arbitrary, whereas the value of oil to a rational perspective is what it enables within the economy -- it enables the money to move around, and for buyers to find sellers, and so on. The first wave of (post) modern environmentalism more or less coincided with the first oil shock. And it seemed to confirm what the neomalthusians were saying. Resources were running out, there were too many people, and pollution was bad. But the first and second oil shocks were subsumed by the Cold War, and by the 1980s, the neomalthusian's predictions were beginning to have failed. The third oil shock coincided with the UK's Climate Change Act. I recall listening to the BBC World Service late one night that year, and on some news show Caroline Lucas was breathlessly claiming that "the era of cheap energy is over". The other guest was an owner of an oil well in Texas. He couldn't get enough of what Lucas was claiming, and agreed with her absolutely. He was delighted with her prediction that oil would soon reach $200 or more and would stay there. What strange bedfellows. Oil prices thereafter fell, and the US became the world's largest producer. It's amazing what you can find when you look for it. At its face, the Climate Change Act turned into law the idea that dependence on oil (and gas, and coal, and uranium) was arbitrary, and that you could just replace nodding donkeys with wind turbines. That's perhaps what MPs who voted for it believed and told the public. But underneath the façade, a deeper axiom of environmentalism was operating. Greens were not just sceptical about oil. They were sceptical of wealth, and especially sceptical of economic growth. And they were sceptical of industry. Environmentalism had invisibly established itself politically and culturally within British institutions, and from there it was made law with practically zero resistance. Can it be a surprise then, that the third oil shock coincides with the climate change act, and marks an era of deindustrialisation, rising prices, and on some economic metrics, an era of economic stagnation? And that is despite that era being preceded by two centuries of growth, in which economic depression, recessions, world wars and oil shocks were suffered, but the economy soon recovered. The green claim is that the shock of legislating the "transition" (to a low carbon economy), which is is functionally equivalent to an indefinite economic depression, can be mitigated through social reorganisation and redistribution of wealth (yours, not theirs, obviously). That is to say that oil shocks are welcomed by environmentalists, because they accelerate green policy agendas -- you can't just "build back" after such a crisis, you must build back "better", which is to say that economic recession must be locked in, and society reorganised around the changes seemingly caused by economic shock, that being the design of green ideology. During covid lockdowns, for example, private transport was immobilised because movement was prohibited. "Building back better" required that as much of that restriction persisted as was possible. This is framed as "resilience", but it is simply ratcheting: we're no more impervious to future shocks. We might use less gas now, but we're not less dependent on it. Renewable energy has not displaced fossil fuels, it has just closed down the industries that used them, and moved them and their jobs overseas. Meanwhile, at each turn, our political agency, sovereignty and capacities to recover are diluted. That is the real object of hostility: not the oil, but what the oil makes possible. The green conception of freedom is a seemingly extremely permissive one -- one in which you can indulge in hard drugs, late term abortion, sexual partnerships/marriage of nearly all kinds, zero regulation of borders, and so on. But its also one in which lifestyle is extremely tightly regulated -- what you may eat, how you may travel, what temperature your house is and how it is maintained. Do not doubt it: oil at $200 means depression, and European and British politicians want it there and higher, in perpetuity, because that is the only way they can cement the foundations of the green economy.

Breaking: China says it will take action against Israel if it does not respect international law and sovereignty of the countries.

I heard reports of second-tier universities from far-flung parts of the country claiming thousands of students - mainly from outside the UK - are studying in office buildings in London So I went to have a look - video below I’m concerned these international students using “London campuses” are using study to get a visa

I made it to London without spotting any terrorists on my train! RESULT!

NEW: Investors are now pricing in FOUR interest rate rises from the Bank of England this year. Financial markets now imply the Bank Rate will reach 4.75% by the end of the year.