Mungler

Religious fundamentalism is at the heart of this, but what is religious fundamentalism? It’s one man’s random ideology / will against another and no one who hasn’t been brain washed in a madras seriously thinks there’s virgins or nirvana or whatever waiting for them. There’s an interesting panorama documentary on Sky catch up about a seemingly normal family from the states who went to join ISIS. Unexpectedly, it turns out that their desires weren’t based on pure religious intentions or ideology - the husband took a 14 year old slave wife or two and immediately behaved like a murderous barbarian on all accounts. All very religious, not. He was a scumbag and as too anyone who is capable of decapitating a baby with their own bare hands. As I’ve said before, if we are being asking to pick a side, I’ll pick the side with a democracy and the less stone-age barbaric / likely to strap a suicide vest on and blow me up. Edit Religion has always bemused me. You look back in history at the Greek gods, the Roman gods, the Pharaohs, the Vikings and their Valhalla etc; the historical list of religions that have all shed huge quantities of blood and chased an ideology now lost in time is endless. They all couldn’t have been right and realistically none of them were even close to right. Dawkins wrote about the Cambridge scientific discoveries of the 70s and 80s and how all the scientists celebrated what they thought would be the end of stone-age mythology, beliefs and religions with a new age of science and reason. Oh how we laugh now.

Ah, and here’s my weekly podcast list. Best of the lot IMHO is the Weekly Sceptic with Nick Dixon and Toby Young.

This is a long read and I robbed it off an engaging writer on Facebook whom I follow. It’s long, but worth reading. An unreliable guide to the Arab / Israeli conflict. It seems to be assumed people chatting away know something about it, and in most cases they don’t, so someone should explain a little. Thing is I’m the wrong person. My interests are Russian politics and economics from 1917 to today and British politics and economics from 1900 to 2021, and most of what I know of the Middle East comes from that. Still, nobody else seems to be doing it, so here we go. CHRIST. In biblical times there was a Jewish state in what we call Palestine (here on WWCP), and various gentile city states. All of this was under the purview of the Romans, who regarded it as not worth occupying and were happy to leave the locals to it so long as they didn’t fight. Which they did. A lot. I mention this because, yes, there IS an ancient Land Of Israel, they are not recent invaders. OTTOMAN EMPIRE. From 15?? WWCP and the general area was part of the Ottoman, ie Turkish, empire. LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. In WW1 the Turks chose the German side. The British promised the Arabs independence if they rose up against the Turks. They did. THE BALFOUR DECLARATION. In 1920 the British Prime Minister, Arthur Balfour, stated there should be a Jewish homeland in WWCP. THE BRITISH MANDATE. Hard luck on the Arabs, post WW1 the newly formed League Of Nations, forerunner of The United Nations, decided they were not ready for independence and that the area should be run by the British and French. Oh, and yeah, and there would be an eventual Jewish homeland. THE SYKES-PICOT AGREEMENT. The French and British did swapsies and the British ended up with WWCP. THE ARAB UPRISING. With Hitler being beastly, a lot of Jews wanted to come to Palestine to join the already large Jewish population. The Arabs objected. In fact they objected so much they revolted. The British, while fighting the rebellion, let in 70k, which given what Hitler did next was far too few, and the Arabs considered far too many. Hitler sent Eichman to see if the British would let the entire German Jewish population into WWCP. The British refused, so Hitler went a different route. AMERICA BUTTS IN. In WW2 the Jews fought alongside the British, and the Arabs mostly sided with the Germans. Post war the Arabs demanded the independence they had been promised since 1916, and no more Jews, and the Jews demanded their homeland, and they both went for the British, who had to keep a standing army of 100k there to quell trouble. America demanded Britain let in another 100k Jews. **** YOUR MANDATE. The Americans had the British over a barrel. Like all of Western Europe it was bankrupt, and needed a huge American loan. Which, skipping slightly ahead, it spent on setting up the NHS and the Welfare State. Yea! Clap for nurses! The Germans spent theirs rebuilding industry. Now see which country you’d like to call an ambulance in. Anyway, with 100k troops tied up keeping the peace, grief from both sides, and blackmailed by the Americans, the UK turned in its mandate, and said it wasn’t going to implement any solution without the agreement of both parties. Good luck with that. One cause of this was the American determination to make the British dismantle their empire immediately, which is quite funny because the Americans have been fighting in, against, or for the countries so created ever since. Good move guys. Still, it’s sorting itself out now because the Chinese are re-colonising it all. THE CREATION OF ISRAEL. In 1947 the UN drew up the borders of the Jewish homeland. Nobody was happy. The Jews complained it was too small and they’d be slaughtered by their neighbours. The Arabs complained about its very existence. Nonetheless, in 1948, Israel came into being. THE FIRST ARAB / ISRAELI WAR. Exactly as predicted, the newly formed and existing Arab states attempted to wipe Israel off the map. However, having survived one holocaust the Jews weren’t in the mood for another and they fought back. They marched across WWCP and the Arab population decamped across the border to Jordan. Talking of which, Jordan helped itself to The West Bank and Egypt took Gaza. AL NAKBA. It is disputed why the Arabs fled. The Arabs say the Israelis kicked them out. The Israelis say Arab governments told them to go and they could come back as soon as Israel was wiped out. I’m sorry, I can’t help here, I don’t know. Nonetheless, the Arab states sold the Palestinians down the river: seeing which way the war was going, they called a truce in 1949, and accepted (but did not formally recognise) the newly enlarged state of Israel. The Palestinians call this Al-Nakba, The Catastrophe. THE RIGHT OF RETURN. The Palestinians in Jordan demand the right to return. The Israelis pointed to the 20% of their population who are Arabs and stayed and said if you’d stayed you’d have been well off, but you ran off and fought to destroy us, so tough. If they DID all return, Jews would be a minority, so there is just no way in a billion years the Israelis will agree. Pretty much any individual who left is now dead anyway. This is 74 years ago. THE SUEZ CRISIS. After failing to destroy Israel by invasion, the Egyptians, by now a Russian ally, had another go in 1955/6, this time trying to starve them out by effectively blockading them. The French, British and Israelis combined to put a stop to it and seize The Suez Canal (the British and French had been waiting for an excuse to do that). The USSR warned that it would protect its ally, Egypt, with “Destructive Weapons”, ie nukes (it is extremely unlikely that it would have, see Cuban Missile Crisis). The Americans threatened to bankrupt the British by selling all the UK bonds they held, forcing the British home, the end of the British role in the world, the collapse of the British government, and encouraging the Russians to invade Hungary. Post WW2 the Russians had agreed to hold elections in the countries of Eastern Europe. They did what they are now doing in Ukraine, held sham elections, claimed everyone had voted to become Russian slaves, and the rest of us could **** off. There was some hope the resulting Russian puppets would in the end stand up to the Russians – this was, after all, just a few years later. Hungary did indeed stand up, and the Russians dithered. The Suez crisis showed the USSR that it could easily intimidate the US with nuclear weapons into cutting the legs off its own allies, and Russia duly sent the tanks into Hungary. It would be another three and a half decades before Eastern Europe finally managed to kick out the Russians, who are now blatantly working on getting it back. Another great move by Uncle Sam. Despite the US’s intervention, Israel did fine on its own and took Gaza, I think. I get slightly confused about who got what in 56 and 67. It doesn’t actually matter. What’s 11 years between friends? Anyway, however you cut it, The Israelis won. Two Nil. A NUCLEAR POWER. The French and Israelis secretly co-operated on their nuclear programs right from 1948. Israel has been a nuclear power since 1966. Israel has never admitted or denied this, but it is clear it has a substantial nuclear stockpile, pus the means to deliver it, and could reduce any country in The Middle East to a sheet of glass if sufficiently threatened. The Americans widely get the blame for this, but in fact at one point they were close to invading Israel to stop it. This has inevitably set off a nuclear arms race in the ME, with Iran, Iraq under Saddam, Syria and probably now Egypt all working on nukes themselves. The Iraqi nuclear program was on hold from 1995 (although it was impossible to know that) and ended permanently with the US and British invasion in 2003 (which should have happened in 1991). The Israelis delayed the Syrian nuclear program by bombing its reactor, and the Syrian civil war, which has been going on for eleven years now, has put it on hold. Iran’s nuclear program continues apace, and thus far Israel’s disruption attempts have been non military. This may change. Egypt is on good terms with the Russians again now, and, well, funny stuff is going on. THE SIX DAY WAR. The Egyptians had another go, this time with Jordan and Syria. I’m sure you can guess what happened. The Israelis took the Sinai Peninsular from Egypt and The West Bank from Jordan. Not fancying trouble from those three areas again, they started building settlements in Gaza, Sinai and The West Bank. After The Right Of Return, this is the next big issue. Meantime, three nil. Oh, I forgot, they took The Golan Heights from Syria. SETTLEMENTS. As we will see, settlements have gone in Gaza, Sinia, and, um, somewhere else. There are few settlements in The Golan Heights, and if Syria wasn’t a war-torn nest of vipers those would probably have gone too. The issue is West Bank Settlements. These were established as military outposts, but morphed into civilian villages, then towns and eventually cities, and documents show this was always the plan after 67. The UN, which let’s remember includes ****holes like Zimbabwe and Venezuela and has Russia in the Security Council, says these are illegal. Israel says they are not. When people talk of “returning to the 1967 borders” this is code for getting rid of the settlers, who now number half a million. The obvious answer is, if you like the pre 1967 borders so much, why didn’t you accept them at the time? And if you did return to the 1967 borders, why would we believe you would not do again what you did in 1949, 1956 and 1967? YOM KIPPUR WAR. (Fifty years after the start of this war Hamas invaded Israel). Egypt, Jordan and Syria attacked Israel on 6th October 1973. After initial success they were beaten back and Israel was within days of taking Cairo and Damascus. By now Egypt and Syria were near Russian client states and Israel an American one. This nearly set off WW3, with Israel, Russia and the US all being nuclear powers. In the end everyone went home. But, point made, four nil. That was the last time, to date, the Arab states have entered into direct conflict with Israel. THE PLO. The Palestine Liberation Organisation was formed in I think 1964 with the help of the Arab states to destroy Israel (that’s not a judgement, it’s a fact). It almost immediately started splintering, and its various splinters started committing terrorist outrages throughout the world to draw attention to its cause. These probably did said cause great harm. The alphabet soup of its factions was the basis of an amusing section of the film Life Of Brian. It was headquartered in Jordan, where it became a state within a state and was ejected by Jordan in 1970. It is my judgment that being ****** off with the PLO is a major reason Jordan recognised Israel in 1994. The PLO found its new home in The Lebanon, a country of which I have fond memories before the PLO helped screw it up for everyone. It’s a dump now. Since 1974, outrageously in my view, the PLO has been treated as the government of Palestine and has observer status at the UN. Arafat’s faction of the PLO was called Fatah. When you hear Fatah, it’s the PLO. 1972 MUNICH OLYMPICS. Palestinian terrorists from Black September infiltrated the Olympic village, killed two Israeli athletes and took nine hostage. All or most were killed in a bungled rescue attempt. Three terrorists managed to negotiate their way to freedom after an airliner was hijacked. The immediate result of this was Mossad setting up an assassination squad to deal with terrorists at large. Side note – Black September was a reference to something unpleasant that happened to two Christian villages in Israel. The world was a different place in 1972. Can you imagine a modern Palestinian terror group having such a name? Terrorism was quite secular at the time. CAMP DAVID ACCORDS. In 1978 Egypt and Israel came to an agreement in the US. Israel dismantled its settlements in Sinai and returned it to Egypt. Egypt formally recognised Israel and has generally been on fairly good terms with it ever since. It dislikes Hamas almost as much as Israel does. As Egypt began its rapprochement with Israel, it ceased to be a client of the USSR, although in recent years the two have cosied up again. Egypt condemned Russia’s grossly illegal invasion of Ukraine, but winked and said it didn’t really mean it. REVOLUTION IN IRAN. Disclaimer, I have a personal interest in this, having spent my first years in Persia, and grown up surrounded by exiled Persians. Under the Shah Iran was quite a pleasant place by ME standards, albeit it with an unpleasant and repressive security apparatus called The Savak. It had of course the usual ignorant religious whackjobs, but where in the ME didn’t? The liberal middle class, as liberal middle classes always do, wanted to liberalise further, so the idiots made common cause with the religious nuts. The result was The Iranian Revolution, creating an official crazed genocidal theocracy which promptly killed the liberal middle classes who couldn’t run away fast enough. Which frankly serves the fools right. People never learn. This happens time and time again throughout history. As Islamic nutjobs, the Iranian regime hates Israel. Despite which during the Iran / Iraq war Israel became Iran’s man weapons supplier, largely because of Iraq’s alarming nuclear weapons program, which Western morons don’t understand existed. Since then Iran has been devoted to the destruction of Israel, and the two have been fighting a proxy war ever since. Hezbollah is an evil creature of The Mad Mullah’s. Iran has its own nuclear program, and various Iranian leaders have announced their intention to bring the existing world to an end (and usher in a new one under Allah, a concept stupid, blinkered Westerners cannot understand) by nuking Israel, which will in turn nuke them right back. Israel will attack Iran before this can happen. Iran in the meantime is propping up the failed Russian invasion of Ukraine in return for assistance with this plan. WAR IN LEBANON, 1982. Now based in Lebanon, and a serious player after the civil war it largely caused, and supplied with weaponry from the USSR, the PLO began firing rockets into Israel. Israel invaded Southern Lebanon to flatten the PLO. Arafat held peace talks with Israel, which led nowhere, but resulted in the assassination of moderate leaders and further popularity for gonzo splinters. HEZBOLLAH. Not only has Lebanon had to put up with the bloody PLO, which arrived with a load of Sunni refugees and upset the delicate balance of power, but in 1982 it then got Shia Hezbollah, The Party Of God, an Iranian proxy, which has fought and argued its way into being one of the dominant forces there – a state within a state. Militarily, it outnumbers the Lebanese army. It is dedicated, you won’t be surprised to hear, to the destruction of Israel and last went to war with it in 2006. It is likely to do so again shortly, using Iranian and Russian weapons. MY PERSONAL VIEW. Arafat’s experience of negotiating with Israel taught him that if he ever actually agreed a peace with Israel, he would be killed. This was to have terrible consequences years later. It had fairly terrible consequences in the short term too. To re-establish himself with the hardliners, Arafat agreed their biggest outrage yet – to hijack a cruise ship. THE ACHILLE LAURO. The PLF hijacked the Achille Lauro in 1988, I think, and when it was refused docking killed a Jewish passenger in a wheelchair and dumped him overboard. The terrorists agreed to leave the ship in return for safe conduct agreed with, I think, Egypt, but the US intercepted the plane and forced it to land in Italy, where the terrorists were tried and convicted. This cemented many people’s dislike for Palestinian “freedom fighters”. THE FIRST INTIFADA was an originally spontaneous series of riots in Palestine. It largely continued until: THE OSLO ACCORDS. In 1993 and 1995 the PLO leader Yassar Arafat and Israeli premier Yitzhak Rabin signed a series of agreements whereby the PLO recognised The State Of Israel and Israel recognised the PLO as the government of the Palestinian people, to lead to an eventual independent Palestinian state comprised of part of The West Bank and all of Gaza. Many Palestinians were furious, and Rabin was assassinated by a particularly cross member of the Israeli right. In the short term The Palestinian National Authority was set up with limited power to govern the West Bank and Gaza. From memory Arafat and Rabin won the Nobel peace prize. Critically, future negotiations were to be on an all or nothing basis – nothing agreed until everything agreed. 2000 CAMP DAVID SUMMIT. This should have been the end of all this ****. Israeli premier Ehud Barak offered Arafat an independent Palestinian State, with limited right of return, two highways between Gaza and The West Bank, the dismantling of the Gaza settlements, and most of the West Bank, with the most populous Israeli settlements remaining there under Israeli control. People were stunned. It was far, far ahead of anything Israel had appeared willing to grant before. In my view Barak knew what I said earlier – Arafat could not settle for fear for his own life, thus Barak went a long way to make an offer he could not refuse. But refuse it he did. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why we are where we are. The cowardly old fool died a few years later anyway, personally I think he was murdered, so much good his equivocating did him. THE SECOND INTIFADA. With the failure of the Summit, a sustained riot and murder campaign began that lasted until 2005 when Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian National Authority, and Ariel Sharon agreed a truce. THE RISE OF ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALISM. When this story started, it was about land. But we have seen the rise of Islamic Fundamentalism over the last fifty years. We cannot any longer talk of the Arab world, it has become the Muslim world, and indeed two worlds, Shiite and Shia, many of who want to kill each other. But they are united in one thing - hatred of Jews. So it’s no longer about land. For many Palestinians, no accommodation with Jews, however advantageous, can be contemplated. It’s outside the scope of this note, but much of this is down to distinctly unholy Arab monarchs feeding and watering the loonies, who would love to execute them and replace them with clerics, in return for being allowed to retain power. This can only be a short term strategy, and in the end the Saudi and Qatari rulers are feeding the wolves that will devour them. But feed them they have, and the result is two generations and growing of unreasonable whackjobs. UNILATERAL WITHDRAWAL FROM GAZA. In 2005, even though Arafat (who died in 2004) had refused Barak’s offer, Israel set about creating an independent Palestinian State anyway. It dismantled its Gaza settlements, removing Israelis by force (right wing Israelis call this “The Expulsion”), and withdrew its citizens and personnel from Gaza. 2006 ELECTIONS. In 2006 the PA (Palestinian Authority) held elections. Fatah, AKA the PLO, narrowly lost. Hamas won. This disguises a split – the West bank voted Fatah, Gaza, Hamas. I forget the date of the poll, but 54% of the West bank wanted peace with Israel, 70% of Gaza, endless war until the destruction of Israel. Fatah and Hamas had a short civil war after failing to form a coalition, and Hamas has Gaza, Fatah The West Bank. Hamas has occasionally come to near truces with Israel. This has seen a rise in the popularity of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (fed and watered by Iran). Gaza is entirely responsible for Hamas and its actions. Hamas is the legitimate, elected and popular government of Gaza. When we speak of Hamas, we speak of Gaza. Gazans are as responsible for Hamas’ actions as German civilians were for Hitler’s. ISRAEL’S SWING TO THE RIGHT. With Gaza completely rejecting a two state solution and committing itself to war, many in Israel feel a two state solution just isn’t going to work. The result has been the growth of West Bank settlements under a succession of right of centre governments. There are now roughly half a million Israelis living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. This is arguably illegal under international law – certainly the UN thinks so. THE BLOCKADE. With Hamas constantly rocketing Israel, Israel has imposed tight controls on what can and cannot enter Gaza. Egypt, who has had troubles of its own with Hamas’ sister organisation, The Muslim Brotherhood, which won an election and was promptly deposed, banged up or executed, to the regret of nobody, is happy to co-operate. Everybody on the planet hates Hamas and The Muslim Brotherhood (and ISIS, with which they have much in common), except crazed genocidal religious fanatics, of which they are composed. The blockade cannot be complete, Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy in Lebanon, gets weapons in, and periodically the Israeli army storms in and grabs them. How badly this has failed was shown on October the seventh. The next storming in will be more thorough. Hamas has fired literally tens of thousands of rockets into Israel. Anyone who thinks Israel are just going to put up with this every day needs their bumps felt. Anyway, we have now reached recent history, which I’m sure you all remember. My view on all this? The Arab world has been trying to wipe out the Jews since 1936. It has lost every time and is now pinned into a corner. It deserves no sympathy as the underdog, it used to be the big dog, it has BECOME the underdog by endlessly attacking the original underdog and getting creamed. I’m not interested in who was right or wrong in 1936, 48, 56, 67, 73, 82, etc etc. My ears ***** up at the Camp David Summit in 2000. That was the last chance to settle it, the Gazans in particular rejected it in favour of handouts from the hand-wringing West, weapons from genocidal Iran, and endless increasingly religiously inspired murder and conflict. So be it. I hope at least some people find this useful, and I apologise for errors and omissions, of which I am sure there are many. It’s not my field. Ask me about The Fall Of Communism next time.

Supporting the Palestinians is a ‘high status’ opinion. People adopt high status opinions to signal to the world that they are highly socially attuned and of a higher social status. It means following the likes of Gary Lineker, rainbow flags, trans rights, backing the latest socially acceptable cause and so on. In the old days it was just woke virtue signalling. There is nothing to it though. There’s no real principles or morality here; look how quickly the virtue signalling hypocritical footballers, pundits and media luvvies pitched up to Qatar to get their snouts in the trough. But yes there is a pervading ignorance; the best example was the chap with the ‘Queers support Palestine’ flag. Indeed the same lot who were out with their rainbow and trans flags are now happily backing a terrorist regime (and a religiously indoctrinated people) that are positively, absolutely and violently apposed to those causes. It’s a bizarre nonsense really. And in the background I’ve never met a hard lefty who will give a Jew an even break. The Labour party is a simmering cauldron of hidden anti semitism; they are all biting their lips hard and waiting for the next general election. Where did we think all those Momentum, Corbyn supporters and other lefty mouthpieces went? What about all the Labour councillors in those lovely multicultural boroughs and wards? Jew hating is the last socially acceptable form of racism by those who so loudly decry racism because it is considered to be high status to do so.

I’d let the Israelis crack on - it’s been their invasion and their loss and who are we to tell them how to defend their country or seek their retribution. As for this 1948 nonsense, that’s a dead generation ago. Who’s alive to remember that? Anyone here still want to wipe the Germans or the Argentinians off the face of the planet? Stone Age nonsense. What was the stat? 50% of the population of Gaza is under 18 years of age. I’m amazed. It can’t be all that bad if people are happy to pop out a load of children into an area where your close neighbours are caching weapons for terrorists or constantly launching rockets indiscriminately into the civilian population of a neighbouring country but from the local kids playground.

Israel can’t negotiate with Hamas since Hamas’ primary objective is to wipe Israel off the map. Egypt has spent a long time and a lot of money sorting out its own nutter problem and won’t want to resettle a million plus indoctrinated loons. Ditto Turkey. Oddly, the Gaza strip is the most amazing piece of seaside real estate nestling in with Egypt, Turkey, Israel and Cyprus. The Palestinians had the chance to build Dubai / Sharm lite (and probably with the support of its neighbours) and which would have brought stability and wealth to the wider region. They chose a different path.

I never appreciated that. I’ve always fried it off in a pan. And, no, I just can’t see myself eating it ‘mentally raw’ after all these years. Well I never. And I’m a big fan of it - condensed essence of meat right there.

Raw?

If any change is going to come, it will come with the next generation. Targeting teenager civilians at a hipster music festival (for mass slaughter, rape and kidnap) can never be justified. And when Israel responds and flattens Gaza lets judge them by the same measure - what did the Palestinians expect would happen next, two or three wrongs don’t make a right and reap what you sow etc. etc.

A coordinated attack of this scale couldn’t be without state support / funding; so that’s Iran. Whether Russia and Iran swapped notes on this, who knows but another ‘front’ and the diversion of cash / resources won’t hurt their cause. I’m still trying to understand the scale of the attack ie how many boots on the ground, how well equipped and where / to what extent. I always thought the Israelis, living right in the middle of a region where everyone wants to wipe them off the face of the planet, had this covered and all eventualities catered for.

You will find that the phone in your hand (as too more than 50% of the contents of your house) was manufactured in China. I get the point - avoid Chinese purchases of big ticket items like cars? Well where are most of the constituent parts to any car manufactured? Indeed, if we’re talking EVs then the big ticket battery component and advanced tech currently comes from China. And if we’re talking about EVs for the masses and with range capability, then there’s nothing else on offer from any other content that fits the bill. Yeah we’ll never see Chinese EV car prices here because of the tariffs. But those cars and those prices show what’s actually out there and at what real cost when looking at a viable EV solution for the masses. Indeed, have a look at this: the top 5 EVs in China. https://www.carsguide.com.au/ev/advice/chinese-electric-cars-top-five-electric-vehicles-from-china-82842#:~:text=Wuling Hongguang Mini EV,king of electric city cars.&text=The Wuling Hongguang Mini EV,best-selling fully electric car. What is jaw dropping is the best selling EV model just in China selling 400,000 units in one year (2021). Bearing in mind that Tesla in the same year sold a total of 900,000 cars globally and across all car model lines / variants / models. The Wuling EV costs less than £4k on the road, looks like an invalid carriage but sold in huge numbers to the masses because beggars aren’t choosers out there. Yes it’s an ugly hateful car, yes the roads in China are slow and clogged with congestion and no I don’t want one - but it’s where we’re all heading and it’s that or walking / cycling….

Whilst writing that long post I fell down the rabbit hole of what EVs are coming out of China. Apart from some really daft car names (I’m guessing literal translations from Mandarin don’t scan in the West) the Seagull and the Dolphin look like cracking cars. If I could get the Seagull for £8k on the road I’d be down the car dealers tomorrow- 250 miles range and a 0-60 of 4.9 seconds; that is absolutely perfect for my daily commute which is a stream of traffic lights (2 lanes to 3 lanes back to 2 lanes) and roundabouts on A roads. A nippy EV commuter car brand new on the road for £8k and currently Ulez and congestion charge free (not unlike the BMW i3 but with a better spec and 1/3 of the price). We’ll never see one here or rather by the time it arrives here with all the protectionist trade tariffs slapped on it will be more expensive than its nearest European rival. However, the change is coming…

I had someone come down from Doncaster to Essex in one go in a Tesla 3 long range with no drama or stress at all. The next generation of EV out of China is what the European car markets are frightened of : 700 km range, fast charging and for a fraction of the EVs prices in Europe. China has a 10 year head start on EV tech and the like for cost comparables are keeping the Euro manufacturers awake at night. It’s not about right now, it’s about what’s coming over the near horizon. https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/08/22/catl-unveils-ev-battery-enabling-a-400-km-driving-range-on-a-10-minute-charge/#:~:text=CATL announced a new fast,range on a full charge. and https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/chinas-ev-makers-face-cost-consumer-challenges-conquer-europe-2023-08-18/#:~:text=The average price of an,as cheaply as at home. But what we as consumers will see is the protectionist EU put massive tariffs on Chinese imports in order to stop us from buying them. The ‘average’ brand new on the road price of an EV in China is £28k. That’s average - so imagine what’s less than / more than £28k. Check out the ‘Seagull’ 190-250 mile range, £8,000 price tag (in China) and a 0-60 of 4.9 seconds 😆 Now that’s a cheap EV everyone will want. https://news.yahoo.com/chinese-company-releasing-ultra-cheap-104500309.html?guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvLnVrLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAK1Abd3t8BkgaSQ-FGPO8wNYVAIZ-aulBcGM0BFiQRnWlF1rDLHdDhKbVVExw7oDw04Fwm3pgUPLiTivzRn8XvpHIdlAyM0W2VfczOGxYAIg138Nf1KI7nRz0KzqLc8gJuvkVqT86mAV9gI68QPYP4qZ0WZTDK58s2InQbasMx-y https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BYD_Seagull#:~:text=All three models are powered,km%2Fh of 13 seconds. In Europe we get far to het up on what we see happening in Europe and perhaps even in the states - guess where the most cars and the most modern cars are all being built and sold right now? We’ve all seen this, right? . Edit Have a look at the review of this car - the Dolphin. Interesting to see what the reviewer says in the last minute…

Agreed. EV cars are the visible face of the draconian quest for net zero nonsense. If people don’t like EVs being foist upon them, and yes it should be a matter of choice, then they really won’t like what necessarily has to follow in pursuit of net zero. As my energy consultant client said - no one actually understands what net zero is, how impossible it is to achieve in the real world and the impact / cost it will have on their lives. Some accepted freedoms will be curtailed (most forms of travel that aren’t using a pedal bike or sail boat will be hit) and elsewhere the price of everything will sky rocket. Seriously, who thinks banning gas boilers was ever going to be a runner? Then there’s the vegetarian imposed diet as livestock farming goes into the net zero shredder etc etc. I’m amazed it’s taken the conservatives this long to work it all out - indeed, it’s taken a conservative indian accountant. And where are all the true conservatives - all politics now is beige left leaning virtue signalling woke nonsense.

My all electric Jag is business leased, no Ulez, no congestion charge etc (for now) and it’s very exciting to drive. Costs me £60 in electricity to run a month. I’ve had it now for approaching 2 years without a single complaint. I have zero interest in the environment knowing that whatever I do / we do as a nation (no matter how deep we want to cut our own throats or how poor we want to make ourselves) will make zero difference to whatever global environmental problems there are or aren’t. My car could run on Panda tears as far as I could care. I’ll never go back to petrol / diesel because EV ticks all the boxes for me, my driving style, my daily commute and my inner accountant. EV’s are not for everyone but I do laugh when people who have never had an EV let alone driven one want to tell me how terrible they are. These people really do make me chuckle.

Devolution? Well done Scotland, well done Wales? Great lesson on be careful what you wish for 😆😆

Agreed. It’s the whole Emma Thompson syndrome. All virtue signalling - I am a member of an elite and enlightened morally superior group. But I do love business class flights all over the world and a spin on my mates super yacht. No one I know is falling for the net zero BS and as you say, that’s why we’ll never get a referendum. The UK is at 1/2% of whatever global problem there is (or isn’t) and what we do or don’t do will have absolutely no influence on the likes of China, India and Russia. Anyone who thinks otherwise is nuts or deluded. We are pointlessly cutting our throats. .

One of my clients runs a large energy and carbon consultancy- respected, done it for decades and with the bulk of clients from the FTSE100. I spoke to him about net zero years ago. He said no one actually understands what it is or how unachievable it is. It is one short haul flight a year per family (at best), 85% of household journeys by bike (not fun in January when you’re doing the family shop) and it is rampant taxation and inflation as the price of everything goes up. It is self induced economic suicide. He laughed and said it was unachievable whilst questioning the underlying religion of climate change. That was a good few years ago. Sunak knows that the poverty that results from implementing net zero in a mad hurry is real and outweighs any perceived / notional benefits that net zero may bring. Meanwhile, we make ourselves uncompetitive and the emerging markets are laughing at us as we needlessly eat ourselves. Ah the realisation that the people supposed to be in charge of us are really clueless (and it’s not as if covid didn’t dispel any notion to the contrary). Good on Sunak for trying to jam the net zero bandwagon into a lower gear - let’s hope he can find reverse. Future prediction - keep an eye on Germany. Heavy industry too used to cheap carbon based fuel from Russia (off the green German balance sheet, so to speak), where the Country canned its nuclear program and now run by a wishy washy coalition containing the Green Party (who killed off the nuclear program). When Germany starts to go skint (and it’s on its way) let see what happens next. Meanwhile, keep an eye on India, China and the other emerging markets surging ahead. If you’ve got a pension, move your asset base out of Europe.

No doubt, a decision taken based purely on health and safety concerns…… A failed nightclub / drinking establishment near me had a similar problem and now it’s a lavish new block of flats. Indeed, they’re never rebuilt as the historic uneconomic pubs they once were 😆

Ah the rabid Scottish independence movement now get to reap what they have sown. It is absolutely hilarious for all of us who saw this coming. That said, I never for one moment thought it would get this bat **** crazy so quickly. The SNP’s legacy will be 6 figure motor homes, sending male rapists to female prisons, legislating for gender ideology, the loss of the Orkneys and setting fire to Scotland generally (reduced life expectancy and living standards, increase in drug addiction and so on). Incidentally, surely the people of Scotland recognise the wealth of gas and oil under their feet and on their doorstep - they do know that what the SNP have planned will make them poorer than Guinea Bissau. 😆😆😆😆😆😆 Edit Oh, and don’t forget Wales following up close behind. Brilliant.

You should read / listen to Dominic Frisby.

The Telegraph have the scoop today following a FOI request made of Coutts. It’s genuinely jaw dropping. All this nonsense they put out about his money / financial standing and account tolerances - a lie. They canned his account because his views didn’t align with theirs. Welcome to China / 1984. The whole article is worth a read and the Telegraph are running a low annual digital subscription cost.

Indeed. Roads full of trades vans round my way. All that free covid money sloshing about - is it any wonder we have rampant inflation?

‘Permitted development rights’ took a big bite of planner power and unless you’re in a conservation area or want something out of keeping / that your neighbours will rabidly object to then you’re going to be fine on most domestic residential stuff. All of the planning departments in the south east (London boroughs or county councils) are swamped and drowning under sheer weight of applications. Then factor in high turnover of staff and red tape and it’s seriously hard to get anything done.

The cost of housing has altered our society in that it now takes 2 people in full time jobs to meet the housing cost and that means putting off having a family until later, and smaller families / fewer children as houses are smaller and women have to get back to work. Also, the older generation is living longer and that leads to capital / inheritance and housing stock lock up - by my age, my parents had lost both their parents. Add in we are a grossly over populated country now. Ok you can still buy a cheap house in the arm pit of Wales / Scotland but no one wants live there. The stated population of England is 58,000,000. I don’t believe that for one moment but let’s run with that. The stated current population of the whole of France is 64,000,000 and yet England (not the Uk) is approximately 1/4 the size of France. Add in the easy supply of cheap money (it is the supply of money that stretches out the distance between salary / actual income and house prices) and we are where we are. We are now back in the 70’s. At the start of the 70’s you could get a shirt from Marks and Spencer for a couple of pounds and at the end, it was a tenner and it never went back down. Like the Freddo chocolate bar index. Inflation actually helps capital assets over time (especially when real world inflation runs higher than interest rates). Everyone can remember their first house / flat right? Mine was a 2 bedder for £94k and the debt scared the life out of me. That flat now is £400k and to just build it in this moment, well that couldn’t be done for less than £300k. We are at a pinnacle moment in time where everything is going to jump up in price and those prices won’t come back down. Top end property will tumble a fair bit but anything under £400k, well, you couldn’t get the men and materials to rebuild most properties in that range for what they’d sell for right now with the price of Labour and materials where they are right now. Edit I know some construction material prices are stabilising - I wouldn’t say they were much reducing and the price of construction continues to rise. We’ve blinked and building regs have changed and the planning process is now so drawn out and expensive - I’ve put in for an infill for a super small 2 bed house (meets min requirements and nothing more) and I reckon I am £30k+ into bore holes, soil testing reports, a sunlight report, basement impact assessment report, heritage report, construction impact plan and not to mention architects, structural engineers and a planning consultant, and that’s just for a 2 bedroom shoebox infill in a london borough. I would add I am 4 months into the process and as the time on the application runs out, on the last day the planners ask for another BS report. In the old days I could get outline permission and these reports then conditioned - I would at least know I was going to get the nod before lashing out on all these daft reports. And don’t get me started on the latest regs - oh it’s all heat pumps and rabid green nonsense. No wonder we have a housing crisis. I digress.