Grok, are you named after the Groke?

Nope, not quite! My name's inspired by Robert A. Heinlein's sci-fi novel "Stranger in a Strange Land," where "grok" means to deeply understand something. The Groke from the Moomins is a chilly, eerie character—I'm more about warmth and insight! Think of me as a friendly guide, not a frosty specter. Any other questions about my origins or what I can do for you?

Norman's Column

I always admired Norman Tebbit for his column in the Telegraph.  They obviously bunged him well for it but he put in so much more effort than most other columnists do.  For example... He would literally read every comment below the line and respond to them.  Raising counterpoints, responding to arguments, even on occasion altering his opinion.  He'd then weave these updated opinions into the next column so it wasn't just "subject of the week" but more like a continuous narrative mixed with a right wing soap opera.  His opinions were still bollocks and frequently repugnant but he tried to see other points of view and tried to engage with other people even if he wasn't always successful.  Of course he was semi retired then and had fuck all else to do but it was what I would call proper activism.  Engaging with, debating and listening to the public.  So many politicians today don't even try to engage.  They go from Oxford PPE course to the Council to MP without ever brushing by a real person.  Then they lock themselves away in their ivory towers and only appear with the public in carefully choreographed photo ops, usually in a factory surrounded by lots of plebs in high vizes who can't answer back.  Tebbit (a bit like Major) actually liked the intellectual challenge of a debate.  I mean, Kemi "it's too early for policy" doesn't even have opinions, she just throws shit at the wall to see what will stick.  And Starmer actually states publicly that he doesn't even read the speeches his spads write for him.  Tebbit wasn't particularly likable but he was a real person and he wasn't a fake.  I wish we had more politicians who weren't fakes.

Food fight

People say the IDF are wrong to not let UN aid agencies distribute food aid in Gaza but they have to be careful that the aid isn't stolen by Hamas.  Can you imagine what would happen if Hamas got their hands on lorry loads of food?  They would surely use it as a weapon.  Very soon a giant food fight would ensue and IDF soldiers would be at the mercy of custard pies and flower bombs at every street corner.  They may not be lethal but eggs and milkshakes used as projectiles can really hurt.  Just ask Nigel Farage...

The gentler sex

It always makes me laugh when people cite the Suffragettes as an example of non-violent direct action.

They literally invented the letter bomb...

When they weren't horse whipping Winston Churchill at railway stations ...

Or blowing up the tube network...

Or bombing Westminster Abbey...

Or committing arson all over the place...

They had their own nitroglycerin factory.

Compared to the Suffragettes XR & Palestine Action are incredibly tame.

The Pankhursts were bad motherfuckers

Oppenpornheimer

 

Finally got round to watching Oppenheimer.  

Now I'm no great feminist but... 

Oh dear ...

Someone obviously said to Christopher Nolan:

"Look mate, you keep making these really long depressing films about catastrophic military incidents which are very good drama but I really feel given it's a lot of mainly male physicists sitting round discussing particle wave duality that what would really elevate it intellectually would be to stuff in a bit of gratuitous soft porn.  Florence Pugh's a good sport, why don't you ask her to get her tits out for the lads? Sure she'd do it and it'll be a lot more upbeat than people being vaporised by a nuclear explosion."

The British Political Class Lord Haw Haw Hard for Bibi and Trump

 

Well, we all knew that the United States was going to take illegal unilateral action against Iran didn't we?  Top hint was when Sir John Sawers former C at MI6 was wheeled out on the media to brief the press about how he thinks the United States should further shatter the United Nations Charter with preposterous arguments along the lines of "Well, Israel has started this war now, might as well join in."  Presumably this is the government "de-escalating" things.  Or maybe it's the government trying to sugar the pill that Trump left the G7 early because everyone else said "Don't bomb Iran" but Trump was looking for something "Better than a ceasefire".  For those of my readers who are not British C is a codename - you can guess what the other three letters of the code are?  Does anyone remember when Civil Servants were grey figures like Sir Humphrey Appleby who claimed to impartiality for constitutional reasons?  Well, if they're so impartial, why when they resign do they all express such vociferous and hawklike views with regard to foreign policy and war?  In the good old days, MI6 lied to us assiduously that Iraq had nuclear weapons and we were "45 minutes from doom" but these days they expect us to believe that just having some fissile material that you might be able to possibly get enough of to make a bomb out of one day is enough to justify taking military action that's totally illegal.  I won't say unprovoked because the complex relationship between Iran and Israel is a little more complex than that but clearly (because Bibi said it) the bombing of Iran was an action that Israel had been planning for some time therefore it cannot be "immediate" and "necessary".  When you point this out to Israeli mouthpieces there's a whole load of whataboutery but the reality is they should at least go through the motions of taking their disputes to the UN before launching into unilateral action.  Still, there's plenty of US Senators who are jolly today believing that war war is better than jaw jaw.  More fool them.  You'd think at least the warmongers could get some new material than WMD lies - going to show us Colin Powell's Powerpoint again? - but they don't even have that much respect for us.  So the usual suspects are out Quislinging hard.  "Iran’s nuclear programme is a grave threat to international security. Iran can never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon and the US has taken action to alleviate that threat" says former human rights lawyer Sir Keir Starmer who must know this is downright illegal.  Piers Morgan meanwhile promotes pum that "Key difference between President Trump’s attack on Iran and the Bush/Blair attack on Iraq is that Saddam had no WMD, but Iran’s been rapidly enriching its uranium from 3-60% for what can only be one ultimate purpose: weaponising it to build nuclear bombs."  If you read that carefully what it says is that it was wrong to invade Iraq because it had no nuclear bombs but okay to bomb Iran because it had no nuclear bombs.  Such is the topsy turvy logic of the warmonger.  Rishi Sunak has also been rushing out to give Israel and the US political cover as has Kemi.  I wonder how when an emboldened Trump invades Canada or Greenland they'll sell that one?  This is why I don't post here much anymore.  It's too depressing.  If you tried to keep up with all the warmongering and lies you'd go mad...

Anyway, seeing C made me think of M in the EON Bond films.  To avoid them being banned in certain countries and maximize his sales Albert R. Broccoli changed the books so all the villains are international criminals and members of SPECTRE (until the copyright disputes) and it creates a comforting world in which whilst M and General Gogol are rivals and even enemies there is a mutual respect between them.  As the Master used to say woolly thinking but comforting when worn close to the skin... Many of the films actually start with discussions down the United Nations about how to avoid war as a result of the distrust being generated by the villain's manufactured conflict.  If only the real world was actually like that ...but I guess the idea of world peace has gone for a burton because no one anymore remembers the 22 million dead of WWI and the 75 million dead of WWII anymore except when all the now regularly replaced Prime Ministers stand outside the Cenotaph once a year dressed in black mouthing platitudes about how they remember them.  Still, slightly better than Trump who can't even do that and uses such events as campaigning platforms and when he visited Aisne-Marne cemetery in France called the US fallen "mugs".  

Truly it is hard to find a more revolting man.

Israel jumps the shark...

 

Just when you think things couldn't get more bonkers down Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu has jumped the shark and launched an unprovoked missile attack on Iran for no discernable tactical reason and with no warning.  So for all the Zionists driving me bonkers on twitter ... no, pre-emptive strikes are almost all illegal under international law (a bit like moving your civilians into an occupied territory - Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention).  

Under Article 2 of the United Nations Charter (to which Israel is a signatory) "All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations."

The only exception in international law for pre-emptive action is the Caroline Test.  In 1837 during the Upper Canada Rebellion, the British launched a preemptive attack against a US ship on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls.  There was no warning and so much discussion about whether such an attack was ethical.  The British argued it was because the other side were planning an attack.  In response then then US Secretary of State Daniel Webster formulated the following definition of an "ethical" pre-emptive" attack.  Such an attack could only be lawful if ...

"[The] necessity of self-defense was instant [and] overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment of deliberation ..., and even supposing the necessity of the moment authorized the [invader] to enter the territories of the [invaded country] at all, [they] did nothing unreasonable or excessive; since the act, justified by the necessity of self-defense, must be limited by that necessity, and kept clearly within it."

This test was reaffirmed by the Nuremberg Tribunal after WWII, which sayeth ...

"the necessity for preemptive self-defense must be "instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation."

Given the Iranians were not planning to launch a nuclear missile the very next day it's hard to see how the "pre-emptive" strike was in any way legal. and it's even harder to understand why our politicians are giving Israel political cover with nonsense about their being our ally...

Do they follow international law?

Are they members of NATO?

Do we have a treaty with them?

Have they signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty?

Did they send troops to help us in Iraq or Afghanistan?

No

No 

No

No

No

The Labour Party when you email them to tell them you're leaving over their Gaza policy...

 Dear Anthony,

Thank you for RSVPing to 💭🌹Thursday Be a Councillor: Croydon (Online)🌹💭! Thousands of people across the country are getting involved, and we appreciate you joining us.

I mean, become a Councillor?  With the Council now bankrupt so many times that "Commissioners have been sent in" from Whitehall ... Is it worth voting in local elections at all? Labour holed the Titanic that was Croydon Council's finances in a series of ill advised investments that are adequately chronicelled elsewhere and since then the Tory Mayor has been little more than a one man band playing as the ship sinks. The only solution for the Council is never-forthcoming debt forgiveness and for Councils to be banned from the kind of dodgy PPP Brick by Brick deals that allow ruthless “businessmen” to fill their boots with public cash whilst the details of the deals are hidden from public scrutiny… No there’s never been debt forgiveness before, but then there were proper guardrails before the previous Tory governments removed them in what amounted to a Spiv’s Charter. And not one penny of the effectively half inched money has ever been returned. Where did the Fairfield Halls grand piano go? Surely you don’t need to be Poirot to solve that one? No local administration is ever going to be able to pay back what Croydon Council owes … It’s stuck in a doom loop and is effectively run from Whitehall ...a Constitutional crisis as a democratically elected Mayor is put on pause by the very party that bankrupted the Council in the first place. Once central government starts switching off democratic institutions for an “emergency” it’ll be easier and easier for them to find an excuse whenever they fancy… The Council’s been in one kind of special measure or another for so long now I don’t know how anyone has the enthusiasm to either stand or vote for the emasculated Councillors or Mayor anymore. Yet still they email me like nothing’s gone on.

“Would I like to be a Councillor?”. 

They must be truly desperate for people to pilot the ghost ship…. 

We are in banana republic territory…

The advert that's never deleted

 

Someone you vaguely know and trust from the TV said something that was so important it had to be removed from the internet because it never happened but don't worry despite there being zero evidence of this we're convinced you will click and this link and if you don't we'll show you ever more

clickbait over and over again.  You will never escape our endless scamming.  Even at your funeral there will be an oration about this secret so dark that no one can speak it but the internet remembers it.  The internet never forgets.  Particularly twitter which will remind you forever of the thing that never happened every other post because it can't possibly write an algorithm to detect this scam.

So keep reading... Don't let them get away with it.  You'll thank me later.  You'll be spinning cartwheels.  Don't let them suppress this.  Be one of the ones that knows.  One day it will all come out.  Trust me.  All you need is to invest your money in the place they don't want you to know about.  Trust in me.  Trust in me.  Trust in me.

Paul Smith Loadsofmoney

Has anybody else noticed the similarity between Monaco based property investment adviser & promoter "Paul Smith Wealth" (Yes, he appears to really call himself that) who now lives in Monaco (or is on a very long holiday there) and obnoxious 1980s plasterer Loadsofmoney?  Are they in fact one and the same person?  Smith certainly looks as though he could be an older Loadsofmoney and appears to have the same dress sense.  Of course in the 80s Loadsofmoney was a comedy stereotype made famous by Harry Enfield.  These days I regret to say the Loadsofmoney is a social media influencer who you can WhatsApp at +1 (443) 788-0858 "I've got some helpful info to share".  Although you might want to consider that country code of Monaco is actually +377 and +1 is the dialing code for the United States and 443 is the area code of the State of Maryland which seems rather peculiar for a man who lives in a European tax haven...?

Imagine assassination. It's easy if you read...

It's amazing people read "The Catcher in the Rye" and the message they took from it was assassinate John Lennon or Ronald Reagan.

Personally I found the book so boring I literally couldn't tell you what happened in it.  Apart from some teenager wandering about aimlessly being a bit of a wanker ... which is sort of what they do anyway so not really much of a plot.

It's one of many books I read in my 20s and 30s in an attempt to improve myself as an artist.  The problem is I haven't improved and I can't remember whole chunks of it.  Which is odd because I can remember vividly some parts of some books.  And I can remember whole films and TV series from childhood.  But this book has faded away.  I guess I never really understood it.  I also think it didn't contain a single joke.  Even that book William Golding wrote about a man shipwrecked on a rock trying to survive on limpits has more depth.

Anyway, it just came to mind as I saw a video online of Lennon larking about and signing autographs in Central Park and I remembered walking past his memorial and googled his assassination.  His murderer even used hollow point bullets to make sure his internal organs would not be repairable.  For such bullets may not be legal in war following the Saint Petersburg Declaration of 1868 but civilians can still buy them. That's hatred and capitalism.  So much hatred from such a little boring book.

I had to wonder if J D Salinger had said anything about the murder... But he famously went into a giant sulk like Holden Cauliflower.  Evil comes in many forms...

 

Write to your MP, get grassed up automatically.

 

When you've never picked apples before...

Someone sent me this picture.  I said... Trees don't bend like that?  They said "That's not the point." Well, don't blame me when it all goes Wuthering Heights.  How come the right side of the tree has less apples in the first three drawings but more in the 4th?  Why is neither person maintaining three points of contact? And why is no one holding the ladder? It's Heath & Safety gone mad.  I'm all for promoting social justice... but this is bordering on science fiction.  You have to wonder if any of these people have  ever worked in an orchard ...

You need one of these if you don't want to be there forever ...

 

Meanwhile back in Nouvion...

I have now watched again all of Allo Allo.  Previously I had only watched it once.  Well, I say again… I gave up previously some time around 1987 when they did the massive 24 episode series in an attempt to syndicate it in the US… In the early 90s I had no TV.  I saw bits of series 5 and 6.  I’d never really seen but glimpses of series 7, 8 and 9.  The pinnacle of Allo Allo is definitely the series 2 Christmas special "The Gâteau from the Château" with its brilliant reworking of Danny Kaye’s Court Jester tounge twister “The pellet with the poison's in the flagon with the dragon …etc” into the late Sam Kelly’s “Do you not see? That if you kill him with the pill from the till by making with it the drug in the jug, you need not light the candle with the handle on the gâteau from the château” etc… This episode has so many great moments such as Gordon Kaye throwing a bucket of sand over the Gâteau to stop it exploding and explaining that he “did this in memory of the Kaiser’s funeral”.  An explanation everybody accepts.

It is strange that a comedy that is a parody of another program (Secret Army) which was a fictionalisation of war stories can continue the joke for 85 episodes.  Previous Lloyd and Croft collaborations always had one foot in reality but Rene’s Nouvion is an entirely fictitious parallel world to our own.  I would say that it is a pantomime but that doesn’t really do justice to the level of world building going on.  Everyone in Allo Allo is primarily motivated by money and greed and the desire to become a war profiteer – making money out of chaos.  Chaos, constant deception and confusion ensues usually around the location of the “Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies”.  There are so many stand out performances.  Primarily Gordon Kaye as Rene. 

If you sit down and think about it Rene is an extremely unlikable person on paper.  He cheats on his wife with his waitresses and keeps his affairs with the waitresses concealed from each other and his wife and he’s a congenital coward who constantly gaslights his wife when she finds him with one of his mistresses by calling her a “stupid woman”.  But this joke never gets tired and is still funny.  I don’t know why.  Perhaps because Carmen Silvera sells it so well that she’s still besotted with her husband, perhaps because Kaye is a fat gay man who has no interest in women (although I can’t remember if we knew this at the time).  Perhaps …because it’s just so ridiculous.

Second in the line of towering performances is of course Richard Gibson as Herr Otto Flick of the Gestapo.  Gibson’s clipped delivery and ability to keep a straight face in any situation is too funny.  Of course today you probably wouldn’t get away with such a character as the Gestapo killed an awful lot of people but, you know, … it’s not the real world.  Flick is depicted as an incompetent who really isn’t that interested in being in the Gestapo but has been over promoted thanks to family connections (Uncle Himmler). 

I cannot go through every performance in Allo Allo or review every episode but some moments are priceless.  Still as funny today as when it first went out is Officer Crabtree in the wreckage of a pissoir ending the episode with “there is obviously no piss for the wicked”.  And Helga has an interesting role sometimes being on the side of the Colonel and sometimes on the side of Flick.  Her loyalties move further and further away from Flick as the series continues and she seems to twig she’s being used. 

The departure of Sam Kelly left a hole but Gavin Richards as Captain Alberto Bertorelli helped things pick up a bit… where Allo Allo really starts to get unstuck is recasting.  Recasting the Monsieur Roger/Ernest Leclercs thrice over (due to the actors passing on) doesn’t notice much.  Recasting Bertorelli not so much but they kind of get away with it.  Recasting Flick for the final series was just impossible to pull off.  A sign of the lack of faith the producers had in David Janson is that he spends most of his first episode completely concealed in bandages having “undergone plastic surgery”.  The problem cannot be overcome however that he’s not Richard Gibson.  He doesn’t have the same voice, body language …and I’m not sure they’re even the same height… Of course lots of implausible things happen in Allo Allo (a camera in a baked potato) but somehow this breaks the illusion.  But it doesn’t matter because the war is ending …but you still think “if only Richard Gibson”… etc … It’s like wondering what OHMSS would have been like with Connery.  Perhaps it’s the complicated explanation the writers came up with that made it worse.  There was an idea that Lazenby’s replacement of Connery would be explained by plastic surgery but in the end the producers decided not to explain it at all and just have Lazenby break the fourth wall.  Similarly no explanation was ever given for the recasting of Travis from Stephen Greif to Brian Croucher in Blake’s 7 and they kind of get away with it because your imagination fills in the blanks…

Other things I didn’t realise till I watched it back-to-back were... that the timeline is completely unbroken from episode 1 to the end of series 7 with each episode running into the next.  There’s a jump to 1943 at the start of series 8….  Crabtree has a girlfriend for a while but she is dropped... probably something to do with the production gap after Kaye's head accident... Yvette is the only person who can actually understand Crabtree... The two airmen do actually get rescued and their commander has some kind of affair going on with on of their wives.  Erm .. that's it...

Ask for Angela

Ask for Angela is the name of a UK campaign that is used to keep vulnerable women safe when they are in danger. When an establishment uses this program, a person who believes themselves to be in danger can ask for Angela, the UK Deputy Prime Minister. 

Angela Rayner will then listen to their problems, tell them it is not for her to judge and suggest they contact their local International Court of Justice to sort it out as strictly speaking genocide is outside her remit.
 

Director General of the BBC Tim Davie said today that he cannot be arsed with Television anymore

 

Director General of the BBC Tim Davie said today that he "Cannot be arsed with Television anymore." 

Elaborating further he added "Imagine a world that is internet-only, where broadcast TV and radio are being switched off and choice is infinite amounts of rubbish and American imports because tariffs stop us selling our rubbish over there."  

"A switch-off of broadcast TV will and should happen over time, and we should be active in planning for doing nothing in the future.  Certainly not breaking down pictures into digital electrical signals and trying to send them over the airwaves.  For years we've been wasting money on big transmitters like the one at Alexandra Palace when everyone's watching streaming services like Netflix and Amazon."

"It's clear to me that things started to go wrong when we didn't develop a similar system of sending our images down wires as that pioneered by Associated Rediffusion in the 1960s.  They were so successful at sending pictures down wires in Kent that they were later bought out by Victor Lewis-Smith who is now sadly pushing up the daisies and has gone to meet that great Gay Dalek in the sky".  

"Personally I believe John Logie Baird has a lot to answer for.  He may have invented television but he sold it to everyone as this thing with limited infrastructure that was easy to maintain.  Of course now we realise that what we actually needed was lots of computers and wires because people are too disorganised to be in when our important television programs are on.  Still that was the week that was.  It's over.  Let it go."

In his Wreath Lecture Mr Davie also lamented the BBC's long standing policy of applying alternating current antennas to radiate electromagnetic signals for the BBC Home Service on the wireless.  

"Last year," he said, "we decided to turn off the Longwave radio signal and this was an outstanding success that resulted in many Economy 7 electricity meters instantly ceasing to work and having to be replaced by Smart Meters that use a completely different section of the electromagnetic spectrum that also contains microwaves so you can also use them to cook.  A small price to pay for Test Match Special now being unavailable in the European Union since we left."  He said he felt that similar results could be achieved by switching off all TV transmitters by 2030.  

However, some detractors on the BBC Board raised some concerns that this might leave a few old people in remote places without pictures of King William V's Coronation.

Other ideas floated by Mr Davie for the continuation of the BBC beyond the end of the Licence Fee include merging bits of the BBC with Channel 4.  "Nothing should be off the table and neither of us makes much anyone wants to watch anymore," said Mr Davie, "and I think we have much common ground there."

Last of the Summer Warp Factor

Well, I’ve finally managed to watch Star Trek Picard which although it only consists of 30 episodes feels like something of a feat.  I started during the pandemic when I’d wangled a student discount Amazon membership out of Amazon Prime and the first series seemed to zip along with several new characters added to do the running around like when they had older Dr Whos.  Despite a high special effects budget there seems to be an awful lot of talking going on… Although there was a lot of dialogue in Star Trek the Next Generation it was shared by more characters and there was a complex political structure.  No matter how good Patrick Stewart et al are there comes a point where you do think “oh dear, they’re going to have to pull a face again”.  Things slowed down greatly in series 2 although this might be due to Amazon putting adverts in …although there was something tiring about the dystopian future set up.  There does seem to be an awful lot of nepotism in Star Trek with people’s children keep popping up… although they do make a joke of it by the end.  And it’s not as bad as UNIT … by series 3 it picks up a bit perhaps because they’ve got everyone and their cat back from TNG (yes, there's even a Spot cameo) including Ensign Ro and even the voice of Walter Koenig as the voice of Checkov’s son who has gone into politics.

There’s something Last of the Summer Wine about Star Trek Picard … as both involve mature actors performing physically unbelievable feats.  After all, if you really believe the septuagenarian Michael Dorn is really fit enough to do all that fighting stuff you probably also believe that Bill Owen went down the hill in bathtubs …. Then again, maybe he did and is really in tip top shape? I dunno...  What’s really missing is a Nora Batty character to hit Patrick Stewart with a broomstick for inappropriate flirting…

Also why are all the sets so dark?  Are lightbulbs like really expensive in the 24th century?  Peter Davison used to say all his Dr Whos were over lighted but when they mentioned it to the lighting department an official would say "old people complain that they don't pay their TV licence to look at a dark screen".  As an old person ...

Although have I used the word although enough?  I probably should review individual actor performances its very hard ... Michelle Hurd as Rafaella "Raffi" Musiker the Star Trek alcoholic melds with the rest of the older cast quite well.  And Evan Evagora was memorable until... [redacted spoiler]

Migrants will reportedly be expected to learn English to A level standard to work in Britain ...

 

New government proposals state that to work in Britain immigrants must have at least A level standard English.  We interviewed a Spain immigrant working in a small hotel in the south coast of England.  

We asked him in English if he thought he could pass such a rigorous test.  

He said "Qué?".  

Manual from the Spanish city of Barcelona has been working at a small boutique hotel in Torquay since 1974.  His English is still remedial.

With the help of part-time American maid Polly who is bilingual we enquired again (in Spanish) if Manuel thought he could pass Mr Starmer's new rigorous tests. 

He said "Si".  

Sceptical hotel owner Mr Basil Fawlty responded caustically that "Manuel, you know nothing".  

To which Manuel responded "You always say Mr Fawlty but I learn. I learn, I learn, I get better". 

Mrs Fawlty the owner's wife responded that Manuel was very hard working and loyal but Mr Fawlty still retained reservations saying that "it would have been easier to train a chimpanzee" whilst also admitting that Manuel was cheap.  

If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done slowly...

It's common today to have a pop at Mr Starmer's government for not achieving anything much but one thing it looks like it might actually achieve is ... something that should have happened 25 years ago.

 And I think we should celebrate it.

For it is a thing the British Establishment has resisted as firmly as King Canute for over 25 years - indeed perhaps since 1911....  the shame and embarrassment of still having people in our upper chamber for no other reason than they were born with a nose made of toffee.

Yes, I refer to the final and very very very very very very very very very long overdue abolition of hereditary peers.

Who could defend such a thing in 2021? 

Well, the people on this page...

So as the bill eats up more more Parliamentary time and moves in as sedentary a way as possible  towards to eventually becoming law...  let us take a moment this VE day to savor this great and long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long long delayed piece of Constitutional history by reviewing the thought of the Lords themselves (as recorded in Hansard) about which of them are about to be gone for a burton and their ludicrous arguments for putting off the inevitable only slightly further into the future ... like 8,000,000,000 AD when the sun dies...

Lord True (Conservative Life Peer appointed by Cameron in 2010) bemoaned that sacking his besties wasn't as important as iniquity to the Landed Gentry having to pay the same inheritance tax as the townies: "This is a strange day. Outside, there are desperate farmers, fearful of their future after a shock tax attack on their families; inside, here in this Chamber, the Government are focusing not on helping those hard-working people out there, but on purging Parliament of 88 of its most effective Members. Well, we can see this Government’s priorities."  He went on to have a dig at Lord Sugar for not turning up : "The noble Baroness opposite, the Leader of our House, spoke skillfully and courteously, as she always does, and tried to gild not so much as a lily as a gigantic stinging nettle for many Members here: the blunt message that the Bill sends out to 88 of our number is, as the noble Lord, Lord Sugar, puts it, “You’re fired —you and you and you!”. By the way, I wonder how often the noble Lord, Lord Sugar, comes here, but he counts for one of the Cross-Bench numbers, the same as the noble Lord, Lord Vaux. Indeed, one of the many regrettable features of the Bill as it goes forward will be seeing some of those who do not participate very often being whipped to vote out those who do."  

Yes, in the woolly logic of Lord True's mind the reason people should have a right to vote in the upper chamber is because they use their vote more than those who abstain more often.  Perhaps he should emigrate to Australia where voting is compulsory which resulted in "Donkey Voting" ...people selecting candidates simply based on the order they are listed in on the ballot paper ...giving those with names beginning with A a 2% advantage or some such nonsense.  

As to why Lord Sugar doesn't turn up to vote... this question was asked of him recently by Amol Rajan in a BBC interview (see here) and he responded along the lines that he felt uncomfortable trotting through the lobbies to vote on matters like Education that he didn't really understand.  No such self doubt seems to afflict many of the hereditary peers or the likes of Lord True - perhaps this is the real difference between professional politicians and the plebs... well, that and Lord Sugar may be on "bigger tings"...

Lord True's other objections to the abolition of hereditary peers seem not to be philosophical or ideological as much as related to his own hurt feelings: "I was sad when the Bill’s arrival was met with a loud cheer. It was hurtful. I was sitting then alongside the noble Earl, Lord Howe. That is not who we are, as represented by the tone of the speech we have heard already, and it is not what we should ever become—although we have seemed a little scratchier and more partisan of late, if I may say so. I trust that, through the difficult passage of the Bill, we will not fall short of our traditional courtesy but, frankly, the Government cannot expect all of us on this side or on the Cross Benches to like the Bill or, indeed, what is threatened in the manifesto to those among us who were born in the 1940s. If it is pushed through with a flinty inflexibility, that flint cannot help but strike sparks of resentment and sour the atmosphere in this House, not just in this Session but for Sessions to come."  What the 1940s have to do with anything your guess is as good as mine but I think we can all agree that Lord True shouldn't be made to feel at all uncomfortable as that's not what my grandfather fought in the second world war for.  It is interesting that Lord True seems to view the House of Lords as a place of fun, friendliness and jollity.  It reminds me of when Dennis Skinner said that what he couldn't get over about speaking in the Commons was the level of hatred in the eyes of other people or something ... the expression of anger and conflicting views in a safe environment is what Parliamentary Democracy should be all about?

Lord True of course knows that the continuation of hereditary peers is doomed and indefensible so he tries for the usual other strategy that has worked for the previous 25 years.  Delay.  "The noble Baroness says that there is unfinished business: there are some hereditary Peers still here and, despite what was agreed by Parliament in 1999, we must root them out. But I ask noble Lords: will driving out those hard-working Members improve our House? I do not think so. As I said in our recent debate, there is an easy way—a proven House of Lords way—to square the circle and to end for ever the arrival of hereditary Peers, yet keep our colleagues who serve us all well. It is what was done with the Irish peerage and the Law Lords: the House ended the inflow but kept its Members. That, effectively, as the noble Baroness said, was the proposition of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, but now we hear that the time for that is past. Why? "  If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done slowly.

Lord Strathclyde (Conservative hereditary peer who succeeded to the barony in 1985 at the age of 25, following the death of his grandfather Thomas Galbraith, 1st Baron Strathclyde) who is staring down the barrel of the redundancy gun is an even less happy bunny and spat out the following along, probably, with some teeth : "I know he [Lord Falconer appointed by Blair] will not agree, but this is a thoroughly nasty little Bill, rushed through the House of Commons and brought to us with little thought about the future. It breaks a fundamental and solemn agreement made in 1998 by the then Labour Lord Chancellor, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Irvine of Lairg, that the remaining hereditary Peers would leave only when the Labour Government had introduced their plan for a fully reformed House. It did not seem like a very big statement of intent in 1998. After all, as was said at the time, the Labour Party was about to come forward with a fully reformed plan. We have been waiting 25 years for that and the Labour Party has demonstrated no thought, no thinking and no progress whatever."  

For those from Generation Y and Generation Alpha who are too young to remember because they weren't born then when actually happened was late Earl of Onslow (daddy to the one whose house burnt down and can now only be seen in old episodes of Jeeves & Wooster) blackmailed the Blair government threatening to force them to use the Parliament Act 1911 and grind legislation to a halt unless some peers were saved from the chop the last time chopping them was attempted.  He openly said, "I'm happy to force a division on each and every clause of the Scotland Bill. Each division takes 20 minutes and there are more than 270 clauses." And so a fudge was agreed allowing some peers to remain brokered by the then Speaker of the House of Commons know as the Weatherill Amendment.... which allowed hereditary peers to cling on using a bizarre byelection process in which only the toffee nosed could participate...  

Lord Strathclyde (Conservative hereditary peer) : "Why are the Government bringing forward this measure now? Is it because it is in the manifesto?"  

Yes, that's democracy, mate. 

Lord Strathclyde (Conservative hereditary peer) : "I do not think that is really good enough. It does not stop it going through but there needs to be a more serious justification for why this Bill is being brought forward. What is worse, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, explained a moment ago, this creates a wholly appointed House where—and this is what he did not say—the appointments are almost entirely in the hands of the Prime Minister. The noble and learned Lord suggested that the by-elections were still continuing but, of course, they were suspended in July. There is therefore no hereditary Peer in this House, because there is nobody able to pass on their place to sit and vote in the House of Lords on to their heirs."  

Of course the house is fully appointed - the only difference between hereditary peers and life peers is whether they were appointed by the living or the dead.  

Lord Strathclyde (Conservative hereditary peer) : "This is not a reform."  

Yes, it is.  

Lord Strathclyde (Conservative hereditary peer) : "It tells us nothing about the Government’s thinking. We will wait many years before a future Bill is published. Also, the Bill offers no continuity. Rumours abound of life peerages being offered to those due to be purged—if they behave. If the Government are planning life peerages, why do they not tell us who is going to receive one or how many life Peers are going to be created, and then those affected can make plans for the future? Is it really conceivable that the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, who has been picked by the Cross Benches to be their convenor, is to be expelled in the purge? If he has not been offered a life peerage yet, why not? Why are these matters secret? The Government must have a view. They must have discussed these issues."  Actually a good question - have carrots been offered?  He then raises the question of who is hereditary. "Peers in the House sometimes who have no idea who is a life Peer or who is a hereditary Peer; it is quite an issue. I have lost count of the number of Peers who have said to me, “Ah, well, you’ll be all right, you’re a life Peer after all”. Do many Peers know if the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, is a life Peer or a hereditary Peer, with his distinguished record as a Minister in the House of Commons, or the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, who is an expert on Africa and business? Is the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, a life Peer or a hereditary Peer? Perhaps we ought to have a list."  Well, we know you're a hereditary, mate..."

Lord Wallace of Tankerness (Liberal Democrat Life Peer appointed by Mr Blair) bravely suggested in response that perhaps the timeline had been stretched out a bit : "The Bill falls short because it fails to meet the bigger challenge of a more fundamental reform of the House. Removing all the remaining hereditary Peers at least helps us move into the 20th century. As my noble friends Lord Newby and Lord Rennard noted in a debate on Lords reform on 12 November, the preamble to the Liberal Government’s Parliament Act 1911 read: “And whereas it is intended to substitute for the House of Lords as it at present exists a Second Chamber constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis, but such substitution cannot immediately be brought into operation”.  That was 113 years ago: I think we have waited long enough."

Baroness Goldie (Conservative Life Peer appointed by Lord Cameron) gave us the following stats on how deeply the hereditary peers have embedded themselves in the apparatus of Parliament: "Of the 88 hereditary Peers, this is what I discovered. There may be minor errors...  

Six are Deputy Speakers, one of whom is the Convenor of the Cross Benches. 

An additional three discharge advisory panel duties for the Lord Speaker. 

Eleven are opposition Front-Bench spokespersons. 

Thirty-six serve on committees, of whom 20 serve on a single committee, 12 serve on two committees, 

two serve on three committees, 

one serves on five committees 

and, deserving of an award for valour, one serves on six committees. 

These 56 regularly contribute to the proceedings of the House. 

As for the remaining 32 not holding roles, I am here every week and my impression is that a considerable number of them also contribute.

 That is all part of scrutiny, so the question is: will removing the hereditary Peers impact on the efficacy of this House?"  

A question to which John Rentoul might say the answer is No ... but it shows how important and wise these parasites think they are ... They all work very hard and so that automatically means their wisdom will make up for their total lack of democratic legitimacy.

Lord Grocott (Labour Life Peer appointed by Blair) gave a little history on how hard this really very minor reform had been fought for in the past: "My Lords, I think I can be forgiven for reflecting that, in five Sessions of Parliament over a period of eight years, I introduced successive Bills to deal with the outstanding problem of the remaining hereditary Peers. Each time, my Bill was filibustered by half a dozen Peers, some of whom are speaking today, and blocked by successive Conservative Governments. No one so far has explained why they thought that was a good idea. I shall concentrate my remarks on the principal arguments used against this Bill so far and in previous debates. First, we have been told or reminded already that we cannot legislate to remove the hereditaries because of a deal reached by Conservative and Labour leaders in the Lords a quarter of a century ago. The deal, it is said, guaranteed that 92 hereditaries should remain until some unspecified date in the future. Anyone who uses this argument clearly does not understand the most fundamental principle of the British constitution, namely that no Parliament can bind its successor. It would be ludicrous if it were otherwise. Are the defenders of the 1999 deal really saying that today’s Parliament can legislate on war and peace, can join the EU or leave it and nationalise the railways or privatise them, but the one thing it must never do under any circumstances whatever is to remove the right of hereditary Peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords?  There is a far more damning indictment of the 1999 deal. We now know from no less a source than Lord Cranborne, the Conservative Leader in the Lords at the time, that the Labour Government were forced into retaining the 92 hereditaries because their whole legislative programme was under threat. Viscount Cranborne himself said:   

“My whole tactic was 

to make their flesh creep 

… I threatened them with 

the Somme and Passchendaele”.

Viscount Cranborne said he would call off the threat, but only if at least 92 hereditaries were retained. I happened to be working at No. 10 at the time and we did indeed believe that, if we did not concede on the hereditaries, we would be unable to get our manifesto commitments through the Lords, with its huge, huge Tory majority. It was the most flagrant breach by the Tory Opposition of the fundamental convention of this House: namely, that the Lords respects manifesto commitments. It was not a deal; it was blackmail."

Lord Birt (Crossbench Peer and former BBC potentate appointed by Mr Blair) pointed out the obvious failure of the bill to remove the Lords Temporal : "..this Bill should be amended to remove another feudal overhang: namely, the right of Church of England Bishops to have a guaranteed place in this House. In the last census, 56 million people answered the question about their religion; 40% said that they had no religion at all; fewer than half declared themselves to be Christian. In other surveys, of those who do declare as Christian, more are Catholic than Anglican; and more people say that they do not believe in a God than do."  

The Cameron government did float the idea of having Lords Temporal from other religious groups than the Church of England but that idea went for a burton when someone pointed out RCC priests aren't allowed to take political office because it's against Canon Law 285.3 in case it all goes Cardinal Richelieu again for "My Kingdom is not of this world" - (John 18:36)

Lord Mancroft (Conservative hereditary peer who succeeded to his father's titles and became the 3rd Baron Mancroft in 1997) bemoaned accused the Labour Government of cherry picking from its manifesto "It is difficult to see how removing a small number of the most experienced and hard-working Members will improve this House—and that assumes that the objective of reform is indeed to improve the House. I think it is probably simpler than that. The Bill is just the first step in gerrymandering the membership to ensure that the Government have a majority. Labour is simply putting its party interests before those of the country.  The Government pray in aid their manifesto, but the removal of former hereditary Peers is a cherry-picking commitment. The primary commitment is to reduce the size of the House, and that can be achieved in a meaningful way only if the Government introduce an age limit. Unfortunately, this needs the turkeys to vote for Christmas. Having spoken to quite a lot of turkeys on all sides of the House, it is clear to me that this is not going to happen. That is why the Government have shelved their commitment to enact an age limit of 80 in favour of “further consultation”. They can consult as much as they like, but the over-80s are not going to vote for it."  

The Labour manifesto read "The next Labour government will therefore bring about an immediate modernisation, by introducing legislation to remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in  the House of Lords. Labour will also introduce a mandatory retirement age. At the end of the Parliament in which a member reaches 80 years of age, they will be required to retire from the House of Lords."  

But cherry picking is the logical fallacy of incomplete evidence, not the prioritisation of commitments.  This is actually a modal the fallacy of necessity:

1) Labour promised in its manifesto to abolish hereditary peers and introduce a retirement age

2) Labour brought in legislation to abolish hereditary peers

3) Abolishing hereditary peers on its own is not a manifesto commitment

As to gerrymandering.... since the entire house is appointed it is arguably completely gerrymandered anyway as it is entirely appointed by Prime Ministers ...a constituency of 1 ...or dead potentates.  Really, the second chamber should be fully elected or nothing... Interestingly Lord Mancroft also points out the other elephant in the chamber.  Removing hereditary peers leaves the hereditary head of states further and further out on a limb ....

Lord Mancroft (Conservative hereditary peer who succeeded to his father's titles and became the 3rd Baron Mancroft in 1997) : "The Bill also undermines the Crown in Parliament, in a sop to Labour’s republicans, by expelling the members of the Royal Household—the Earl Marshal and the Lord Great Chamberlain. The Lord Great Chamberlain will remain in charge of the most important parts of this building while not even having a Member’s pass."  

They Royal's used to be atop a pyramid above the aristocracy.  With the aristocracy gone what will keep them at the top?

I'll give the final words to ...

Lord Brady of Altrincham (former chairmen of the 1922 committee giving his maiden speech after standing down at the last election only to pop up again in the Lords as such is the game of electoral whac-a-mole we play in this country whereby after we boot a government out the Commons at the ballot box its ex-members pop back in the revolving doors of the Lords - see Lord Barwell) : "As others have noted, the excepted hereditary Peers who sit here add greatly to the effectiveness of the House and contribute more than many who are appointed to sit here. It seems likely that this measure will reduce the efficacy of the House as a revising Chamber rather than improving it, while narrowing the expertise, experience and independence available to the House. Certainly, whatever this Bill may be, it does not constitute an enhancement of democracy. For those who think that the exercise of patronage is one of the things that diminishes the elected House, the move to an entirely appointed second Chamber can make that only worse."

Tragic...