Friday, 16 October 2026

The “Climate and Nature Emergency” Hydra

Image credit: climateemergencycentre.org.uk

I thought I had completed my series of essays on the current UK political situation, and was ready to move on to my diagnosis phase. But I have been interrupted by the following.

Back in June, I attended a screening of the “People’s Emergency Briefing” climate-and-nature-crisis propaganda film. My report is here: [[1]]. I will make it plain, at the outset, that I do not believe there is, in the real world, any “climate crisis” or “nature crisis.” And certainly not one provably caused by human activities. I have even gone so far as to document in some detail why there is no climate crisis: [[2]].

The drums continue

The immediate target of those organizing the film showing was: “a prime-time televised emergency briefing to the nation.” And the drum-beat has continued. It surfaced again in a Guardian article last week, linked from the source at which I found the story: [[3]].

The author there makes it clear that the film is not available on the Internet. The reason given is that it is “designed to be watched together with a facilitated discussion afterwards.” This is the same technique they used at the screening I went to. Discussion was tightly controlled. Those behind the propaganda want to keep control over where and how people see the film, and do not want anyone to be able to ask any potentially awkward questions in public.

This is a clear case of intellectual cowardice. Any group that seeks to control people in such a way is obviously up to no good. Moreover, they want senior government figures to help them by raising an atmosphere of fear, uncertainty and despair in which they can peddle their noxious propaganda.

Local action

I am still on the local organizers’ list of those who attended the showing. And last Tuesday, I received an e-mail inviting me to a meeting next week, the second in a series of follow-ups to the screening. (I don’t plan to go). That was what prompted me to write this missive, and to do some googling to find the facts to support it.

The meeting’s purpose is to “pick up on the themes we discussed at the previous meeting, consider any others and in particular look at actions we can take.” The e-mail also says: “There are quite a few climate and nature initiatives in the area that people may not be aware of, so we’ll make sure you know about these as well.”

About the 2026 UK harvest

To a specific example of a “climate and nature emergency” message, that we have been bombarded with this year. The meme that, because of the dry weather, the crop harvest was going to be dreadful.

ECIU’s pronouncements

I give you this, from the “Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit.” [[4]]. Titled “UK harvest even worse than previously thought – new data” and published in the middle of August, this suggested, among much else, that “food production is on the front line of climate change.” And it is “increasingly likely that four of the five worst harvests on record will have occurred this decade (2020, 2024, 2025 and 2026).”

There is an updated report from last week, here: [[5]]. It claims: “2026 is now the worst harvest on record, pushing 2020 into second place.” (Worse than 1315, or 1816? Or just about any harvest before the 1930s? [[6]])

The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit [[7]], by the way, is a non-profit organisation that “supports informed debate on energy and climate change issues in the UK.” To gauge this organization, you need only click on the links at the bottom of the page to the “philanthropic foundations and donors” that fund it. The European Climate Foundation, for example, “Empowering people across society to create a net-zero world.” Or the Quadrature Climate Foundation, “Building resilience where crises intersect,” whose motto is “Secure today. Transform tomorrow.” Clearly, this is part of a network of alarmist political organizations.

The government’s statistics

Now, let’s look at the facts about the harvest, from government statisticians: [[8]]. The report is professional, and neutral in tone. A rare example of honesty from government! Reading it, you would not believe that they and ECIU are talking about the same harvest. But they are.

The picture is complicated by the fact that farmers are not fools, so they tend to plant more of the crops they expect will bring them the most revenue. That explains why, for example, planted acreages of oats and barley are well down this year compared with last. While oilseed rape is well up (by 36%!), and wheat is about the same.

The key graph in the government report is Figure 2, showing the yields per hectare of each of the crops since 2004. After all, bad (or good) weather for growing can only affect the yield per hectare, regardless of the area planted! The graph shows good harvests in 2015, 2019 and 2022 for all four crops. And bad ones in 2007, 2012 or 2013 (except barley), 2018 (except oilseed rape), 2020, and – depending on the crop – one of the last three years.

Of the four crops, oats and to a lesser extent barley perform poorly in extended warm, dry conditions. While oilseed rape does much better, and wheat is somewhere in the middle. Bearing this in mind, I don’t see anything in the data to suggest that 2026 has been the worst harvest since 2004 for any of the crops except oats. Indeed, for oilseed rape it has been one of the best in all that period, and for wheat it has at least beaten 2025.

My verdict

ECIU have judged the harvests on total crop volume, not on yields per hectare of individual crops. They also did not take into account the increase in acreage for oilseed rape, a lower-tonnage but more lucrative crop than the others. (I told you farmers are not fools!)

I wonder why they decided to pick that measure, rather than the far more logical approach of using yields? Did they, perhaps, do it deliberately, to allow them to interpret the data as pessimistically as they possibly could?

The local movement

The e-mail also prompted me to look a bit further into those peddling the “climate and nature emergency” meme in my local area.

The local leader

The Chair of Trustees of the local movement is Rieks Drijver, a Dutch national. He has been a His (or Her?) Majesty’s Inspector at Ofsted. A senior civil servant at the quango, whose self-stated remit is: “We inspect services providing education and skills for learners of all ages. We also inspect and regulate services that care for children and young people.”

Mr Drijver has “previous” on environmental issues. In 2023, he protested with Extinction Rebellion against expansion of Farnborough airport: [[9]]. I do not know if he was still a civil servant at the time, but if so, this would very likely have contravened the Civil Service Code.

Be that as it may, back in 2021, Mr Drijver’s was among the published pen portraits of senior Ofsted inspectors. Today, he is no longer in that list.

Extinction Rebellion

Back in 2019, Extinction Rebellion was quite a force in UK politics. They even had an official meeting with Michael Gove, then secretary of state for the environment: [[10]]. But today, even on their home turf, species extinctions, they are looking oh-so-twentieth-century.

As evidence, in an earlier essay on the corruption of science [[11]], I referred to the UN IPBES panel’s 2019 report, which claimed that humans were threatening millions of species with extinction. But a 2025 paper from the Royal Society [[12]] shows that in 200+ years, there have never been more than about 50 extinctions in any decade – from all causes. And the numbers of extinctions are not accelerating.

It should not, therefore, surprise anyone that I, and others like me, do not believe that there is any real “nature crisis” at all, and totally oppose all political agendas that claim the existence of such a thing.

What Next?

Mr Drijver also has a website, “What Next?” [[13]]. The organization brands itself as “Climate Emergency Centres for Waverley.” (Waverley being the local borough). It is, apparently, a registered charity. Its purpose, according to Mr Drijver, is “to raise public awareness and provide opportunities for public engagement in issues relating to the climate and ecological emergency through a diverse range of events, activities and projects.” Its Chair of Trustees was a Green Party candidate in Godalming North in the 2026 West Surrey elections.

They hold local Climate Action Workshops, a Climate Club, an Eco-Theatre Group, a “Library of Things” (in conjunction with three local councils), a Planetarian Food Project, and a Repair Café. The site also has a “News and Information” section. This offers links to official reports from cohorts of the alarmist movement. Such as the IPCC, the UK government and its Climate Change Committee (CCC), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and the World Economic Forum (WEF).

The green religion

I will repeat something I wrote in my report on the film screening. “I felt like an atheist who had strayed into a church service. In the kind of church that does not allow anyone to criticize any of its dogmas, however false or silly they might be.”

This is what rational thinkers like myself, along with increasing numbers of people who are starting to wake up to the scale of the frauds being committed against us all, are facing up to. The green religion is a highly intolerant one; and its tenets are based on nothing but lies, dishonest propaganda, hype and scares.

The high priests of this religion include every UK prime minister since Margaret Thatcher (inclusive), except Liz Truss. Along with the UN, the EU, the WEF, all the globalists and internationalists, and pretty much all the UK government, mainstream political, academic, corporate and media establishment. They want to destroy the Western civilization which we have built over centuries. They want to impoverish us all. And they want to force everyone to obey their every diktat, however nonsensical or destructive.

The Climate Emergency Centre

Mr Drijver’s local group is just one among many “climate emergency centres.” They are collected together under the umbrella of this organization: [[14]]. It describes its mission as follows. “CEC Teams approach local councils who have declared a climate emergency (over 300 in the UK) or private property developers to begin negotiations over a meanwhile lease to set up a thriving eco-community hub in their town or city.”

Now, an “eco-community hub” sounds fluffy and non-threatening. Why should I mind if people want to get together and practice their eco-religion, as long as they don’t try to force me to follow their lead? But what I deeply resent is that, because of what these people are doing, I am subjected against my will to policies like “nett zero” and ever-tightening “targets and limits,” that emanate from the UN and its “sustainable development goals.” And I have never had any chance to say “no” to this crap.

I know enough about the back-story to this whole agenda to have no doubt at all that the accusation that human civilization is damaging the planet is without any proven foundation. And is, therefore, both fraudulent, and a violation of our right to the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.

How any local council could be allowed to declare a (non-existent) “climate emergency” without any reference to the people they were supposed to be serving, is a moot question. I suspect they were put under pressure by Boris Johnson’s Tory government, beginning in May 2019 with parliament declaring a “climate emergency” without even taking a vote, and tightened in the run-up to the Environment Act 2021. That would explain, for example, why Surrey County Council made in 2021 a Local Transport Plan that was so viciously anti-car.

Climate Emergency

Climate Emergency is an organization (linked from the Climate Emergency Centre site), that applies pressure to local councils through climate “action scorecards” and things like “education to accelerate climate action.” [[15]]. This looks to be a nerve centre of the army of crusaders, that are pushing the “climate emergency” foofaraw at the local government level.

Space Generators

The copyright in the Climate Emergency Centre website is held by a UK charity (another one!) called “Space Generators.” This name also appears, on the same page, as a “climate group seeking space” in Camden, London. It seems a bit odd that “Space Generators” can’t find a space in which to create its own hub. But I digress.

Their website [[16]] gives among their aims: “Providing space for the critically needed infrastructure for a sustainable future.” And “The Establishment of vacant property as inspirational community hubs for the benefit of people and Planet.”

A hydra in the swamp

What I have uncovered here is many disparate local organizations, that seem to be all working together towards a common agenda. Like the Lernaean hydra of Greek mythology, the monster has many heads, but they are all part of the same swamp-dwelling beast.

Some of these heads are disguised as charities. Some of them seem to have an extraordinary level of influence over local governments; a level of influence that is totally unacceptable in a democracy. But they all seem to be, at root, lobbying organizations for a destructive, extreme green political agenda. An agenda that is being pushed by the UN, EU, and many different groups of vested interests, including not only the Greens, but also all the political parties that have had power in the last half century. An agenda that has already made the UK a far less free place to live, and the people in the UK far poorer than we deserve to be.

Yet this agenda is based on nothing beyond some vague notion of a “climate and nature emergency.” Which, on objective examination, turns out to be a chimera of lies, propaganda, hype and scares. Otherwise put, a fraud.

To use a phrase favoured by our enemies, this situation is not sustainable. I now see the “climate and nature emergency” narrative as like a dam, held together by nothing more than a pack of lies and the gullibility of those who have not yet woken up to those lies. Who are becoming fewer by the day.

And what will happen, when the dam finally bursts?

It will be time to drain the swamp.

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Saturday, 3 October 2026

The Politically Rich versus the Politically Poor

Image credit: Mohamed_hassan from Pixabay

I have spent the last year and more writing two strands of essays. Essays that, to some, may seem rather long, complex and academic. Yet throughout, I have tried my utmost to compress and, if you will, “mince” them into digestible chunks.

One of my strands has been about political theory. I have outlined the ideas of some thinkers of the past; and three in particular. John Locke, one of the good guys. Jean Bodin, who made himself into a really bad guy. And Franz Oppenheimer, another good guy. Further, I have set out, as briefly and clearly as I can, my views on history, ethics, political philosophy and the psychology of those that seek power. And I have given you a broad outline for a new and better system, to replace today’s failed systems of “politics” and “government.”

The other strand has been about what has been happening in politics in recent decades. Particularly in the UK; but I have also cited examples from elsewhere. I gave you, around three months ago, a 4,500-word summary of what is being done to us: [[1]]. And two weeks ago, I reviewed a book by Bernie Spofforth, which tells a lot about the back-story: [[2]].

Today, I begin a new phase of my endeavours. This is the moment, at which I start to use ideas and evidence from the two strands together, in order to start on the path to understanding the roots of what is going on.

What is going on?

The political system we live under has been deteriorating for decades. At least since the 1980s, for those of us who can remember that far back.

Today, we are bombarded by many different kinds of political artillery. We suffer the crazy, fraudulent nett zero and anti-car agendas. Every few weeks or even days, we see yet more proposed violations of our rights and freedoms, such as restrictions on our Internet and social media access, supposedly to “protect children.” We have local government “devolution” that actually centralizes power. We see immigration being allowed, obviously deliberately, to grow out of control. And we have “two-tier policing,” where individuals acting similarly are treated differently.

At one level, what is happening is pretty obvious. Those in government power today are destroying our economy, taxing us out of existence, and impoverishing us all. They are seeking to destroy the rule of law, our individuality and independence, and our rights and freedoms. They are seeking to overwhelm people’s minds with their false narratives. And those who speak out, or even try to speak out, against their predations and injustices are always in danger of being smeared, silenced or suppressed.

They aim to treat us, not as the human beings we are, but as objects to be exploited, or mere numbers in a database. They are seeking to mix into the population large numbers of immigrants, many of whom are not compatible with the indigenous culture. Thus, they are seeking to dilute, and eventually to destroy, the British culture – the very culture that gave humanity the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution.

Meanwhile, their cronies and fellow-travellers – a global clique of self-satisfied élites – greedily rake in our money, while helping along the trashing of our rights and freedoms. These cronies include politicians (global, national and local, and of all mainstream parties), government officials, bureaucrats, quangocrats, jobsworths, advisors, influencers, technocrats, academics and “experts,” mainstream media, bankers, financiers, plutocrats, corporate and big-business leaders, and activists for political agendas. It is unsurprising that Reform leader Nigel Farage presents the situation as “the establishment versus the people.”

How are they doing it?

How our enemies are doing all this, too, is not hard to understand. They are implementing policies that they have agreed, without reference to the people they are supposed to serve, with unelected, unaccountable, external parties. In particular, policies rooted in or derived from the “Sustainable Development Goals” of the United Nations. Many of these have been brought in without any public debate, and with minimal or no parliamentary scrutiny.

Even when an MP or two has woken up and started making waves (think Andrew Bridgen on vaccine harms, or Andrea Jenkyns on nett zero), the imposition of the policies blasts ahead without any consideration for the people who will be affected by them. And even when a “consultation” does get offered, the whole exercise is a sham. All responses that go against the establishment agenda are completely ignored.

So, they tax us and use our money to violate our rights, and make us poorer and less free. Nett zero, “biodiversity nett gain,” compulsory COVID vaccinations (while hiding the resulting deaths and injuries), anti-car policies, “devolution” in local government that in reality centralizes power, facial recognition cameras, digital ID, and more. And they love to set arbitrary, collective “targets” and “limits” on what we may do, and to move the goalposts again and again, always in the direction of tightening the noose on us.

By the way, if anyone thinks compulsory digital ID is off the table, look at culture secretary Lisa Nandy’s plans to ban social media for children under 16: [[3]]. By next March! In her own words: “This is a staging post to what must be a very active interventionist state, policing and regulating the online space so that people are safe.” Leaving aside the nastiness of her plans, how can anything that requires on-line age checks be done without a compulsory digital ID?

Our enemies also seek to change the way government operates, always in directions that entrench establishment power. Like taking away juries, and changing voting protocols (such as age limits) to the advantage of the legacy, establishment parties.

They are doing all this at a rate of many new bad laws and negative changes each year. And if these projects, bad for us, bring rich pickings for them and their cronies, they are more than happy with that.

Why are they doing it? And why now?

Just why they are doing these things to us, though – and why at this particular period of history – is far less obvious. That is the question, which I will start to explore today.

The Westphalian state

In the second essay of my theory strand, “The Westphalian state” [[4]], I gave a summary of the political system devised in the 1570s by French monarchist Jean Bodin. It may seem hard to believe, but that set of ideas is still, even today, the design underlying the political system under which we are forced to live.

Sovereignty and subjection

The political set-up, which has become known as the “Westphalian” state, consists of a “sovereign” and “subjects.” They are not equal. The sovereign has “sovereignty” over the subjects, which is reflected in many different ways.

The sovereign has moral privileges. It can make laws to bind the subjects, and give privileges to those it chooses to. It can make war and peace. It appoints the top officials of the state. It is the final court of appeal. It can pardon guilty individuals if it so wishes. It can issue a currency. And it can levy taxes and impositions, and exempt at will certain individuals or groups from payment.

Furthermore, the sovereign isn’t bound by the laws it makes. And it isn’t responsible for the consequences to anyone of what it does – also known as “sovereign immunity,” or “the king can do no wrong.” This immunity is an egregious privilege, because it allows the sovereign, and those acting on its behalf, to operate without any accountability at all.

At the end of that essay, I looked at the meme: “the state is out of date.” And I was in no doubt that this meme is a truth. Moreover, looking at government debt, I concluded that: “As well as being morally bankrupt, the state is all but financially bankrupt.”

Monarchy and élitism

In Bodin’s set-up, the sovereign was an individual, a monarch. But monarchs liked to attach to themselves a cadre of favourites: advisors, supporters, henchmen or a mix of all three. The monarch could dismiss his favourites if he pleased. But if the favourites remained loyal to the monarch, they could usually expect continued favours in return.

Thus, the privileges of sovereignty were in effect extended from the monarch to an élite group around him. The monarch could shower his favourites with privileges, at the expense of everyone else. This led to a governmental system with a small group of courtiers as an élite or ruling class, in between the monarch and the ordinary people.

Divine law and absolutism

Bodin, in common with most Christians of his era, believed that the authority of a monarch came from the Christian deity. And thus, monarchs had a “divine right” to rule. As a quid pro quo, the monarch was expected to obey a “divine law,” set by this deity. This included keeping to any agreement he chose to make with his subjects.

But this same divine law required a subject to obey unquestioningly the ruler that had been set over him. Therefore, it could not protect the subjects against bad treatment by the monarch. Indeed, Bodin said: “The subject is never justified in any circumstances in attempting anything against his sovereign prince, however evil and tyrannical he may be.” In practice, therefore, a monarch could feel that anything he did to his subjects was OK, no matter how much hurt it caused them.

This led to what is called “absolutism.” The first English monarch to take the throne after Bodin’s ideas took root was James I. James certainly believed that he had an absolute, divine right to rule over his subjects. But he was also a half decent man. He did not exploit the people with heavy taxation, and he always sought peace rather than making wars.

His son, Charles I, shared James’s absolutism. But he was far more Machiavellian in character. He sought to impose taxes on the people, without the consent even of the élite group that now formed the parliament. He tried to impose his own religious views, and had dissenters’ ears cut off.  He made promises, that he then reneged on. He accepted the parliament’s “Petition of Right,” but then carried on violating it regardless, even to the point of imposing martial law on the people. And he arbitrarily expanded the area of the royal forests, then threw out the people who lived in them.

Charlie got the chopper he so richly deserved. But once the dust had settled, not much had changed, except that the parliament had far more power, and the monarch less. The members of parliament were merely the new group of élite courtiers.

Enrichment, control and persecution

For millennia, states have done three main things to the people they rule over. One, enrich themselves and their cronies at the expense of ordinary people. Two, seek to control people, and make them do other than what they want to. And three, persecute those they don’t like.

Enriching vested interests

We see many instances in history, where vested interests have sought to use the state to enrich themselves or entrench their own privileges.

In 1815, for example, a group of “mercantilists” sought economic policies that would build up the power of the state, and strengthen the recently created “United Kingdom” relative to foreign powers. Their interests overlapped with a class of large landowners (including many members of parliament), who wanted to maximize the income they received from their estates. Together, they made the tariffs and trade restrictions called the “Corn Laws,” which for more than three decades made food in the UK far more expensive than it need have been. Causing food shortages and riots, and contributing in 1845 to triggering the Irish famine.

Controlling the people

Often, vested interests have used state power to maximize their control over the people. For example, by restricting personal mobility (think ULEZ), or by denying basic rights like the presumption of innocence or freedom of speech (think the “climate change” scam and the BBC’s treatment of skeptics). Or by forcing people to do things they do not want to (think compulsory COVID jabs). Or by harassing or ordering around people who have done no real harm to anyone (think two-tier policing).

Persecutions

But the damage inflicted by states and their favourites extends to persecutions too.

Religious persecutions have been perhaps the longest-standing of all. In England, Catholic monarchs persecuted Protestants, and Protestant monarchs and parliaments did tit for tat. Meanwhile, on the continent, church and state combined to persecute religious “crimethink.” The Inquisitions found innocent people guilty, then delegated their murder to the local magnate. Let’s not even think about the Thirty Years’ War, which killed between a fifth and a third of all the people in Germany.

Moreover, persecutions have often been carried out by those who want to scapegoat the kinds of people they hate. Such as the long history of persecuting Jews. Or discrimination on grounds of race, or against people who want to be independent (think one-man businesses and car drivers). Or the labelling as “misinformation” of truths inconvenient to the élites, and criminalization of the truth-tellers.

But the worst persecutions occur when those unhappy at how the state is treating them seek to create change in the system. Think, for example, of the persecutions of the early working people’s movement, which culminated in the Peterloo Massacre.

The Rhythms of History

To the fourth essay in my theory strand, “The Rhythms of History.” [[5]]. There, I set out my view of history in the large.

I see human history as a series of forward moving revolutions, punctuated by times of stagnation or back-sliding. These regressive periods result from counter-revolutions, that are launched by those that want to hold us back. Since the Neanderthal extinction of 40,000 years ago, I see five of these pairs of revolutions and counter-revolutions.

Humanity versus the state

Our first, the Neolithic revolution, was a practical one. We settled down in communities, and started to cultivate crops and domesticate animals. We discovered what it is to be human.

This was later countered by the rise of the political state, enabling a powerful élite to take control over everyone else. The paradigm of the first revolution was Humanity, and the counter-paradigm was the state.

As soon as states were in place, the population became divided into two classes. The politically rich – the establishment or élites – that control and seek to control others. And the politically poor, the rest of us. The politically rich desired, and still desire, to control and (in John Locke’s words) “impoverish, harass or subdue” the politically poor. And whenever they felt the need, they sought to tighten the level of control.

Reason versus the church

Our second revolution was a mental one, enabling us to start to think rationally and abstractly. It began in ancient Greece, and held sway into Roman times. Its paradigm was Reason. It brought new and better ways of organizing civilizations, like Athenian democracy.

But it was countered by the rise of institutional religion, and the church its counter-paradigm. This supported the rise of a priestly élite, that wanted mental control over the ordinary people. State and church worked together to control the people. And the priestly class joined the politically rich, eventually producing the infamous “alliance of squire and parson.”

The Renaissance versus Bodin’s state

Our third revolution was the Renaissance. It was a spiritual revolution, and its paradigm was Discovery. It gave us new moral perspectives, and a feeling of cultural renewal.

Against this, thinkers like Machiavelli and Bodin laid a new groundwork for the state, so it not only demanded obedience from the people, but was also cruel, oppressive, heartless, sly, deceitful and unscrupulous. Orthodoxy, Tyranny, and Dishonesty were its counter-paradigms.

The Enlightenment versus political ideology

Our fourth revolution was another mental revolution: the Enlightenment. Its paradigm was Freedom. And the values that it brought, like individual liberty, and government with the consent of and for the benefit of the people, are supposedly among the foundations of the “democracy” that the current political system claims to respect.

But this was increasingly opposed by a slew of political ideologies, ranging from socialism to nationalism to communism to fascism to social or religious conservatism, whose common counter-paradigm was Collectivism.

The Industrial Revolution versus what we face today

Our fifth revolution was the Industrial Revolution, another practical one. Its paradigm was, and still is, the Creativity that is natural to human beings. It allowed us to flourish in an environment of the free market and honest business, wherever and whenever we had them.

As to the fifth counter-revolution, I will quote my earlier essay directly. “It began during the second world war, with the events that led to the formation of the current international order. Its counter-paradigm is Suppression. Suppression of truth, suppression of rights and freedoms, suppression of prosperity, suppression of our humanity and our creativity. Suppression of us human beings.” Its main thrust today is “a push to suppress our industrial civilization, to shut down the economic free market, and to use taxation, regulation and extortion to squeeze us ordinary human beings out of existence.”

What the last 80 years have brought us

Our enemies’ fifth counter-revolution has brought the UN, its agencies and satellites, grasping big business, the World Economic Forum (WEF), and much else. It has brought out-of-control migration, the perversion of precaution into a tool for tyranny, corruption in science, and governments that don’t care a damn about the interests of the people they are supposed to serve. It has brought contempt for democracy, ever increasing taxation and state control, green and anti-car policies, increasing violations of human rights and freedoms, and lack of respect for us human beings.

Moreover, it has brought us a whole fleet of metaphorical mega-dinghies full of cronies and fellow-travellers, hanging on with all their might to the coat-tails of the political élites. I’ll repeat the list from earlier: politicians (global, national and local, and of all mainstream parties), government officials, bureaucrats, quangocrats, jobsworths, advisors, influencers, technocrats, academics and “experts,” mainstream media, bankers, financiers, plutocrats, corporate and big-business leaders, and activists for political agendas.

Like the priestly class in earlier history, these assorted cronies have allied with the political élites, and by doing so have made themselves politically rich. And today, they are engaging in a rumbunctious feeding frenzy on us, the politically poor.

Oppenheimer’s Razor

I will move, briefly, to the third essay in my theory strand: “Oppenheimer’s Razor.” [[6]].

There, I quoted Franz Oppenheimer’s famous distinction between the “economic means” and the “political means” for the satisfaction of human needs. The economic means is “the equivalent exchange of one's own labor for the labor of others.” While the political means is “the unrequited appropriation of the labor of others.”

I also introduced what I call Oppenheimer’s Razor. This separates users of the political means from users of the economic means. It divides honest working and business people from those that like to use political power, directly or indirectly, to line their own nests and those of their favourites. In the terms I have been using here, it divides the politically poor from the politically rich.

In conclusion

I will return to Bernie Spofforth’s book, “A War to Win Back Your World,” which I referenced above. Her title clearly describes its subject matter as “a war.” She is absolutely right: we are at war. Yet she hardly ever uses the word “war” in the text of the book itself.

So, helpful as is my wont, I will give you, explicitly, a feel for what this war is all about. Beginning about 80 years ago, and intensifying more and more over the last 40 years or so, they, the politically rich, have been waging war against us, the politically poor. They have been using the state to wage war on the people. If you aren’t already 87 years old or more, you’ve been at war all your life. Even if you didn’t know it.

The scope of the war has widened, so that now most people are involved on one side or the other. I myself joined the ranks of the politically poor back in 2000, when Labour brought in a bad tax law called IR35. As a campaign manager for Reform UK, I guess I have now risen in those ranks to about the level of a colonel.

Our enemies include, but are not necessarily limited to, the list of cronies and fellow travellers I identified above. The war we’re in today is, in Franz Oppenheimer’s terms, between the users of the political means and the users of the economic means. The dividing line between us is what I call Oppenheimer’s Razor.

This is the biggest war in human history. Bigger than either “world war.” It affects, in one way or another, every human being on the planet. At present, we the politically poor appear to be losing this war. The reason is obvious: most of us haven’t even got our boots on yet!

But I’ve got my (metaphorical) boots on. So has Bernie Spofforth. So have quite a few other people, including the nearly 3 million of us who signed the petition against digital ID. And the truth is on our side.

It's time for you, like the truth, to get your boots on.

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Tuesday, 29 September 2026

My new favourite fairground ride

Ready for take off in the Superbowl

For decades, I have enjoyed an occasional fairground ride. But I’m quite selective about them. I don’t like dangly-feet rides; I want to feel comfortably anchored all the way. I enjoy fast, spinning rides, that press me back in my seat or bed. And, while I love being lifted into the air, I don’t enjoy looking down from a height.

For many years, my favourite ride has been the Meteorite (aka Cage). You stand inside an 11-metre diameter ring, with padding behind your back. The machine rotates fast, then one side lifts up to 65 to 75 degrees. It feels like you’re lying back in a bed and being flown all around the sky. I love the g-force; the fastest I have been in, Jonathan Mason’s Meteorite, pulls about 3.3g. Though it does make me feel a bit dizzy afterwards. But one thing I don’t enjoy about this ride is having to stand up, often for many minutes, while you wait for more riders.

For me, the most enjoyable part of any fast, lifting ride is the what I call the “take off ride.” When you’re going round and round at full speed, but haven’t yet left the ground. In a Meteorite, it can take anything up to a minute. I love the take off ride, because it is exhilarating, super comfortable, and not scary at all. (A Meteorite can be a bit scary when you’re up there, but only if the operator takes the ride too slowly).

For some time, I had been thinking about the Superbowl as a possible competitor to the Meteorite. This American football themed ride has 10 four-seater cars on a platform, each of which can swing back and forth independently. It’s bigger than the Meteorite – 15 metres diameter. When the ride takes off, the cars are pointed inwards; riders are back in their seats, looking at the football in the middle. The platform and the cars go round and round faster and faster, then one side of the platform lifts to about 45 degrees. As the platform rotates, the cars swing from side to side (and occasionally all the way round, when the ride is a bit slow).

I had watched the Superbowl many times at Oxford St Giles fair, but never summoned up the courage to take a seat. When it’s up, the ride looks higher than it actually is, and the motions can look rather boisterous, particularly when a car turns so far that it is facing over the edge.

This year in Oxford, I was watching the Superbowl, and noticed that the operator seemed to be giving some cycles a really fast take off. Everybody was right back in their seats, and it looked as if they were flying, even while still on the ground.

I thought, I want a piece of that! So, I took a seat, which was unusually comfy by fair ride standards. And the padding on the headrest was soft. So far, really good.

I loved the take off ride. Though it was a lot shorter than in the Meteorite’s; maybe 20 seconds until the lift. But the g-force back into the seat was substantial. Wow! I thought as I lay back and enjoyed the feeling of flying round and round. This is just as much fun as a Meteorite take off ride, albeit with less g-force. I’m in a seat, too. None of that standing-up palaver. This machine is worth the fare, just for the luxurious, seated take off!

Enjoying the take off ride in the Superbowl

Look at the two people in the car to the right of the plinth in the photo above. They’re flying! And really having fun. So are the two lads beyond them (the same ones as earlier). And the people in the car to the left of the plinth look a bit zonked; but I’m sure they’re happy, too.

After that, the ride was quite boisterous, and there were a few slightly scary moments. Most of the time, though, the swinging motions were pleasant, and being lifted up into the air again and again was beautiful. So, I enjoyed my ride. And I didn’t feel dizzy when I got off.

A boisterous moment in the Superbowl

One great thing about the Superbowl is that when you’re at the top and pointing downwards, there’s no feeling of height, because the football and its plinth are in the line of sight between you and the ground. So, the only potentially scary bits were when the car swung out far enough that I was looking over the side of the platform, or straight down when low.

I enjoyed my first ride enough to go back for a second. This time, the cycle was different. I didn’t get the exquisite take off, because it lifted off much earlier. On the other hand, there were far fewer scary moments. It felt as if the second ride, overall, was going faster than the first. Faster is comfier in this ride – just as in the Meteorite.

I contemplated (in the local Wetherspoon) whether the Superbowl could supplant the Meteorite as my favourite ride. Particularly since my Meteorite ride that day, while lots of fun, had left me dizzier than usual. So, I determined to go to Nottingham Goose Fair, where I had seen the Superbowl on previous visits. I wanted to ride it enough times to find out!

I looked at on-ride and off-ride videos, and worked out that the main difference between cycles is the speed the ride goes at. Most cycles rotate at around 4 seconds per revolution. But I have seen videos of the ride going as fast as 3.8 seconds per revolution, and as slow as 4.5, 5 and even 5.4 seconds. It’s up to the ride operator to determine whether the ride experience is fast and exhilarating, or slower and more boisterous or even scary.

So, I went to Nottingham (where I took these photos). In this machine, the seats were not as comfy as at Oxford. The headrest was harder, and the bolsters that hold you in the seat were much tighter. It was also, for someone of my advanced age, harder to get in and out of the ride in Nottingham than the one in Oxford. However, the staff were most helpful.

The Nottingham cycles, on the other hand, were something else altogether. They like to keep the ride fast! The operator was obviously an expert. Every time, she wound the machine from stationary up to full speed in between 20 and 35 seconds. Sometimes it took off earlier, sometimes later. But by the time the top edge of the platform cleared the top of the “Superbowl” sign, everybody was lying back in their seats and riding at real pace.

Riding fast in the Superbowl

The shortest cycle I watched was 2 minutes 30, the longest 4 minutes 50. The maximum speed, at which the ride went for most of the time, was one revolution in 3.9 seconds. This represents a riding speed of 27mph, and a back in the seat force of 2 gravities. A lovely feeling in itself. And the operator had a clever technique for spicing up the ride a bit, without making it too boisterous. Every so often, she would bring the speed down from its peak for a rotation or two, then speed it up again.

I took three rides, one each on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday. On the Friday, the ride was long, and when we were almost down, suddenly the operator gave us another few seconds of take off ride! (Regrettably, we didn’t go up again).

The Saturday ride was even better – a comfier seat, an amazing 30 second take off, a 4-minute cycle. I learned how to enjoy the ride to the best, by putting my butt all the way back in the seat, lying back into the headrest throughout the ride, and splaying out my legs so I wasn’t tempted to tense my calf muscles if the ride got a bit boisterous.

Coming in for landing in the Superbowl

But the Sunday ride was the best of the three. In fact, it was the best fairground experience in my entire life of 73 years.

I took my seat early, because I fancied a bit of a sit-down. The head honcho himself guided me to my seat, which was the comfiest in Nottingham so far. I had six or seven minutes of quality seat time, followed by a truly luxurious, super-fast take off ride. We were flying before we left the ground! This ride was fast, fast, fast all the way, and there were no scary moments at all. I just lay back in the comfort, and let the machine swing me back and forth then lift me into the sky, again and again.

It may seem silly to drive 180 miles each way to Nottingham, and stay three nights in a hotel, for about 12 minutes of riding round and round at 27mph, and three exhilarating take off rides. (And rides on a few other machines, including the fastest Waltzer of my life). But I enjoyed my week-end.

And yes, the Meteorite is now, for me, oh-so-twentieth-century.

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Tuesday, 22 September 2026

A possible structure for just governance

Image credit: Freepik

This essay is a follow-up to my essay of some months ago about “Just Governance.” [[1]].

Today, I will sketch out some ideas on a possible structure to support just governance. I am aware that to try to specify in detail how just governance will work is a bit Utopian. This section, therefore, puts forward a few off-the-wall ideas for how things might work. They are, necessarily, tentative. And none of them is, as yet, fully thought through.

Of course, any new system on this kind of scale will have to be prototyped first; and the good ideas taken forward, and the less good modified. So, the system may end up looking significantly different from my proposals.

I will only consider here the “finished product” of just governance, once there are no remaining unavoidable debts or obligations inherited from systems of the past. The full-scale migration from a world of states to a world of just governance is a story for another day.

Communities

Just governance will, by design, be de-centralized. It will be like a network, not a hierarchy. It will have no central point, at which political power can collect. And it will have no mechanisms to enable one interest group unjustly to override the interests of others.

 The communities, in which the governed live, will be small enough to produce diverse “flavours” of community for people of different tastes. I have in mind a town or small city, with a population range of a few thousands up to perhaps a hundred thousand. Like Aristotle’s ideal community, the units will be big enough to be economically sustainable in the free market, yet small enough that people can get to know each other fairly well. It’s interesting that today’s European micro-states and dependencies, like Gibraltar, San Marino, Liechtenstein, Monaco and Andorra, all have populations in a range of 30,000 to 80,000, the kind of size I have in mind.

Economically, different communities will tend to specialize in different things. So, there will be much trade, both between neighbouring communities and between those further apart.

The institutions of just governance, too, will be built from the bottom up. I envisage, first, local or neighbourhood organizations, on a scale of a few hundred people. And second, community organizations, on the scale of a town, small city, or suburb of a larger city. There will also be governance institutions, which can provide services on a wider basis than just a single community.

Free movement between communities and neighbourhoods within them will be the norm. Absent exceptional circumstances (such as an individual being barred due to past conduct, or an epidemic in progress), anyone lawfully able to reach a neighbourhood may visit it. Though it will be possible for individual neighbourhoods or communities to enforce rules on immigration if and when they wish, provided they promulgate these rules beforehand.

Neighbourhoods of Just Governance (NJGs)

I envisage that the NJG will be a voluntary society in a neighbourhood of a few hundred people, for those who take an interest in just governance locally. Its main functions will be to conserve the special characteristics of the local area, and to assess possible changes to it, including the suitability of potential incoming migrants. It will operate, in essence, by direct democracy. The nearest equivalent to one today would be an area residents’ association.

Once legacy states are gone, I envisage that incoming migration will be controlled at the neighbourhood level. I expect that, under normal circumstances, those wishing to reside permanently in a neighbourhood will be expected to present themselves at a meeting of the NJG, and seek approval from its members.

Change of residence, while requiring agreement from those in the receiving neighbourhood, will be easy enough that dis-satisfied convivial people can choose to move to places more congenial to them. Visitors, who behave convivially, will be free to go anywhere in the public space they wish. And temporary, periodic and permanent migration will be controlled only at the lowest, neighbourhood, level.

At need, neighbourhoods will be able to split or merge.

Communities of Just Governance (CJGs)

I envisage the CJG to govern a unit large enough to be economically viable in the free market. (This is not the same as being completely self-sufficient – that would require far more people).

I envisage that CJGs will probably be non-profit companies. I expect the remit of a CJG to be closer to that of a town council than anything else today.

I would expect the CJG to organize those functions of just governance which must be delivered at the local level. I expect the services to include: Police (except detectives), firemen, paramedics and other first responders. Maintaining a capability for military defence. Making and administering local (and, at need, emergency) rules as required. Providing premises and support staff for courts of just governance. Planning new infrastructure entirely within the community. (Such infrastructure would normally be paid for by user tolls, until its capital costs have been paid off). And maintaining pre-existing infrastructure in the public space, such as roads and footpaths.

In addition to regular discussions on CJG-level matters among representatives from the NJGs, I expect there would be annual meetings open to all community residents, something like a New England open town meeting.

These meetings would have the power to make decisions through a direct democratic process. CJGs will also be able to make decisions through referendums, where a meeting is not feasible.

At need, and with the agreement of the people they serve, communities will be able to split or merge.

Societies for Just Governance (SJGs)

The institution, which I expect to deliver those services of just governance that wider in scope than any particular CJG, I have dubbed the Society for Just Governance (SJG). An SJG will probably be a non-profit company. It will be the nearest equivalent in just governance to a government today.

At this scale, I expect the services to include: Judges and arbitrators. Detectives. Risk and cost-benefit assessors. Co-ordinators of inter-community infrastructure. Diplomats and negotiators. And quality auditors. The people who do these jobs will work, at different times, on behalf of different communities. Judges in particular, I expect, will travel from place to place, as they used to in the days of assizes. And quality auditors will most likely be senior individuals assigned from another branch of just governance (such as judges or assessors) to a particular community for a fixed term.

An SJG will be a project management and contracting organization. It will use externally sourced skills, such as detectives, judges and arbitrators, risk and cost-benefit assessors, diplomats and negotiators, and quality auditors, to do the work. It will compete with other SJGs in the free market.

In principle, any SJG will be able to deliver services within any CJG. However, I envisage that at any time, a CJG will probably have a preferred SJG to provide each type of local services. The inhabitants of the CJG will be able to change their preferred SJG at the annual meeting.

Areas of Just Governance (AJGs)

Anything which requires a larger scale of co-operation yet, will be handled through alliances. An alliance of CJGs in a geographical area, I will dub an AJG, or Area of Just Governance. It is the nearest in just governance to a country today. (There might, also, be alliances which are not geographically contiguous; for example, currency unions).

I would expect the legislative function, including maintenance of the Convivial Code, to be a function of an AJG. As new AJGs appear in place of states, their home-grown versions of the Code will be gradually merged with those of pre-existing AJGs.

It would also be at the AJG level that military defence would be organized.

Centres of expertise

I envisage that there will be centres of expertise, which will train (where necessary) and provide skilled individuals and teams to SJGs for projects required by communities or by an AJG as a whole. These might be evolved from older institutions, such as universities or training colleges. Centres of expertise may operate over one or many AJGs.

The legislative

In just governance, the legislative will be needed in only a few situations:

1)     Initial construction and agreement of the Convivial Code.

2)     Determining when a change is necessary to the Code.

3)     Specifying the changes.

4)     Managing the introduction of a new version of the Code.

Its work will require significant input from “experts.” But what it produces must be validated by the governed, with everyone’s views taken into account.

Any proposed variations to the Code will need to go through an exhaustive and public change control process. Comparable, perhaps, in difficulty with getting an amendment agreed to the US constitution. Furthermore, when the Code is updated, all parties to contracts must agree if they wish to move to the new version; if not, they will stay with the old.

Money and currency

Money, in some form, is vital to the functioning of any economy. And the broader the range of skills and interests among those taking part in an economy, the more vital money becomes.

Who should be able to issue money under just governance? I confess I’m in two minds about this question. It’s tempting to answer, anyone who has the resources to honour the money they issue. That would be, in essence, a return to the early days of banking. But might it not lead to a cacophony of competing currencies, which could easily descend into chaos whenever an issuer fails, and their money becomes worthless?

Whoever issues it, the currency must, of course, have a physical form. And it must be backed by a standard, based on the market value of physical goods. I envisage that currencies would probably be linked to the values of suitable baskets of commodities, which may include precious metals.

Financing just governance

A convenient way to finance just governance might be to have a single currency, shared by an alliance of CJGs. This alliance usually would, but might not, cover an entire AJG. And the currency would be allowed to be inflated by a fixed, small amount each month or year.

This should ensure that the periodic payments for just governance are in direct proportion to the value of assets denominated in that currency. In the process, it would do away with taxation, as it exists today, altogether!

I did a back-of-the-envelope calculation for the UK using data from 2017. It suggested that all the core functions of governance – about 10% of government spending at the time – could be covered by inflating the currency at about 1.3% per year (at a historical average of GDP to wealth). Or 1.5% per year to cover all functions of just governance.

Banks of Just Governance (BJGs)

As a wild shot at a potential solution, consider the following. Banks for Just Governance (BJGs) would issue currencies. Beyond changes in the commodity prices, a BJG would be allowed to inflate its currency each year by a percentage sufficient to cover the needs of the CJGs it serves.

Each year, each CJG town meeting should be able to elect its BJG (and so currency) for the subsequent year. The proceeds of the inflation they have authorized would then be passed each month to the CJGs to cover their operating expenses.

There would, obviously, be reasons of convenience to continue with the same BJG each year. But at need, it will be possible for individual CJGs, or a whole AJG, to change currency.

In conclusion

The set up I am suggesting, I am sure, could offer its people a far happier, more honest, freer and more rights-respecting, more peaceful, more just, more prosperous life than we have now. Very much better than the doom-and-gloom, corrupt, rights-violating, violent and war-mongering, congenitally unjust, exploiting and impoverishing political system we suffer under today. Do you agree? I hope you do.

And wouldn’t it be great if we could get rid of the legacy states, and replace them by set ups like this, all over the whole world?

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