Tuesday, 30 June 2026

Notes on the “People’s Emergency Briefing” film

On Friday 26th June, I went to a screening of a film called the “People’s Emergency Briefing.” It was, as I expected, an environmental alarmist’s wet dream. As one of the most anti-nett-zero people in the whole UK, this was not my normal kind of fare. However, if you have an opportunity to find out, for free and in some detail, what your enemy is doing, it seems silly to pass it up.

I went with a friend who is treasurer of our Reform UK branch in Godalming and Ash, for which I am campaign manager. He is very active on social media, on which the screening was being pushed for some days previously, and he thought it might be good for me to come along and take a look from my skeptical point of view. This was, to my knowledge, the second screening of this film in our area, the first having been announced on public billboards and having taken place on June 12th.

It was no surprise why this was being hyped. The Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of that week had seen a “red alert warning” from the Met Office for unusually high temperatures in the local area. The Met Office would surely have seen a month or so ahead the potential for that kind of thing. That explains the timing!

The Wednesday heat-wave and its aftermath

As it happens, I enjoy hot weather a lot, as long as it isn’t too humid. So, I found Wednesday in particular very pleasant. I strolled around the local lake to see how the wildlife were faring. Because of the heat, it was mercifully free from the usual dog-walkers.

At home, I captured some screen dumps of forecast and observed temperatures from the Met Office website, and formed them into a coherent article. I sent it to “the world’s most viewed site on global warming and climate change,” where I have published several times before. Happily, they accepted it.

So, by 6AM on Thursday, the article was up: [[1]]. It has generated 145 comments to date (Sunday 28th), most of them about the new “June record” temperatures reported by the Met Office and the BBC. Those who care to read the comments will be able to pick out those on the two sides of the arguments, not only by what they say, but often also by how they say it. Alarmists do like ad hominems.

The National Emergency Briefing

Before I went to the screening, I decided to look at how this film came about. It is being advertised by an organization called the National Emergency Briefing [[2]]. It describes itself as “the result of leading experts and concerned citizens joining forces to encourage UK decision-makers to step up their response to the escalating climate and nature crisis.” You can download the statements of their “leading experts” (11-page PDF) from [[3]].

Their stated immediate target is “a prime-time televised emergency briefing to the nation.”

I thought I should give you a little information on the leaders of the organization, the experts who provided the briefing notes, and the film-makers.

The leaders

Prof Mike Berners-Lee

The chair of the organization is Professor Mike Berners-Lee of Lancaster University. He is the brother of the man called by some “the inventor of the World Wide Web.” Here are some of his published journal articles:

1)     (2011) The relative greenhouse gas impacts of realistic dietary choices.

2)     (2013) Mitigating the greenhouse gas emissions embodied in food through realistic consumer choices.

3)     (2016) The distributional and nutritional impacts and mitigation potential of emission-based food taxes in the UK.

4)     (2022) Our house is on fire: The climate emergency and computing's responsibility.

And here is his introduction to the “National Emergency Briefing,” which was held in November 2025 at the Central Hall, Westminster: [[4]].

Simon and Nick Oldridge

Next, the two individuals who front the organization. “This initiative is spearheaded by brothers Simon and Nick Oldridge, climate funders and communicators, with a background in business.” They organized the meeting at the Central Hall which “brought together over 1,200 people – MPs, business leaders, faith leaders, media, unions, and more – to hear unvarnished science on how the climate and nature crises are already impacting health, food, security, and the economy in the UK.”

Dr Victoria Harvey

The individual who put together the document is Dr Victoria Harvey: [[5]]. CAST is the “Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations.” She “examines institutional mechanisms towards low carbon transformations with a focus on the UK advertising industry.” And works with Mike Berners-Lee in other contexts, too.

Moreover, some of the CAST team to which she belongs are based at a charity called “Climate Outreach.” This “works with people and organisations to help create new climate stories.” And promises “new adaptation research” with “the latest insights on how to tell the story of a resilient future and build support for the solutions we need to implement at scale.”

The experts

Prof Hayley Fowler

Prof Fowler is Professor of Climate Change Impacts in the School of Engineering at Newcastle University. She has a particular interest in water engineering. Here are some of her published journal articles:

1)     (2014) Heavier summer downpours with climate change revealed by weather forecast resolution model.

2)     (2021) Anthropogenic intensification of short-duration rainfall extremes.

She also, in 2005 and 2007, co-authored two papers with Phil Jones of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. Yes, that Phil Jones – of Climategate fame.

Prof Kevin Anderson

Prof Anderson is Professor of Energy and Climate Change at the University of Manchester. He is a former deputy director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research: [[6]]. Which “seeks to understand the impacts of climate change and inform the transition to a sustainable, low-carbon and resilient future.”

“His analysis previously contributed to the framing of the UK’s Climate Change Act and the development of national carbon budgets.” He has also published a video on behalf of Just Stop Oil: [[7]]. There is a transcript, here: [[8]]. He describes himself there as “an engineer,” and he quotes Gramsci approvingly.

Prof Tim Lenton

Prof Lenton is “Chair in Climate Change and Earth System Science and was the founding Director of the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter.” He “works with policymakers and businesses helping them assess the risks of climate change and nature loss and highlighting the opportunities for ‘positive tipping points’ that can accelerate change towards net zero.” His “Global Tipping Points Report,” produced in partnership with Bezos Earth Fund, was published at the UN climate conference in 2023.

His career included a spell as Reader and then Professor at the University of East Anglia at Norwich, which overlapped the Climategate scandal.

Prof Nathalie Seddon

Prof Seddon is Professor of Biodiversity and Founding Director of the Nature-based Solutions Initiative in the Departments of Biology and Geography (Smith School for Enterprise and the Environment) at the University of Oxford.

“I advise governments and the private sector on nature-based solutions to ensure their implementation supports biodiversity and enhances wellbeing.” And she was “academic co-lead for the UK’s first People’s Assembly for Nature.”

Prof Paul Behrens

Prof Behrens is at Oxford Martin School. He “is a professor in environmental change and works on a broad range of sustainability challenges – particularly in climate change, food, and energy.” He is a “British Academy Global Professor,” and he urges “a Great Food Transformation to reduce environmental harm and to increase food system resilience.”

Prof Hugh Montgomery

Prof Montgomery is the Chair of Intensive Care Medicine (Honorary Consultant) at University College London. And he had no direct involvement with SAGE, lockdowns or compulsory vaccinations. So far, so good.

Yet, he also founded this: [[9]]. In which Mike Berners-Lee is also involved. Oh, and Paul Ekins – one of the economists that in the 2000s helped government change the rules to make it impossible to do an honest cost-benefit analysis on “nett zero” and similar projects.

Lt Gen Richard Nugee

The idea of a military general embracing the “climate emergency” nonsense is laughable. “If we’re attacked, we mustn’t fire back ’cos climate change.” Enough said.

Angela Francis

“Director of Policy Solutions at WWF-UK where she leads the teams working on climate, finance, economics, production, and consumption policy.” Also associated with the Grantham Institute at Imperial College, London: [[10]].

Tessa Khan

Executive director of Uplift, a research and advocacy organisation that “undertakes research, analysis and campaigning to support a rapid and fair transition away from oil and gas production in the UK.” “A lawyer with the Urgenda Foundation and co-founder of the Climate Litigation Network.” [[11]].

The film-makers

Chris Packham

“Organised the writing of a manifesto for UK wildlife in 2018 which he delivered to Downing Street via The Peoples Walk for Wildlife.” [[12]].

Deborah Meaden

“Meaden co-presents The Big Green Money Show for BBC Radio 5 live, alongside Felicity Hannah. The series of weekly episodes began in March 2022 and covers actions being taken by businesses and individuals in response to climate change.” [[13]].

To sum up the personnel

These are not scientists. Most of their expertise is in impacts, policy, climate communication, “sustainability,” “transformations,” “creating stories” (including film-making), or advocacy.

They seem well equipped to heighten levels of alarm among those already pre-disposed to believe that human industrial civilization is destroying the planet. But they won’t convince those who, like me, demand objective evidence and proof beyond reasonable doubt of any accusation levelled against us, whether individually or in aggregate.

The briefing notes

I pass to the briefing notes themselves.

Weather Extremes

This page sets the tone for the rest. A long list of scares – many of which are not even supported by the conclusions of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). And some are obviously biased – for example, stressing the killing potential of heatwaves while ignoring the fact that far more people die from cold extremes than from hot ones.

There is a conclusion, without any justification: “until we stop burning fossil fuels, extreme weather will continue to get worse.” Well actually, I thought the heat wave was rather nice.

Climate

This page states baldly that human-caused CO2 “has driven up average temperatures by around 1.5oC compared to pre-industrial levels.” And it says “We now risk 3oC or 4oC warming by the end of the century.” While ignoring at least the following:

1)     Temperatures haven’t actually gone up as much as 1.5oC in that time.

2)     How do we know that the rise was due to human activities? For example, in the Holocene Climate Optimum, 6,000 to 8,000 years ago, it was warmer than now. What caused that?

3)     Even if some of the rise was human-caused, how do we know it was due to CO2, not for example to land use change or the urban heat island effect?

4)     And the big question – isn’t a warmer world likely to be a better world? If not, why not?

It then gives a list of “solutions,” which would be unaffordable, if not also destructive of our human freedoms; even if there was a real problem to “solve.” It also demands a future of “private sufficiency and public luxury.” Which, if I read it right, means that a privileged class and their cronies – including these film-makers and “experts” – will live lives of luxury, for which the rest of us will be forced to pay.

But that’s how things already are today – isn’t it?

Nature

“When we destroy nature,” pontificates the author, “we expose ourselves to escalating risks.” Yet it is never stated exactly what are the visible signs of this destruction of nature, or how it is to be measured, or how responsibility is to be apportioned among those who cause it. This is just a ploy to try to make people feel guilty. The rest of the page is no better.

Further, for me, anyone paid with taxpayers’ money, who places the interests of other species ahead of the interests of those taxpayers, is a traitor to the people they are supposed to serve.

Tipping Points

This is merely a load of unsupported scares, to try to wind up people’s emotions to get the gullible among them to scream for “action.”

Food Security

If you care about food security, you absolutely must avoid repeating what happened in Sri Lanka in 2022. There, environmentalist policies forced on the people by the Rajapaksa régime caused a famine. The best way towards food security is for politicians and “experts” to get out of the way, and let farmers farm as they see fit, and learn what works and what not.

Health

This one takes the cake. “We need transformational change now if we’re going to survive.”

Quite right, sirrah! You (the “experts”) will need transformational change, if you’re going to survive the backlash that will come when the mass of ordinary people finally realize all that you have been doing to them with your scares and lies, your “transformations,” your “tipping points” and all the rest.

Economics

That the page on Economics was written by someone from the WWF, says all you need to know about the competences of this team.

National Security

“Don’t shoot! We’ll break our carbon budget!”

Energy Transition

This page was written by a political activist, not an energy analyst. It repeats one of the slipperiest of the green lies – that renewable energy is “more affordable” than traditional fuels. In reality, when you take into account the costs of backup to meet demand when there’s no wind or sun, and grid balancing to keep the system stable when renewable outputs vary, renewables become far more expensive than gas, coal or nuclear energy. That is why the price of electricity, relative to gas, has gone higher and higher as more renewables have come online.

To sum up

Policies like the ones put forward by this National Emergency Briefing will not fix any “climate and nature crisis.” (That’s even if there actually was such a thing in reality – for which, they provide no objective evidence at all).

Such policies will merely destroy what is left of our economy, as well as all our rights and freedoms. While unjustly enriching the very class that are responsible for those policies.

The screening

To the screening itself. There were about 100 people there, in a hall with an audience capacity of about 150. Those who introduced the meeting stated that there had been around 1,800 screenings of the film in the UK.

The major sponsor of the screening was Godalming Town Council. I have written about this council before: [[14]]. Being Lib Dem controlled but with a sizeable Green presence too, it is arguably one of the greenest and most “woke” town councils in the UK. Several town councillors were in attendance, along with some from Waverley Borough Council too.

I was disappointed, but not surprised, that the introducers did not mention the recent withdrawal by the IPCC of the high-end emissions scenario called “RCP8.5” because it is “no longer plausible.” A lot of the most alarming climate predictions that have been reported were based on this scenario, usually without saying so. Therefore, all the worst pictures of climate doom, that have been painted by alarmists around the world, ought to have been reviewed, and withdrawn if they were based on assumptions found to be no longer plausible. But this hasn’t happened, of course: the last thing alarmists want is to dilute their message!

There was to be a “facilitated discussion” in small groups after the film. There would be no opportunity for individuals from the audience to ask questions. A great pity and, one might say, an implicit admission of the weakness of the case the film presents.

The film followed the outlines of the briefing document quite closely. I will not, therefore, say much more about its content. But one thing I noticed is that there was more emphasis than before on adaptation (dealing with problems as you encounter them) as opposed to mitigation (trying to prevent warming happening). Considering that the focus of climate policies to date has been mitigation, a move towards adaptation is a welcome turn towards sanity. Moreover, it implies that, even in the minds of the alarmists, “nett zero” has failed. Which should give us some moral ammunition when time comes to repeal it.

Overall, 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. One carefully selected audience member was even allowed to say “We’re obviously converted, because we’re here.” In the end, my friend and I walked out. Not for show, but because we were bored.

My friend provided this feedback to the organizers: [[15]]. He is far more generous than I am! But he described the film as: “extremely biased, selective evidence, contradictory, dystopian and heavily Left-leaning propaganda.”

To sum up

This film strikes me as almost an exact time-mirror of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.” That film pushed for “climate action” at a time when interest in the subject was increasing. This one is seeking – with the dishonesty typical of alarmists – to use a single weather event to re-kindle interest, at a time when large numbers of people, having felt the adverse economic effects of climate policies, have tuned out and turned away from the issue.

I have been studying this subject area in some detail for very nearly 20 years now. The film did nothing to shift, or even to loosen my confidence in, my views. I do not deny that the world has warmed over the last 350 years or so, including the last 150; but I do dispute how much of the warming is proven due to the various possible causes. In particular, I consider the contribution of CO2 and other greenhouse gases to be far less than the alarmists think.

So, I do not accept that there is a “climate crisis,” or anything like it. Nor do I accept, without seeing objective evidence and proof of my culpability, any accusation that I have destroyed (or even damaged) nature.

I still regard the “escalating climate and nature crisis” hype as, even at best, a storm in a teacup. I am all but certain that the whole thing is a total fraud. And I look forward to the day when the green lies, scares and illusions are finally shattered, and we set about bringing to justice, and claiming reparations from, those responsible for them.

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Wednesday, 24 June 2026

Some revealing screen dumps from the UK Met Office website

 (June 24th, 2026)

For those currently in the southern UK or Northern Europe, this requires no introduction. For our American and further-afield friends, I’ll just say that the “climate change” hype in the UK has not died down in the last few months as it has in many places elsewhere, but rather intensified. We have been promised this:

And this:

37C at 16:00. Remember that. And 38C for the high of the day.

The remainder of this essay will simply be screen dumps from the Met Office website, and brief commentaries on them.

Taken at 16:23 on 24th June 2026

No 37C reading I can see. I’m a little way north and east of the centre of that dodecagon of stations, by the way. 35 miles by road from both Heathrow and Charlwood (which is right off the end of the runway at Gatwick), and a little further from Shoreham. If I understand right, the Met Office does not now use measurements from any actual stations closer to me than these 10. And the forecasts for where I live are “in-filled” from the data from the 10.

Taken at 16:42

They are telling me it’s 37 degrees here, when even Heathrow has recorded only 35? And at this time of day, wouldn’t you expect the temperature to be going down, not up?

Taken at 17:14

Still no measurements, but here’s their temperature “forecast” for 14 minutes ago:

Odd how they don’t forecast for the same places as they take the measurements, eh?

Taken at 17:33

So, Kenley – the nearest station to me that is no longer a busy airport – has gone up to 34. But there’s still nothing above 35. Where’s the 37?

Taken at 17:42

 

So, now they tell me it’s 36C here, still hotter than Heathrow. Not a chance. Oh, and the high for the day here was 38C. Even less chance.

I remember June 26th, 1976. 98F (36.7C) was recorded at the Southampton Weather Centre. Where I was, playing in a brass band at a fete in Haslemere, Surrey, one of our big tubas physically seized up. It hasn’t been nearly that hot today.

If the Met Office declares that a new record UK June temperature was set today in South-East England, they’re lying.

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Saturday, 23 May 2026

Where We Are Today

Image credit: juicy_fish on Magnific

In the last year or so, I have written many essays about things that are going on (and, in virtually all cases, going wrong) in UK politics today. It is, as the image suggests, a tangled tale. This missive gives a summary of those essays, in enough detail to enable me to move on to the next phase of my work. That is, diagnosing what has gone wrong.

I have found myself concentrating mostly on the following subjects:

·       The green and anti-car agenda, and the role of the UN, the EU and successive UK governments in it.

·       Issues with local government, both with particular councils and with re-organization.

·       Digital ID and facial recognition.

·       Big Tech and AI.

There have been also a number of essays not fitting into any of these boxes, which I will summarize at the end.

The green and anti-car agenda

Why there is no climate crisis

On this strand, I began with “Why there is no climate crisis.” This did what it said on the tin; it examined the hard evidence for a putative climate crisis, and found it severely wanting.

The UK Climate and Nature Bill

This was a live issue in July 2025, when the essay was written. The bill aims “to require the UK to meet climate and nature targets,” and a whole lot more. I concluded by asking:

1)     Why the United Nations is being allowed to control UK government policies – and has been for more than 30 years, regardless of which party has been in power.

2)     What specific evidence there is of the “degradation of nature” that we, the people of the UK, are accused of having caused, and that implicates us as individuals in causing it.

3)     Why a private member’s bill is being used to introduce “by the back door” policies as radical as ending the use of fossil fuels, political takeover of farming, destroying economic freedom, and establishing a presumption against nuclear power.

4)     How these policies could possibly be in the interests of the people of the UK in the current economic situation. Or, indeed, at any other time.

5)     Why the entire Liberal Democrat parliamentary party have expressed support for these illiberal and undemocratic policies, that go against the interests of the people of the UK.

As of now, this bill is still on the books, but there is as yet no date for its second reading.

A Brief History of the Green Agenda

This was a series of three essays, summarizing the history of the green agenda from its inception in about 1968 up to the time of writing.

The first part examined the build up to the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. At which, our self-described “representatives” signed us up to a whole raft of commitments, that they must surely have known were utterly opposed to the interests of those they were supposed to represent and serve. As I like to put it, they sold us all down the Rio.

In the second part, I found myself comparing deep green environmentalism to a religion. An extremely intolerant one, at that. And one that is dishonest, deceitful and reckless, to a level that once you start to piece together the evidence, you will find absolutely incredible.

They have sought to sideline the use of objective science in risk and cost-benefit analysis on green policies. They have fabricated “evidence” to suit policy. They have collaborated with the UN and the EU to impose on us all a tyrannical culture of arbitrary, collective, and ever tightening targets and limits. Which, they plan, will continue to be tightened for ever.

They have suppressed the voices of skeptics. They have cited their activist pals in what are supposedly scientific reviews. “Scientists” among them have acted in dishonest ways, that are in no way scientific. And instead of following up and punishing these malfeasances, the UK government whitewashed them.

At the end of the final part, I concluded that those that have pushed the green agenda, and the climate scam in particular, have lied to us and deceived us for decades. And we are all poorer and less free because of the deliberate, planned scams they have carried out against us.

Our Enemy, the UN

Having looked at the UN and its history, I concluded that the UN has failed to deliver world peace, economic advancement and human rights, as it was supposed to. Instead, it has, bit by bit, taken on and promoted agendas that both hold back economic activity, and violate our rights and freedoms. What we need is a step beyond Brexit: UNexit.

That essay was written before Donald Trump’s recent order to withdraw the USA from a slew of UN and other agencies, here: [[1]]. That order includes the list of proscribed UN and non-UN organizations. A Reform government would need to do something very similar almost as soon as it takes power.

Predatory Precaution

In the 1990s and early 2000s the UN, EU, corporate interests and UK and other governments perverted the “precautionary principle” from its original – “Look before you leap” – into something more like “If in doubt about a risk, government must act to prevent it.” This made it into a tool for tyranny and predation.

This perversion lies at the heart of many of the problems we suffer today. It violates our rights in at least three ways. It inverts the burden of proof, denies the presumption of innocence, and requires the accused – that’s us – to prove a negative.

Further, it has led to two serious cultural perversions. One, of arbitrary, collective, ever tightening targets and limits on what we may do. This has been pushed by the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) and the EU in areas like air pollution. The other, a culture of “safety at any cost,” that throws out all consideration of objective cost-benefit and risk-benefit analysis, and demands that people make sacrifices for “safety,” even if the costs to them exceed the benefits.

The Clean Air (Human Rights) bill

This is very like the “climate and nature” bill, but targeting a different fake issue, “clean air.” If implemented, it will hand all but absolute power to a commission of petty despot “experts,” to set ever tightening, and ultimately unachievable, air pollution limits that, just like “net zero,” will hugely reduce our freedoms and our quality of life.

These “experts” must take advice from the UN WHO, UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). Yet these organizations are exactly the sources of our woes! And they must use the “precautionary principle.” As corrupted by – yes, you’ve guessed it, the WHO, the EU and the UK government. (See below).

The bill is currently in a similar state to the Climate and Nature bill.

A Brief History of Air Pollution in the UK

I traced the history of air pollution policy in the UK from the Great Smog of London (1952) through to the present. The pollutants causing that smog were known, at the time, to be a mixture of particulate matter (PM) and sulphur oxides. Such mixtures, indeed, have been the culprits in every air pollution event with proven major negative health effects since about 1930, except the Bhopal disaster.

I also traced how in 2009 UK policies were perverted, by the Committee on Medical Effects of Air Pollution (COMEAP) – aided and abetted by the WHO – into controls on PM, even after sulphur oxide emissions had been cut by orders of magnitude. And nine years later, COMEAP, despite dissenting views from several of its own members, initiated the demonization of nitrogen oxides, and so diesel cars.

I also related how the WHO and the EU – hardly unbiased parties! – worked together to force us all into a noose of ever tighter “clean air” regulations. Indeed, the WHO and EU jointly funded two studies specifically designed to raise the perception of air pollution as problem!

Along with the “safety at any cost” culture, these shenanigans are, ultimately, why we have been subjected, by successive governments of all parties, to draconian policies designed to make it both hassleful and unnecessarily expensive for people to drive cars.

Farncombe Local Streets “Improvements”

This essay was a response to a “consultation” on proposed “improvements” (ahem!) to roads in my local area. My conclusions included the following.

Most of the proposals will have negative impact on those who need their cars in order to get around the Farncombe area, particularly those who live up the hill. Yet they will not lead to any benefits for people in Farncombe. They are not improvements, but the exact opposite.

With just a few exceptions, all the proposed changes should be scrapped.

The Corruption of Science

In this essay, I outlined the scientific method, and examined how well it is followed by the “science” funded by government today. I concluded that ““Climate science, air pollution, species extinctions, epidemiology, medical statistics and more, seem to be geared up to produce, not knowledge, but propaganda that supports dubious political narratives.” In each case, they fail to use the scientific method properly.

I also concluded that the main cause of this corruption is “he who pays the piper calls the tune.” When the funding comes from the corrupt political state, the tune is always liable to be a political one, not a scientific one.

I ended with some (very) good news from across the pond: Donald Trump’s executive order titled “Restoring Gold Standard Science” [[2]] for all federally funded scientific projects.

The Case of the Missing Cost-Benefit Analysis

Here, I told the sad history of the missing cost-benefit analysis for “net zero” and associated policies in the UK, and the trail of dishonesties that ensured it was never done.

I traced this trail from the biased Stern Review of 2006 to the climate change bill of 2008. Then on to the “shadow price of carbon” that, in effect, made it impossible to do a proper cost-benefit analysis on anything involving carbon dioxide emissions. To the 2019 report on costs and benefits of net zero, which was not a cost-benefit analysis. And Rishi Sunak’s 2020 “green book” review, that in effect exempted “strategic” projects like net zero from any requirement for cost-benefit analysis at all.

Meanwhile, we’re still waiting for a proper cost-benefit analysis for net zero…

The UN Sustainable Development Goals

In this essay, I traced the history of, and looked at the agreements made (without our say-so) to implement, the UN’s so-called “Sustainable Development Goals.”

My conclusions were as follows:

·       The United Nations’ “Sustainable Development Goals” agenda is a blueprint for the destruction of human civilization as we know it, and for tyranny by a self-appointed global ruling class over every human being alive.

·       For more than 30 years, successive UK governments have been a major leader in a stampede towards the “sustainable development” agenda. They have done this without allowing us, the people they are supposed to serve, any other choice, or any chance to object.

·       The main thrust of the agenda is a global power grab by an international élite of the rich and powerful, at the expense of ordinary people. The world-view of its promoters seems to be a globalist, feminist form of fascism.

·       The agenda is a charter for government meddling and centralized control.

·       The negative effects of the agenda are now plain for all to see. For example, in economic turmoil and food shortages in Sri Lanka. Energy unaffordability in the UK. And serious political disruption to farming in the Netherlands.

·       As time goes on, it is becoming increasingly clear that the “sustainable development” agenda, wherever implemented, will produce results that are quite the opposite of sustainable.

When Reform gets power, it must revoke this agenda swiftly and completely.

Local Government

Local Government Re-organization in Surrey

This was our local Reform branch’s “consultation” response to Labour’s plans to re-organize local government in the county of Surrey. It looked at several major issues with these plans.

First, though presented as “devolution,” the plans in actuality centralize power. Second, the new West Surrey council will be in debt by £4.5 billion from day one, and this issue has still not been resolved. Third, the local elections scheduled for May 2025 were cancelled, allowing the Tories two more years in power for which they had no democratic mandate. Fourth, the “consultation” was a sham, offering a “choice” between two proposals, neither of which was in the interests of the people of Surrey. And fifth, waiting in the wings for a couple of years’ time are plans for a Mayor of Surrey with unprecedented, draconian powers.

Some thoughts on Godalming Town Council

This essay looked at how my local town council, Lib Dem controlled but with a significant Green presence, has chosen to behave towards the people it is supposed to serve.

The current “corporate plan” is a litany of woke and green nonsense. For example: Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. Carbon neutrality. Biodiversity Net Gain. Net zero emissions. Promoting “understanding of the climate and ecological crisis.” Reduction of individual carbon footprint. Divestment from fossil fuels, and opposition to development of fossil fuel sources. A “zero-waste town.” And a blanket 20mph speed limit throughout the area. None of this does any good for the people of the town, and just about all of it goes against our interests.

In conclusion: Godalming Town Council is not, in my opinion, what a town council should be. Its function ought to be to make the town a good place to live, and to supply local services cost-effectively. Instead, it is seeking to impose on the people of the town and its suburbs an agenda that is undemocratically being pushed by the UN and EU. This agenda is a scam, based on lies, scares and bad “science.” And it goes seriously against the interests of very many of the people of Godalming. Including me.

Waverley Local Plan “Issues and Options” response

This is another consultation response, for the next iteration of the local plan for Waverley borough (which will be abolished in 2027).

The response is very wide-ranging. It covers, among much else: Centrally imposed house building targets that are impossible to meet, and that imply a 53% increase in Waverley’s population by 2043. The worn-out mantras of sustainability, climate change and net zero, biodiversity and “nature recovery,” air pollution and “clean air.” And public transport that doesn’t meet the needs of local people, and can never do so cost-effectively; implying that a car will remain an essential for most people in Waverley for decades to come.

The May 7th West Surrey Local Elections

This essay was, in effect, a “party political broadcast” on behalf of Reform UK in the run-up to the 2026 local elections. Unfortunately, we did not manage to get any councillors elected in our immediate area this time round. It is very difficult territory for Reform. But many people’s sentiments, I think, are beginning to shift.

Digital ID and Facial Recognition

Response to “Call for Evidence” on new forms of digital ID

This was another response to a “consultation,” in which the views of ordinary people were – as has become normal – totally ignored by government. I identified six specific issues:

·       The idea, that data in computer systems can be “a single source of truth,” which can override evidence from the real world, is fundamentally flawed. The whole idea of digital ID checking, therefore, is also fundamentally flawed.

·       The Home Office, and government in general as at present constituted, are untrustworthy, and should not be allowed the kind of power that any new digital ID system would bring.

·       If use of a mobile phone is to be a necessary part of a digital ID system, some individuals, particularly disabled and older people, will be unable to prove who they are.

·       There are serious risks to human rights and freedoms in any digital ID system. These include inaccuracy, overreach, wastefulness, intrusiveness, violations of privacy and dignity rights, and failing to act in the interests of, and with the consent of, the people.

·       Digital ID systems could far too easily lead towards an Orwellian system of total surveillance and control.

·       The call for evidence is asking the wrong questions. Instead of what new digital ID systems should be developed, it should be asking whether attempts at digital ID systems in the UK have gone too far, and should be scaled back or even scrapped.

Response to facial recognition cameras consultation

This was another “consultation” response, to the proposal of the then home secretary to make the UK into a “panopticon.” [[3]]. Here are the last two and a half paragraphs of my response. ’Nuff said.…

In common with the other consultations I referred to above, it seems that I am wasting my time replying to this. The decisions are already made, and no dissenting voices will be heard.

For the avoidance of doubt, the option I would pick, given the opportunity, would be a total ban on the use of facial recognition technology in the UK, except for the sole purpose of checking passports at international borders. But that option is not even on the table.

There seems little point in my trying to answer any of the more detailed questions, so I will close with a friendly warning. If you really do want to restore public trust in the police and in government as a whole, you are going to have to start listening to the public. Really listening. To pass this exercise off as a “consultation,” when it is obvious that the decisions have already been made and no disagreements, however principled, will be entertained, is deeply dishonest towards the people you are supposed to be serving.

The digital ID scam

In this essay, I took a different approach to a government “consultation.” Rather than waste my efforts on the deaf ears of bureaucrats, I decided to write for the general public about digital ID. My conclusions included the following.

Not only does this project bring to the people of the UK no benefits whatsoever. But it also lays us open to Orwellian treatment – or even worse – at the hands of the state. And it will cost us billions in the process.

It is clear that those driving this project within government have no concern at all for the people they are supposed to serve. They do not care about our rights and freedoms, or what we think, or what we want.

It is also clear that those driving this project are violating the Nolan Principles of Public Life, to which everyone in government should be bound by the terms of their employment contracts. (I also wrote an essay on these principles – covered below).

Big Tech and AI

A sad tale and an AI fail

In this short essay, I told of an encounter with AI (so-called artificial intelligence) that was “funny” in more senses than one. I asked Google for the population of a local village (Brook in Surrey), and their AI told me that the village did not exist! Then, next morning, it gave me a different answer, also wrong. (Today, though, it gave an answer close to right. I suppose that’s “progress” of a kind.)

From this encounter, I learned much. AI gets things wrong, and its results aren’t reproducible. Therefore, AI isn’t useful as a real-world tool, and to treat it as such is dangerous. Yet the establishment (and Microsoft most of all) are pushing for everyone to use it!

I concluded with: “That is worrying. For having people – likely including government – regularly using, and believing, an unpredictable tool that makes egregious errors like these, could easily become a major threat to those few freedoms we still retain.”

Microslop

I wrote at the beginning of 2026 about the ructions taking place in the tech world due to Microsoft’s insistence in trying to force Windows 11, and the AI functions built into it, on to users who don’t want these things. Among my conclusions were the following.

It looks to me as if Microsoft are seeking to turn the PC, which ought to be a tool under the user’s control, into an instrument over which Microsoft and AI developers have more control than the user does. Moreover, Microsoft’s approach of “Continuous Innovation” leads them to force new features on you whenever they feel like it. This is hardly a recipe for a stable working environment. All this is leading to the beginnings of an anti-AI political movement. And this is still growing: [[4]].

In my view, the prognosis is not good. Not good for Windows as a product. Not good for AI as a technology. And not good for Microsoft as a company. It looks as if the eruption, which is starting to build today, may well lead to Microsoft’s greed and arrogance coming back to haunt them.

I hear that, since then, Microsoft have started to address some of the issues, notably performance. But this, I expect, will be too little, too late.

The Case Against AI

In this short-short, I prised out another issue with AI. AI “learning” comes from the data on which it is trained. Which will reflect the prejudices of those who trained it.

Miscellaneous Subjects

A Brief History of England

To be sung, by those with stamina, to “While shepherds watched their flocks by night.”

Replacement Migration

I looked at the history behind the mass immigration, which we are seeing today. I traced its origin to a UN document from 2000, outlining how replacement migration might be used to contain the effects on nation-states’ economies of providing benefits to an aging population.

It turns out that the UK was seen as one of the “easiest” European countries to do this in. That said, to keep the potential support ratio (of working age people to the retired) constant would require the UK population to increase to 136 million by 2050. It looks as if successive governments, beginning with Blair’s 2003 granting of unrestricted access to the UK labour market to EU citizens, have been aiming for this, or as near it as they can get.

This explains why whenever a government, Tory or Labour, promises to rein in immigration, it never happens. Indeed, immigration rates always go up, not down. This UN-sponsored policy is a gigantic scam, which has been staring us in the face for a quarter century.

The Nolan Principles and DOGGHIE

I looked at the “Nolan Principles of Public Life,” commissioned by John Major in 1995 from a team led by senior judge Michael Nolan, to make recommendations “to ensure the highest standards of propriety in public life.” The result was in due course incorporated into the employment contracts of many, if not most, government office holders and employees. It has evolved over the years.

The following is a synopsis of the seven principles:

1)     Selflessness: Everyone in government must act solely in the interests of the governed. (That means in the interests of every individual among them, real criminals excepted).

2)     Integrity: No-one in government may allow themselves to be inappropriately influenced.

3)     Objectivity: All government decisions must be impartial, fair, unbiased, and based on merit and the best evidence available.

4)     Accountability: Those in government must be held accountable for the effects on the governed of what they do.

5)     Openness: Government must act and take decisions in an open and transparent manner, and may not withhold information from the governed without very good cause.

6)     Honesty: All holders of government office must be truthful. (Also candid, straightforward and sincere).

7)     Leadership: Everyone in government must treat the governed with respect. And they must practise whatever they preach.

I put forward the idea of Nolan Audits, to check that government officials and employees are keeping to the standards they are committed to, and take appropriate action on violations, including dismissal if appropriate. This could be combined with DOGE style cost control functions into what I call DOGGHIE – a Department of Good Government, Honesty, Integrity and Efficiency.

Who’s a Fascist?

I examined the often-trotted-out mantras that Reform UK and Nigel Farage are in some sense “fascist.” I concluded that, whatever its detractors may say, Reform UK is not a fascist party. And on the evidence which I have examined, Nigel Farage does not behave like a fascist. Nor can he justly be accused of racism or anti-semitism.

In contrast, both Labour and the Tories have shown plenty of evidence of racist and anti-semitic tendencies in their pasts. And both of them include elements in their agendas which, even if not strictly Fascist, are nevertheless fascistic in tone. These include: 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 the individual human beings, whom they are supposed to serve.

And that’s where we are today…

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 the individual human beings, whom they are supposed to serve.

That’s a pretty decent summing up of recent UK governments, no?

But there’s more. I haven’t written any essays in this set specifically about the economy, but what is going on is quite clear. They are de-industrializing the economy, and shutting down the economic free market. They are making an economy that favours those, that are adept at raking in money without creating any wealth, over genuine business and working people. As a result, the rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer. In particular, the politically rich – those with connections to power, whether globalist, governmental or big-corporate, are getting richer. And the rest of us, the politically poor, are getting poorer.

Our enemies are doing these things to us quite deliberately. They are attacking people like farmers, private schools and small and family businesses. As a victim of IR35 for more than a quarter century, I know how that feels. They hate us for our virtues! Indeed, they hate humanity as a whole, and want to reduce us to no more than numbers in a database.

Moreover, they are attacking anyone who feels a need for independence, such as car drivers. They are seeking to use regulation and extortion to squeeze us human beings out of existence.

Successive UK governments have also been seeking systematically to destroy all trace of the Enlightenment values, which sprung from the people of Britain in the late 17th and 18th centuries, and held sway around much of the world through the 19th. Such as individual liberty and independence, freedom of speech, opinion, religion, association and protest, the natural rights of human beings, and government with the consent of and for the benefit of the people. It is no wonder that Reform UK, the only significant political party not aligned with the state and the establishment, are finding increasing support across the country.

Meanwhile, our enemies emit a miasma of falsehoods, deceits, lies, evasions and self-contradictions. And seek to suppress those who want to tell truth and set the record straight.

And that’s where we are today.

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