New UK PM Andy Burnham Has Supported a 90% Cut in Hydrocarbon Use Within 10 Years

 As Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham wanted to slash hydrocarbon use by 90% in 10 years. Now the new Energy Minister is making similar noises. Chris Morrison wonders if destroying modern society is still the plan.

Praise the Lord, a Saviour from the North walks amongst us. The UK’s new Prime Minister Andy Burnham has apparently hinted that a tad more oil and gas might be taken from Britain’s remaining treasure trove lying undisturbed in the North Sea. Is this a push back on fanatical Net Zero treason as some commentators have suggested? Probably not. As always there is no need for conspiracy theories – just look at what they supported and said in the past. The new Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh is a green blob-funded whack job straight out of central climate casting, while the new tee-shirt wearing top dog is all signed up to the evil, society-destroying Climate and Nature (CAN) Bill....<<<Read More>>>... 

Why I'm writing this anonymously and what that says about free speech in Britain today

 I have wanted to write for the Daily Sceptic for a long time. It should be a straightforward ambition to fulfil. I have opinions, I support free speech and scepticism, and here is a publication built for exactly that. Instead, my first contribution arrives unsigned. I think the reason why is, in itself, the article.

Ann Widdecombe's murder has reopened a question that surfaces from time to time: should politicians with 'unfashionable' views get extra protection? The investigation continues, so I won't comment on that, but the fact that the question is even being asked in response to a 78 year-old woman being killed in her own home tells you something regardless of how the investigation concludes. We have been here before. Jo Cox in 2016. David Amess in 2021. A pattern is forming, whatever the final facts of this particular case turn out to be.

The debate this triggers is usually framed narrowly: what security do MPs need? I want to push it wider: what if politicians are not actually the group most exposed? They have protection officers, party machinery and a public profile that makes an attack on them a national story. I have none of that. Neither does anyone else who simply has an opinion and a job to protect.

I recently listened to Professor David Betz of King's College London's Department of War Studies, who argued that Britain may be entering a period of increasing internal conflict in which political violence becomes more likely. Whether or not one accepts his analysis, it's difficult to ignore the growing sense that our public discourse has become more hostile and less forgiving. If expressing political disagreement increasingly carries the risk of intimidation or worse, the answer cannot simply be to provide more security for an ever-expanding list of public figures. That treats the symptom rather than the disease....<<<Read More>>>...

Bestselling historian predicts AI will create ‘useless class’ of human

 Renowned historian Yuval Noah Harari has issued a stark warning about the profound societal risks posed by advancing artificial intelligence. In his forthcoming book Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, the author of the international bestseller Sapiens argues that smarter AI systems could render vast numbers of people economically and politically irrelevant, creating what he terms a “useless class.”

Harari, a lecturer at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, paints a challenging picture of the 21st century where rapid technological progress outpaces humanity’s ability to adapt. While previous industrial shifts displaced workers from physically demanding roles, humans retained an edge through cognitive abilities. That advantage, he suggests, is now eroding as AI begins to surpass people in complex mental tasks.

The historian draws parallels to long-standing fears of automation but insists this time the outcome may differ. “I’m aware that these kinds of forecasts have been around for at least 200 years, from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and they never came true so far. It’s basically the boy who cried wolf,” Harari told The Guardian. “But in the original story of the boy who cried wolf, in the end, the wolf actually comes, and I think that is true this time.”....<<<Read More>>>...

Of Course Heat Pump Use is Going to Be Rationed – What Did You Think a ‘Smart Meter’ was For?

 As the heatwave hysteria somewhat subsided, the Telegraph revealed that in the future, use of heat pumps might be rationed at times of energy shortages. 

The Guardian, meanwhile, reported that the Prime Minister’s replacement, Andy Burnham is considering proposals to “make heat pumps cheaper to run than boilers”. The occupier of Number 10 may have changed but a profound unreality is still driving the policy agenda.

The main problem afflicting the green agenda was always physics. The second was economics. And the third was democracy. Heat pumps capture this sequence of problems perfectly. Green technology attempts to convert diffuse, ambient energy into useful energy – heat, in the case of heat pumps. And it does this in place of using a dense energy resource such as gas. But the relative density of these energy sources means that the machine that collects ambient energy must be so much larger, plus its capacities do not fully overlap with what it purportedly replaces. 

Consequently, a heat pump is at least six times as expensive as a gas combi boiler, occupies a much larger part of a home, responds less effectively to a household’s needs and requires the making of substantial alterations to the home and the behaviour of the occupants in order to function as expected. For those many reasons, most people have rejected them. 

And for that reason, successive governments have said that homes will have heat pumps whether they’re wanted or not, because the superior product that they replace will be ‘phased out’....<<<Read More>>>...

Narrative Control: The Collapsing Authority of the State

 Perhaps the central battleground of contemporary politics is the need of our political elites to control the narrative. Primarily, the role of establishment politicians is not to deliver changes and reforms, not to fix problems identified by people in their everyday lives, and not to change circumstances such that they can attract votes, but to maintain narrative hegemony.

Crucially, this differs from previous attempts to maintain ideological hegemony – that is, to win the societal ‘battle of ideas’ – because ideological warfare was always related to the real world. For example, Stalinism’s ideological success was demonstrated in defeating the Nazi industrial machine at its own game, capitalism defeated communism by offering unparalleled standards of living, social democracy was ideologically effective to the degree it demonstrated you could balance both the demands of organised labour with those of economic growth.

By contrast, the attempt at narrative hegemony treats the political realm purely in the domain of information management. This is a political class that has given up on shaping the world and instead looks to shape the narrative....<<<Read More>>>...

A 1957 book by Ayn Rand describes the plan to declare war on “fossil fuels”

 John Todd, also known by various aliases including John Todd Collins, Lance Collins and Christopher Kollyns, said he was a high-ranking member of a secret satanic conspiracy involving the Illuminati and witchcraft. He asserted he was born into a family of witches and was groomed from childhood to become a Grand Druid high priest within the Illuminati, a secret group he claimed was plotting a global takeover.

He served as a high priest in the “Council of Thirteen,” a group he said was subordinate to the Rothschild family, whom he alleged were demonic entities. Todd said his family lineage, the Collins bloodline, had been involved in witchcraft for generations.

In 1973, five years before Todd spoke at the Elkton Maryland Baptist Church, there was an oil crisis, which was caused by an embargo by Arab oil-producing nations in response to US support for Israel during the Yom Kippur War.

There had been a decades-long struggle between the governments of oil-producing nations and the large US oil conglomerates for control over the global oil market. Until the 1970s, OPEC, formed in 1960, had kept a relatively low profile, mainly negotiating with international oil companies for better terms for its member countries. OPEC saw the Yom Kippur War as a way to make its geopolitical power known and to strike a blow at the US oil giants.

Also in 1973, the world economy was in recession and the Bretton Woods international monetary system was formally ended. The Bretton Woods international monetary system was established in July 1944 at the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire....<<<Read More>>>...

This Is What Total Control Looks Like

As artificial intelligence rapidly reshapes our world, are we witnessing the construction of an infrastructure that could one day enable unprecedented surveillance, economic control, and digital dependency?

Families are reportedly being forced to sell their homes to make way for massive AI data centers.

New projections warn that AI data centers could add $6.3 billion in electricity costs across 13 states, raising concerns about the future of America’s power grid and who will ultimately bear the financial burden.  

Modern vehicles are becoming rolling computers. We discuss seven ways tomorrow’s cars could monitor, restrict, or control more than just transportation, from software updates to remote access and data collection.  

Flock Safety cameras are rapidly expanding across the nation, creating an ever-growing network capable of tracking vehicle movements. What does this mean for privacy, freedom, and the future of mass surveillance?

While these technologies may offer legitimate benefits, they also raise serious questions. Could the convergence of AI, smart infrastructure, digital identification, surveillance networks, and connected vehicles become part of the technological framework described in Bible prophecy?...<<<Read More>>>...

The UK’s latest dystopian censorship plans could spell the end of UK independent content creators to save the BBC

 Andy Burnham’s government is proposing statutory changes that force digital service providers to prioritise its preferred sources of “news,” such as the BBC.

YouTube, an American company, is warning that the UK government’s control over its algorithms will make it harder for independent UK content creators to be discovered on its platform.

The UK government is proposing regulatory changes that force social media platforms to prioritise content from established public service broadcasters such as the BBC, ITV and Channel 4.Currently, the public is being softened up to the idea through a government consultation on a Green Paper titled ‘Watch this space: A new strategic direction for UK media’ published by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (“DCMS”) on 23 June 2026. The consultation, which takes the form of a survey, closes on 31 August 2026...<<<Read More>>>....

Upstate NY school district to deploy humanoid robot teacher this fall

Who made the decision that our lives were going to become overrun the demonic aritificial intelligence?

We certainly didn't and we didn't make the choice.

The choice has been made by those out to replace us. 

++++++++++++++++++++  

 According to a report from New York Upstate, a small rural school district in Western New York is set to make history by introducing a humanoid robot into its classrooms when students return this fall.

The Salamanca City Central School District, located on the Seneca Nation reservation, will become one of the first in the nation to use the advanced technology as a learning support tool alongside human educators.

The district approved the purchase of the robot, named Sally, from the tech company Realbotix at a recent board meeting, along with an accompanying artificial intelligence teacher’s assistant program.

Students will be able to interact with an avatar version of the robot on their laptops, creating new opportunities for personalized academic assistance in a community serving roughly 1,300 students, many of whom face economic challenges.

Realbotix CEO Andrew Kiguel described the significance of the project. “This deployment in a working school district represents a landmark moment for both AI and humanoid robotics,” he said. “Salamanca marks the beginning of a new era where humanoid robots and intelligent AI assistants become standard tools in STEM education.”...<<<Read More>>>...

Andy Burnham was the ID card minister under Blair; now he wants to urgently ban under-16s from accessing online content

 From May 2005 to May 2006, Andy Burnham was a Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Home Office in Tony Blair’s government.

At that time, he pushed for digital IDs to be imposed on the population. On the campaign trail, he said that it was not the right time for Starmer to introduce digital IDs. Now, he’s saying that methods to ban under-16s need to be “urgently” put in place.

Any method used to ban under-16s from online content is the first step in imposing digital IDs.

It’s commonplace for politicians to lie to the public. Burnham is one of those politicians who will say anything to gain support and votes, while acting out the opposite. What Burnham says on the campaign trail to win votes and what Burnham does when he’s in office are two different thing

And then there’s the doublespeak and/or Globalese that propagandists employ...<<<Read More>>>...

Alarm being raised over launch of facial recognition in UK shops that instantly alerts police

 Another article promoting scaremongering and fear narratives for the upholders of the pantomime and their desire to fool us into thinking their desired needs into our own consciousness and then ultimately our reality . 

 +++++++++++++++++++++++

According to a report from The Guardian, a controversial facial recognition technology deployed in British shops is poised to escalate its capabilities, enabling real-time notifications to police when high-risk individuals enter stores. The development has sparked intense debate over privacy, surveillance, and the balance between public safety and civil liberties in everyday retail environments.

Facewatch, the company behind the system already operational in more than 100 businesses including major retailers like Sainsbury’s, B&M, and Spar, announced plans to introduce a pioneering feature this autumn.

The upgrade will allow the technology to immediately flag the presence of the most serious repeat offenders to law enforcement authorities, with alerts delivered in an average of just four seconds.

Facewatch’s chief executive, Nick Fisher, described the advancement as a “unique technical development” aimed at addressing prolific retail crime. “No single organisation will solve retail crime on its own,” Fisher stated.....<<<Read More>>>...

Burnham “Plans £38 Billion Tax Raid’

 Andy Burnham is to launch a £38 billion tax raid on the wealthy to fund a spending spree in office, analysis by Reform UK has found – taking Labour’s total tax increases to more than £100 billion a year. The Telegraph has the story.

A report into the Prime Minister-in-waiting’s pledges found Burnham would bring Labour’s total increase in taxation from around £66 billion to more than £100 billion a year.

This includes promises of a ‘care levy’ of up to 10% of the value of estates after death, reforming the rates of capital gains tax (CGT) and imposing National Insurance on landlords’ rental income.

Implementing a torrent of new taxes not mentioned in Labour’s 2024 manifesto will increase pressure on Burnham to call an early election. He is due to be elected unopposed as Labour leader and Prime Minister on Friday.

Robert Jenrick, Reform’s Economy Spokesman, said: “Andy Burnham has spent 20 years reaching for other people’s money – a death tax on family homes, a graduate tax on young people getting their first pay cheque, a £14 billion raid on savings and investment and new levies on everything from your parking space at work to your weekend away.

“Taken together with Rachel Reeves’s record, Labour could well raise more than £100 billion a year of tax rises. If Mr Burnham disputes this, the remedy is simple: rule these 10 taxes out, by name, today.”...<<<Read More>>>...

New Zealand: Any method to ban under-16s from social media will drift into digital IDs for everyone

 Initially, as part of the proposed social media ban on under-16s, the New Zealand government considered a restriction or outright ban on using VPNs.

The Government has since backed down on VPNs but the central issue remains: any ban strong enough to stop determined teenagers will almost certainly require intrusive checks on adults.

Using age verification, for example, to limit under-16s access to online content will always drift into digital IDs for everyone and state control over the internet.

The proposed under-16 social media ban is being sold as child protection. That is the attractive part of the policy. Most parents know smartphones and social media can be harmful, addictive and corrosive for young people. But the political danger is that a policy aimed at children may become a system of online control for everyone.

The Post initially reported that the government was considering a VPN ban or restrictions as part of the policy work. National’s Education Minister Erica Stanford has since said she is not pursuing VPN restrictions, after ACT made clear it would block any such move.

VPN stands for Virtual Private Network. It encrypts a user’s internet connection and can make their device appear to be accessing the internet from another location.

ACT leader David Seymour took to X to say that “the government” is not pursuing such a thing. He said National MPs had been keen on a VPN ban at select committee, while Stanford has been developing proposals to ban under-16s from social media.

But the question remains how the government plans to enforce an under-16 social media ban without pushing adults toward online age checks, identity verification or other forms of digital access control....<<<Read More>>>...

European Parliament Imposes Mass Electronic Surveillance Regulation After a Majority Votes it Down Three Times

 That title is polemical, okay? But it’s morally right.

If anybody cares, what actually happened is that an extension of the European Union’s mass surveillance regulation known as Chat Control 1.0 failed to make it out of the European Parliament twice in March. 

Unable to summon a clear parliamentary majority, advocates (mostly in the centre-Right European People’s Party (EPP)) turned to the European Council, which adopted the failed Chat Control 1.0 renewal on July 2nd. The Council’s position hardens automatically into law unless the European Parliament can summon an absolute majority to stop it. 

To forestall any such majority from forming, the EPP on Tuesday moved with member state backing for urgent procedure, angling to force their scheme through in the last days before the summer holiday, after many MEPs had already left. The parliament narrowly approved the urgent procedure, and in consequence there were not enough votes to stop Chat Control 1.0 when it came for a vote today. Hours ago, a majority of 314 MEPs voted to stop Chat Control against the wishes of the Council, while a minority of 276 voted to let it happen. Because 314 is less than the absolute majority of 361, Chat Control 1.0 passed even though most MEPs present didn’t want it to.

It was a sleazy vote, not least because it’s far from clear this procedural manoeuvre was even appropriate in this case. Also, electronic surveillance is bad, but if we are honest with ourselves this battle was already lost.

Chat Control 1.0 was first instated in 2021 as a temporary exemption to the ePrivacy Directive of the EU, allowing messaging services and online platforms to scan chats and other electronic communications for child sexual abuse material. The exemption expired in April, but various platforms have continued their surveillance with no legal basis in the intervening months. Now their formal permission to scan our private communications has been restored and extended through April 2028. We are, in other words, merely returning to the prior regime.

Chat Control 1.0 is a temporary stopgap while the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council try to negotiate their Child Sexual Abuse Regulation, or Chat Control 2.0. As envisioned by the Commission, this permanent law would not merely allow platforms to scan private communications for child sex abuse material, but require them to do so; would require additional AI-assisted automated scanning not only for known child pornography but also for such vaguely defined activities as ‘grooming’; and would extend scanning to end-to-end encrypted services like Signal via mandatory monitoring on the client side. This insane proposal has been watered down over the years, in large part because of parliamentary opposition, but it’s coming in some form. We’re getting Chat Control 2.0 before Chat Control 1.0 expires, and Chat Control 2.0 will be at least somewhat worse....<<<Read More>>>...

Left-wing politicians’ disdain for patriotism and British culture is behind their war on national flags

 The display of national flags, such as the Union Jack and St George’s Cross, is being met with hostility from left-wing politicians, who claim it creates “fear and division” in local communities.

The true reason for the ban, Paul Embery says, is their disdain for patriotism and traditional British culture.

What is it about our national flag that brings out such hypocrisy in the metropolitan elites? Why do these people, who seem entirely relaxed about the display of virtually every other kind of flag, even politically contentious or divisive ones, exhibit such hostility towards the colours of their own nation?

In recent days, Oxfordshire County Council became the first local authority to successfully impose a legal ban on the placement of flags on lampposts, after activists from the ‘Raise the Colours’ campaign had festooned some streets with the Union Jack and St George’s Cross.

The council is run by – no surprises here – the Liberal Democrats. In the high court, where it was seeking an injunction against the activists, the council claimed that the display of flags from roadside infrastructure gave rise to serious safety concerns.

But its leader, Tim Bearder, had already disclosed what appeared to be the real reason for the ban, telling the media before the court hearing that the flags were creating “fear and division” in local communities...<<<Read More>>>....

Andy Burnham Will “Control” Immigration the Same Way He “Controlled” Homelessness – By Increasing It

Whilst mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham ‘solved’ homelessness there: by increasing it. Once elected in 2017, he pledged to end all rough sleeping in the city by 2020 through a scheme called A Bed Every Night, or ABEN – if he’d called it A Bed Every Day, it could have been ABED, which is an actual relevant word. The plan had even more serious problems than its botched acronym, because, despite initial success, by the time Andy left office the number of rough sleepers across Greater Manchester had begun to rise precipitously, almost doubling between 2022 and 2026. At this rate, the problem will soon end up even worse than when Andy became mayor in the first place.

The flaw was that, once indigents nationwide heard of Manchester’s ABEN and its early triumphs, they actively hitched to the city using its world-famous yellow bus network to take advantage of it, flooding the place with more hobos than a cardboard-box factory. The end result was tent-cities full of druggies and refugees, with the previous central parkland beauty-spot of Piccadilly Gardens now rechristened ‘Crackadilly Gardens‘. An unnamed city council source told local news outlet the Mill that: “A lot are under the perception they’re going to get a council house if they come to Manchester, which they aren’t.” The Mill spoke to one unhappy camper named Mohamed, who moved to Manchester from Birmingham, for one reason only: “I want a home.” A free one. Because he thinks he was promised one by Andy Burnham. Given Andy’s disturbingly similar plans for ‘reforming’ UK immigration policy, there may soon be many more freeloaders called Mohamed on their way to Manchester seeking a free house, too....<<<Read More>>>...

Cyber warfare is no longer directed by humans. It's being shaped by AI.

 We are approaching the most consequential transformation in cyber conflict in a generation.

The next wave of AI-driven cyber capabilities is not some distant prospect waiting over the horizon. It has already arrived. Yet much of the public conversation remains fixated on model releases, company valuations, and the race among technology firms to dominate the artificial intelligence marketplace. Inside government circles, however, the discussion has taken on a far greater sense of urgency.

Behind closed doors, national security officials are grappling with a reality that only recently seemed theoretical: artificial intelligence is beginning to alter the balance of power between attackers and defenders in cyberspace.

The change is not gradual. It is structural.

For the first time, nation-state actors are gaining the ability to conduct cyber operations at machine speed.

Vulnerabilities that once demanded months of painstaking work from highly specialized teams can now be uncovered in a matter of hours. Attack pathways that previously required deep technical expertise and years of accumulated experience can increasingly be mapped, refined, and executed through automation.

The most significant implication is not simply a dramatic increase in capability. It is a transformation in the underlying economics of cyber conflict itself. Cost, scale, speed, and accessibility are all shifting simultaneously, reshaping the strategic landscape in ways that governments are only beginning to understand.

For decades, sophisticated cyber operations required enormous investments. States needed specialized personnel, extensive infrastructure, intelligence pipelines, operational patience, and years of institutional expertise. Even the most advanced cyber powers faced limitations. Resources were finite. Expertise was scarce. Time remained a constraint.

Those limitations helped define the balance between offense and defense.

Today, that balance is beginning to fracture....<<<Read More>>>...

Who’s funding the campaign to push the ruinous net-zero agenda in the UK?

 A network of foundations, research groups and policy shops, often funded through foreign channels, is behind the push for net zero in the UK.

The Spectator calls this network the “Dark Green lobby.”

“[The Dark Green lobby] has been astonishingly successful in shaping policy, controlling debate and overruling elected governments in the courts. It has prevented the exploration of oil and gas in the North Sea, kept energy prices high and made us ever more dependent on Chinese technology,” the outlet said.

The Dark Green actor with the most influence is the Netherlands-based European Climate Foundation (“ECF”), which supports “700+ partner organisations” to “broaden political and public support for net zero.”

“The ECF hopes to ‘embed climate action in robust, future-proof frameworks that withstand political change’. In other words, sod the voters,” The Spectator said.

To this end, it spent €171 million (£146 million) last year to support climate action across Europe and beyond and has donated significant amounts of money to various British thinktanks, including...<<<Read More>>>...

SignalTrace: Licence plate cameras will soon track phones, digital wearables and even your pet

 SignalTrace is a surveillance platform that is being marketed to law enforcement and government agencies in the United States. It allows the collection of data from various personal digital devices, including smartphones and smartwatches, carried or worn by people associated with a particular vehicle.

The goal of the technology is to “bridge the gap between vehicle and occupant,” creating a unique electronic fingerprint to follow people’s movements and associations.

They are no longer interested in tracking your car. They are interested in tracking you.

In 2024, a patent was granted to Leonardo, a leading global aerospace, defence, security and surveillance company, for an electronic detection system designed to help law enforcement identify people of interest using the signatures their electronic devices emit, such as fitness trackers, RFID tags and local signals from their mobile phones.

This technology underpins the ELSAG SignalTrace Intelligence System, which Leonardo is marketing to police, border security and other government agencies in the United States.

SignalTrace “bridges license plate recognition data with sensor-captured device identifiers – such as those from mobile phones, Bluetooth wearables, and vehicle systems – to create a unique, trackable ‘electronic fingerprint’ for investigative use,” according to an advertisement flyer.

The idea is to correlate these unique device identifiers to a vehicle license plate, 404 Media said. Putting it more succinctly, The Drive said, “License plate cameras will soon track phones, wearables, infotainment and even your pets.”...<<<Read More>>>...

The oligarchs’ primary front organisation are national governments

 A functional oligarchy is where economic elites and organised business groups have significant influence on government policy, while average citizens have little to no independent influence.

As Iain Davis explains, many countries, whether they are capitalist or communist, are now “governed” by a functional oligarchy, the same oligarchy. This is the One World Government.

Oligarchy is a very old system of governance and one we have never really escaped. More than 2,000 years ago, Aristotle stated that oligarchy (oligarchia) becomes the governance system “when men of property have government in their hands.” Today, we define “oligarchy” as “government by the few, especially despotic power exercised by a small and privileged group for corrupt or selfish purposes.” When oligarchs exercise political power by virtue of their wealth, we call it “plutocracy.”

A branch of political science called “Elite Theory” has tried to justify the plutocracy of contemporary oligarchs. Generally, however, both plutocracy and oligarchy are considered pejorative terms.

We are told that we live in “representative democracies” precisely because oligarchy is widely viewed as unacceptable. Despite the fact that “representative democracy” is the antithesis of democracy, the purported virtues of our fake democracies are constantly extolled simply to convince us that we don’t live in oligarchies. Political science, though, clearly reveals that we do....<<<Read More>>>...