Author Archives: Tim Newman

Two out of three ain’t bad

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I’ve written about The Economist’s Jeremy Cliffe before. Here he is again:


It’s good to know that mass immigration policies are considered a success if 35% of newcomers are in work. Presumably taxpayers are happy to support the remaining 65% who can be found lolling around street corners, shopping centres, and cafes during the day. And I have a feeling the working behind that €35 billion number might reveal an assumption or two which would cause a belly laugh in this parish. As one of my Finnish readers points out:


I bet Cliffe didn’t even know that; his job is to propagandise, not inform.

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California Dreaming

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In its 3,000 word puff-piece on likely 2020 Democrat presidential frontrunner Kamala Harris, the BBC overlooks something rather important:

The propulsion of senator and lawyer Kamala Harris to front-runner status among the Democrats hoping to take on President Donald Trump in 2020 has underlined the resurgent political power of her home state.

A California senator is one of the front-runners for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

A California congresswoman is Speaker of the House of Representatives.

California’s new governor is a young, progressive champion promising to offer an alternative to the “corruption and incompetence” of Donald Trump’s White House.

And that is, you can win California by 2:1 and it still won’t land you the presidency. To do that, you need to get out of the lunatic progressive bubble that is coastal California and appeal to ordinary people. Can Kamala do that? We shall see. My guess is the Democratic primaries are going to uncover an awful lot of unpleasantness and flaws in each candidate. Personally I’m hoping Hillary runs again.

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There was once a PC called Munt

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Just in case you think the British police couldn’t sink any lower:

A docker from Humberside has been investigated by police over a limerick he posted on Twitter after an officer claimed it constitutes a ‘hate incident’ against transgender people.

…

Harry Miller, 53, from Lincoln was contacted on Wednesday by a community cohesion officer following a complaint that had been made about the plant and machinery dealer’s social media posts.

Citing 30 potentially offensive tweets, the PC singled out a limerick Mr Miller had retweeted which  questioned whether transgender women are biological women.

Note this chap didn’t write the poem, merely retweeted it.

Even though no crime was committed, sharing the limerick online was recorded as a ‘hate incident’.

Thus giving ammunition to those who want to make such things a crime.

After Mr Miller questioned why the complainant was being described as a “victim” if no crime had been committed, the officer told him: “We need to check your thinking”.

Indeed, it’s a mystery why ordinary members of the public don’t intervene when roving bands of feral youths are kicking eight bells out of a couple of scrawny policemen.

The complainant had managed to identify Mr Miller’s place of work, despite there being no reference to his business or his full identity on his Twitter account. As part of the complaint to police it was alleged the firm was an ‘unsafe environment’ for transgender employees because of Mr Miller’s comments on social media.

I don’t mean to sound pessimistic on this snowy Monday morning, but eventually this will come down to them or us. Historians may well ask what contemporary politicians did to stop it happening.

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Backslid and Nancy

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Over the weekend Donald Trump caved in over the government shutdown, agreeing to a budget, albeit temporary, which contained no funding for his wall. Those who a few days ago were saying Trump’s inability to compromise was destroying the nation are now hooting and mocking him for compromising. Given another showdown is on the horizon, this might not be very sensible. I’m not one of those people who believe Trump is playing 14D underwater chess, but I do think if another standoff occurs, he’ll be less inclined to back down. The fact that he did this time is pretty remarkable, and the simply truth is he’s been outsmarted by Nancy Pelosi who is a lot better at this hardball politics game than he is. There were good reasons why the Democrats wanted her back as speaker, and not some dimwit in her twenties.

However, in characteristic fashion, Trump may have inadvertently skewered the Democrats in the long-term. One thing I’ve not understood is how the chattering classes in Europe and America are so upset about Trump’s wall. A couple of weeks ago one of my lecturers, who is neither American or Mexican, wrung their hands and said “I do hope it won’t get built.”  Now you can argue that the wall is too expensive, or it will be ineffective, or it won’t look nice. What I don’t get is why people think foreign citizens should be free to enter the US for any purpose and any length of time without going through the formal channels. Trump appears to have got whole swathes of the global middle classes to adopt open border policies that were previously the preserve of the lunatic fringes, including the Democrats.

Whatever you think of the crudeness of Trump’s speech and the symbolism of an actual wall, immigration is a major concern to a lot of people, and most sensible folk believe borders should be controlled in some way. Otherwise, what’s the point in having a visa system at all? The Democrats forcing Trump into a humiliating climbdown over the wall won’t change that. Also, those who voted for Trump with the expectation that he will curb immigration are seriously unimpressed. They are asking, not without reason, why he didn’t get this wall built when the Republicans controlled Congress. These people are not suddenly going to decide maybe unfettered immigration is a good thing after all; rather, they are going to vote for someone who is deadly serious about grasping this nettle regardless of his other policies. The Democrats meanwhile have given a clear message to the electorate that they don’t believe their borders should be policed in any meaningful way.

Ultimately, citizens get the politicians, government, and country they deserve. If enough Americans – and indeed Europeans – vote for open borders, then so be it. But let nobody say they didn’t know what they were getting. For all the talk about the dangers of populist strongmen popping up everywhere, it’s yet to dawn on the ruling classes what’s feeding them. I have an inkling we’ve not seen anything yet.

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Hacks Off

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It appears nobody wants to pay to run adverts alongside pieces denouncing all men as violent, racist, scumbags, much less pay to read them:


That someone in modern journalism should cite 10 years wittering on about gender politics and a PhD in romantic comedies as achievements explains a lot about why these redundancies are being made. Here’s another (via Rita Panahi):

Note that all these gender politics reporters insist on living in Brooklyn and working in Manhattan, or other expensive liberal cities. Perhaps if they’d moved their operations to Colonsville, KY they’d feel less financially shafted? And I’m sure this helped:


While it’s poor form to mock those who’ve just been made redundant, I am not too concerned about these people. The only way to get a job in New York writing about gender politics is to have wealthy parents who can fund the lifestyle your salary won’t support. Indeed, full-time jobs in media companies filter out those who don’t have wealthy parents by first stipulating a period of unpaid internship. And who do you think paid for that PhD in romantic comedies? I doubt this lot have been financially independent in their lives, and getting booted from what is effectively a paid hobby won’t change that. Their egos might take a knock though, so spare a thought for them as you kneel to pray this evening.

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Label Weiss

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I’m currently halfway through listening to the recent Joe Rogan podcast with Bari Weiss, a journalist at the New York Times. I don’t think I need to wait until the end to conclude she’s dumber than a wet breeze block.

She says on the podcast that she doesn’t consider herself white but Jewish, despite her being paler than a male feminist whose hard-drive’s been seized by police. This isn’t surprising. If you want to join the ranks of the liberal left, it’s best you identify as something other than white. Weiss has simply looked at the options in front of her and decided it’s best to call herself Jewish rather than white. This is an American thing: I can’t imagine too many British Jews doing this.

She also says she was inspired by the first Women’s March. This was a gathering of the wealthiest, most privileged, and well-kept women outside of royalty in the history of mankind, and there were 200,000 of them. Their excuse for marching was that they were suffering under the yoke of an intensely patriarchal society, and the election of Donald Trump, who made remarks several years before they didn’t like, was the final straw. What they were really doing was protesting the results of an election that didn’t go their way and subscribing to an alternate vision of reality because their own lives are spiritually empty. Like a small boy lying in a ditch with a stick thinking he’s fending off a battalion of invading Germans, these women fantasised about a world where they were important and did something meaningful. Bari Weiss was part of this.

She then says how dismayed she is at the realisation that the Women’s March is a hotbed of anti-semitism, fronted by people who turn up in photos standing next to Louis Farrakhan. She goes on to explain how poisonously divisive antisemitism is, and how it is based on lies and distortions which nobody seems interested in correcting. Which is funny, because she’s describing exactly how I felt about the Women’s March. It seems to me Weiss is happy to play identity politics by disavowing her skin colour and joining in a 200,000 strong mob to denounce men, but when others do the same and it’s her tribe under attack, she doesn’t like it. It’s clear she doesn’t understand that when you make tribalism and political identity the basis of your existence, you’re likely to run into conflicts with other tribes. At one point (1h:07m) she actually describes newly-anointed congresswoman Ilhan Omar as an “incredible American dream story” because she’s a refugee from Somalia, is a mother, and wears a hijab so “obviously” she wants to cheer her. Yet she’s dismayed to discover not only does Omar not like Jews very much but she’s happy to say so in public. What was she expecting, exactly?

What will it take for it to dawn on people like Weiss that it is not white American men she needs to worry about but people who really don’t like Jews, many of whom have no business being in the United States, let alone holding office? What is Weiss’ position on immigration, do you think? As various dissident right voices have said, at some point American Jews are going to have to decide whether they want to join the ranks of white deplorables or continue to stoke the fires of identity politics which enable those who truly detest them.

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Stance Macabre

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Regular readers will know that my position on abortion is that it’s a necessary evil, something best made available under certain conditions, with restrictions, and with the acknowledgement it’s really not a good thing to happen under any circumstances. This appears to be the general consensus in the UK and other European countries; there are principled opponents, but they lack the numbers to lobby for an outright ban, let alone get one passed.

Not so the US. Rather than seek political consensus the American ruling classes opted for legal fudge, meaning 45 years after Roe v Wade the subject is still highly divisive. This has led to those on the fringes dominating the discourse. On the right you have the likes of Ben Shapiro who thinks abortion is akin to murder and rape victims should be forced to carry their unwanted babies to term. On the left the issue has become the vehicle by which lunatic feminists punch the patriarchy on the nose, and the more ghoulish they can make what ought to be a sensitive subject, the greater they imagine their victory.

Yesterday New York State passed The Reproductive Health Act, which guarantees women the right to terminate a pregnancy up to 24 weeks, or afterwards if her life is at risk or the fetus “not viable”. This bill was brought about in response to demands from feminists who are deluded enough to believe Roe v Wade is about to be overturned and abortion will be banned nationwide. In passing it, they may have inadvertently strengthened the argument that it’s a matter best left to individual states to decide. Despite feminists’ claims that America is on the cusp of outlawing abortion, their laws are more lax than most European countries. For instance, France, Belgium, and Denmark impose a limit of 12 weeks; Sweden’s limit is 18 weeks. Germany imposes a 12-week limit as well as a mandatory counselling and a 3-day waiting period. The UK and the Netherlands set the limit at 24 weeks, with the latter imposing a 5-day waiting period and the approval of two doctors after 12 weeks. None of these countries are hotbeds of religious patriarchy, yet American feminists claim they’re being stripped of their human rights unless their sisters can have unfettered access to abortion up to 24 weeks. Even then, many argue this doesn’t go far enough, hence the clause in the recent bill that allows for termination after this date.

So having passed what is probably the most permissive abortion law anywhere on the planet, its proponents decided to celebrate. Here’s what New York’s governor thought was appropriate:


And here are the scenes from the New York senate:


Whatever your views on abortion, there’s something seriously amiss with politicians rubbing celebrations in the public’s face at the passage of a bill of this nature. I suspect this isn’t really about abortion at all, and more a manifestation of deep psychological problems among members of the ruling class and those who support them. They hate their political opponents so much they’re going to kill fetuses just to spite them. These are the people who accuse Trump of dividing America.

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Castles in the Sky

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One of the signs that an organisation is not in good health is when grand plans are being mooted while the basic functions are deteriorating. Tesla is a good example of this. What they need to do is figure out how to mass produce cars, deliver on customer expectations, and turn a profit. Instead Elon Musk is talking about building a network of tunnels beneath LA to relieve congestion. This is probably a distraction, but in other cases it’s simply a matter of the leadership being too distant from the coal face to understand the basics. Added to that is the ego of those who end up in charge believing they’re put on this earth to deliver grand projects to the masses, and the nuts and bolts that hold everything together are unimportant or beneath them.

A few years back I was pulled into a meeting where an enthusiastic young engineer was explaining the new project his department was undertaking. It would be a colossal interactive data centre containing every piece of information an oil company engineer could ever want to lay his or her hands on: drawings, 3D models, specifications, spare parts lists, process parameters, production figures, you name it. Data for every facility in the company would be centrally stored, updated in real time, and accessible to anyone who needed it. This project was backed by senior management right up to the CEO, who may or may not have recently attended a lecture in which the term “information is the future” was used. I was asked my opinion on it, and I said I thought it was absolutely fantastic, a brilliant idea which would transform the lives of every engineer working in the oil industry. Sadly, it was hopelessly unrealistic. One of the absolute basic functions of an oil company is to maintain up-to-date drawings of its facilities using an industry-standard document control system. My outfit couldn’t even manage that. The drawings were not available let alone updated, and the Engineering Managers to whom the responsibility fell either didn’t understand this was a key part of their job or they simply didn’t care. Either way, we had demonstrated we lacked the organisational and cultural discipline to run a standard database with a tenth of the complexity of the one they were proposing. In fairness, nobody disagreed with me on my assessment of our current performance, and admitted if this new system was to work we needed “a new culture”. Good luck with that.

Similar things were happening at the corporate level. I may be old fashioned and my views outdated, but I’m of the opinion an oil company’s long-term success depends largely on its ability to discover new oil reserves and its project management capabilities. Despite enormous expenditures and several large gas discoveries, we’d not found a sizeable oil reservoir in years (they still haven’t). As for our project management capabilities, we seemed incapable of bringing a project on-stream without years of delays and cost overruns which needed a widening of the columns on Excel spreadsheets to display. The reasons for this were pretty obvious to anyone who’d wandered the corridors for long enough with their eyes open (massive loss of expertise through retirement being the chief cause; compulsory gelding of all male managers another). But what was occupying the minds of senior management? A branch-out into renewable electricity generation and supply. Getting an oil company to supply your electricity is a bit like getting the army to organise your son’s twelfth birthday party. Which, to be fair to European armies, is something they’d probably do better than defending their borders.

Another example of leaders announcing grand plans while the foundations on which they stand crumble appeared on Twitter this morning:


Angela Merkel couldn’t even manage to hold onto the leadership of her own party, and remains Chancellor only because Germany is so divided nobody can agree on a replacement. Emmanuel Macron jets from one international conference to another while the biggest mass protest movement seen in France since the sixties sets Paris on fire each weekend in opposition to his rule. Yet here they are announcing that Europe should become “the new shield for the people” under a Franco-German alliance that nobody else seems to know about.

One of the reasons so many British MPs are against leaving the EU is because it will force them to abandon the grand schemes they hope will get their names written in history books, and return to the mundane task of governing which they consider beneath them. In business as in politics, it’s a widespread problem with so-called leaders everywhere.

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Maio Carps

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So much for this famed EU solidarity we keep hearing about:

Mr Di Maio, leader of the Five Star Movement (M5S) which governs in coalition with the far-right League party, made his latest comments during a visit to central Italy at the weekend.

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“The EU should impose sanctions on France and all countries like France that impoverish Africa and make these people leave, because Africans should be in Africa, not at the bottom of the Mediterranean,” he said.

“If people are leaving today it’s because European countries, France above all, have never stopped colonising dozens of African countries.”

He said if it wasn’t for Africa, France would rank 15th among world economies, not in the top six.

Regardless of whether his remarks are fair or not, it does raise questions over just how united these EU nations are when it comes to stuff that actually matters:

The Italian ambassador to France, Teresa Castaldo, was summoned to the foreign ministry in Paris on Monday.

French diplomatic sources quoted by Italian news agency Ansa called Mr Di Maio’s remarks “hostile and without cause given the partnership between France and Italy in the European Union”.

But Mr Di Maio, who is also labour and economy minister, was unrepentant on Monday.

He accused France of manipulating the economies of African countries that use the CFA franc, a colonial-era currency backed by the French treasury.

“France is one of those countries that by printing money for 14 African states prevents their economic development and contributes to the fact that the refugees leave and then die in the sea or arrive on our coasts,” he said.

“If Europe wants to be brave, it must have the courage to confront the issue of decolonisation in Africa.”

I don’t know how much the CFA is contributing to the migrant crisis, but the stance of certain EU governments, not to mention well-funded NGOs, is certainly a large factor, yet Italy must bear the costs as they turn up on their coastline. Between a hostile Italian government and the gilets jaunes, Emmanuel Macron’s year really hasn’t got off to the best of starts, has it?

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Petty Cash

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This is dumb:


The convention has always been that EU countries do not charge citizens of other EU countries for any registration or regularisation process, nor do they charge for visas and residency cards for non-EU spouses of EU citizens. I expect this was done because the marginal cost of waiving the fees is vastly outweighed by not having millions of people bitching about having to pay to exercise their rights under EU law.

With Britain set to leave the EU, the Home Office needs to come up with a way of regularising the presence of approximately 3m EU citizens who currently have a right to be there. A simple registration process is the best way to go about it – sorry, mass deportations are not going to happen – and it is in everyone’s interests to make this as painless as possible. Imposing a £65 charge was stupid to begin with, and scrapping it the most sensible thing to do: it would cause far more resentment than it’s worth, and £200m is chump-change considering half the country seem happy to hand over £39bn without so much as a parliamentary debate. It comes across as petty and vindictive, and makes for very bad politics.

France has advised all British citizens to apply for a residency permit within 1 year of March 29th, and is not charging them a processing fee. From what I’ve seen, their approach has been calm, measured, and sensible. Perhaps some Frenchmen have taken to Twitter demanding Brits be charged 65 euros for the trouble, but if so I’ve not seen them. Unlike certain Brits, I don’t think the average Frenchman is interested in punishing foreigners for being caught up in political events outside their control.

Yesterday I submitted my documents on the second attempt, and at least this time it was successful. It wasn’t without complications, though. Firstly, I got a different fonctionnaire, so of course the required list of documents changed. Fortunately, I’d brought “spare” documents with me just for this eventuality, and two of them were needed. Secondly, when I handed over my income tax statements – which are not on any list, but nevertheless a requirement – I was told they were incomplete. I opened up the French tax website, logged into my account, and showed her exactly what was available for me to print. She looked blank and said “normally there are several pages” and “I need the one they sent to your home”. I said I don’t receive paper copies, I’d opted for the electronic version only and this is all I have. So she processed my application, gave me the receipt, but told me I had to come back with my proper tax statements which I could get from a building over the road. Fortunately Annecy is small, and everything beside each other.

I crossed the road, bracing myself for a battle with bureaucrats in the tax office; the prefecture closed in half an hour, and I had no appetite for coming back another day. I spoke to the lady at reception and explained everything, and she said “Oh yes, there’s a room over there where you can log in and print it out.” To my astonishment, there was: a room with two or three computers and a printer which cost nothing to use. I logged into the tax website and discovered that while everything else was identical, there were more pages to my tax statements when going through their own system. Weird, but I didn’t care: I printed everything off, crossed the road back to the prefecture, and handed them in at the counter I’d been sat at 15 minutes before. Job done, I think.

Everything in France is either insanely complicated or surprisingly easy and you have no idea which it will be until you try it. This was a mixture of both, but at least they didn’t charge me. Britain shouldn’t charge EU citizens either.

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