Geek, romantic cynic, knows a little about lots and lots about very little.
Anywhere but here
Joined March 2016
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Flashman's Ghost retweeted
The tragedy of “The Iliad” is that nearly all the Greeks think what is happening is bad, none of them want to be fighting that war, but they’re still going to sack the city, put every man to the sword, throw the male children off the walls and rape and enslave all the women.
Hector and Priam both know Paris did something monumentally stupid and selfish. They don’t agree with it, and they know all the same that it can’t be undone. There is no diplomatic solution; it’s time for blood and that’s the way things have to be. They know from the moment the Achaean ships pull up that they are probably dead.
When Patroclus dons Achilles’s armor because Achilles won’t fight, he knows everyone is going to be aiming for him, and he knows he won’t be able to survive it, and when Hector faces the enraged demigod in single combat, he knows the result is a foregone conclusion.
The futility, the pointlessness and the inevitability is why this is a story that has endured through the ages. It is a story about what it means to be a man — to be brave in the face of a hopeless situation, to have your life thrown away by people who don’t care about you for a cause you don’t agree with, to be strong and heroic and to be swept away anyway by history.
This is a story about how we’re all gonna die, and it’s a story about what it means to be a man in a world of inevitability. Hollywood and the publishing industry have largely stopped telling stories about what it means to be a man, and that is why it is good that Nolan — whatever the flaws of his adaptation — has made a movie out of “The Odyssey.”
In The Better Angels of Our Nature I presented The Iliad as an example of the brutality the ancients took for granted. This has not been fully appreciated in the revisionism in the new Odyssey film or most of the commentary. "We should not act as if there is any higher value in honoring the ancient past, instead saving our reverence for how far we have come in the last few centuries. The best lesson that Homer can provide is gratitude that we no longer live in his world." We're All Still Living in Denial about the Greeks, by @RichardHanania open.substack.com/pub/richar…
Flashman's Ghost retweeted
A reminder, Andy, of the Thatcher era:
• Income tax: 83% → 40%
• Basic rate: 33% → 25%
• Inflation: 21.9% peak (1980) → 2.4% (1986)
• Days lost to strikes: 29.5 million (1979) → 1.9 million (1990)
• Real pay for the average earner: up by a third
This should be getting more traction than it has been doing as it seems to be a first step to ending the regulatory state and putting in place sensible pro-growth policies.
‼️Policy alert: Conservatives will take a chainsaw to ESG reporting
Look at a UK companies’ annual report today and you will find a lengthy tome more likely to resemble a doorstop than something to provoke interest or excitement from investors.
Much of this is the result of a vast expansion of corporate reporting requirements placed on businesses, starting with Labour’s Companies Act 2006 and pursued relentlessly by governments of all flavours since. Action by government costs scarce money unless it is imposing obligations on the private sector: politicians get to moralise whilst the burden falls elsewhere.
The annual report of Britain’s biggest supermarket, Tesco, fills a trolley at 250 pages with another 60-page volume solely on sustainability. Our largest bank, Barclays comfortably beats that at 536 pages and Astra Zeneca – whose listing is currently on the move to the lighter-regulated US stock market – publishes a total of ten different reports on the sustainability section of its website.
It’s no wonder then that the percentage of UK shares owned by individuals has collapsed from more than half to less than 10% today. In all likelihood, the 1980’s ‘Sid’ simply gave up, crushed under the weight. And perhaps it goes some way to explain why Bloomberg recently ran an article about London’s stock exchange listings falling behind Mexico and Oman.
Companies which should be allowed to focus on providing the growth, investor returns, and jobs on which Britain depends have instead been bogged down with a thicket of red tape that raises costs, wastes senior management time and renders them uncompetitive internationally.
Just as with compliance officers in financial services, the number of sustainability directors has grown like Japanese knotweed. Not even just an expensive overhead but an ‘advocate army’ for ever more regulations. At basic salaries of easily £150,000 a pop, nice work if you can get it.
That is why - under new management - we Conservatives are starting to put in place concrete plans to strip away reporting requirements that cost British businesses hundreds of millions a year. We have identified line by line the detailed regulations that are holding business back and we will repeal them. Those regulators whose missions have not so much crept as run rampage beyond their remit will be reined in. Businesses can get back to business and annual reports will benefit from a new Ozempic-style slimness.
We believe in choice and those business who wish to report on climate impacts or miscellanea around diversity can of course continue to do so. No doubt many will. But the choice will be their own and it is investors who will decide whether that is the best use of their hard-earned resources.
We will pass a deregulatory Bill to simplify corporate reporting, which will remove non-financial reporting mandates and save business millions in direct and indirect costs. This is only possible as Kemi Badenoch has already committed the Conservatives to replace the Climate Change Act.
A benefit will include ensuring that businesses and individuals, like our excellent defence industry, are not debanked on the grounds of spurious and subjective references to ‘ESG’ regulations.
This new commitment, alongside our plans to end uncompetitively high energy costs by extracting the oil and gas resources in the North Sea and scrapping business rates for 250,000 small businesses, are the early steps in a plan that will see a second ‘big bang’ to tackle a failed consensus and unleash Britain’s prosperity. Readers should be reassured there will be more red tape which we will identify and commit to scrapping. Indeed, ideas of where to wield our chainsaw are welcome. It will not be easy and a sign that it is working will be the howls of protest from vested interests.
For too long Conservatives strayed from being the party of business. We have changed, we are back, and it is time to do right by business again.
Flashman's Ghost retweeted
‼️Policy alert: Conservatives will take a chainsaw to ESG reporting
Look at a UK companies’ annual report today and you will find a lengthy tome more likely to resemble a doorstop than something to provoke interest or excitement from investors.
Much of this is the result of a vast expansion of corporate reporting requirements placed on businesses, starting with Labour’s Companies Act 2006 and pursued relentlessly by governments of all flavours since. Action by government costs scarce money unless it is imposing obligations on the private sector: politicians get to moralise whilst the burden falls elsewhere.
The annual report of Britain’s biggest supermarket, Tesco, fills a trolley at 250 pages with another 60-page volume solely on sustainability. Our largest bank, Barclays comfortably beats that at 536 pages and Astra Zeneca – whose listing is currently on the move to the lighter-regulated US stock market – publishes a total of ten different reports on the sustainability section of its website.
It’s no wonder then that the percentage of UK shares owned by individuals has collapsed from more than half to less than 10% today. In all likelihood, the 1980’s ‘Sid’ simply gave up, crushed under the weight. And perhaps it goes some way to explain why Bloomberg recently ran an article about London’s stock exchange listings falling behind Mexico and Oman.
Companies which should be allowed to focus on providing the growth, investor returns, and jobs on which Britain depends have instead been bogged down with a thicket of red tape that raises costs, wastes senior management time and renders them uncompetitive internationally.
Just as with compliance officers in financial services, the number of sustainability directors has grown like Japanese knotweed. Not even just an expensive overhead but an ‘advocate army’ for ever more regulations. At basic salaries of easily £150,000 a pop, nice work if you can get it.
That is why - under new management - we Conservatives are starting to put in place concrete plans to strip away reporting requirements that cost British businesses hundreds of millions a year. We have identified line by line the detailed regulations that are holding business back and we will repeal them. Those regulators whose missions have not so much crept as run rampage beyond their remit will be reined in. Businesses can get back to business and annual reports will benefit from a new Ozempic-style slimness.
We believe in choice and those business who wish to report on climate impacts or miscellanea around diversity can of course continue to do so. No doubt many will. But the choice will be their own and it is investors who will decide whether that is the best use of their hard-earned resources.
We will pass a deregulatory Bill to simplify corporate reporting, which will remove non-financial reporting mandates and save business millions in direct and indirect costs. This is only possible as Kemi Badenoch has already committed the Conservatives to replace the Climate Change Act.
A benefit will include ensuring that businesses and individuals, like our excellent defence industry, are not debanked on the grounds of spurious and subjective references to ‘ESG’ regulations.
This new commitment, alongside our plans to end uncompetitively high energy costs by extracting the oil and gas resources in the North Sea and scrapping business rates for 250,000 small businesses, are the early steps in a plan that will see a second ‘big bang’ to tackle a failed consensus and unleash Britain’s prosperity. Readers should be reassured there will be more red tape which we will identify and commit to scrapping. Indeed, ideas of where to wield our chainsaw are welcome. It will not be easy and a sign that it is working will be the howls of protest from vested interests.
For too long Conservatives strayed from being the party of business. We have changed, we are back, and it is time to do right by business again.
Flashman's Ghost retweeted
Zelensky goes to the front despite the chance that Russian troops will kill him. Putin doesn't go to the front for the same reason.
Why doesn’t the Moscow Gargoyle Midget ever visit the front like Zelensky regularly does?
@KremlinRussia_E
I'm becoming convinced the intern who does Starmer's tweets doesn't know he's Prime Minister.
This is the wrong decision.
We will not tolerate antisemitism on our streets.
The role of the police is to ensure all football fans can enjoy the game, without fear of violence or intimidation.
bbc.co.uk/sport/football/art…
Flashman's Ghost retweeted
To all the people smearing Charlie Kirk’s name with lies when they probably only learned of his name two days ago, watch this:
Flashman's Ghost retweeted
For every retweet of this post, I will donate £1 to the @VC_and_GC_Assoc up to £50,000.
Time is running out following @I_W_M’s decision to close the Lord Ashcroft Gallery.
Visit while you still can, to honour the bravery of those who risked so much to protect our great nation.
Flashman's Ghost retweeted
This is moronic. How many "conflicts" were required to create a unified China, for example?
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Flashman's Ghost retweeted
From a historical point of view it’s cool to see that modern spacecraft still use the red (port) and green (starboard) lights established by the UK Steam Navigation Act in 1846.
