BBC suspends Civil Service fact-checking scheme after Telegraph investigation telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/10…

The WSJ starting to admit the obvious: Western democracy when combined with fiscally negative immigration and a generous welfare state, inexorably creates a solvency crisis. (they didn't mention the immigration part but it's an essential ingredient in the toxic mix) their words are unusually stark: > It’s also a litmus test of a pressing question facing the West: Is it possible for political leaders to rein in spending on ever expanding welfare states? So far, the answer seems to be no, increasing the chances that countries like Britain are inching toward a financial reckoning. the welfare state + open borders model is a clear democracy failure mode and there's no obvious way out. no western European nation will reform pensions or entitlements. they are actually fundamentally incapable of doing what must be done. (the immigration aspect is virtual corollary to democracy because it creates incentives for the left to import reliable voters, so at least part of the time immigration is virtually unfettered.) the UK, with maximum, unending immigration, an aging and shrinking workforce, a tiny and overexploited base of taxpayer paypigs, highly financialized service / financial industry, a legacy of welfare as political payoffs to disenfranchised groups, an inability to cut pensions, and a stagnant, is the poster child for this disease and the worst affected but by no means the only nation in this predicament. the UK's grim fiscal state is the future of every western nation, unless something changes dramatically. aging population + increasingly discouraged working-age adults + highly mobile capital & elites that simply leave under onerous tax regimes + mass and unending fiscally negative immigration + expensive decarbonization and deindustralization + a left wing that is totally committed to immigration, over all else + a total inability to cut entitlements = fiscal crisis and eventual default in the end, the wealthy and the entrepreneur class that actually power growth will simply leave to escape the tightening tax noose. the government will become increasingly reliant on the middle/upper middle professional classes who lack the ability to leave, completely eliminating any motive to be entrepreneurial or take risks. the economy will become increasingly torpid as dynamism vanishes. the left will continue to gain power due to slow electoral build of immigration and will continue to honor their side of the deal, which is neverending handouts to fiscally useless electoral client groups. case studies like south africa, venezuela and lebanon show us that life can get worse, and worse, and worse, and worse and worse. things getting extremely bad are not a guarantee that they won't continue to get worse. don't be fooled by anticipating a sudden realization among political elites that they have employed the wrong formula. things can just get steadily worse for decades and decades with no escaping the slide. if I had to guess, I would venture that if no MAJOR (and I'm talking _major_) political reform occurs in western Europe, the continent will enter a sovereign debt crisis in the coming decade, standards of living will collapse, life expectancy will collapse, entitlements will be ravaged. I anticipate something akin to the effect that the collapse of the Soviet Union had on the local population, or worse. politics will be polarized between the ultraright and far left, each with their own radical solution to the problem (extirpating immigrants, versus actual socialism). I don't know which of the two will prevail. neither the right nor the left is willing to reform entitlements, which is the biggest problem, and so the market will do it for them. the US may escape their fate, but I am not particularly optimistic it will. our demographics and willingness to do hard things (on immigration, eg) are marginally better, but our spending and fraud-based entitlement economy is almost just as bad. no major party will even contemplate uttering that boomer luxury communism must end eventually. it's not even a topic in the midterms nor will it be in '28. the productivity boost from AI might grant European nations a slight reprieve in the medium term, but it wont salvage their bleak fiscal situation in the end. this is because almost no European nation controls the industrial inputs to AI (beyond ASML), so their gain is limited to the productivity uplift from deployment of the technology, while they remain vassals to the nations which actually control the deeper stack. moreover, a GDP and tax revenue boost from AI can easily be outspent. these nations have a spending problem, not a revenue problem. they can always dream up utterly farcical new handout schemes, like the UK's "motability". additionally, while AI creates a legion of highly productive entrepreneurs, they will all tax optimize and the benefits of new firms will largely not be captured by their respective governments. capital and startups are more portable than they have ever been. AI simply accelerates the pareto-ization of the economy whereby a shrinking minority of founders produces more value whilst more and more are idle and depend on handouts from the productive few. however, capital and human capital mobility destroys this fragile arrangement and strips the idle many of their benefactors. AI buys Western Europe at most a few years of delay to the inevitable crisis.

Angela Rayner’s new policy on ‘Empty Dwelling Management Orders’ is one of the most outrageous, authoritarian overreaches by a British government ever. It gives the state the power to confiscate private property if left unoccupied for six months. It is literally legalised theft and yet the left-wing media luvvies lapped up her party conference speech and let it slip by without so much as a whimper of protest. When people realise how pernicious Rayner’s ‘Empty Dwelling Management Orders’ are, the inevitable outcry will be too late. First and foremost, it will be the state that decides if your house is ripe for confiscation. The local council will deploy ‘Empty Homes Officers’, for which there is about to be a recruitment drive, who will spy on your property. These state snoops will visit your property, check your mail, take photos of your house and obtain your water and energy usage.  Armed with this information, like some second-rate private investigator, build a case on whether you’ve been living there.   Then when the state seizes your property and rents it out, who gets the payments? You guessed it, it goes directly to the local council. And they get to decide if they want to use the rent for repairs, building works and any health-and-safety upgrades to make the house habitable. They will then take out any money needed to cover the council's letting agent fees and property management costs. Only then, if there is anything left, will the actual owner get something.   The state will be able to confiscate your property for seven years.    Of course, the property owner will still be responsible for paying the mortgage if there is one - even if they are getting no income. The council, despite taking the rent, won’t cover the mortgage payments.  But should this lead to a default, the bank can repossess the property, so the owner will potentially lose everything. That isn’t the end of the scandal, because should the tenant, which the council found, stop paying rent, the council can’t evict them as they have full legal tenancy rights. Leaving the property owner with even fewer rights than the non-rent paying tenant.    People have complicated lives which means they may end up with an empty property - for example if an elderly parent dies, a messy divorce or a house you hoped you could one day do up.   Housing Secretary, Angela Rayner, too has a complicated housing arrangement. She divides her time across three accommodations - her Westminster one, her constituency home in Ashton-under-Lyne, and her new controversial Hove apartment (the one she didn’t pay full stamp duty on over which she had to resign).   No doubt the state won’t be looking to seize her private property.  In this Socialist nightmare we are living through, some are always more equal than others.

Two deeply symbolic & disturbing events over the last 24 hours: 1. The French & British shepherd 100+ illegal migrants into Britain. The authorities' only action is to impose a WW2 'papers please' dispersal order on an entire town to stop protest. thetimes.com/article/a1f4581…

I believe electioneering by politicians should be audited. I see members of the public as UK share holders.They should not be promised things that are not possible. As a past chairman of 3 public companies. I was duty bound in my annual and bi annual reports to have my statements to my shareholders authenticated by the auditors. In other words I was not misleading any one. As an example Johnson and Gove hired a red bus and claimed the UK paid £ 350 m a week to the EU. There is no other way to describe this as a blatant lie. Gove was quoted as saying that we can use that money to support the NHS... another lie. The truth was that when you took into account how much the EU paid to the UK the net figure was more like £150 m. The government should appoint large firms of auditors to fact check the words of politicians. The football fraternity suffers with the same problem e.g. Spurs spent £314 m in the transfer window, but they sold £140 m so the net spend was £173 m

The private sector creates the wealth. The government spends it. The Labour government forgot which one comes first. Every public-sector wage, every benefit, every hospital, every local government salary, every government infrastructure project is paid for by people who take a risk, hire someone, make something, sell something and turn a profit. That is not ideology. That is basic economic arithmetic. Labour came into power talking about growth and partnership with business. But the Labour government simply do not understand the economic engine room of the private sector. They treat the people who generate the money as a cash machine. Look at what the Labour government actually did: They put a tax on jobs. Employer National Insurance went from 13.8% to 15%, and the threshold collapsed from £9,100 to £5,000. That is not a levy on “the rich.” That is a levy on hiring a receptionist, a warehouse worker, an apprentice. Employer NICs then jumped 28% in a year and overtook corporation tax as the biggest tax paid by business. Companies paid almost £345 billion in tax in 2025–26 - up by 12.7%. That money comes out of wages that were not raised, jobs that were not created and investment that was postponed. The Labour government raised the price of success. They choked off growth. Capital gains tax went up. Business Asset Disposal Relief was watered down. Dividend tax went up. Farmers and family businesses were punished with inheritance tax. Smalll business founders were told, in effect: take the risk and when you finally sell the thing you built, we will treat the exit more like a success punishment payment to the government. That is not “fairness.” That is a government eating the seed corn of an economy. They layered cost on cost. Higher minimum wages with no offsetting productivity. Heavier employment regulation. Business rates that still punish the high street. Energy costs that leave manufacturers uncompetitive. Then more government briefings about the next raid — more capital gains tax, more wealth taxes, more “the rich must pay.” More uncertainty for businesses. Uncertainty is a tax of its own. And then the Labour government act surprised when private-sector activity slumps, businesses close, hiring stalls, and the CBI has to warn the government not to hit businesses again. You cannot squeeze the wealth-creating part of the economy and then demand it produces more growth, more jobs and more tax receipts. That is not redistribution. It is a wrecking ball strategy. You do not create more jobs by making it more expensive to employ anyone. You do not get more houses by driving builders and investors away. You do not produce more food by punishing those who grow the food. You do not get a richer country by treating profit and employee growth as something that should be plundered by the government. The wealth of a nation is built by people who could have chosen an easier life and did not. Punish that class long enough and you do not get equality. You get stagnation, fewer jobs and an economically illiterate government still hungry for money that is no longer being made because of their failure to support our British businesses. If Britain wants better public services, it needs a private sector that is expanding, not one that is being financially punished for the privilege of still being here.

The @BBCNews reports that a #reward of up to £10,000 is being offered for information after a young couple were attacked in their home and forced to transfer a substantial amount of #cryptocurrency. The husband suffered significant injuries, and his pregnant wife was threatened with a knife. Police believe the attack may have been planned and targeted. The case comes just one day after we shared @Gart_io's latest report on physical attacks involving #crypto. Across the 305 cases examined, at least 47.2% involved confirmed violence or torture. It is a difficult reminder of the human consequences behind these crimes. If you have information that could help, contact @CrimestoppersUK anonymously on 0800 555 111 or through its website. The reward applies to information given exclusively to Crimestoppers that leads to the arrest and conviction of those responsible. CryptoUK has been raising awareness of this risk for some time. Our webinar with the @metpoliceuk — The Wrench Attack Phenomenon: Are High Value Asset Crypto Users Being Targeted? — a link for which you can find below, explored the physical-security risks facing crypto holders and the threat posed by coercion. Please stay vigilant and protect your personal information. 🔹 Read the full BBC report: bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c60q… 🔹 Read the Gart report: gart.io/stats 🔹 Watch our Metropolitan Police webinar: youtu.be/7IlNxs2FBV0

Extrait de l’intervention de Milei hier à l’ONU : « L’ONU a échoué à faire ce qu’elle était supposée faire et s’est mise à faire ce que personne ne lui avait demandé, et qu’elle n’aurait jamais dû faire. Elle a construit un Leviathan bureaucratique focalisé sur l’idée de décider comment doivent vivre les pays du monde et leurs citoyens. C’est un étrange mélange entre anarchie et tyrannie. Impuissance contre ceux qui enfreignent les règles les plus basiques, comme les dictatures sanglantes et les organisations terroristes. Et un contrôle et des obligations orwelliennes face aux démocraties libérales qui, elles, respectent les règles. Nous l’avons vu avec l’agenda du millénaire, l’agenda 2030, la régulation économique, les agendas sur le genre, l’extrémisme environnemental et l’immigration incontrôlée. Et à chaque fois qu’ils ont échoué, au lieu de demander des excuses et réviser leur modèle, ils ont doublé la mise. Comme on le voit déjà avec l’agenda 2045. Laquelle, je l’annonce, va échouer. Mais l’exemple le plus grave, qui devrait couvrir de honte cette organisation pour toujours, c’est la gestion de la pandémie. Durant la pandémie, des organisations dépendantes de cette maison (l’ONU) ont renié des preuves scientifiques et la souveraineté des nations. Elles ont promu dans le monde entier des politiques d’enfermement forcé qui ont détruit des emplois, ruiné l’éducation d’une génération d’enfants et ont couté la vie à des millions de personnes qui sont mortes seules, sans attention médicale basique. Quand certains disent que ce fut une erreur sanitaire, nous y voyons une expérience de contrôle social déguisé en expérience scientifique. (…) La terreur psychologique installée par l’État, qui a dit pendant des années aux citoyens du monde qu’il fallait avoir peur. Peur de son voisin, de l’air qu’on respirait, de sortir de sa maison. Cette peur n’était pas un effet secondaire mais l’outil choisi par les gouvernements. Le problème est que les urgences passent, la peur disparait, le temps s’écoule, mais les institutions et le pouvoir créés pour ces supposées urgences, restent. » Il n’est pas venu pour manier la langue de bois le Javier !