The Spectator - Britain’s right is falling into the same trap as the left

 

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https://spectator.com/article/britains-right-is-falling-into-the-same-trap-as-the-left/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=WEEK%20%2020260219%20%20AL+CID_809095871f6dcf239aafa1d82b267714

Britain’s right is falling into the same trap as the left

Douglas Murray

As I have suggested here before, there are few joys in life equal to that of watching the left fall out among itself. Whatever your political views, the whole Judean People’s Front vibe of the parties to the left of the Labour party brings a special type of comedy. If anybody remembers the recent Your Party conference they will know what I am talking about. In fact if anybody still remembers Your Party, they deserve a box of chocolates.

But something similar now seems to be happening on the political right. And the Gorton and Denton by-election has brought it into a clearer light.

As well as the Reform candidate, Matt Goodwin, being on the ballot, there is also Nick Buckley of Advance UK. This is a party set up by Ben Habib after he fell out with the Reform party leader Nigel Farage. Then this past weekend another person who fell out with Nigel Farage – Rupert Lowe MP – formally launched his Restore Britain party. Lowe has promised to make Restore a national party. And now the parties to the political right seem to be entering a similar spiral to those on the political left.

It is possible to see all of this as nothing more than the result of personal fall-outs – and what fall-outs they have been. You may remember that when Lowe and Farage fell out, Reform reported Lowe to the police and tried to have him arrested, which is the sort of thing that can cause a certain animus among former friends. This week Farage told a press conference: ‘I think, in terms of the way we dealt with that, we were probably more brutal than the other parties. But you know what? That’s the way it’s going to be.’

Beyond the personal, there are substantial disagreements here as well. Lowe managed to make some advances into Farage’s political territory after Farage gave an interview in 2024 in which he said that it was a ‘political impossibility’ to arrange the mass deportation of illegal migrants in the UK.

If you are going to have a party to the right of the Conservative party, there is not much point in echoing the Conservative party’s past rhetoric on this. After all, it was Boris Johnson who said before becoming prime minister that the British public should accept that mass immigration was something that had just happened and that all efforts should be put into integrating the people already here – only for him to become prime minister, increase the wave of migration several-fold and then make that integration exponentially more difficult.

To be fair to Farage, there are two caveats to his stance that are worth noting. The first is that in his 2024 interview he said that mass deportations of illegals was a political impossibility ‘at the moment’. Since that interview he has suggested that he is in fact open to the possibility of deporting people who have broken into the UK, although this has been met with the usual fatalistic claim that the country is in no position to deport anyone even if the general public did want it to happen.

It has to be noted that the issue of whether or not illegal migrants can be deported has opened up other schisms, some of which risk sending the political right into the kind of purity spiral that tends to be more common on the political left.

Following the divide over whether illegal migrants should be deported, there is another over whether or not people who are technically British but have no love for this country (who are involved with child-rape gangs, for instance) should be deportable. This in turn has opened up a schism over who counts as being British. And this is where a significant fork in the ideological road occurs.

Because on the one hand this issue risks descending into a racial purity game, something which it is hardly desirable to open up. On the other hand, it is frustrating to many people to continue to be told by parties of the political right that they have the same definition of Britishness as those concocted in the 2000s by the Blairite left.

This is the definition that anybody is British so long as they sign up to ‘British values’. A set of values which defines Britishness as – for instance – mutual respect and tolerance for those with different faiths and beliefs.

The problem with such definitions is that they present Britain as little more than a sort of international airport terminal where, so long as you promise not to blow up the terminal, everyone can get along. And if you do try to blow up the terminal then you get to stay too.

Yet Britain was until quite recently something rather more specific and unique than that. We had a distinctive culture of our own. It was different from other cultures. You don’t need to think that it is better than all other cultures, but it was a culture which we loved because it was ours.

Reducing this culture to nothing, pretending it never existed, or was not created by a specific group of people or was in fact created by all cultures, is not a polite fiction. It is in fact a very impolite fiction. Not least because it is impolite to the people who did build this country.

There is never an easy way to heal personal differences between people who have personally fallen out, but there is a way to resolve these ideological differences that persist on the right.

The first would be to agree that things that have been done to the country which are harmful can be undone. The second would be to agree that culture and background are important but cannot become absolutely every-thing. Anyone who is interested can take these observations copyright free. Anyone who wants to continue the infighting can of course, equally freely, ignore them.

Observador - Mantra do "direito internacional" esconde um eterno anti-ocidentalismo (J. M. Fernandes)

 (sublinhados pessoais)

https://observador.pt/opiniao/mantra-do-direito-internacional-esconde-um-eterno-anti-ocidentalismo/

Mantra do "direito internacional" esconde um eterno anti-ocidentalismo

Há iranianos e iranianas a celebrar, nas ruas de Teerão e nas ruas do mundo, a morte de um tirano, e há as “boas almas” de sempre preocupadas com a Carta das Nações Unidas. Mas a sua agenda é outra.

José Manuel Fernandes 

02 mar. 2026, 00:26

É tão certo como um relógio suíço: o PCP nunca nos falha quando se trata de condenar aquilo que designa como “imperialismo americano”. Por isso lá o voltámos a ver este sábado a emitir uma sacramental nota apropriadamente intitulada “PCP condena a nova agressão militar dos EUA e Israel contra o Irão”. Condenação veemente, acrescentava-se na primeira linha do comunicado. Mesmo assim não deixa de ser curioso, e revelador, comparar o título desta nota com a que o mesmo partido emitiu a 24 de Fevereiro de 2022, aquando da invasão da Ucrânia: “O PCP apela à promoção de iniciativas de diálogo e à paz na Europa”. Condenação de um lado, compreensão do outro.

Dir-se-á que já poucos ligam ao que o PCP diz e escreve, valendo o partido cada vez menos em termos eleitorais. É verdade, e o mesmo poderíamos dizer do Bloco de Esquerda, que também não desiludiu. Para José Manuel Pureza, o novo coordenador, há que exigir ao Governo “a condenação clara deste ataque vil à República do Irão”. Depois, para que não restassem dúvidas, puxou dos galões: “A primeira vez que uma bandeira deste Bloco saiu à rua foi para denunciar a guerra: nem mais um soldado para os Balcãs”. Sim, é verdade, já nem me lembrava. Foi em 1999, foi por causa da limpeza étnica a que a Sérvia estava a proceder no Kosovo e na altura os aviões americanos voaram ao lado dos europeus, incluindo F-16 portugueses. No final a Sérvia cedeu, o Kosovo pode seguir um caminho de autodeterminação e o ditador de Belgrado, Slobodan Milosevic, acabaria por ser afastado do poder passado pouco mais de um ano, quando tentou falsificar umas eleições. Será que o nosso Pureza lamenta esse desfecho?

Bem, dir-se-á que tudo, mesmo somando Bloco e PCP, conta pouco, o que é verdade. Acontece porém que à pala do mantra das violações do direito internacional, este mesmo discurso encontra largo palco noutras paragens. Numa nota editorial no Correio da Manhã, Armando Esteves Pereira, depois de repetir a ideia de que “o ataque militar americano e de Israel ao Irão é mais um atentado contra o direito internacional”, acrescentava esta pérola: “este ataque em pleno Ramadão, um mês sagrado para os muçulmanos, mostra um profundo desrespeito de Donald Trump e de Benjamin Netanyahu perante valores que são importantes para centenas de milhões de pessoas em todo o mundo”. Também em editorial, mas no Público, David Pontes condenava o presidente norte-americano por promover mais esta operação “sem pedir autorização ao Congresso, como está obrigado constitucionalmente, e em total desprezo pelo direito internacional” [esclareça-se que em ataques iniciais e operações de curto prazo, como esta parece ser, os presidentes americanos, tanto republicanos como democratas, têm agido sem autorização prévia, limitando‑se a informar o Congresso ao abrigo da War Powers Resolution de 1973].

Como naqueles desenhos que vamos construindo unindo os pontos, também aqui não é difícil perceber os caminhos percorridos pela argumentação. Há quase sempre um ponto de partida, e esse é um anti-americanismo visceral, por vezes disfarçado de anti-trumpismo, mas só isso: disfarçado. E se os Estados Unidos são o Grande Satã, também há sempre o Pequeno Satã, Israel, para mais com a boa desculpa de ter o odiado Netanyahu, não vá alguém falar de anti-semitismo.

A seguir convém acrescentar umas palavras sobre o regime iraniano, sobre a repressão, os ayatollahs, as mulheres, enfim qualquer coisa que faça esquecer o silêncio com que muita desta gente acompanhou a repressão das manifestações de Janeiro, um silêncio que contrasta vivamente com a gritaria que ouvíamos todos os dias enquanto decorria a guerra em Gaza.

Por fim, lá vem o mantra do direito internacional, da Carta das Nações Unidas e de tudo o mais que durante 47 anos nunca impediu, ou sequer contrariou, a agenda iraniana de fazer a guerra através de uma constelação de forças terroristas aliadas, como o Hamas, o Hezbollah e os Houthis. Sim, porque o regime teocrático não oprimia apenas o desgraçado povo da antiga Pérsia, os mullahs também promoveram o terrorismo em larga escala, mataram e assassinaram impunemente por todo o Médio Oriente e não só, os mullahs nunca disfarçaram a sua agenda de “guerra santa” global e sem limites – ou será que já nos esquecemos da fatwa lançada contra Salman Rushdie e como ela acabou por ter a sua (quase) concretização décadas depois?

Ou seja, este direito internacional de que nos estão sempre a falar parece que só serve para ser invocado sempre que Israel ou os Estados Unidos agem, nunca para os que subvertem todas a regras do relacionamento entre as nações, quer ameaçando outras de obliteração (como o Irão faz com Israel), quer através de acções terroristas por procuração.

É por isso patético – desculpem, não encontro melhor expressão – ouvir António Guterres a dirigir-se ao Conselho de Segurança das Nações Unidas (este sábado), falando do alto da sua moral: “Sejamos claros: não existe alternativa viável à resolução pacífica de litígios internacionais. A paz duradoura só pode ser alcançada por meios pacíficos, incluindo um diálogo genuíno e negociações.”

Era bom que fosse assim, mas não é. Tanto que não é que aquilo a que chamamos direito internacional derivou em boa parte da mais terrível das guerras, não se chegou lá por meios pacíficos, e se desde então foi possível evitar um novo confronto de grande escala – a Guerra Fria I, a que já terminou, foi combatida em inúmeras frentes, mas sempre por procuração, a URSS e os Estados Unidos nunca se enfrentaram directamente –, a verdade é que hoje vivemos um tempo novo onde já nem funciona o equilíbrio do terror nuclear, nem a hegemonia norte-americana do chamado “momento unipolar” onde se acreditou numa ordem internacional pacífica, liberal e democrática.

Talvez valha por isso a pena regressar a uma obra escrita precisamente quando esse momento unipolar estava a terminar, The Grand Chessboard (1997), de Zbigniew Brzezinski, onde ele falava de se poder formar “uma grande coligação da China, da Rússia e talvez do Irão, uma coligação ‘anti‑hegemónica’ unida não pela ideologia, mas por queixas complementares.” Há todos os sinais de que essa grande coligação está mesmo a formar-se (contando também com a participação da Coreia do Norte), sendo que a situação em que o regime iraniano se colocou ao fracassar no seu esforço de cerco de Israel e ao reprimir violentamente a revolta popular criou uma janela de oportunidade única para alterar radicalmente os equilíbrios no Médio Oriente e, ao mesmo tempo, contrariar os avanços da China e da Rússia à escala global.

Isto significa que o que está em causa no Irão não é apenas o choque entre um regime que sempre desrespeitou o direito internacional – a teocracia dos ayatollahs – e dois países que decidiram combater a ameaça que esse regime representava – Israel e os Estados Unidos. O que está em causa no Irão é também um choque entre o Ocidente e as potências que desafiam os seus valores e a sua segurança.

Não creio que os críticos de sempre das “violações do direito internacional”, os que rasgam as vestes cada vez que um avião americano levanta voo, ignorem esta evidência. Creio mesmo que é ela que explica o porquê de algumas reacções tipo “cãozinho de Pavlov”: “se favorecer os Estados Unidos, nós estamos contra”. Foi assim que justificaram Putin, assim que se encantam com a China e ainda assim que choram a morte de terroristas e de mandantes de terroristas (ou vão mesmo ao seu funeral, como quando dirigentes da esquerdista França Insubmissa compareceram no funeral do líder do Hezbollah).

Mas já tenho dúvidas que, na Europa, exista absoluta consciência daquilo que está em causa, pois vi mais pedidos para que tudo acabe depressa do que manifestações de solidariedade activa. Com uma excepção notável: o chanceler alemão Merz assumiu que “este não é o momento para dar lições aos nossos aliados, mas sim para nos mantermos unidos”. Unidos porque naquele imenso tabuleiro de Brzezinski se existe uma grande coligação “anti-hegemónica”, o que essa coligação visa não são apenas os Estados Unidos mas todo o Ocidente, e nós temos provas disso à nossa porta, nas trincheiras da Ucrânia.

De resto a guerra que agora começou está cheia de incertezas, a começar pelas incertezas relativamente ao que serão os objectivos finais dos Estados Unidos, mas para já estes primeiros dias permitiram o ganho de causa da eliminação da cabeça da serpente e ter esperança de assim ter eliminado o principal fomentador do terrorismo regional, porventura mundial. Mesmo assim tudo ainda pode correr mal e os riscos são enormes, a começar pelos riscos políticos para Donald Trump, até porque, como assinalou certeiramente Carl von Clausewitz, “três quartos dos fatores em que a ação militar se baseia estão envoltos numa névoa de maior ou menor incerteza.”

E se há erro que pode ser fatal para as lideranças civis e militares é incorrerem numa hubris alimentada por sucessos recentes, como o dos bombardeamentos dos sítios nucleares ou o da prisão de Maduro. O que está desta vez em causa é muito maior, muito mais difícil, muito mais arriscado e exigindo enfrentar uma névoa muito mais espessa. Mas tenhamos esperança, e entretanto celebremos com a mesma alegria com que tantos iranianos e iranianas celebraram a morte do ditador.

BD - El Gaucho

 

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The Spectator - What is migration really costing Britain?

 

(personal underlines)

https://spectator.com/article/what-is-migration-really-costing-britain/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=RC%20%2020260116%20%20AL%20%20Whisky%201901+CID_233799674d8f665081e89ab6acde0264

What is migration really costing Britain?

Sahil Mahtani10 January 2026, 5:30am

A Border Force patrol at Heathrow Airport (Getty images)

The worst forecasting error in British government history may be unfolding as we speak. While much attention is given to grand projects, such as HS2, which end up costing tens of billions of pounds more than they were supposed to, these at least have a start and finish date – and something tangible emerges at the end. The same can’t be said for forecasting errors involving even more complex, politically contentious issues – such as what migration might actually be costing Britain.

The notoriously wobbly Covid epidemiological scenarios are often seen as the archetypal example of the state’s failure to understand reality, but the various immigration fiascos over recent decades may be a better candidate for proving this point.

When the health and care visa was introduced in late 2020, 43,000 people were expected annually. The state then forecast that ‘thousands’ more would arrive after the visa was expanded the following year. But in the government’s own ‘Why do people work in the UK?’
pages, we learn that 118,522 visas were granted to main applicants on the skilled worker–health and care visa, with 209,638 visas granted to dependents on the same route, for the year ending March 2024. In other words, the state was wrong by a multiple of as much as eight.

Another drastic underestimate can be found in a 2003 Home Office-commissioned study that predicted only 5,000-13,000 people would come to the UK annually after the EU enlargement to eastern Europe. The paper’s executive summary noted cockishly that ‘even in the worst-case scenario, migration to the UK as a result of Eastern enlargement of the EU is not likely to be overly large.’ The reality, of course, was rather different.

‘Not likely to be overly large’ is the epitaph for many of these errors, not because they err uniformly on the upside, but because the cadence of the phrase itself – bland, sure, measuring – seems to capture the attitude that led to them. Forecasts can be wrong for all sorts of reasons, and wrong forecasts are not necessarily bad forecasts. But many of these examples were likely to have been bad because they leaned on unrealistic past-will-continue assumptions despite obvious shifts in the policy environment, while offering confidence intervals that were just too narrow to capture the unfolding reality. As a result, they proved to be a nonsense.

There is another way estimates can mislead: that is if the experts are made to answer the wrong question. The best example of this, in my mind, is the estimate for the fiscal impact of migration.

The Office for Budget Responsibility has consistently shown positive impacts to the public finances from net migration. In March 2024, the OBR revised up net migration and estimated this would cut borrowing by £7.4 billion annually in 2028-2029. Yet this measured impact over a five-year window, even though, as Alan Manning’s excellent new book Why Migration Policy Is Hard points out, most economists think the fiscal impact of migration should be measured over a life. After all, working-age people earn income and pay taxes while consuming fewer public services; as they get older, the opposite generally happens.

The government’s Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) has started to do some thoughtful modelling of different migrant cohorts. Recently, this showed that those arriving as spouses in 2022/2023 would cost the state £5.6 billion or £109,000 per person over their lifetime (excluding dependents). But, if you just counted the first two decades after arrival, this figure would be positive £35,000. Positive first, then deeply negative. It is a perfect example of how a five-year window is irrelevant at best and misleading at worst. Of course, the economists at the OBR understand this and have even written about it, even if they have been asked by politicians to answer a different question.

The worst mistakes come from forecasts whose construction is not properly understood. Go back to the OBR’s £7.4 billion additional contribution from migrants. That is constructed from the extra 350,000 people expected to be in the country over the subsequent five years, relative to the November 2023 forecast. That £7.4 billion is made up of £6.5 billion receipts, negligible welfare or public spending and reduced debt interest of £900 million (because of lower borrowing due to the higher receipts). Yet about half of the £7.4 billion could vanish under two simple tweaks.

For a start, should the government spending assumption really be close to zero? The OBR says that because its job is to evaluate the impact of government choices, it cannot automatically assume the government will increase departmental spending. Fair. The OBR then provides sensitivity analyses which shows that if per capita departmental spending was maintained for the 350,000 people, it would remove about a third of the £7.4billion gain.

The OBR also points out that most migrants will be ineligible for welfare spending until they have indefinite leave to remain, something that happens after five years. Yet someone trying to understand the permanent impact on the public finances might want to consider what happens from year six onwards. Moreover, the five-year limit isn’t universal; it doesn’t apply to those with humanitarian or asylum visas; at the time they comprised about 20 per cent of recorded inflows. It doesn’t apply to certain nationalities on certain benefits; Moroccan or Turkish workers, for example, can claim child benefit. Ultimately, if you assumed people ended up claiming the same non-pensioner welfare spending as the average non-pensioner, it would wipe out around £800 million – and combined with the above, just under half of the £7.4 billion number. That ‘very small’ welfare assumption number – OBR language – needs to be unpacked. One could also interrogate the £6.2 billion receipts number.

The true challenge to public finances lies, as ever, beyond the five-year forecast window. The MAC’s estimate of lifetime costs of just the 2022/23 intake of care workers was £2 billion. If we assume that each of the 55,000 care workers in that cohort brought with them one child and one adult dependent, the lifetime cost of that intake would be £7.5billion. If you add the spousal visa and indicative estimates for the humanitarian and asylum visas based on experiences in Australia and the Netherlands cited by the MAC, the figure conservatively comes to £20 billion. Five years of that kind of flow of care workers, spouses and asylum seekers would cost £100 billion, over twice the error on HS2.

When the full accounting is done, the fiscal impact of migration – widely and blithely assumed to be overwhelmingly positive, but already known to be deeply negative in parts – may well prove to be one of the biggest misestimates of all.

Livro - Quinta feira e outros dias (II)

 

Livro - Quinta feira e outros dias (I)

 

Observador - Ainda há políticos com sentido de Estado? (Rui Ramos)

 

(sublinhados pessoais)

https://observador.pt/opiniao/ainda-ha-politicos-com-sentido-de-estado/

Ainda há políticos com sentido de Estado?

O governo e a polícia não são a mesma coisa, a não ser nas ditaduras, onde aí, sim, vemos directores de polícia passar a ministros, e vice-versa.

Rui Ramos 

27 fev. 2026, 00:25

Da classe política, partidariamente activa e inactiva, apenas um estranhou. Foi Pedro Passos Coelho. Só ele, que eu tenha notado, disse que o director da Polícia Judiciária não deveria ter transitado da polícia para o governo. E disse bem: o director da PJ não deveria ter sido convidado; convidado, não deveria ter aceitado; tendo aceitado, não deveria o presidente ter-lhe dado posse. Bem sei: não é ilegal o director de uma polícia subir a ministro. Mas é constitucionalmente degradante. A separação de poderes e de instituições, para ser efectiva, tem de ser separação de pessoas e separação de estilos. Não basta corresponder a órgãos diferentes: precisa de corresponder a carreiras e a comportamentos diferentes dos titulares desses órgãos. O governo e a polícia não são a mesma coisa, a não ser nas ditaduras, onde aí, sim, vemos directores de polícia passar a ministros, e vice-versa. Num Estado de direito democrático não devia haver promoções à Beria, por mais bem-intencionadas que sejam.

O facto de a polícia estar neste momento a investigar o primeiro-ministro é apenas um dos aspectos melindrosos desta transição. Um director da polícia, ao contrário do que argumentou o secretário-geral do PSD Hugo Soares, não é apenas mais um funcionário administrativo. Faz parte de um organismo do Estado que, para merecer a confiança do público, tem de ser e parecer independente do governo. Um director da polícia dispõe de conhecimentos e contactos que não deve levar para o governo, tal como um governante tem agendas e compromissos que não deve levar para a polícia. A entrada de um director da polícia no governo não é para ser vista como o culminar de uma carreira, como Hugo Soares acha. Essa carreira, que pode exigir escrutínio e acção sobre membros do governo, precisa de estar isenta de factores de perturbação, como a aspiração de ser ministro. Se o director da PJ queria ser ministro, nunca deveria ter sido director da PJ.

Fez-se grande caso, durante as últimas presidenciais, da incompatibilidade entre o lobby privado e um cargo político. Não deveria haver menor incompatibilidade entre a polícia e um ministério. A nomeação foi, no entanto, celebrada como a conquista histórica de um campeonato. O governo lançou foguetes eufóricos, a oposição socialista cansou-se em aplausos frenéticos, e não sei se houve ajuntamento de fãs no marquês de Pombal. As razões de tanta festa dão a medida da degradação da política em Portugal.

A primeira é que o director da PJ conhecia bem a “corporação” de que fizera parte e que agora ia tutelar. Como se a velha tarimba corporativa, com os seus fatais hábitos, ronhas e enviesamentos, fosse a habilitação certa para um governo que se diz reformista. A segunda razão é que o novo ministro teria mostrado, ainda como director de polícia, ser um “político”: fora “próximo” do ex-primeiro ministro António Costa, e “comunicava” como os políticos fazem (presume-se: fugindo a questões). Como se a política que convém ao país consistisse em lábia de microfone, e em intimidade com quem mandou nos últimos trinta anos. A terceira razão é esta: o novo ministro, enquanto director da PJ, fez ruídos sobre a imigração que contradiziam o Chega, de modo que a sua ascensão seria um sinal de que o governo nunca mais se entenderia com André Ventura. É essa a única regra que o regime agora tem? Vale tudo, desde que possa ser apresentado como contrário ao Chega? Já não temos um Estado de direito, mas apenas um Estado anti-Chega?

Volto ao princípio: só Pedro Passos Coelho, entre a classe política, deplorou tudo isto. Ainda há políticos com sentido de Estado em Portugal? Há.

Youtube - Rheinlied« (Strömt herbei, ihr Völkerscharen) • Deutsches Volkslied [+Liedtext]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ9JOVD8uo8&list=RDMQ9JOVD8uo8&start_radio=1

The Spectator - Cartoons

 

The Spectator - The House of Lords’ Valkyries fighting for assisted suicide

 

(personal underlines)

https://spectator.com/article/the-house-of-lords-valkyries-fighting-for-assisted-suicide/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=WEEK%20%2020260122%20%20AL+CID_8f6de313bfa0717d568bff1da25ac1d4

The House of Lords’ Valkyries fighting for assisted suicide

Madeline Grant

It seems counter-intuitive to say that the House of Lords is more representative than the House of Commons. Yet in the extended reading of the assisted suicide bill, it is clear the Upper House is surprisingly reflective of the reality of the nation.

Nominally, the bill is being piloted by Lord Falconer, the formerly cuddly ex-housemate of Tony Blair. Falconer has consistently sought to water down amendments and concessions secured during the Commons debate. During last week’s Lords debate, he cited ‘somebody called Sarah Cox’ – who just happens to be the former president of the Association for Palliative Medicine (APM) and gave evidence to the bill committee last year. This didn’t prevent Lord Falconer from misrepresenting her testimony, prompting a complaint from the APM. To him, the expertise or opinions of his opponents are irrelevant compared to his own moral certainty.

Falconer, for all his efforts, is not the only player in the Lords battle. Indeed, he is increasingly proving a hindrance to the bill’s cause as he delivers dystopian lines worthy of Swift’s Modest Proposal. Last week he explained, matter-of-factly, that poverty could be a legitimate reason to seek an assisted suicide. ‘Financial considerations might well apply,’ he said. ‘There is only a limited amount of money to go around.’

Meanwhile a second fight in the Lords is raging between two trios of women. And so, I repeat, it is fascinating how the Lords is more representative of reality.

On one side, Falconer’s, are three Baronesses: Jay, Hayter and Blackstone. Baroness Hayter is a vice-president of the Fabian Society, while Baroness Blackstone, a former university administrator, previously served as its chairman. Baroness Jay is a longtime Labour peer and the daughter of Jim Callaghan.

In short, these are privileged, well-connected women who have breezed through the gilded hallways of public life with minimal experience of not getting their own way. They play a significant role in the pro-assisted suicide campaign in the Lords; endlessly interrupting, chiding opponents to see the bill through. Imagine the opening scene of Macbeth if it were set in a lesser lecture room at the LSE.

These three peeresses are adamant in their belief that they are the great standard bearers not just for a zombie-like 20th-century progressivism, but also for the general public. As so often with those who think they ‘speak for the people’, the truth is a little different. The three titles taken by these baronesses are Paddington, Stoke Newington and Kentish Town, districts which have a sum total of six and a bit miles between them. It is very clear which particular subset of the nation these peers represent.

Given this shared background, they sometimes seem unable to understand what a life lived without absolute control over every aspect of it might be like. At best, they appear to believe that such lives should be subject to their ideas of improvements, to bring them closer to the platonic ideal of Stoke Newington, but if such a course proves impossible, other alternatives are available. It is, by the logic of the North London Valkyries, better to be dead than not in absolute control.

Up against them is a very different trio of women: Baronesses Finlay, O’Loan and Grey-Thompson. They represent different regions; Finlay is from Wales, O’Loan is a Northern Irish peer, while Grey-Thompson lives in Stockton-on-Tees. These opposing peers had serious jobs, away from the blob-adjacent, stakeholder state. Finlay was a professor of palliative medicine, O’Loan inspected police in Northern Ireland and Grey-Thompson was a Paralympic champion, for whom the debate over the bill’s threat to the vulnerable is not merely abstract.

In contrast to the North Circular trio, who take the Labour whip, the trio opposing them are crossbenchers, peers who vote and speak more freely. They bring up viewpoints, factual issues and procedural questions that are of visible irritation to the peers determined to hector and lecture the bill into law. Their questions and contributions have sometimes prompted their opponents to attempt to hasten proceedings and block them from speaking. Baroness Hayter has tried, in Orwellian fashion, to rewrite the definition of suicide altogether, arguing that it should not apply to those who might end their lives by assisted suicide, simply because they are nearing the end of their lives. She once memorably referred to the debate as ‘not a life or death issue’.

Unlike Jay, Hayter and Blackstone, who sometimes express an audible frustration at their Lordships’ refusal simply to roll over to their demands, the opposing three speak in a calm and considered way, always with the safety of the vulnerable at the centre of their questions. They frequently pose difficult questions the bill’s supporters can’t – or won’t – answer, about practicality, funding and safety, not just the principle of choice. This tactic, it seems, only makes the bill’s supporters angrier. Baroness Jay recently snapped and dismissed her opponents’ scrutiny and tabled amendments as ‘time-wasting’.

It’s not just two visions of the nature of life and death which are put forward by these opposing trios of women, but two visions of the Upper House and of the nation. The experienced and compassionate voices of the United Kingdom vs a cabal of apparatchiks from a few neighbouring postcodes in an out-of-touch capital. Truly, it couldn’t be more representative if it tried.

Newstatesman - Michael Palin Q&A: “When was I happiest? On stage with Monty Python”

(personal underlines)

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/qa/2024/12/michael-palin-interview-when-was-i-happiest-on-stage-with-monty-python?status=Non-subs&utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=LNCH%20%2020241218%20%20House%20ads%20%20HT+CID_e77d3efbf32086d179486750102f538b

Michael Palin Q&A: “When was I happiest? On stage with Monty Python”

The comedian on HMS Erebus and life as an octogenarian.

New Statesman

Illustration by Kristian Hammerstad

Michael Palin was born in 1943 in Sheffield. He is an actor, comedian, writer and TV presenter. He is best known as a member of Monty Python and for his travel documentaries.

What’s your earliest memory?

I have a very early memory of collecting some government-supplied orange juice when I was about five with my mum on Leopold Street in Sheffield.

Who are your heroes?

My childhood hero was the Australian cricketer called Keith Miller. To me he represented athleticism, good looks and carefree enjoyment of the game. My adult hero would possibly be David Attenborough – he’s the personification of how best to live a life – but also Johnny Cash. He had that sort of moody, alienated air.

What book last changed your thinking?

I read a book called Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life by Anna Funder about George Orwell’s wife. Throughout his life, she wasn’t really mentioned much. The book thoroughly and successfully showed how important an influence she was and how she stuck by him even in the most difficult times. The idea of the power behind the throne is a very good subject and something which affected many more people. It made me think differently.

What would be your Mastermind specialist subject?

I think the only one I’d be any good at would be the voyages of HMS Erebus. I wrote a book called Erebus: The Story of a Ship about this ship that had gone further south to Antarctica than anyone ever travelled in human history. It was then used to take Sir John Franklin to the Northwest Passage and got trapped in the ice: the whole expedition perished. It was discovered about four years ago underneath the North Canadian sea. I could probably answer most questions about HMS Erebus.

In which time and place, other than your own, would you like to live?

Paris in the 1920s. Just after the First World War a lot of artists were gathering in Paris – Picasso, Matisse, Hemingway – taking advantage of the peace after all the horrors of the war. I’m always fascinated by how people live through dark times, or recover from them.

What’s currently bugging you?

I’m over 80 – things bug me all the time, like the postal service. But also the erosion of language. The use of words has gone in public life; not in books, but in public life. Words have been reduced to a set of numbers so they can fit on to algorithms.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

“Follow your heart and let your head catch up.” It is counter to what most people would say: “Work it out in your head first, and then your heart will follow.”

What single thing would make your life better?

The reversal of Brexit. I am somebody who much prefers a world without self-inflicted barriers.

When were you happiest?

The first night of Monty Python at the O2 Arena in 2014. All of us in our seventies put on a Python show and none of us were sure how it was going to work. But when we stepped out on that stage, the warmth of the audience was absolutely terrific and it carried on throughout the show. It was a wonderfully happy surprise.

In another life, what job might you have chosen?

What I would have done – and nearly have done – was become a reporter.

Are we all doomed?

Well, only if you believe in hell. We’re all going to die, but seeing that as being doomed? I’m unsure about that.

Michael Palin’s “There and Back: Diaries 1999-2009” is published by Orion

[See also: Robert Icke Q&A: “Shakespeare is apparently infinite”]

Desporto - sumo torneio de janeiro 2026

 

https://tribuna.expresso.pt/modalidades/2025-11-25-refugiado-ucraniano-aonishiki-e-a-nova-sensacao-do-sumo-no-japao.-e-quer-ser-o-primeiro-yokozuna-europeu-a4ed0843

Refugiado ucraniano Aonishiki é a nova sensação do sumo no Japão. E quer ser o primeiro yokozuna europeu

Lídia Paralta Gomes

25 novembro 2025 10:18

JIJI PRESS

Abre-se a página online em inglês do “Asahi Shimbun”, um dos mais antigos e populares jornais diários do Japão, e quem surge na manchete é Danylo Yavhusishyn. Ou melhor, Aonishiki Arata. Foi este o nome que o jovem ucraniano de 21 anos adotou na sua vida profissional enquanto praticante de sumo e é de Aonishiki que o Japão não pára de falar depois deste se ter tornado no primeiro cidadão ucraniano (e um dos poucos europeus) a vencer um torneio de elite no país, numa fulgurante ascensão no desporto nacional nipónico - o Japão é a única nação onde o sumo é praticado de forma profissional. 

Há muito que atletas da Mongólia ou Estados Unidos (muitos com origens japonesas) terminaram com o monopólio japonês no sumo, mas são raros os casos de sucesso entre europeus. Danylo Yavhusishyn pode mudar essa história, ele que chegou há três anos ao Japão, depois da invasão russa do seu país. No fim de semana, Aonishiki venceu o torneio de Kyushu, batendo o yokozuna mongol Hoshoryu, o que lhe deverá valer a subida ao estatuto de ozeki, o segundo mais importante, antes precisamente do grau de yokozuna. Até hoje, apenas três europeus conseguiram chegar a ozeki. 

JIJI PRESS

Yavhusishyn é o sexto lutador de sumo mais jovem de sempre a ganhar um torneio, de acordo com o “Asahi Shimbun”. Não descurando as tradições, no final segurou uma gigante dourada, comum quando um lutador vence um torneio, por ser um símbolo de boa sorte e de celebração no Japão. Profissional desde setembro de 2023, Yavhusishyn foi também o lutador a chegar de forma mais rápida à principal divisão da modalidade desde a década de 50, quando o atual sistema de divisões foi criado. E os feitos não deverão ficar por aí. À imprensa japonesa, o ucraniano sublinhou que quer “chegar um nível acima no ranking”. Ou seja, tornar-se no primeiro yokozuna europeu de sempre.

Seria histórico. E, para aqui chegar, Yavhusishyn passou por muito. Como fugir de uma guerra.

Da guerra ao apoio de uma nova família

Danylo Yavhusishyn era ainda uma criança quando o sumo entrou na sua vida. E tudo porque um dia a sua mãe se atrasou a ir buscá-lo a um treino. Inicialmente Danylo praticava judo na sua terra natal, Vinnytsia, no território central da Ucrânia. Quando a mãe se demorou um pouco mais a recolhê-lo após a sessão, o jovem notou que alguns atletas mais velhos tomavam o lugar no pavilhão. Não iam praticar judo, mas sim sumo. 

“Tinha 6 anos na altura e não percebia muito bem o que se passava e que desporto era aquele. Mas gostei da forma como era decidido o vencedor e rapidamente as regras também ficaram claras, fáceis de entender. Interessei-me e quando a minha mãe chegou disse-lhe que não queria mais judo, que o sumo era o desporto que eu queria fazer”, explicou no mês passado numa conferência do Clube dos Correspondentes Estrangeiros do Japão. Há atrasos que acontecem por uma razão.

Em 2019, Danylo impressionou no Mundial junior, que se realizou em Sakai, perto de Osaka, ao ficar em 3.º lugar com apenas 15 anos, depois de competir com adversários mais velhos. Foi aí que conheceu alguém que seria, anos depois, decisivo para o ucraniano fazer do sumo um modo de vida. Arata Yamanaka era também ele um jovem praticante e ficou impressionado com a técnica do rival. Os dois iniciaram aí uma amizade que seria regada com constantes interações no Instagram, cada um no seu continente. Quando Yamanaka soube da invasão da Rússia à Ucrânia, apressou-se a tentar ajudar o amigo.

Jordan Pettitt - PA Images

Danylo Yavhusishyn encontrou um primeiro refúgio em Dusseldorf, na Alemanha, onde a mãe trabalhava, mas com poucas condições para continuar a treinar sumo naquele país, perguntou a Yamanaka se este o podia ajudar a mudar-se para o Japão, onde conseguiria perseguir o sonho de se tornar profissional. Chegou ao país em abril de 2022 com apenas uma mala na mão e com a ansiedade de quem acabou de fugir de uma situação limite. Foi a própria família de Yamanaka que se tornou guardiã do ucraniano, ajudando-o a conseguir visto, dando-lhe casa e custeando boa parte da sua formação, conta o “Asahi Shimbun”.

Na hora de escolher o seu nome de combate, Danylo Yavhusishyn homenageou o amigo, elegendo o seu nome próprio como parte da nova identidade: Aonishiki Arata. Já fala fluentemente japonês e usa o azul da bandeira da Ucrânia nos seus uniformes de combate.

“Ele trabalhou no duro, mesmo antes de entrar no mundo profissional do sumo. A nossa família percebeu que ele ia evoluir muito rapidamente”, sublinhou Yamanaka ao “Hochi”, jornal desportivo japonês: “Para mim o Aonishiki é como um irmão mais novo e ele trata os meus pais como mãe e pai. Sabendo como ele começou quando veio para o Japão isto torna-se muito significativo”.

Agora, o ucraniano chega a um restrito grupo. Antes dele, só Kotooshu Katsunori, da Bulgária, Baruto Kaito, da Estónia e Tochinoshin, da Geórgia atingiram o nível de ozeki entre os atletas da Europa que se aventuraram neste desporto que é uma religião no Japão. Aonishiki pode chegar ainda mais longe, ainda há muitas douradas para carregar.

Música - Down like silver

 

Down Like Silver "Broken Coastline"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLtu7bc1Huo&list=RDkLtu7bc1Huo&start_radio=1

Séries - O pontão

 

Série britânica de 4 episódios, um thriller policial que levanta questões sobre moralidade, identidade e memória

Sob a tranquilidade da sua cidade natal, a detetive Ember Manning investiga um crime com raízes profundas no passado e descobre segredos chocantes que ameaçam tudo o que pensava saber sobre a sua própria vida. 
Quando um incêndio destrói uma propriedade numa pitoresca cidade à beira de um lago em Lancashire, Ember precisa descobrir a ligação entre o incêndio, uma jornalista de podcast que investiga um caso arquivado de uma jovem desaparecida há 17 anos e um predador sexual que atua na região. Mas, à medida que se aproxima da verdade, esta ameaça destruir a sua vida, obrigando-a a refletir sobre o seu passado e a reavaliar tudo o que pensava saber sobre o lugar que sempre considerou a sua casa. Um thriller policial que levanta questões importantes sobre moralidade, identidade e memória.

The Spectator - The imposters who pretend to be heroes

 (personal underlines)

https://spectator.com/article/the-imposters-who-pretend-to-be-heroes/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=CampaignMonitor_Editorial&utm_campaign=BLND++20260109++HOUSE+ADS++LEB+CID_24fb79d11bb310f389104459084c2b07

The imposters who pretend to be heroes

The cult of military prestige still tempts men who never served

Gavin Mortimer9 January 2026, 5:02am

(Getty)

‘Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea,’ wrote James Boswell of Samuel Johnson in his biography of his friend in 1778. Evidently Jonathan Carley did. The retired teacher was found guilty on Monday of impersonating a rear admiral without permission. The 65-year-old was fined £500 by Llandudno magistrates’ court, and ordered to pay £85 prosecution costs and a £200 surcharge.

Carley was arrested last November, days after he had appeared at the town’s Remembrance service in naval uniform with a dozen medals pinned to his chest. He told police that he had carried out the deception to have a sense of ‘belonging and affirmation’. Passing sentence, District Judge Gwyn Jones told Carley his actions were ‘totally disrespectful’, adding that ‘it’s a sad reflection upon you that you chose to do such a thing on a very difficult day for so many’.

Half a century ago Remembrance Sunday was indeed a difficult day for the nation. Millions had lived through two world wars, as combatants or civilians, and suffered the grief of losing a father, a husband, a son. That is no longer the case. Of the five million Britons mobilised in the second world war, fewer than 8,000 are still alive, and since 1990 the British Army has shrunk from 155,000 troops to 75,000.

The de-militarisation of Britain allowed Carley to get away with his fakery for 14 years. He exploited the nation’s military ignorance with his ill-fitting uniform and preposterous collection of medals.

In the end Carley’s ego got the better of him. He arrived at Llandudno’s 2024 Remembrance Day parade with a ceremonial sword that caught the attention of veterans. When they peered closely at his medals they were astonished to recognise the Distinguished Service Order, MBE and the Queen’s Voluntary Reserves Medal. The latter is exclusively awarded to military reservists and has never been awarded to a recipient of the DSO.

Forewarned about the mysterious rear admiral, photographer Tony Mottram – a former army reservist who also worked for the RAF – was waiting for Carley at the 2025 parade. He noticed the shabby cut of his tunic. ‘The hemming wasn’t right, the length wasn’t right,’ he said. ‘You either go on parade right or you don’t go at all.’

Some believe Carley got off lightly. His offence, which carries a maximum fine of £1,000, breached the Uniforms Act 1894. As he didn’t gain financially he couldn’t be charged under the Fraud Act 2006. This makes it an offence to profit materially while falsely wearing military uniform or claiming to have served in the armed forces. The Fraud Act carries a maximum sentence of ten years’ imprisonment.

Last month the government said these two acts suffice and there are no plans to ‘introduce additional criminal offences for impersonation of military service or wearing unearned medals’. A group of British veterans called the Walter Mitty Hunters Club – named in honour of the daydreaming character of a 1939 short story by James Thurber – pursue and expose military phoneys such as Carley. They described his punishment as ‘pitiful’ and called for the wearing of unearned medals in public to be a criminal offence. ‘The absence of a “Stolen Valour Law”… is an unfortunate reality we face,’ they explain on their website. ‘This legislative gap is the reason we have taken it upon ourselves (for over a decade) to expose the impostors.’

There is a Stolen Valor Act in the USA, passed in 2013, but this legislation specifically criminalises the act of benefiting materially from false military representation. In other words it is similar to Britain’s Fraud Act. Among the phoneys unmasked by the Walter Mitty Hunters are Chris Webber. The 64-year-old claimed to have been a veteran of the Falklands War but his downfall came in 2023 when he was among a group of ex-military personnel invited to No. 10 Downing Street to meet Rishi Sunak.

The prime minister and his aides didn’t have the knowledge to spot that two of Webber’s medals were non-military, but members of the Walter Mitty Hunters Club did when they saw photographs of the event. They also recognised that not only was Webber incorrectly wearing his beret, but that its badge was unique to the second world war.

Many of the 300 fakes exposed by the Walter Mitty Hunters Club claimed to have served in the special forces, usually the Special Air Service (SAS). This is a phenomenon I have also encountered as a military historian of the second world war. I interviewed around 75 wartime veterans of the SAS, along with a few who claimed to have served but didn’t.

I still receive enquiries from people asking for details about what their deceased relative did in the SAS. When he was alive, they explain, ‘he didn’t like to talk about what he did in the war’. I run their name through my extensive records and about one in two turn out to be fictitious.

Why did these old men lie to their families? To impress them, or more likely to impress themselves. Jonathan Carley read history at Oxford and then embarked on a successful career teaching the subject. He taught at Eton, Berkhamsted and Cheltenham College, three illustrious academic institutions, but at some point he decided he needed to be more distinguished. He began telling people he’d served in the army, the navy and military intelligence, not forgetting a stint at Nato.

Probably his pupils and their parents began looking at him with more respect. He felt he was someone. Carley’s defence solicitor told the court that his client ‘underestimated the anxiety, anger and distress’ that his actions caused. Above all, his deception caused disgust, for every man thinks meanly of the impostor who claims to have been at sea.