Something strange is happening to the starlings in Wales.  On the afternoon of 10 December 2019, Bodedern, Anglesey resident, Hannah Stevens, had observed a murmuration of some 250-500 of the birds while on her way to an appointment.  On her return later that evening, Ms Stevens was shocked to find …

Cui bono? At face value, Rishi Sunak’s £350 handout to help with rising energy bills is a lot better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.  The devil, of course, is in the detail.  Only £150 is coming in April, when the average energy bill will increase …

Here’s something which will likely be universally unpopular:  The government shouldn’t do anything to subsidise energy prices.  I say this in the face of a £700 or so increase on annual bills announced today.  And this is just the beginning, because, as Nils Pratley at the Guardian points out, when …

The UK government faced a barrage of criticism over its National Insurance hike this week.  The tax – which theoretically pays for public services, pensions, and benefits – was in creased last autumn, before the political class became aware of the massive increase in gas and electricity prices coming later …

Double distraction The important – but unmentioned – fact about UK Prime Minister Johnson’s current woes is that they are apolitical.  Johnson’s – and the Tories – collapse in the polls is solely the result of a breech of trust which might just as easily have been the result of …

When the greenwash peels Among the biggest confidence tricks used by the Green New Great Reset crowd was the sale of “renewable electricity” to the virtue signalling middle classes.  The con ought to have been easy enough to debunk.  After all, there is only the one wire which connects your …

The image of Marie Antoinette dressing up and playing shepherdess in the grounds of her Hameau de la Reine folly at Versailles while Paris burned in the distance may owe more to the mythology of the subsequent revolution, but it speaks to an aristocratic elite which had severed all ties …

It’s half past three on a cold Friday afternoon in mid-January.  The temperature is just five degrees centigrade.  The sun is already low on the winter horizon.  There is barely a breath of wind.  Once again, Britain sits beneath cold high-pressure air.  And once again we have had to turn …

OVO error of judgement Energy company OVO has come in for criticism after advising people to cuddle up to their pets to keep warm this winter.  One of the reasons people began to keep animals indoors in the first place was precisely because they could be used in the same …

I am told I should look into filing a copyright claim against the Netflix movie Don’t Look Up, since I wrote a version of it in my 2015 book, The Consciousness of Sheep, and for exactly the same reason: “We’ve all seen this movie before: A giant asteroid is heading …