StephenKMackSD's Blog

Newspaper Reader offers other prespectives!

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Mar 17, 2025

Editor: The Telegraph’s Headline and Sub-headline frame this execercise in political hysteria.

Headline: Mahmoud Khalil is a test case for the survival of Western civilisation

Sub-headline: Europe seems resigned to not deport foreigners with hostile views. The United States should be different.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/comment/2025/03/14/mahmoud-khalil-test-case-for-survival-western-civilisation/?WT.mc_id=e_DM538066&WT.tsrc=email&etype=Edi_USD_New&utmsource=email&utm_medium=Edi_USD_New20250317&utm_campaign=DM538066

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Editor: Simon Hankinson is a Neo-Con, in fact, a defacto Straussian. What does that mean? Leo Strauss re-wrote the History Of Philosphy, that just didn’t advocate The Noble Lie, but inshrined it as an execise of Elite Power : a methodolody of the control of the lesser beings, by that self-appointed Elite! Reader Peter Thiel offers his ‘The Straussian Moment’!

https://lite.evernote.com/note/46c636b6-b404-45df-ab0a-1f84c6fdc8c2

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Summary

THE POLITICS OF LYING

Socrates’ introduction of the Republic‘s notorious “noble lie” comes near the end of Book 3 (414b-c). “We want one single, grand lie,” he says, “which will be believed by everybody – including the rulers, ideally, but failing that the rest of the city.” Grand lie? Noble lie? G. R. F. Ferrari has a good note on the issue: “The lie is grand or noble (gennaios) by virtue of its civic purpose, but the Greek word can also be used colloquially, giving the meaning ‘a true-blue lie,’ i.e. a massive, no-doubt-about-it lie (compare the term ‘grand larceny’).” This is not the only point on which there might be argument about the translation. Some prefer to “lie” the more neutral “falsehood” (which need not imply deliberate deception), others “fiction ” (perhaps trying to prescind from questions of truth and falsehood altogether). Cornford had “bold flight of invention.” I think “lie” is exactly right. But the argument for that will emerge later, in section II.

The noble lie is to serve as charter myth for Plato’s good city: a myth of national or civic identity – or rather, two related myths, one grounding that identity in the natural brotherhood of the entire indigenous population (they are all autochthonous, literally born from the earth), the other making the city’s differentiated class structure a matter of divine dispensation (the god who molds them puts different metals in their souls). If people can be made to believe it, they will be strongly motivated to care for the city and for each other.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-companion-to-platos-republic/noble-lie/F04B78C5546C7FB5E331248F35068F76

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Editor: M.F. Burnyeat offers isights on the Straussian Methodology:

Strauss, of course, wants his “gentlemen” readers to form the opposite conviction, about the Republic and about politics in general. What persuasions can he muster? There is the frail comparison with Shakespeare. There is the consideration that Socrates is a master of irony and “irony is a kind of dissimulation, or of untruthfulness.”

But to show in detail that Plato means the opposite of what Socrates says, Strauss resorts to a peculiar mode of paraphrase which he evidently learned from the tenth-century Islamic philosopher, Farabi.

The technique is as follows. You paraphrase the text in tedious detail—or so it appears to the uninitiated reader. Occasionally you remark that a certain statement is not clear; you note that the text is silent about a certain matter; you wonder whether such and such can really be the case. With a series of scarcely perceptible nudges you gradually insinuate that the text is insinuating something quite different from what the words say. Strauss’s description of Farabi describes himself: “There is a great divergence between what Farabi explicitly says and what Plato explicitly says; it is frequently impossible to say where Farabi’s alleged report of Plato’s views ends and his own exposition begins.”

The drawback with this mode of commenting on a Platonic dialogue is that it presupposes what it seeks to prove, that the dialogue form is designed to convey different meanings to different kinds of readers.

Ifthere is a secret meaning, one might concede that Maimonides’ instructions show us how to find it and that Farabi’s mode of commentary is the properly cautious way to pass it on to a new generation of initiates. But Strauss has not yet shown that Plato does conceal his opinions, let alone that they are the opposite of what Socrates explicitly says. Hence his use of techniques adapted from Maimonides and Farabi is a vicious circularity.

It would be tedious to follow up all the perversities, both literary and philosophical, of Strauss’s reading of the Republic. I shall pick on one central statement Strauss makes about the Republic: “The philosophers cannot be persuaded, they can only be compelled to rule the cities.”

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Sphinx Without a Secret

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Editor: Mr. Hankinson opening paragraphs!

There’s an old joke among US immigration officers: “the case ain’t over ‘til the alien wins”.

It long reflected the truth: that absurd interpretations of the law and endless appeals made it rare for non-citizens (“aliens”) to ever be deported, even if they had committed fraud or other crimes.

But the United States now has a president committed not only to securing the country’s borders, but to enforcing the law and deporting those ordered to be removed. Trump has said that those “who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity” will be held to account.

Mahmoud Khalil, a recent graduate of New York City’s Columbia University, is a test case: can the United States remove non-citizens with views that appear to be antithetical to its very existence, or will the courts force us into pathological levels of tolerance?

Khalil was arrested on March 8 by immigration agents. He is reportedly of Palestinian heritage and from Syria, arrived on a student visa, and then, apparently based on marriage to an American citizen, obtained lawful permanent residence status, aka a “green card”.

There is much evidence that Khalil has been at the centre of anti-Israel protests on campus – perhaps even organising them. He has been described as belonging to Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) and reportedly led students from its campus Gaza Solidarity Encampment in negotiations with administrators.

Under leaders who are at best feckless and at worst sympathetic to the protesters, Columbia has endured two years of disgraceful events, including assaults on Jewish students, sequestering staff, occupying buildings, pro-Hamas propaganda, blocking classes, and vandalism.

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Editor: Mr. Hankinson last paragraph offers Trump as the final arbiter. What Hankinson offers the reader is incomplete: The Executive, The Legislative and The Judicial share the powers as civic equals! Though the vexing question remaines how far will Trump go?

In Europe, defiant, possibly unassimilable immigrants seem to have the upper hand. In the US, the Trump administration has not only declared them unwelcome, but taken action to send them packing.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/comment/2025/03/14/mahmoud-khalil-test-case-for-survival-western-civilisation/?WT.mc_id=e_DM538066&WT.tsrc=email&etype=Edi_USD_New&utmsource=email&utm_medium=Edi_USD_New20250317&utm_campaign=DM538066

Newspaper Reader.

Newspaper Reader: A case of bad judgement or someting else?

stephenkmacksd.com/

Mar 16, 2025

The historian Niall Ferguson has denied being an “gay-basher”, claiming that his friendship with the prominent homosexual blogger Andrew Sullivan showed that he could not be homophobic.

Following days of criticism about his comments on the sexuality of economist John Maynard Keynes, the Harvard professor sought to clear his name with an open letter to The Harvard Crimson, the university’s college newspaper.

The British academic had already apologised for claiming that Keynes did not care about the future because he was gay and had no children, but said he owed it to his students to “make it unambiguously clear” that he was not homophobic.

In the letter, Ferguson, 49, said: “In my writing and teaching, I have laboured long and hard to expose precisely what was wrong about the theories that condemned homosexuals, Jews and others to discrimination and death.” As evidence that he was not a “gay-basher as some headline writers so crassly suggested” he pointed out that Sullivan , a US-based political commentator, gave a reading at his wedding and is a godfather to one of his sons.

Explaining his remarks last Thursday which sparked the row, he said: “Not for one moment did I mean to suggest that Keynesian economics as a body of thought was simply a function of Keynes’ sexuality.” But he added it could not be true that the economist’s sexuality “is totally irrelevant to our historical understanding of the man”.

Ferguson also used the letter to condemn “vituperative online critics” for their knee-jerk response to his original comments – adding that for the “self-appointed inquisitors of internet, it is always easier to accuse than seriously to inquire”.

But judging by the online comments, many students remain unimpressed, with several questioning his “some of my best friends are gay” defence, and others questioning his role as the Laurence A Tisch professor of history at Harvard.

Newspaper Reader.

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Old Socialist offers a selective commentary!

stephenkmacksd.com/

Mar 16, 2025

Headline: Is this a bonfire of red tape — or yet more smoke and mirrors?

Sub-headline If Keir Starmer is serious about cutting the costs of regulation, he needs to get serious about measuring them

https://www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/bonfire-red-tape-keir-starmer-labour-pcwmfvhnf

Editor: The Reader has to give Mr. Colevile some credit for his first paragraphs.

Keir Starmer is the last person you can imagine going on Stars in Their Eyes. But in his big speech on Thursday he did a pretty convincing impression of Elon Musk. The prime minister complained that Whitehall was harbouring a “cottage industry of checkers and blockers”; that it’s too hard “for the most enterprising people in the country to just get on with the job”. But no more! Under Labour, compliance costs for business will fall by a quarter. Yes, a full 25 per cent.

It’s an admirable ambition. Every poll of businesses, large and small, finds that compliance and admin are an ever-growing burden. In the City, for example, the ratio of regulators to workers has roughly quadrupled since 2011 — having already risen almost 40-fold since 1980. And God knows our economy needs an injection of dynamism: the latest GDP figures have us shrinking once more, after year on year of stagnant growth.

Editor: what follows is an etiolated diagnosis framed by ‘But there are a few small problems.’ The Reader just needs to focus on Colevile as the head of a Think Tank, that employs a cadre of technoctats, yes small t, who can and will supply the boss with the most pertenent idiological information. These two pargagraphs are alive with the hard work of his underlings. Not forgetting that Starmer is the a low-rent version of Tony Blair! The Reader might look at the Prime Misterships of David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak as a collection of mendacious political incompetents.

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The Reader now finds herself in a position of confronting the remaining 998 words of Colvile’s political argument. I’ll supply a selection of his political chatter.

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Musk and Donald Trump are targeting whole categories of compliance — DEI, ESG, AML, KYC. Hell, Trump has even said it’s OK to bribe foreigners again.

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The second is that, as Dominic Lawson points out, Starmer is simultaneously increasing the regulatory burden, via Angela Rayner’s Employment Rights Bill — a package of pro-union, anti-business measures so detested by the private sector that the government cannot name a single small firm that supports it

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Only one department, Defra, has a full list of the regulations it has imposed. Even when the government was deciding which European rules to keep after Brexit, there were no costs attached.

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But that system is utterly unfit for purpose.

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Editor: under the manner of Self-Congratulation

Last year I co-authored a report for the Centre for Policy Studies think tank examining the impact assessments attached to every piece of legislation from the 2010s. We showed that the Tories’ promises to lower the burden of regulation were bunkum — in fact, the official estimates demonstrated that costs rose by £6 billion a year.

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Editor: ‘by the most junior people’ in sum not worthy of attention/consideration. Not to speak of ‘Class Bias’!

It was clear from the assessments, and from conversations within Whitehall, that the estimates were too often done at the last minute, by the most junior people in the office, to justify decisions that had already been made.

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Editor: to the Grenfell matter, see the italics of the second sentence!

Or what about the second staircase rules brought in after Grenfell to make evacuation easier? A noble and necessary measure, you might think.

Except that the Grenfell inquiry did not actually recommend second staircases. And the impact assessment could not find evidence of a single life, anywhere, that would have been saved — not least because fire brigade practices in buildings under 50m tall “are effective to the point that mass evacuation via the stairwell is an extremely rare occurrence”. Yet the Tories not only introduced the requirement but unilaterally lowered the height limit for second staircases from 30m to 18m.

But this, too, isn’t the end of the story. Because the impact assessment included the cost of building the additional staircases. But not of the floor space, and flats, that would be lost to make room. It glibly claimed the towers could be made wider or taller. Which is not, to say the least, how our planning system works.

In truth, once you ran the numbers properly, the estimated annual cost of £268 million was closer to £2 billion. But there was no way for builders to challenge the figures. The result has been fewer new homes, an effective ban on the construction of traditional mansion blocks over that 18m threshold — and long months of frozen construction, across England, as the consultation dragged on.

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Editor: Colevile self-congratulation is the perpetual ! An expression of ‘Progressive Thatcherism’ ?

That means, as our report set out, a complete transformation of how Whitehall thinks about regulation — putting the costs front and centre, getting independent estimates rather than letting departments mark their own homework, and much more. It means eliminating scams like the plastic bag trick, in which civil servants rebadged the obligation for customers to save the planet by paying for their shopping bags as a deregulatory measure — think of the savings for the supermarkets! — and magically met their targets for slashing red tape as a result.

Above all, it means changing how ministers think — and what they are rewarded for. Because the problem is not just over-mighty regulators, but politicians whose positive headlines — and cabinet careers — depend on being seen as legislative dynamos, constantly responding to the latest clamour that something (anything!) must be done about the problem of the day, whatever the cost.

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Editor: The Eternal Mirage of Growth as expressed by both Starmer and Colevile. Note the Colevile tag line in italics!

Starmer is absolutely right that Britain’s addiction to regulation is a drag on growth. But his government has done nothing but increase the burden on the private sector — with disastrous economic consequences.

As for making a speech promising to cut compliance costs on the same day that his party blithely votes through a massive hike in them without even pausing to get an accurate estimate? There’s a word for that. But not one I can use in print.

Old Socialist.

Political Observer: Free Speech used to be a Constitututional Guarantee, indeed a Right?

stephenkmacksd.com/

Mar 15, 2025

I’ve been a regular suscriber of the Manhattan Institute’s newsletter for some time, yet nothing quite preparred me for this collectively hysterical post. The soft-sell of Eric Adams has been abandoned as not quite enough?

Yet the reader might consult Heinrich Meier’s book demonstrates a certain political prorpinqiuty between these two thinkers:

The ‘Crimes of Mahmoud Khalil’ are enumerated and then expanded upon by the cadre of paid propagandists! Reader note that this attack on free speech and political action can be traced, in it’s Television Iteration, to the re-write of Phillip Roth’s ‘Plot Against America’ that debuted as a Television Series, written David Simon and Ed Burns under the supervision of Roth!

Reader prepare yourself to the toxic marriage of Judaism and Zionism as a political/moral singularity!

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/ March 13, 2025

Good morning,

On Saturday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested former Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, the lead negotiator for students during the Gaza Solidarity Encampment on the university’s campus last year. President Trump praised the arrest Monday and said Khalil is the “first arrest of many to come” among those “who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity.” He is accused of harassing Jewish-American students on campus and distributing pro-Hamas propaganda.

The arrest is a direct consequence of President Trump’s January 29 Executive Order combatting antisemitism on university and college campuses. Khalil, who has described himself as a Palestinian refugee born in Syria and is a legal resident of the U.S., is serving as a Rorschach test for American lawmakers and the national media on the Trump administration’s willingness to combat antisemitism and impose order on elite American campuses.

Hannah E. Meyers, MI’s director of policing and public safety, writes in City Journal that Khalil’s detention is not only justified, it is a necessary signal that anonymous violence is unacceptable.

And adjunct fellow Tal Fortang warns in City Journal that “civil terrorism is a dangerous manifestation of a simmering battle for the West.” Masked criminals who subject law-abiding Americans to harassment and an unending flow of physical and economic danger are trying to destroy America and the West, not save it.

At the Manhattan Institute, our scholars have long sounded the alarm on the rise of antisemitism on campuses across the country and the network of progressive and anti-American organizations sowing civil disorder. This newsletter highlights some of our recent work on the issue, especially Hannah E. Meyers, Ilya Shapiro, and Tim Rosenberger’s model legislation to ban masking for the sake of intimidation.

In other news, senior fellow Roland Fryer writes in the Wall Street Journal that MEI—“merit, excellence, and intelligence”—is the latest hiring trend among American corporations, sidelining DEI. Thank goodness for that. But, in UnHerd, Paulson policy analyst Neetu Arnold warns opponents of DEI that, as they roll back racialist programs, they must remember that there is a difference between regulating conduct and regulating speech, with the latter protected by the First Amendment.

This week we launched a video series to promote the work of MI scholars in a new and sharable format. The first installment features Leor Sapir, director of MI’s Gender Identity Initiative, who reveals how interventions like mastectomies and gender transition surgery on minors are based on ideology—not science.

Finally, MI scholars published two new research papers this week. Senior fellow Eric Kober evaluates the mass of contradictions that make up the Midtown South Mixed-Use Plan recently proposed by the NYC Department of City Planning. He also offers recommendations for improvement. And MI’s director of Cities, John Ketcham, co-authored a report with Jack Santucci proposing a new set of electoral reforms for big cities. They explain how party-list proportional representation, which is neither inherently conservative nor inherently liberal, could end the era of one-party domination and open up space for local coalitions to focus on issues that do not track with national politics.

Continue reading for all these insights and more.

Kelsey Bloom
Editorial Director

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Political Observer

Old Socialist confronts the revelatory Cast of Characters! But the full scale Anti-Russian near hysteria is really the central attraction!

stephenkmacksd.com/

Mar 14, 2025

Editor: The Reader has to wonder at the employment of the use of ‘peaceniks vs. hawks’ in the the year 2025? The desperation for a compact solution, for a title that won’t eat up too much space?

Europe | Rearm fast!

Europe’s other front: peaceniks vs hawks

Not all voters favour rearming. Hardly any like paying for it

https://www.economist.com/europe/2025/03/13/europes-other-front-peaceniks-vs-hawks

Editor: the cast of characters is a place to start the inquirery into this 1050 word monstrocity?

Wendela de Vries, The ReArm Europe, NATO, Mette Frederiksen, Mette Frederiksen, Donald Tusk, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Pal Jonson, Pauli Aalto-Sepala, The Left party, AfD, Social Democrats (SPD), Friedrich Merz, Ralf Stegner, Geert Wilders, Emmanuel Macron, National Assembly, Five Star Movement, far-left groups , Alessandro Marrone, the Institute of International Affairs, Giorgia Meloni, YouGov!

Editor: the final paragraph of this Propaganda:

That will leave politicians scratching their heads. And spending money is only part of what European countries must do to defend themselves. They must also recruit soldiers—and in most countries few young people are interested. (The Nordics are in better shape: they conscript.) Countries must consolidate their fragmented defence industries, though perhaps not too much: research in Romania by Eoin Power of the University of Texas at Austin shows that voters are more likely to support defence spending that creates jobs in their own country. Above all, they have to convince their citizens they need stronger armed forces. Many Europeans accept that message; fewer are willing to pay for it.

Editor: The Reader might contemplate what the possible final disposition of this manucatured war in Ukraine might be? A possible denoument of this political melodrama might be: the dissapearnce of Zelenskyy from the center of contoversy, as he and his minions decamp?

Old Socialist

Newspaper Reader confronts his short, willful, erratic, & heedless final paragraphs!

stephenkmacksd.com/

Mar 12, 2025

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What team Trump has achieved is the opposite: A Russia that sees even less reason to settle, a Europe that sees more reason to go its own way, a China that believes America will eventually fold and a once-again betrayed Ukraine that will have even less reason to trust international guarantees of its security.

There’s more of this: Sunday’s arrest and threatened deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, a green-card holder and pro-Palestinian activist at Columbia, may even get pro-Israel civil libertarians to defend his rights while making a martyr of him on the far-left. But the pattern is clear. Ignoring the political corollary to Newton’s Third Law of Motion — that every action has an equal and opposite reaction — the administration will now reap precisely what it should avoid.

Trump’s critics are always quick to see the sinister sides of his actions and declarations. An even greater danger may lie in the shambolic nature of his policymaking. Democracy may die in darkness. It may die in despotism. Under Trump, it’s just as liable to die in dumbness.

Newspaper Reader.

Newspaper Reader: please note my highlights:

stephenkmacksd.com/

Mar 12, 2025

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The discovery that Trump is electoral halitosis isn’t the only thing diminishing his golden facade. Shortly before the president’s inauguration, George Osborne spoke of the mood among Democrats he encountered in Silicon Valley: “There is a real feeling, and it’s quite a contrast to what’s happening in Europe and in the UK, that the animal spirits of capitalism have been fired up, that deregulation is coming, that further growth is coming, that this is, as he himself describes it, a new golden age for America.”

How, you might ask, is that working out? Since Trump entered office, US economic growth forecasts have been slashed (Goldman Sachs projects growth of just 1.7 per cent this year, down from 2.4 per cent) and stock markets have plummeted. The tech billionaires who attended Trump’s inauguration have collectively lost $209bn since his second term began. A majority of the US public (52 per cent) now disapprove of his performance to date – always an uncomfortable position for a populist to be in.

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Editor: For those who cant resist the New Statesman’s Neo-Liberalism, offered as ‘New Times, New Thinking’, there is so much more to chew on! George’s Oxbridger Education reveals itself in the first quoted sentence, followed by the Osborne’s comment.

Newspaper Reader.

Newspaper Reader comments.

stephenkmacksd.com/

Mar 10, 2025

Leaders | The death of giving

The demise of foreign aid offers an opportunity

Donors should focus on what works. Much aid currently does not

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2025/03/06/the-demise-of-foreign-aid-offers-an-opportunity?utm_source=twitter&utm_content=discovery.content&utm_medium=social-media.content.np&utm_campaign=editorial-social

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What does Russia want? Some reports in recent days have suggested that Mr Putin may be open to a truce under certain conditions. But the game unfolding may well be more sophisticated and cynical than that. A highly-placed source close to the Kremlin suggests Russia intends to demand a Ukrainian declaration of neutrality, and that foreign peacekeepers be ruled out. It is probably impossible for Ukraine to even consider such conditions—at least not before real negotiations have even begun. Kurt Volker, who served as Special Representative to Ukraine in Mr Trump’s first administration, says Russia will twist any truce proposal. “They’ll say: we can’t agree to that, but let’s do something else. Putin is smart enough not to just say no.” A former Ukrainian diplomat says American and Russia have been mirroring each others’ tactics, “salami-slicing” concessions from Ukraine before substantial negotiations begin. Any subsequent talks will seek to move further into Ukrainian red lines. The American end game has become a moving target, he says.

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Any successful and enduring peace deal would require America to put pressure on the Kremlin to comply and then continue to do so. On March 7th Mr Trump did threaten to impose major sanctions on Russia. But most of the evidence suggests that he is sympathetic to Mr Putin. Hours later Mr Trump said “I’m finding it more difficult, frankly, to deal with Ukraine…In terms of getting a final settlement, it may be easier dealing with Russia.” Mr Volker says that “Trump is trying to keep Ukraine on a short leash because he wants them to accept whatever peace he can get…the Ukrainians are the obstacle because they’re not surrendering.”

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A senior Ukrainian security official says he has seen no evidence that the Americans are contemplating a complete exit from Ukraine, yet, let alone Europe. “The hope is that as soon as we have a truce, we’ll be on a more rational track again,” he says.

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Others are less sanguine. The dangerous prospect looms for Ukraine that failed talks could trigger even more pressure from America. Another Ukrainian official warns that America’s approach, if it continues, could leave Ukraine in a “grey zone”. That would force it to use more vicious military tactics for its survival. Already, he says, strong personalities dominate the negotiations, adding a Ukrainian proverb: “Yake yikhalo, take y zdybalo” (like attracts like). The stakes of Tuesday’s talks could not be higher. If they collapse, Ukraine is unlikely to get another chance: “The Americans will double down on instructional mode, and force whatever they and Russia decide on us.” ■

Editor : Reader please note that actors in this portion of this ‘Economist Report’, are Vladimir Putin, Kurt Volker, Donald Trump and ‘and various unidentified Ukanian officials’ ! and a Ukrainian proverb: “Yake yikhalo, take y zdybalo” (like attracts like).

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Editor’s note (March 10th 2025): This story was amended in order to make clearer that Ukraine occupies only a part of the Kursk region.

To stay on top of the biggest European stories, sign up to Café Europa, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter.

Newspaper Reader.

Newspaper Reader on Mrs. Thatcher’s brat, with an Anglican turn!

stephenkmacksd.com/

Mar 09, 2025

Mr. Colvile is/was a child of wealth and priveledge, he is not quite as obnoxious as Jacob Rees-Mogg, but he is close!The first paragraph of Mr. Colvile’s essay offer a mild scolding:

With defence spending rising, growth weakening and headroom shrinking, Rachel Reeves is having to wield the axe. Her chosen target? The welfare bill, which reportedly faces cuts of at least £5 billion. Already, this plan is hugely controversial. And rightly so. Because it falls laughably short of what is needed.

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Editor: in seconds Mr. Colvile is at full gallop:

That may sound harsh, or exaggerated. But there is a compelling — and appalling — case that incapacity and disability has become Britain’s biggest growth industry.

Let’s look at the facts. Today, 9.3 million people of working age are economically inactive. Of those, 2.8 million are inactive through illness — up from two million before the pandemic. The proportion of the working-age population who say they have a disability has risen to an extraordinary 23 per cent.

The human impact of this is dreadful. But so is the financial impact. Over the past decade, spending on incapacity and disability benefits has increased by 40 per cent above inflation. By 2029-30, the Office for Budget Responsibility expects this bill to rise even further, from £64.7 billion to £100.7 billion. The overall welfare bill, including pensions, will swell to £378 billion. To put it another way, the rumoured £5 billion cut would represent just one sixteenth of the expected increase.

Editor: Mr. Colvile asks aquestion, while The Reader tries to regaine her equlibrian:

What is going on? To simplify greatly, the non-pensions welfare bill is being driven by the incapacity bill — and the incapacity bill is being driven by the mental health bill.

Editor : In sum Mr. Colvile attacks what is left of Clemet Atlee’s Welfare State and its NHS. The grifters who remaine on the dole. The Growth Rate of Britain was 1% when last I inquired. And that utterly anemic 1% Growth Rate has become the political property of Keir Starmer’s New Labour! After 14 years of Tory incompetence!

Editor: a collection of “Colviles Laws’

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Yet in a recent report on the alarming rise in spending, the House of Lords economic affairs committee stated that it had “received no convincing evidence that the main driver of the rise in these benefits is deteriorating health or high NHS waiting lists”. Similarly, the OBR judges that “only a minority of the recent rise in incapacity benefits onflows reflects a higher number of people initiating claims”.

The Lords and the OBR, in other words, think that the rise has more to do with the nature of the benefits system itself. And they’re almost certainly right.

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A recent freedom of information request from my colleagues at the Centre for Policy Studies think tank showed that in the year to November 2024, just 10 per cent of work assessments and 5 per cent of disability assessments were done face to face.

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And the Times columnist Fraser Nelson, who has campaigned tirelessly on this issue, points out that even if those on disability benefit want to go back to work — as hundreds of thousands do — they risk either cutting their income (or at least believing that they will do so) or jeopardising their disability benefits.

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And, of course, the judges are only too willing to stick their oar in: in January the High Court struck down Tory measures that would have cut £2 billion from the disability benefits bill because the (eight-week) consultation process was “rushed” and “unfair”, and ministers had focused more on cost-cutting than the impact on the vulnerable.

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Editor: Here is where Mr. Colvile proves to the reader that he is Mrs. Thatcher’s brat, with an Anglican turn!

There will always be many, many people in this country who need our collective help. But there are many, many more who would best be helped by moving off welfare and into work — not least because active, engaged, fulfilling employment is central to mental and physical wellbeing. Instead, we are not just paying these people off but writing them off, creating a cycle of dependency that afflicts generation after generation.

Newspaper Reader.

Newspaper Reader comments.

stephenkmacksd.com/

Mar 09, 2025

Headline: France, seen as the spearhead of European defense, worries Russia

Sub-headline :Macron and Putin on Friday engaged in a long-distance sparring match about Napoleon and imperialism.

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/03/08/france-seen-as-the-spearhead-of-european-defense-worries-russia_6738934_4.html?lmd_medium=email&lmd_campaign=trf_newsletters_lmie&lmd_creation=lemonde_in_english_NY&lmd_send_date=20250308&lmd_link=headlines_titre_1&M_BT=123617693181350

As soon as the European Council ended, Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron launched into history lessons from a distance. “There are still people who want to return to the times of Napoleon, forgetting how it ended,” said the Kremlin chief. Without naming him, he targeted the French president, who, after the green light from the 27 member states to beef up their defense and support Ukraine, repeated in Brussels on Thursday, March 6, that “Russia is an existential threat to us. Not just to Ukraine, not just to its neighbors, but to all of Europe.” On Russian social media in Moscow, Macron was quickly mocked as a powerless Napoleon. And, on television, Putin responded by reminding him of the catastrophic outcome of the Russian campaign in 1812.

“All the mistakes of our enemies and adversaries began in the same way: with a profound underestimation of the Russian character,” said Putin. A history buff like the master of the Kremlin, Macron was quick to respond: “Napoleon carried out conquests. The only imperial power I see today in Europe is Russia,” said the French president. He accused Putin of making “a historical misreading” by comparing him to Napoleon, and described him as a “revisionist imperialist of history and the identity of peoples.”

Following the announcement of Macron’s plans to strengthen European defense, reactions in Moscow oscillated between irony and skepticism: He is suspected of trying to frighten the French by stirring up the Russian threat to better divert attention from domestic problems. “In Moscow, however, there is a palpable touch of anxiety about this new, more war-mongering Europe, at a time when the Russians were hoping to get out of it thanks to Donald Trump in the US,” according to Tatiana Kastouéva-Jean, director of the Russia-Eurasia Center at the French Institute of International Relations in Paris.

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Editor: Reader, compare and contrast this Macron commentary from Benjamin Quénelle, with this Duran commentary by Alexander Mercouris and Alex Cristoforou. To put it mildly Benjamin Quénelle writes a kind of political apologetic, where Mercouris and Cristoforou offer a realistic appraisal of Macron and Macronism. My thought is that Macron, and his politics have proved that Neo-Liberlism in its French iteration has been toxic and that Macron himself is an abject failure on all counts !

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/E978tjlv72g?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

Editor: Benjamin Quénelle fires to final salvo!

Putin’s loyal foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, described as “absurd” and “delirious” accusations of Moscow wanting to attack Europe and said that Macron’s comments on the possibility of Europe being protected by the French nuclear umbrella amounted to a “threat.” In three years of war in Ukraine, however, the Kremlin has never ceased to wave the threat of nuclear blackmail.

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Newspaper Reader:

As I approach my 80th Year, I grow weary of the journalistc hacks of the The Political Present, who act ‘as if’ the Cold War of The Post War Era, does not supply stunning object lessons for the political present! Allied to its toxic & malicious attacks on Dissenters of all stripes and hues: Quénelle contiues this malign tradition!