This is Northumberland Calling 27.09.24
The Demise of a Red Guard edition
Hello America (Particularly Central Ohio) this is Northumberland Calling
It is the season of mellow fruitfulness and dreary political party conferences.
Labour’s was decidedly damp and they find it hard to shake off the chill from the #FreeGearKeir scandal. Today it was reported that Lord Alli’s flat did sterling stand in service for Wes Streeting’s donor parties as well as Sir Keir’s house. There is political mischief-making going on but the fact remains Sir Keir and his cabinet did take the freebies while banging on about Troy sleaze and shadowy donors. There is a word for this if only I could think of it. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/09/26/wes-streeting-minister-lord-alli-flat/ or https://archive.ph/ixP2a
The Conservatives will have their conference cum leader beauty pageant at the weekend. Baroness Warsi, a sometime apologist for Muslim extremism and former Conservative party chairman under Cameron has quit the party claiming it has moved too far to the right. She was photographed drinking from a coconut (widely considered a racial slur) and has a book Muslims Don’t Matter publishing next week. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/09/26/baroness-warsi-quits-tories-investigate-divisive-comments/ or https://archive.ph/P77fo
Hannah Barnes revealed today that the BMA has altered its stance on Cass and now will ‘evaluate’ it from a position of neutrality. This is a win for the grassroots campaign to get them to alter the activist stance they took. https://www.newstatesman.com/spotlight/healthcare/2024/09/the-bma-turns-away-from-rejecting-the-cass-report
The model Naomi Campbell has been banned from being a charity trustee for five years after huge irregularities were found in the charity ‘Fashion for Relief’ which she founded. While the charity paid for five star hotels, spa days etc for Campbell, they made very few donations towards the people they were supposed to help. In fact less than 10% of the over £4.8 million raised went to good causes. Campbell who continues to be feted by the great and the good claimed that she was not in charge of the charity and that every penny she ever raised ‘goes to charity’. The findings of the commission beg to differ. https://www.thetimes.com/uk/society/article/naomi-campbell-banned-as-charity-trustee-over-misuse-of-funds-92sch55cq or https://archive.ph/eG1aX
One of the teenagers who ushered in the Red Guard movement in China Song Binbin has died. What she and her classmates did to their teacher in the name of Mao and his little Red Book was horrific. She refused to ever say who had done the beating. It is an instructive read about excess and the lack of consequences. She married a wealthy Chinese American and became a geologist in the US after she gave up being a cultural revolutionary who beat teachers to death. In many ways she was the Greta Thunberg of the Red Guard movement. https://www.thetimes.com/uk/obituaries/article/song-binbin-obituary-teenage-symbol-of-the-cultural-revolution-60wsfb79s or https://archive.ph/5kabV
The Chinese have been scrambling to cover up a sinking of one of their new nuclear submarines in June. It was being built when it unaccountably sank. The Chinese are trying to challenge US supremacy in submarines. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/09/26/china-new-nuclear-submarine-sinks-in-military-plans-blow/ or https://archive.ph/8fs8i
Meanwhile the now in receivership Harland &Wolf’s troubles continue in the UK and the MoD is seeking legal advice about its contracts with the shipbuilding firm which is looking to link up with a Spanish shipbuilder. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/09/26/mod-seeks-legal-advice-titanic-shipbuilders-navy-contract/ or https://archive.ph/7C4ft
And Biden continues to be indecisive about Ukraine. On the one had, announcing a ‘new’ military aid package (most of which will be manufactured in the US and thus support the US economy in certain areas, appoint which can be missed) but on the other refusing to grant Ukraine permission to attack the Russian logistical hubs with the British Storm Shadow missiles ( the guidance system is American). In case you missed it, on the 17th Ukraine drones struck a logistics hub including ammo dump deep within Russia. Russia then closed down social media accounts to keep the explosion etc off the news. Currently thanks to Biden, Ukraine fights with one arm behind its back and the stalemate continues to drag on. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2024/09/26/us-weapons-ukraine-wont-bidens-indecision-storm-shadow/ or https://archive.ph/zrw4i
Or you can look at the Australian old tank saga. It has to do with US tanks which Australia has replaced and no longer requires, but the US is refusing permission for these to be sent to Ukraine. Given that Australia and the US have already supplied weapons, it is hard to think that this would enrage Russia further. Why not send the old tanks where they can do some good. They are already a sunk cost for the US and Australia. It is Biden dithering… https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/26/ukraine-abrams-tanks-armour-russian-gains-australia-aid-war/ or https://archive.ph/nx0uM
Paddy has had a good week, racing around the garden. Autumn has set in. I’ve harvest the honey (not very much, next year I won’t leave it as long).
My proposal for the next Viking is due and thus I have nearly finished that.
If you want to find me during the week, I have started putting things on Celia M’s Jotting in Purple which is where a number of refuge FP commentators are hanging out as they dislike the current FP policy on comments. Jotting In Purple | Celia M Paddock | Substack
My latest Tempted by Her Forbidden Warrior is now out.
Hopefully everyone else’s week was a good one. I look forward to seeing you in the comments.
If you like what you read on here, why not subscribe? It’s free and I don’t have any plans to put in a paywall. If you wish to ‘reward me’ you can buy my books.
Nice to see the lively Free Press discussion here. I, too, am one of the formerly oft-banned, now unsubscribed TFP commenters. That Substack has become something other than what drew so much early interest. While the occasional interesting article appears, they are often UniParty screeds, dismissive of populist sentiment (my fave in that genre is the Ben Kawaller pieces where he appears in his full-flamed gayness before some Middle of America gathering and attempts to get the locals to display their presumed inchoate evil natures).
I think Michelle has it right on TFP elsewhere in these comments - Weiss sought participation from "investors" (read, VC people with money looking for a platform to rule over or at least become a cool kid through association - many VCs have so much money to burn that even taking a loss is no loss if the psychic gains are good enough). Weiss also hired Kahr to be COO (the man in charge) and Wiseman as head editor (to change the editorial tone). Kahr worked at some German rag that was alleged to have ties to the CIA (as in a purveyor of CIA propaganda). I've written before (including in my subscribing, not-banned time at TFP) that you can take Weiss out of the NYT, but not the NYT out of Weiss. Did you all know that Weiss (and Bowles) has moved back to NYC? I think Weiss' goal is to take on the NYT directly with "New Media" .She is empire building and won't stop until the NYT bends her to come back LOL! Bari Weiss, New Media Magnate!
Thank you for the boost!