This is Northumberland Calling 31.1.25

The scandal, scandal and more scandal edition

Hello America (Particularly Central Ohio) this is Northumberland Calling

The questions about Peter Mandelson (new UK ambassador to the US who received his formal acceptance this week from the US) and China continue to be raised as more is revealed. Mandelson has in the past had dodgy acquaintances which have forced him to resign from various posts but he is the great survivor and has normally found another (well paid) post. This week Mandelson has publicly apologised for the ad hominin attacks he made on Trump in the past. I assume the grovelling apology had something to do with his acceptance by the Trump administration. Mandelson continues to be at the beating heart of the Labour party in many ways. https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/lord-mandelson-chinese-official-transnational-repression-twcgr60dt or https://archive.ph/qyFOD

The scandal surrounding the Good Literary Agency and the Arts Council England funding continues to grow with journalists taking a more in depth look at the National Portfolio Organization status. This is the Telegraph article about the Good Literary Agency funding. https://archive.is/GhFtK including about how the NPO funded an events security company (the funding has now been withdrawn and Sacha Lord, a high profile British businessman resigned as Manchester’s nighttime economy economic advisor last night)

This is a more in depth look at the scandal surrounding the Primary Events Solutions (they were called Primary Security until a few weeks before the application) and the Arts Council funding. \the company was wound up in 2023. Should there be an inquiry into how badly taxpayer money was mismanaged by the Arts Council England?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/01/29/andy-burnham-nightlife-adviser-quits-covid-grant-report/ or https://archive.ph/i0RhB

Another sex scandal is engulfing the Church of England, the Bishop of Liverpool has resigned after sexual harassment allegation including from the female Bishop of Warrington. There are rumours that that even though some of this was known the current Archbishop of York (the de-facto head of the Anglican Community because Justin Welby had to resign before Christmas) bullied the appointing council to appoint this man. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/30/archbishop-york-john-perumbalath-harassment-safeguarding/ or https://archive.ph/u8MZ7

And a surprise to very few, it would appear that Prince Andrew has told a few porky pies (aka lies) about the duration of his ‘friendship’ with Epstein. The revelations have come in connection with another case. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2025/01/31/prince-andrew-contact-jeffrey-epstein-longer-email/ or https://archive.ph/bcTAa

This week both the chairman (Nigel Biggar) and the General Secretary (Toby Young) of the Free Speech Union entered the House of Lords. This was at Kemi Badenoch’s request because of the premium she puts on free speech. This is an article the pair wrote about it and why the fight for free speech is non-partisan. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/28/free-speech-matters-to-kemi-badenoch-and-it-should-matter/

The Free Speech Union have won another battle – this time with the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries who wanted to impose US-style positive discrimination on its members. The IFoA has now altered their plans. https://x.com/SpeechUnion/status/1885238401667923978

If you want to know the background to the Gender Ideology tidal wave in the US and why Trump has put up a giant bulwark, the Free Press have published a very good explainer from Abigail Shrier. Shrier has paid a high personal cost for her fearless reporting.

Abigail Shrier: How the Gender Fever Finally Broke

If people have not discovered the White House press office, I would suggest it is a good place to see what is actually happening in Trump’s Executive Branch. Some things such as the proclamation about 27 Jan being National Holocaust day and indeed the setting up of the July 4 2026 grand celebration committee (why wasn’t this done before?) have been ignored. There are also fact sheets about several of his recent orders including the ones about school choice and combating antisemitism. His latest one was directing the FAA to do a complete review of hiring of practices to ensure Air Traffic Controllers are qualified to do their jobs. https://www.whitehouse.gov/news/

Speaking of National Holocaust day, the attempts at de-Judaification were evident in the UK media on the 27^th. Sky News did a report on the day stating that 6 million people died. They had to issue a correction as it was 6 million Jews. If one does not understand that the Nazis killed many people for a wide variety of reasons, but the Holocaust was specifically directed at those they considered ‘Jewish’, the reason why the world decided that the Jewish people deserved a country which had a special mission to keep the Jewish population safe is lost. It was a very specific horror and thankfully has not been repeated (even if other different population massacres such as Rwanda in the 1990s have occurred). WW2 does have many moving parts because it was basically the breaking of the world order. That the specific meaning of the Holocaust has been eroded in recent years, something I never considered until I read an article in Spiked on what has gone on and how subtle it has been. https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/01/27/how-jews-were-turned-into-the-new-nazis/

Here I continue to work on my revisions. They require a careful scalpel…

Paddy unimpressed with waiting for his supper…

Paddy is getting very good at waiting until permitted to eat his food.

I continue to get alerts from the Avian Flu taskforce in the UK – all of Wales is now under a flockdown with specific parts in England. My hens and ducks are now permanently caged because of the fox problem, but also because of the threat of avian flu. It is a huge problem around the world now.

If you want to find me during the week, I have started putting things on Celia M’s Jottings in Purple

which is where a number of refuge FP commentators are hanging out as they dislike the current FP policy on comments. The discussion is usually lively as you might expect from former FP commentators. Depending on how firmly my Procrastination Princess tiara is attached (aka how well my actual writing is going), I may end up getting distracted.

Hopefully everyone else’s week was a good one. I look forward to seeing you in the comments.

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