This is Northumberland Calling 31.7.26

The open fire in drought conditions….edition

Hello America (especially Central Ohio), this is Northumberland calling.

What a shock and relief it is to have a Prime Minister who actually sounds like a prime minister and who isn’t hiding behind a focus group. I realise the bar is particularly low after Starmer but thus far, Burnham looks like he is going to try to create bridges and stop putting carts before horses. For example, he has paused the rush towards ‘assisted dying’ until the reform of adult social care including palliative care is in place.

He has spoken to the Jewish Chronicle about why Jewish Care is the model upon which he wants to build the reformed social care model. https://www.thejc.com/opinion/prime-minister-jewish-care-model-social-care-reforms-v3xp80w3

A massive wildfire in Suffolk ignited, most likely because someone had an open fire on tinder dry heathland. It is an area which has some of the Britain’s most important bird habitats. Minsmere is where the avocets breed. The flames are also advancing towards a nuclear reactor but it is not thought to be in danger. The situation is stabilizing apparently. People are selfish. Disposable barbeques and open fires (not in a properly made fire pit) are good ways to start forest fires. Remember Smoky the Bear? Someone obviously didn’t and other people have to clean up their mess. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/07/30/wildfire-threatening-nuclear-power-plant-rspb-reserve/ or https://archive.ph/urRWu

Civil War exists in football after 55 countries have decided to boycott the next World Cup if it is sold. Europe is where all the money is so I am not sure how this is going to work out for Infantino. https://news.sky.com/story/world-cup-latest-european-nations-agree-to-boycott-fifa-competitions-over-controversial-sell-off-plan-13568011

Four trade unions have decided to boycott the women’s conference at Labour’s conference this year because males are banned. This gives chapter and verse on how these unions (and indeed the union movement) have sold out its female members. https://heartlandstribune.com/the-empty-delegation-how-four-trade-unions-sold-out-their-female-members/

It is not just women’s groups who are upset with Amnesty International UK, CARE (which is a massive charity in its own right) was one of the organizations named. They have written to the Charity Commission along with 11 other Christian groups. It is quite the letter. https://care.org.uk/news/2026/07/care-writes-to-charity-commission-over-amnesty-report

Arts Council England showed a certain amount of suicidal empathy in appointing a woman Julia Kingsford as its director of literature and the South est. Kingsford recently presided over the squandering of £1.3 million of taxpayers’ money which was used to fund her failed literary agency ‘The Good Agency’. She did not blame herself for the failure but rather publishing (and the general public) for not seeing the brilliance of the underrepresented authors which the agency represented and buying their books. It is really a tale of doubling down on failed DEI policies at a time when publishing is in great flux. https://thecritic.co.uk/ideology-is-still-undermining-the-arts/

A policewoman in the Northumbria Police is currently undergoing a disciplinary action because certain colleagues have objected to what they term her ‘misandry’ . Several choice phrases have been revealed including ‘I’m getting f*cking done by the Rainbow Unit’ which made me laugh. Tribunal tweets are covering. The judgement is expected today along with several other GC judgements including the Puberty Blocker trial ban injunction. If the panel decide against Fletcher she could be sacked. This gives some more background: https://archive.ph/v3s3r

The British Constitution is unwritten or perhaps as the parliamentary briefing on the Bill of Rights 16998 suggests a better word is uncodified (not gathered in a separate document thus creating a separate type of law – constitutional law such as exists in the US) as there are certain core documents, deeply enshrined in the system. One important piece of legislation was the Bill of Rights 1689. It is basically the corner stone of the Parliamentary system. After it, the monarch did not rule but reigned. It provided the model for the US Constitution’s Bill of Rights 1789 (aka the first 10 amendments to the Constitution.). It guarantees various things like https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/parliamentaryauthority/revolution/collections1/collections-glorious-revolution/billofrights/ This is the briefing to new MPs on the Bill of Rights 1689 and why it still matters: https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN00293/SN00293.pdf

Here:

I spent some time in Kendall with my eldest and climbed Scout Scar. The mushroom observatory which gives stunning views was put in to commemorate the coronation of George V. I would have guessed by the 1970s btw. https://www.discovercumbria.co.uk/Scout-Scar.html

Paddy wanting to know which time train I was taking back

Paddy had an enjoyable time with my husband and I was sent regular updates.

The bees are building up rapidly and the wasp baffle keeps working. The brambles have ripened very early. This is due to the hot summer and drought. Much of British Isles is under hose pipe bans because for the last forty years , there really has not been a need to worry about water conservation and of course the population has massively expanded putting pressure on existing systems. Nortumberland because of the historical legacy of heavy industry has an ample water supply.

My writing continues and I am working off the computer on this draft.

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