Any suggestions in reply to Jon's question?

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Question for Charles. We buy beef from a local farm that rear rare breeds typically British white that are grass fed. They are in a spot of bother at the moment, as the abattoir they had been using for years has gone out of business & were one of the few who would butcher the carcass & deliver it back to the farm to be collected. They are trying to find a similar setup nearby & are on the the boarders with Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire although there farm is in Berkshire. Any suggestions would be welcome.

As Mark Twain probably said, once you start lying about the environment, it won't be long before you come unstuck.

The Welsh Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs, Huw Irranca-Davies, has today announced that he is delaying the start of the proposed Sustainable Farming Scheme. This appears to have provoked a response of dismay and anger. The dismay comes in the form of "we've only got five minutes to save the world, and now you've blown it" and the anger is reported to be coming from farmers who are being mucked about.

Both responses are somewhat disengenuous, and this is partly because the proposed scheme is based--above all--on the unsubstantiated notion that there is a climate emergency and that it is caused by the tiny amount of carbon dioxide which human activities generate. In failing to tackle this lie, the farmers are left on pretty shaky ground. They don't want to be told what to do with their land, but they are rendered vulnerable by going along with the pretext.

If farmers are apparently angry about the delay of a scheme which they objected to in the first place, then one or two question arise. Is it, in actual fact, that they had hoped for conditions that English farmers have been offered, where they have been able to take all their land out of production and still receive a guaranteed income? DEFRA cocked this up and rowed back recently, of course, but it is still possible to take the risk away from 25% of a land holding.

A measure of the degree to which "climate" has replaced any sincere concern about the environment is shown in Irranca-Davies's penultimate paragraph. He writes "I will also consider continuing support to organic farmers next year." This could be poor English, though I rather think not. That a scheme which purports to be about sustainability is apparently only considering supporting a method of farming, which should not use chemicals or pharmaceuticals, is a reminder of where the twenty-first century is going.

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https://www.gov.wales/written-statement-future-farming-wales

Plenty (if not all) of people in farming are entering the new schemes because they are in need of the money. It’s just a rebadging of the £2.4bn agriculture budget and a few different hoops to jump through. There are some very good bits to the schemes and some poorly thought through elements. England had a good go at providing a crappy scheme which nobody liked or signed up to until it was revised for 2023.

Wales have approached it differently to England and look like they’re in a mess for 2024.

I suspect the anger is two-fold : being mucked about and being given a highly prescriptive scheme should you wish to enter.

I have entered SFI in England, kept all my land in production and am not interested in all of the climate nonsense.

I thought this an excellent conclusion to the order of service for a Service of Thanksgiving which I attended yesterday.

A timely reminder that the net zero agenda is only concerned with money, control and misery.

However, with such bold lies as this, many will succumb to the pressure:

"Replacing fossil-fuel-powered cars with EVs is central to the UK government's plan to meet its climate goals - road transport accounting for 12% of planetary emissions."

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https://www.bbc.com/news/business-69022771

Press release:
Solar projects must fit in with food security

The best agricultural land should be prioritised for food production – Energy Security Secretary Claire Coutinho told Parliament today (Wednesday 15 May).

Solar power will continue to play an important role in delivering cleaner, cheaper and more secure energy – with a more than 4-fold increase in solar deployment expected by 2035, up to 70GW.

Environment Secretary Steve Barclay said:

"We’re committed to protecting and improving the nation’s food security, alongside action that safeguards our energy security."

www.gov.uk/government/news/solar-projects-must-fit-in-with-food-security

Watch UK Column News live at 1PM
After the news, we will have UKC Extra Live. A more conversational look at today's events. Please join us for £5 a month (roughly 1/3 the BBC TV Licence fee) and access the UKC Extra here: https://community.ukcolumn.org/forums/uk-column-news-extra

AI and Net Zero as somewhat incompatible stablemates.

'But some countries know all too well how energy hungry these facilities are. There is currently a moratorium preventing the construction of new data centres in Dublin. Nearly a fifth of Ireland’s electricity is used up by data centres, and this figure is expected to grow significantly in the next few years – meanwhile Irish households are reducing their consumption.

The boss of National Grid said in a speech in March that data centre electricity demand in the UK will rise six-fold in just 10 years, fuelled largely by the rise of AI. National Grid expects that the energy required for electrifying transport and heat will be much larger in total, however.'

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj5ll89dy2mo.amp

https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/03/01/amazons-7-5b-nz-data-centre-plan-quietly-put-on-hold/ ah! It’s been put on ‘hold’! 🧐

How long before the dogs themselves are considered a biosecurity risk? I can almost see Christine Middlemiss dusting off her testing kit.

'The dogs are used in Italy to deter wolves, but their large presence means that they can be trained by farmers in the UK to fend off birds of prey, foxes, and other predators.'

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https://www.fwi.co.uk/farm-life/how-a-new-dog-project-could-protect-livestock-from-sea-eagles

First: 'OSLO, May 22 (Reuters) - Norway will recognise a Palestinian state, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said on Wednesday, confirming earlier reports.'
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/norway-recognises-palestinian-state-2024-05-22/

Then, immediately: 'COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz has ordered Israel’s ambassadors from Ireland and Norway to immediately return to Israel, as Norway said it would recognize a Palestinian state and Ireland was expected to do the same.'

https://apnews.com/article/norway-palestinian-state-ddfd774a23d39f77f5977b9c89c43dbc

Covered in a segment on weather modification in this afternoon's UK Column News: Google's apparent efforts to clear the skies.

What do you think?

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https://sites.research.google/contrails/

CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act passes HoR 216 to 192.

I forget whether Rishi still subscribes to this particular Telegram channel, but he should read this with interest:

'Background:

Unlike decentralized cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, a CBDC is a digital form of sovereign currency that is designed and issued by a central government and transacts on a digital ledger that is controlled by that government. In short, a CBDC is government-controlled, programmable money, that if not designed to emulate the privacy protections of cash, could give the federal government the ability to surveil Americans’ transactions and suppress politically unpopular activity.'

“For more than two years, we have worked to educate, grow support, and pass this important legislation, which prevents unelected bureaucrats from issuing a financial surveillance tool to fundamentally undermine our American values. My legislation ensures that the United States' digital currency policy remains in the hands of the American people so that any development of digital money reflects our values of privacy, individual sovereignty, and free market competitiveness. This is what the future global digital economy needs. We are proud to have led this effort and thank my colleagues for their support,” Congressman Emmer said.

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https://emmer.house.gov/press-releases?id=D2F64477-4F40-47E0-8CA8-51C2DE316947

With thanks to D T, for putting in the comments:

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Due to the calling of the General Election, all live petitions will cease on Thurs 30 May. They will not start again.

Petitions can only be started again, from scratch, after the election.

This is a part of the process referred to as democracy.

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https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/326/petitions-committee/news/201677/your-petitions-and-the-2024-general-election-faqs/

If you are off to Stand In The Light, I will look forward to seeing you there.

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https://standinthelight.uk/

During my time in the army, which coincided with a period of frenetic and ill-judged operational activity, I heard and saw some pretty extraordinary things.

None, perhaps, compares with this, from Hamish de Bretton-Gordon (of respirator fame) in The Telegraph:

"Those young adults who benefited so much from lockdown and furlough – their health and jobs preserved by an enormous national effort – should be give an opportunity to thank their elders for their sacrifices."

The subtext of this lunatic's article is that we need as many young'uns in combats as possible, because the Russians will make light work of the existing armed forces.

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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/28/national-service-lockdown-furlough-thank-you/

After a delay of nearly a year, the figures for abortion for 2022 were finally released on 23 May 24.

The delay was said to be due to a problem processing forms. It coincides with a rise of 17% on the previous year.

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https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/abortion-statistics-for-england-and-wales-2022/abortion-statistics-england-and-wales-2022

The ramblings of de Bretton-Gordon have provoked a shocked and well-justified response. I should follow up by making it clear that my view is that he does not, in any way, represent the values of those serving in the armed forces. This would appear to be exactly why he is used by the Telegraph and the BBC in such a manner.

By coincidence, I discovered last night an action which exemplifies the regard with which those I served alongside held each other. A former platoon sergeant of mine had had chronic and deteriorating kidney trouble, and he had been on dialysis for some time. Earlier this month, a brother officer had donated a him a kidney. Both are recovering well.

The suggestion that a version of national service is, somehow, a fair trade for the way in which the government (and their willing assistants) trashed the lives of the young during a staged pandemic is one of the most ill-judged and abhorrent things I have ever read.

Standby for D-Day 80 to be used as a great push for this particular narrative. There are approximately 5.5m 18 to 24 year-olds in the UK, and the armed forces stands at fewer than 140,000 at the moment. National service is not deliverable, in any practical sense, under current conditions. This is not to say it will not be attempted, but the percentage of 18 year-olds that could be absorbed by it is very small. More to come on this.