âSo pour me another to toast the new year
We need something much better,  great changes  to cheer”â
Tonightâs not for sorrows, nor mulling old wounds
Come banish our troubles,  lets sing some new tunes
Caught in the present is a moment to choose
To look forwards or backwards, to win or to lose
If your comfort is clinging to what has past
This precious moment of hope will never last
Lets grasp the future, riding its unknown ways
Surely that can bring so many better days
The past is well trodden, we know the ending
The future is for venture, shaping, bending
As last year expires,  hopes and promises broken
Change things this time , leave pledges unspoken
So pour me another, drink to the new year
Hereâs to big changes, something better to cheer
If your life is a drama you can change the plot
If your friends are the  actors you can recast the lot
If people around you are holding you back
Tell them youâre on the move , off  on a new track
Lets hold on to feelings that drive us to more
Lets find a way to open that closed door
We can stretch for the stars and strive for the sun
We can soar with  the wind making life more fun
You are only out of the game  when you give up the play
So write some new words so you have a new  say
Aim for something better, embrace the best
You may fall short of target  but gain from the quest
So cast off the old. Live a new dream
Grab the future foretold. Mine a new seam
So pour me another, lets toast the new year
Hereâs to a better, put fizz in our cheer
Believe tomorrow can be better than today
Let the future  empower with its  new way
Lets change the story from cuts and high taxes,
Lets go for growth as austerity relaxes
Lets make our own minds up and set our own pace
The future is only ours, my friend, if it we embrace
Tonight is the night is to put on a new face
So pour me another, lets toast the new year
We need something much better, big change to cheer.
December 31, 2024
Good morning.
I would like to take this oppotunity to wish our kind host and all here a Happy New Year.
For me 2024 has been one to remember. Let us hope that 2025 brings peace and harmony to the world and rise of sanity which seems to be spreading continues.
Thanks
December 31, 2024
“So pour me another, lets toast the new year’ times four.
Drinkaware advises fourteen units of alcohol a week. They advise three units a day limit for men in Britain, which is not a great deal. The UK suggested limits are lower than elsewhere in the world.
Mind you, they are a temperance organisation in disguise so you may choose to act differently.
December 31, 2024
We are in prison, but have committed no crime.
We have paid all our taxes, yet they ask for more time
.They committ us to spending on trivia unending.
They are madder than hatters, on a journey descending.
We ride in despair to their hell in a handcart, such is the fate of positivity in prison.
We pray for their damnation and the rebirth of our nation
While we lie pre nacent to emerge to salvation.
There are no drinks in my solution, but a desire for positive resolution.
Put sand in their axles and water in their tank. Make life for them unlivable in our ship of hope.
Amen.
December 31, 2024
+1 but Not so sure about sand in âaxelsâ âbearing and gear boxâ perhaps and sugar and water in fuel tanks not that I would encourage such illegal actions.
So elevation to the Lords for Emily Thornberry the woman with total contempt for white van men and the working class. A woman with a law degree who acted as shadow energy secretary but suggested using âwave powerâ as back up for periods when the wind did not blow. What does she think causes waves? Might it not be wind perhaps dear?
Also a knighthood for the dire person who did most to wreck London, augment stabbings and crimes with his two tier Kier approach and huge encouragement of anti-semitic marches and similar.
Reply No Lords for Thornberry
December 31, 2024
‘Might it not be wind perhaps’ not a lot compared to the gravitational ‘pull’ of the moon.
December 31, 2024
You, like her, are confusing wave energy with tidal energy. Also tidal energy actually comes from the earth rotation the presence of the moon just means the rotational energy can be extracted. Not actually renewable as it slows the earth rotation very slightly!
Sorry just a Dame was she not Lady Nugee already – hard to keep up.
But Sir Sadiq Kahn for services to crime and the wrecking of London is truly nauseating even for Starmer.
Also why not Sir David Beckham, he is a good chap & far more deserving than most on the list?
December 31, 2024
OMG – jolly good egg that chap?
December 31, 2024
Nice one đ
December 31, 2024
Sorry, lousy poetry, but you get the message. I wish you SJR all the best for 2025. I have made my gesture and for the first time in my life joined a political party. It is not with the generosity of Musk , but every little helps. I look forward to you joining us ere long. Happy New Year.
December 31, 2024
Agricola. Succinctly put. 2024 for me on a personal level has been rubbish but having just last week turned 79 I intend to make 25 better. DESPITE being governed by a shower of crooks.
Happy New Year to all the posters including the prolific Ll. And special thanks to our host for giving us somewhere to rant.
Going Deep as we submariners say.
December 31, 2024
Best wishes for 2025.
Is see that Downing Street has defended putting VAT on private school fees, by saying the institutions were âclearly out of reach for most peopleâ. The tax hike will come into effect on Wednesday.
Blatant dishonesty from this appalling government. What is the reason they are out of reach? Obviously it is this and the last governments policy of rigging the education marked.
People have the money grabbed off them for the state system – so most them then do not have any money left for the private one. In a genuine free market we would have fair competition between state and private and a refund of this tax for those who did not use the state system. With VAT they will pay four times over for private schools.
Just the same with the dire NHS rigged market. They grab the taxes off you so most have no freedom of choice. In this case we have 12% insurance tax rather than 20% VAT.
Pure evil, educational & health vandalism and theft by this repulsive government. 180 degree out on what is needed. The ConSocialist were only very slightly better as no VAT though the idiot Greta disciple Gove wanted VAT on school fees.
December 31, 2024
Govt says middle class people welcome VAT on school fees. Make it optional then.
January 1, 2025
Indeed in a fair unrigged market you would pay no VAT and get a tax refund/rebate of circa ÂŁ8k per child for not using up the state places that cost about this often rather more.
December 31, 2024
Snap.
In the UK 2024 was the year that socialists masquerading as capitalists were replaced by the real thing.
Here’s to 2025 showing even the politically disinterested what happens when this experiment starts going horribly wrong. Whether this can be called creative destruction when lives are being ruined in schools, hospitals, rented accommodation, farms and other working private sector is a moot point.
To make it work as mere creative destruction we need to pull out of this tailspin as soon as possible.
December 31, 2024
The Establishment has been playing a dangerous game.
It was not part of their blood,
It came to them very late
With long arrears to make good,
When the English began to hate.
They were not easily moved,
They were icy-willing to wait
Till every count should be proved,
Ere the English began to hate.
Their voices were even and low,
Their eyes were level and straight.
There was neither sign nor show,
When the English began to hate.
It was not preached to the crowd,
It was not taught by the State.
No man spoke it aloud,
When the English began to hate.
It was not suddenly bred,
It will not swiftly abate,
Through the chill years ahead,
When Time shall count from the date
That the English began to hate.
December 31, 2024
Much of England was green and pleasant land in Kiplingâs time. Itâs becoming a concrete jungle since without enough space for freedom and enjoyment. Reform is needed to restore a brighter future.
December 31, 2024
The pub up the road is charging ÂŁ15 a ticket to have a drink there on new year’s eve. A pint of bitter is ÂŁ6.85 and a (largish) glass of red for Mrs Gold is ÂŁ9 . Good grief!
Happy New Year to Sir John and the other posters here. May 2025 be a better year for UK plc
December 31, 2024
Pubs are being taxed into oblivion. The Establishment doesn’t want “the peasants” gathering together and having discussions which aren’t being monitored.
I wonder what your pub’s energy bill is like. I expect, like every other business and household in the UK, it is exorbitant in order to pay for the the intermittent energy they’re being forced to subsidise and the climate SCAM which is enriching Globalists and many in the British Establishment ….. the biggest transfer of wealth from “the little people to the wealthy” in history ….. dwarfing even the Covid Tyranny.
I do not wish a happy New Year to those who are deliberately destroying this country.
December 31, 2024
ÂŁ31 for two drinks with 15p change is high. If people accept, the pub can sell and might survive. Even so, high prices repel many. An âexpensive pubâ might lose all previously-loyal customers, and receive nothing other than overhead bills to settle.
December 31, 2024
Pubs have been charging entry on New Year’s Eve for as long as I can remember. We stopped going about 35 years ago, preferring to stay in with friends. New Year’s eve is amateur night anyway with forced jollity occasional imbibers.
ÂŁ9 for 1/3 bottle of wine isn’t too bad in the grand scheme of things. For your ÂŁ31 you can have two decent bottles of wine and copious snacks at home, you could even invite the neighbours round. Or you can pay up – you have a choice which is more than your climate alarmism resolutions would offer the rest of us.
December 31, 2024
What % of those prices ends up with the government in tax? Alcohol duty, VAT, council tax on the pub, energy taxes and energy market rigging, NI (both) and income tax on staff wages. Must be about 80% of the cost. Very easy to brew beer and wine at home drink at home and cut out the money grabbing piss down the drain government. We will doubtless all be having to do this soon though shop lifting for many seems to be preferred by many augmented by police and court inaction. Or alternative drugs.
Happy new year to all except the dire politicians who took us to this point and are still digging the hole even deeper.
December 31, 2024
You own an over priced electric milk float. You can afford it !
December 31, 2024
They have to heat the space Mr Cold.
December 31, 2024
SG,
Can you not drink your eponymous beer more cheaply elsewhere?
December 31, 2024
Hear, hear! Happy New Year!
December 31, 2024
Happy New Year.
There Is more information from theoretical physicists that we do shape our own world and destiny and each have responsibility to continue for the best of all.This does not solely mean by laws and control but wishing for better and bending matter.
December 31, 2024
A Happy New Year to our kind host and all.
I’m hoping that governments in Argentina and the USA show that governing in the national rather than global/corporatist interest is possible, beneficial and popular. I also hope so-called “right wing” parties continue to gain popularity in Europe, especially in Germany, where it wants to turn the EU back into free trade area with no Commission interference in nations’ affairs.
A breakout of peace across the world would be very welcome, too.
December 31, 2024
But it was never that, and nor was it ever intended to be that. I watched the interview:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2024-12-19/in-full-afd-s-weidel-on-election-eu-trump-energy-video?srnd=phx-technology
and really she would need to go right back to before the beginning and start again.
https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-history/history-eu/1945-59/schuman-declaration-may-1950_en
“The pooling of coal and steel production should immediately provide for the setting up of common foundations for economic development as a first step in the federation of Europe”
“this proposal will lead to the realization of the first concrete foundation of a European federation indispensable to the preservation of peace.”
The wish to make the EU and its precursors into something it was never designed to be is lamented here:
https://fedtrust.co.uk/video-brexit-does-the-eu-want-the-uk-back/
“The European Union is set up with an institutional structure that brings about an ‘ever-closer union'”
And it was a fundamental mistake even among many of its supporters to hope that:
“it was possible by an act of will to turn the European Union into something that it wasn’t, an intergovernmental trading agreement.”
December 31, 2024
Each day, every person has a choice, to change nearer to a path to better, or remain in circumstances they dislike. Too many feel that any change is uncomfortable with unknown risks, but then embed loyalty to what they abhor in toleration. However, anything difficult is merely tangled clusters of tiny things. Clearing or changing one at a time simplifies, building progress.
The present awards system needs change. The system confers honours on several people who have accomplished little of worthy merit, those who do and have done wrong, and those who are nothing more than well-known or have failed. Faulty awards tend to discredit the entire system, taking away from the distinction of those who have done fine things and deserve worthy recognition.
December 31, 2024
2We need something much better2, Amen to that.
Happy New Year
December 31, 2024
An admirably upbeat and optimistic posting. Letâs hope some other regulars on this site try and follow suit and, in 2025, resolve to say things other than constant references to green crap, PPE and the number of migrants who crossed the Channel the previous day. Happy new year.
December 31, 2024
What would you prefer? Look, the bulbs are poking heads up through the fallen leaves, the winter solstice came as always, the days are now getting longer and the National Grid has worked for the great majority? A&E are still trying to provide what GPs don’t, buses and trains sometimes run, unemployment is still a tragedy for millions and schools rely on their students being ready to regurgitate what has been taught. We’d all like a break away in a hotel, but they are full of strangers who don’t get a bill.
It can only get better…..really?
December 31, 2024
I watched some good news this morning: a fairly new YouTube podcast called Election Watch, commenting on the recent mega-poll which indicates that if an election was held today (and I realise it won’t be):
Labour: 228 seats (-184)
CONs: 222 (+101)
Reform: 72 (+67) – mostly in the north midlands, eastern seaboard, Essex and Kent
That’s an astounding result only 6 months after a General Election where Reform got 5 seats (one of them with a majority of around 100).
But where it gets really interesting is the number of Constituencies where Reform are polling in second place. If you scroll through to 14 minutes there is a map showing them …. it’s about 206 constituencies, mostly across the areas I mentioned above.
No wonder Badenoch’s panicking and we’re hearing from the likes of Maurice Glasmann that Labour is terrified of Reform.
Happy New Year.
December 31, 2024
Curiously, the Tories would be looking to Reform for a coalition, even though their MPs’ ideology is better aligned with Labour.
December 31, 2024
Hard to be optimistic (especially in the UK) given that the government are heading in totally the wrong direction and have been since John ERM fiasco Major became Chancellor. Still, at least we have Trump who is at least sound on energy, the mad climate alarmist religion, the woke lunacy and on exposing the appalling net harm Covid Vaccines too it seems.
Alas in the UK we have the evil politics of envy two Tier Kier and let’s sit on the fence on all these Trump issues Kemi & Countinho, they should both know better even if they have no Physics A levels.
December 31, 2024
The UK has potentially a great future but we need more positivity (and positive humour)! Media full of pessimism.
We need to focus on attracting higher quality Tory MPs and instilling more traditional Tory values into the culture in particular hard work, being masculine (men) / feminine (women) and relying on self and family instead of state. And on how we can support more, the arts, nature, sport and Brand Britain in general – Patriotism!
December 31, 2024
Best of luck. The party’s been captured by the sopping wet socialists comprising CCHQ.
December 31, 2024
PS. It’s still Christmas until 6 January.
Merry Xmas and New Year.
December 31, 2024
Too many wasted days drinking, eating, watching rubbish on TV?
Christmas should end on about the 28th.
December 31, 2024
No way, Scrooge!
Christmas is a great time to recharge (and that includes lots of social time with friends and family, reading great books, long walks, meditating on the future, etc).
Warriors and heroes are forged in peace time (including holidays and leisure) as much as times of war.
If we’re at war all the time, then we just become frazzled, living mediocre lives.
And high productivity is about quality of work – not quantity!
December 31, 2024
Happy New Year, Sir John, and fellow responders.
A cheering message: things will get better!
December 31, 2024
2025 to be evolve into ‘a better future’ ? Not the vaguest hope ………………………………
December 31, 2024
Happy New Year Sir John. Thank you for your posts and also to your many contributors.
December 31, 2024
No pressure then!
December 31, 2024
Sir John
Wishing you and yours a Happy New Year
I offer the same wish to all the contributors here
Ian
December 31, 2024
Great Words, hope for a positive NEW YEAR
December 31, 2024
The country is the sum of our individual decisions.
Letâs make a positive start to setting ourselves back on our feet. We do need to analyse and identify the problems, but that is the easy part. Proposing and implementing solutions is the winning game. Many solutions we can implement unilaterally – we are free people!
Happy New Year to you all.
December 31, 2024
HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE.
December 31, 2024
Happy New Year to our host and all those who practice reasoned debate.
December 31, 2024
Happy New year to one and all.
I have learned much from your web site this year Sir John and I wish good health to keep the wheels turning everybody.
December 31, 2024
Let’s clear the confusion,
And head toward fusion.
It’s the only conclusion,
All else is illusion.
Creative spirit
Beyond all limit.
A tiny sphere,
It may become clear,
A little peek
Into what we seek?
December 31, 2024
There is a great big fusion reactor in the sky, at a safe distance from us, do we need small ones on earth?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_energy
“The total solar energy absorbed by Earth’s atmosphere, oceans and land masses is approximately 122 PW·year = 3,850,000 exajoules (EJ) per year. In 2002 (2019), this was more energy in one hour (one hour and 25 minutes) than the world used in one year. Photosynthesis captures approximately 3,000 EJ per year in biomass.”
So in 2019 the sun gave us 6184 times more energy than we used, we only needed to capture 0.016% of it.
December 31, 2024
Dear Mr. Redwood,
I note you have revised the text in your ‘Happy New Year â Lets drink to a better future’.
At the risk of offending you, I could not help thinking if Ed Miliband contributed to the revision!
“We can stretch for the stars and strive for the sun
We can soar with the wind making life more fun”
December 31, 2024
Good morning to you, one and all, I hope last year has been a ball,
You have sung and danced the whole year through for the sheer joy of being you!
Now, in 2025, we will not feel quite so alive, for Labour is in power now,
will tax and spend it all, somehow, but survive we will and survive we must,
even though the UK is going bust.
Labour will run out of cash and then will come a great big crash, so breathe
while you can as that’s tax free while Labour creates adversity!
Happy New Year to our host and all readers and contributors.
December 31, 2024
Sir John, in your career as an MP you wrought great changes, changes that confounded the world, changes that we hadnât thought possible in a time when âmanaged declineâ was the only show on offer from our intelligentsia.
We learned from that, gaining in confidence and wisdom as the salutary benefits were revealed, we had seen âthe real thingâ.
Maybe we are on track once more after years in the wilderness pursuing false gods.
This forum is unique.
Sometimes you chide us for our impatience, but, whether bruised, gainsaid, or simply dismayed, we cannot forsake this forum. We are regularly treated to your excellent postings and the discussions which follow are second to none in adding value from so much erudition, experience of life and the work, and analytical intelligence from the exceptional contributions of the readership.
Sir John, you are indeed a kind host and sometimes the responses test your own patience, infinite though it may sometimes seem, but even the most rebellious or recalcitrant amongst us are still followers, Iâm sure.
Iâm only a couple of weeks older than your ancient submariner but we are all eager pupils for more of lifeâs learning experiences and would hate to be rusticated from the forum or to electively eschew its revelations. We are still influenced and often deeply moved by same, and may that continue.
Happy New Year to you, Sir John, and to all your terrific readers, from whom I have learned so much.
December 31, 2024
Amen to all those sentiments, and a warm glow when realising you are not alone with passion for England as it was, but now fast receding into the mists of ancient memory.
I wish you all a happier, healthier New Year than the one you might have endured.
December 31, 2024
Happy New Year to you and yours, not forgetting all your contributors…
For 2025 May elections will be interesting that’s if we are allowed to vote.
Will the Chancellor still be in post come Easter if there is a another couple months with negative GDP?
December 31, 2024
Thank you for all your work posting and hosting, Sir John!
Happy new year to you and yours, and best wishes also to everyone who takes the trouble to think with care and comment here, whatever their views.
December 31, 2024
“Lang may yer lum reek is a Hogmanay greeting, implying “May you never be without fuel for your fire!”
Is very appropriate for both you Sir John and all of us in 2025 and beyond.
Many thanks for all your hard work (even after most folk give up and retire)!
December 31, 2024
Especially important in Scotland! Even in summer!
December 31, 2024
Happy New Year John.
December 31, 2024
Happy New Year to all but I can’t see 2025 being a happy year in British politics.
December 31, 2024
Happy New Year to you and your family. Thank you for your amazing efforts to enlighten our country. I look forward to seeing you and your suggestions in action. Youâd make an amazing Chancellor.
January 1, 2025
Happy New Year đ„ł.
Nice to be optimistic. Iâm feeling a bit glum, too much out of control change coming our way.
Government claim they want better productivity but are intent on slowing everyone down.
My son had to hire a car instead of take the train to visit this year because after the threats of strikes over Christmas he made to decision to self-direct and not rely on them. On his way home the motorway just shut, he was trapped between junctions, two hours, no toilet, his dog stuck in the back, wondering whether he could get out and take the dog to the side (decided against it). When he got going again a 3.5 hour journey became 7 hours, nothing on the motorway to explain why heâd been stuck.