How could I write an April fool madder than current reality? We are living through a year of April Fool’s days.
There is the idea that we leave our own oil and gas in the ground so we can import more from abroad. That means paying tax away to foreign governments instead of having it for ourselves. It means we export the jobs. It means more world CO 2. A treble folly.
How about givjng Chagos away? That means paying lots of money to use something we currently own. It means letting another country damage the marine environment there that we have been protecting. Even more bizarrely it means giving the new owners money for the gift. It means helping a friend of China own a military base we and the US need to keep open the sea lanes. Another treble folly.
How about a growth strategy based on taxing jobs and businesses more? The National Insurance tax on ,jobs has led to rising unemployment, and the big increase in business rates has closed more shops, hospitality businesses and pubs. The farms tax and subsidies to switch out of growing food has led to decline of our farms. Another treble folly.
How about smashing the gangs who bring in foreign illegal migrants? They tried doing this by repealing the Conservative law that said an illegal cannot claim asylum once here, and by cancelling the Rwanda scheme to have somewhere to send illegal migrants to. They gave large sums to France to stop the boats, only to find the French did not allow their police to go into shallow water to physically stop the boats departing. Another treble folly.
How about encouraging more people on benefits to have more children, and granting more sicknotes for life so more people can stay on benefits indefinitely? They said they wanted to control the benefits bill and get more people into work, then adopted policies which do the opposite. Their own Adviser Lord Walker asked it they are becoming the Benefits party, not the Labour party. Only in an April Fools world can a government keep on adding to the numbers and the payments to people on benefits without running out of people and companies to tax to pay for it.
April 1, 2026
Good morning.
My next door neighbour does not work. He sleeps at home during the day and watches TV at night. He does so for reason I shall not go into but, he now has, thanks to this government, more money coming in than I do.
Last month I had to go through the shenanigans of filing my Companies House Statement. In the past this was just a piece of paper (two sides) at a cost of £15. Now I have to do it online, go through various identity checks, and pay £50 for the privilege of doing all the work for the government myself. And I pay tax ! Lots of tax ! All so one person and a wife that works cash-in-hand (hairdresser) with three kids can sit at home.
The governments solution ? Import more people.
April 1, 2026
The Government’s solution is “import more people, many of whom won’t work or will only have minimum-wage jobs, and give THEM welfare as well.”
April 1, 2026
Geoff Hoon on GBNews yesterday was telling us in his pompous way “I can tell you the figure” the amount of UK energy that comes from renewables is 29%. Well mate there is actually no such thing as “renewable energy” but even if you include wind, solar, burning wood (young coal and worse than burning old coal), wave, tidal & hydro that total is at most 10% of total UK’s energy. Of electricity production they claim circa 50% but of course this does not properly account for all the fossil fuels used to collect and distribute so called “renewables” or all the energy used overseas to manufacture and transport all the things that can no longer be cost effectively made in the UK or the fossil fuel inefficiencies caused by the back up needed for the “renewables”
So where does Hoon get 29% from? Is he simply ill informed & deluded or is deliberate fake news? Then we had the other drivel that any oil or gas produced in the UK would have to be sold on world markets so would not reduce energy costs!
April 1, 2026
We already know that Hoon is a “cab for hire” and will say anything he is paid to say.
April 1, 2026
A lawyer?
April 1, 2026
Also we have the April Fool mission round the moon. Scientifically a pointless and very expensive exercise even unmanned. Manned it is even more expensive and rather dangerous. $90bn trip from A to A. Money that could instead have been spent saving say 40 million lives or doing 300 million urgent operations. See the Bjorn Lombard book.
I suppose it is part of the entertainment industry. I prefer a bit of Bach, Monteverde or a good Opera myself. Still rather better value that the idiotic Covid “Vaccines”, the Covid lockdowns and net zero which all did and still are doing vast net harm for several £trillions.
Let us hope it ends safely unlike Challenger. I see they have a DEI politically correct crew.
April 1, 2026
Indeed Companies House is another pain to comply with nowadays and if you own any buy to lets god help you another disaster of endless pointless compliance and quarterly tax returns.
April 1, 2026
I also have a neighbour as you describe in your first sentence ….but he’s a senior civil servant
April 2, 2026
Plus loads of junior ones doing the same. Perhaps he/she does less damage from home though!
April 2, 2026
Does he read this blog I wonder? if that is you real name!
April 1, 2026
Mark B
Agreed Companies House new system not fit for purpose, they actually apologised for its new system failure a couple of months ago, when it was impossible to re-register those who had been sending in returns for years.
April 1, 2026
Every day is April Fool’s day with this government
You can say that again, all that’s needed from them all today is to don a court jesters outfit with a hat with dangly bells on it , what a joke this government are
April 1, 2026
Listen to Starmer’s moronic press statement just now. He used load of words but said virtually nothing.
Starmer’s government will reduce energy bills by £100 by putting circa £150 on to you taxes then wasting £50 in admin. of the collection and distribution.
He will “align” more with the EU (so back door re-entry but called dynamic alignment with exit penalties for Reform)
He assures us will not get drawn into the war – well we have already mate did you not notice.
10:05AM
Trump interview: I am strongly considering pulling out of Nato well done Starmer!
Let us hope Trump can get some sensible Climate and Energy Realists to explain to King Charles some energy and climate realities while he is on his April visit to Trump. Prof. William Happer physicist who has specialized in the study of atomic physics, optics and spectroscopy, emeritus, at Princeton University is perhaps the best for this. But no shortage of these sensible scientists. Alas they often have to retire before they can be honest.
April 1, 2026
He said in his speech that along with his side kick comedy act racheal from accounts that Brexit had been bad for us, Ballocks Starmer you along with all the other remainers did everything you could do to overturn the 17 million patriotic people that voted to leave , and if you go against the people who demographically to leave the dreaded EU you will pay dearly for your betrayal
April 1, 2026
It is a pity the April Fools window of lunacy officially closes at 12.00 pm. That is just before PMQs on this April Fools day. I can’t think of a more appropriate opener for Kemi Badenoch to ask the PM than, “can the PM tell the house and the nation how we differentiate between an April Fool’s joke and a current Labour Party policy”?
April 1, 2026
Exactly.
April 1, 2026
Morning. A piece of goid news, the Judge has agreed that Chagosians have a right of abode in the islands. Another mishap for this crazy government.
Contingency plans to ration petrol when the North Sea is awash with light crude, ideal for aviation kerosene and petrol.
Everything this odious crowd does is anti British.
If only it was April Fool.
April 1, 2026
Anti-British and economically destructive.
April 1, 2026
Deputy PM David Lammy has announced the UK’s temporary reintegration into the European Union, as part of a ground-breaking security pact aimed at enhancing regional stability and security cooperation post Iran war.
The decision, described by FCDO officials as a pragmatic step forward, is expected to reshape the contours of UK-EU relations post-Brexit.
The agreement, effective from 1st April, will see the UK rejoin the EU for a period of six months, during which it will participate in a series of collaborative security initiatives and exercises.
Source; BBC World Service
April 1, 2026
Your contributions are so often funny, but not necessarily the right way!
April 1, 2026
Very Good SG 🙂
April 1, 2026
@ Sakara Gold
If true, this is outrageous! What part of ‘the country voted to leave the EU’ do these people still not get?!
They really are beyond the pale! As SJR says, every day is like April Fools Fay!
April 1, 2026
Rather too close to the truth to be funny.
April 1, 2026
Whats it going to cost us?
April 1, 2026
The sentiment is increasingly felt by people across the western world.
In the US, many who once supported Trump are aghast at his administration.
Across Europe citizens are fuming at their governments pursuing de-industrialisation, allowing continued mass immigration, censorsring opposition & free speech, borrowing to spend on Ukraine, and EU interference in their national affairs.
The non-western block seems largely better governed, with citizens somewhat less discontent with their masters.
April 1, 2026
Citizens have ‘masters’ in non-western bloc?
Wow.
April 1, 2026
Record output from wind farms has helped boost total clean power supplies in the United Kingdom to new highs so far in 2026 – and allow power firms to pare use of fossil fuels to multi-year lows
Total wind/solar output has in turn allowed utilities to curb use of fossil fuels, especially within the past month when regional gas prices surged following the outbreak of the Iran conflict.
The year-over-year fall in gas-fired electricity production was even steeper during the month of March, when total CCGT output dropped by 26% from March 2025, now making up a mere 33% of UK power generation
Renewables output during the January to March window was the highest since at least 2021, and has helped establish wind power as the UK’s single largest power source, saving £billions in LNG inport costs
Source: Reuters
April 1, 2026
SG. I see no mention of increased import of electricity running at circa 18%. Mainly due to having no reserve gas storage. Self sufficiency my arm.
Were exporting taxes to hostile states to placate milibrains net stupid obsession.
April 1, 2026
Is Ed Milband just Stupid/Misguided or is he Evil or just on the make?
April 1, 2026
You might have mentioned the curtailment payments given to the wind and solar generators when their massive overbuild of capacity can not be taken onto the net and they are told to stop supply.
That curtailment cost is built into their contracts and is why wind and solar continue to increase their capacity even though the two already have more installed capacity that the grid can ever take. The result of this contract with government, is an ever increasing cost of electricity for consumers because the costs are on the bills as green energy levy.
When the wind blows we are now paying installers in Scotland money to shut down. When the sun shines the same is happening across England. We are forced to pay for none production. We are also forced to hold backup generation systems for when the weather does not cooperate and wind falls to near zero and night time always stops solar power generators.
The whole system is an expensive failure.
April 2, 2026
@ Rod Evans
Your reply does not reflect the actual facts about “curtailment”. Last week I was reading yet another Reform direct attack on wind farm electricity. This time Tice was claiming that £450m has been spent on windfarm output curtailment in H2 last year.
This figure is a gross exaggeration. Unfortunately, this is frequently the case with pro-fossil fuel propaganda. Looking at the facts is informative. The total value of the electricity produced in this country in 2023 – from all sources – was nearly £172bn. It fluctuates according to the market price of gas.
£450m is 0.26% of the total electricity output of the UK. About 7p/month on your electricity bill. The fossil fuel cartel likes to divert attention from the truth about their subsidies.
FACT – During the winter 2022/2023 the government gave the fossil fuel majors operating in the UK a direct subsidy of £93bn (the £66/month winter fuel payment) This allowed Shell, BP etc to treble their dividend payouts to shareholders in 2024
April 1, 2026
@SG. You’re feeding us April fool posts today. We won’t fall for it!
April 1, 2026
Is this another one from the BBC World Service this morning SG? 😉
April 1, 2026
We still need back up and oil. China recognises this by building one new proper generating plant for every renewable one.
April 1, 2026
And the cost of energy I pay in my bills, and in my tax, has come down, has it?
April 1, 2026
Everything they are doing is so obviously extremely foolish, and against both the short term and long term interests of the UK and the British people, that they can only be doing it deliberately.
The people who are really running this country (Two-Tier is just a puppet) are determined to destroy it.
April 1, 2026
Seems so! As they cannot really all be that dim can they?
April 1, 2026
The UK is set to acquire a new class of 13 Type 100 Merlin-class stealth cruisers under a programme intended to enhance survivability and operational flexibility in contested environments, according to industry sources.
The vessels, understood to be part of a previously undisclosed MoD maritime capability initiative, will reportedly incorporate an advanced low-observability architecture designed to significantly reduce their detectability across multiple domains.
Officials have suggested that the ships will be “extremely difficult to identify through conventional means,” with one source indicating that visual confirmation may be “challenging under most conditions”.
The MoD reported that managing the cruisers order, priced at £100b, will need an extra 15,000 civil servants and “up to” 250 new Admirals, though this number is “under review”
April 1, 2026
Source; ukdefencejournal.org.uk
April 1, 2026
Very droll.
April 1, 2026
love it.
April 1, 2026
I like this one the best SG! Totally invisible – even the Captain & Crew can’t find them.
April 1, 2026
April Fool.
April 1, 2026
True on other months as well.
April 1, 2026
Yes like the Govt he is a perennial fool.
April 1, 2026
@SK …. ByAvril Fuller – April 1, 2026
April 1, 2026
Totally agree John, the policies are utter madness, but will they change ?
Actions have consequences, did no one think forward and account for reactions, implications, cost, but above all Human Nature.
Did the highly paid army of advisors not see any on this either, or were they simply ignored !
April 1, 2026
100% agree
April 1, 2026
So a Labour government proves to be incompetent, shock horror!!
Those that voted for them were not April fools but July 2024 fools.
April 1, 2026
There’s not much I could add to that… except to say that it won’t be getting any better while labour are in power.
April 1, 2026
With the Conservatives we had government by focus group
With Labour we have government by doctrine.
Who will rid us of ineffective politicians creating policy to get voted back in
April 1, 2026
Miliband is classifying imported electricity from gas fired electricity generators as Green. Surely another one for your list!
April 1, 2026
I wonder if those who voted Labour in ’24 feel the same. Starmer and his third-rate crew were elected by only a third of the electorate to gain a huge majority, enabling him to wreck the country. Perhaps our FPTP system now seems foolish, given that such a disastrous anomaly occurred.
Surely, what they have done to us over the past 21 months will trigger a revision of our electoral system to ensure it becomes more democratic? Can our country afford such a dire recurrence of this disaster?
April 1, 2026
Sir John Redwood, Lord Redwood, voted ‘Best UK commentator on World and UK affairs’ by an independent panel of GB News viewers.
Congratulations.
April 1, 2026
hear hear
April 2, 2026
April’s fool !
April 1, 2026
Well, I read your commentary this morning My Lord and was duly depressed (as usual( but was then plesed to see that humour is still alive here.
It’s helps to have something to look forward to of course. At mid-day we have ‘Not The PMQs’ (in a similar vein to Not The Nine O’clock News) where an Android (an updated version of Max Headroom) will today replace the PM and no one will notice (or care!). With luck, the large lady (usually sat behind Starmer feeding him instructions) will have forgotten to fully charge it and it will stutter to a halt mid evasion…
There was a popular saying in the Forces “If you can’t take a joke, you shouldn’t have joined up” (or apparently even have been born here these days…)
April 1, 2026
Drat! – Forgot they’ve all gone on holiday – except Starmer of course. He turned up on the TV this morning to explain his ‘Non-Plan’ to deal with the looming fuel/energy crisis. I thought Sir JRM’s recent ideas were a lot more practical. I have this vision of Starmer running around No 10 shouting “Don’t Panic” at his staff afterwards.
Unfortunately there’s not much we can do about it. Maybe it’s time to get my old push bike out and replace the inner tubes (possibly buy some vegetable seeds too) ? SG will be happy….we’re all going to become tree-huggers…
April 1, 2026
April Fool’s jokes or hoaxes can provide us with a good laugh on the day. As I write SG has already provided us with 3 on EU re-integration, renewable energy and warships. But, as Goebbels pointed out, if a lie or hoax is big enough and repeated often enough it will be believed. This is certainly the case for CAGW where even the UN’s IPCC (Working Group 1 (“The Science”) Report Table 12 in Chapter 12) can find no signals for climate change (precipitation, droughts and storms) other than some mild warming which the UAH satellite data shows to be 0.14 degrees C per decade. Furthermore, Happer & Wijngaarden, using the IPCC’s own radiative greenhouse gas warming model have demonstrated that because there is already sufficient CO2 in the atmosphere to absorb all the planet’s emitted IR radiation that it can all the possible greenhouse gas warming effect has already taken place. So adding more CO2 to the atmosphere produces little, if any additional warming. It is akin to adding unnecessary additional layers of kitchen paper to mop up a spill once the first few sheets have already done the job. In addition there is the hoax that renewable energy can provide the power required for our current population and civilisation when in fact the ERoEI (Energy Return on Energy Invested) is far too low. David Turver explains this in his excellent Eigen Vales Substack post “Why ERoEI matters”:
https://davidturver.substack.com/p/why-eroei-matters
The renewable energy hoax is completely unsustainable and only exists because we are buying very cheaply the necessary infrastructure, metals minerals and devices from China, a country described by our security services as “hostile”, who use coal and sometimes slave labour and ignore the environmental damage to manufacture them. Even the concrete for fixed offshore wind turbines is shipped from China.
April 1, 2026
Totally agree, we are a nation in decline both nationally and internationally. Parliament is full of people with little or no experience of industry big or small let alone having responsibility for employing people. Those with real world experience are repeatedly shouted down by those driven solely by ideological obsession. There is a woeful absence of leaders of high calibre and moral determination. Standards and discipline are virtually absent. Critical institutions are failing, Energy, NHS, Policing, Education, Civil Service even our Military. Our transport infrastructure is creaking at the seams, hugely expensive yet still failing to deliver a decent service. Roads and highways are a mess with masses of potholes, weeds and human detritus. And we are overcrowded; far too much immigration and illegals continuing to arrive. Add to this a huge national debt and debt interest spiralling out of control. The root cause of all this is bad decision making by politicians and unless this changes quickly our decline will be terminal.
April 1, 2026
Michael Saxton – Parliament, its leadership, hates you, me and the rest of us. We asked them to govern, we paid and empowered them to govern and manage, they have shirked their responsibility seeking revenge and retribution. The destruction out of hate of the many by so few
April 1, 2026
Who is the April fool? ‘The Prime Minister said the Iran war showed Britain should align more closely with the EU’
But doesn’t explain why he an his other 650 MPs no longer believe in their first duty of keeping us safe & secure.
2TK is out wondering the world looking to fulfil or find those ‘partners’ that can do his and Parliaments duty of keeping us safe & secure.
When was the last time there was a Leader and a Parliament that hated to UK and it people so much?
Its a sick in bad taste joke we need a General Election NOW
April 1, 2026
He’s a Lord Haw-Haw without the radio propaganda.
April 1, 2026
People don’t like it being said, the Joke, the April Fool joke is on us all. We may have voted for this Parliament but the voted to have this anti-UK leader at the helm
April 1, 2026
they voted to have this anti-UK leader at the helm
April 1, 2026
2TK’s April Fool speech says next to nothing other than he want to send more hard-earned taxpayer money to the EU for nothing in return other than his ego and confirming that Miliband and Reeves are in charge.
April 1, 2026
History suggests that the Western Roman Empire – with its free food and entertainment for the citizens of Rome – eventually imploded because of the unsupportability of this welfare. Indeed when it finished all the free-loaders left the city…
April 1, 2026
Copied fron BBC website.
State visits can be uncomfortable, joyful, tense and unifying – in the space of just a few days.
King Charles III and Queen Camilla’s visit to the United States next month is likely to be all these.
Planning the trip has taken months, with decisions about dates and locations being made by Buckingham Palace, the Foreign Office, the Trump administration and the UK Embassy in Washington with its new ambassador, Sir Christian Turner. They are not easy things to get right, as there are many stakeholders with a viewpoint.
But the dates and places have not been the biggest problem – the mood of the transatlantic alliance has been the dominant issue.
That special relationship isn’t feeling that special right now.
——–
Will this trip, if it still takes place, be regarded by future history commentators as one of the most inappropriate meetings of UK/US senior figures?
April 1, 2026
The wages of sin is death.
April 1, 2026
Following NATO’s refusal to follow Trump’s orders and use their ships to escort tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, the Donald has announced that he will be making “an important national address” on American primetime this evening
Trump is expected to announce that he will be pulling America out of NATO. There is no doubt in anybody’s mind that the impetus for this has come from the war criminal Putin.
Trump will also announce the ending of all Ukraine related sanctions on Russia, a diplomatic initiative to end in a “Peace and Friendship” treaty with Russia, the cutting off of all American weaponry already paid for by Ukraine and end to US intelligence sharing with Zelenskyy
Nobody should be in any doubt about who is pulling the strings in the Putin/Trump relationship. Trump has now isolated the whole world from America and only Russia and China will benefit
April 1, 2026
Surely Ukraine can get a refund of all the money they paid to the USA for weapons?
April 1, 2026
Umm, that was our money, Lynn. £18bn and more. We could surely have refitted a frigate or two for that.
April 1, 2026
Oh you must be wrong, Mr Gold is the epitome of accuracy!
April 1, 2026
How about smashing the gangs who bring in foreign illegal migrants? They tried doing this by repealing the Conservative law that said an illegal cannot claim asylum once here, and by cancelling the Rwanda scheme to have somewhere to send illegal migrants to. They gave large sums to France to stop the boats, only to find the French did not allow their police to go into shallow water to physically stop the boats departing. Another treble folly.
What if the ECHR was brought in Ileagally?
The ECHR was brought in on the back of the Good Friday Agreemegt, as foreign Countries Eire and Ulster this would certainly have been against the 1688 English Bill of Rights,That our ancestors put thier to protect the English from foreign influence.
Lets not start on why the English have no representation on the British Irish Council!
April 1, 2026
The Government is the gang.
We have every intention of smashing it.
April 1, 2026
Excellent concise summary of what must surely be Labour’s Epitaph.
Everyone with any common sense must now realise they want to deliberately smash Britain ASAP and leave a legacy where there’s little left to manoeuvre for anyone taking over from them. After all of Gordon Brown’s hollowing out they were quite proud to cynically declare “Sorry there’s no money left” .
There’s no other sane explanation for this blatant disregard for the wellbeing of the country’s future.
Considering the wider “human rights” of all the indigenous population should be enshrined in word and deed by default. The fact that it is being trampled on in plain sight by the narrow corrupted views of Human rights lawyers Starmer & Co is sheer hypocrisy, especially when he as the Prime Minister of our country is sheer hypocrisy and monstrous injustice. Unbelievable madness.
April 1, 2026
Sir Keir Starmer later said that the UK would “not be drawn into the conflict”. It his not his war! UK Citizens and interests are of no concern.
2TK’s partners are working with him, to protect, him? May be from an election wipe out
Seyed Ali Mousavi, Tehran’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, warning that Iran is considering strikes on British military bases.
Then, a huge drone attack on a “British oil company” in Iraq has seen huge fireballs erupt – hours after Iran issued a chilling warning about strikes on UK military bases.
Iran to reopen Hormuz ‘to those who obey our new laws’. Open international waters protected by non-existent International Law. In effect Iran states they are the Law
Were is the fated non-existent International Law now. It never existed anywhere but in the minds of those that made the most money from it…
April 1, 2026
“In a free society, fools, bigots, and assholes get to speak and remain free men. That is not the price of liberty. It is liberty, and the rest of us get it too
https://order-order.com/2026/04/01/asi-publishes-first-amendment-style-british-free-speech-bill/
And the Nation and its people get a Two Tier Leader foisted on it by a Parliament that thinks it April 1st each and every day
April 1, 2026
Doesn’t matter what Trump says about NATO what is happening now will only galvanise European countries into taking the necessary steps to organise defence for themselves minus the US – in any case the US has been hanging around Eurooe for far too long with their military bases all over the place – time to ssy goodbye
April 1, 2026
It is possible that the President of The United States is making it clear that henceforth Europe must look after itself.USA Canada Australia NZealand are a tight bloc(perhaps SAfrica will see the advantages of a re-alignment)
Regrettably what passes for our government has made it quite clear that we are crawling under the Brussels
diktat
April 1, 2026
Have you not noticed that Canada, Australia and the UK PMs are committed to Islam? They work closely together.
South Africa is an entirely different problem of course. Otherworldly.
April 1, 2026
@Sidney Ingleby – diktat being the oprative, it demonstrates the UK Parliament is to lazy to get involved in managing. The unelected unaccountable elswhere gives them time to sit on their hands and pontificate and preen egos
April 1, 2026
I know its the 1st April …..but Starmer today said that we the UK must have a closer relationship with the EU ….backdoor rejoining !
April 1, 2026
Normaly the jokes on April 1st only last until miday – ‘Britain is to host 35-nation talks aimed at reopening the Strait of Hormuz to tanker traffic, it was revealed today, hours after Donald Trump told them to ‘go get their own oil’.
‘Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper will host a meeting of international leaders tomorrow to ‘assess all viable diplomatic and political measures’ to reopen the vital waterway, Keir Starmer said this morning.’
April 1, 2026
Sounds like the old Brown government
April 1, 2026
Oh that will work! I’m sure the Ayatollah will be invited, he still posts on X in spite of joining his prophet some while ago.
Mrs Balls will have the whole thing sewn up in no time.
God forbid that the scarcity of oil and gas forces these numpties to issue licences in the North Sea!
April 2, 2026
The height of piety for socialists is taking the money and property of the deserving contributors and handing it unconditionally to the undeservng, feckless graspers and ne’er do wells.