Our times have been changed by the digital and the Green revolutions.
The digital revolution is bottom up, driven by strong popular demand for everything from on line retail to downloaded entertainment, and from social media to business computing. The US has swept all before it with its seven digital giant companies dominating the space in the advanced and non aligned world. China has developed its own powerful parallel systems for itself and its alliance of autocracies.
The Green revolution has been largely top down, pushed onto a reluctant consumer by subsidies, bans, taxes and rules. It has been mainly a feature of the EU and UK. They have been willing to sacrifice large swathes of their high energy burning and fossil fuel based industries, whilst turning to Chinese imports for many of the net zero replacements. China has adopted it to exploit the market opportunity it sees in selling batteries, electric cars, solar panels and wind turbines to the West, whilst itself continuing to increase its use of coal and gas, increasing its own CO2 output. The US has shifted from being a believer to going for massive growth in its fossil fuel sector. The US sees cheap reliable fossil fuel energy as the way to rebuild its industrial power.
We have witnessed the emergence of China as the rival and competitor to the USA for world power and influence, the decline of Europe and the rise of India, Brazil, Indonesia and other populous countries as they they grow faster. China can usually rely on Russia, North Korea, Cuba, and Iran. The US has worked with NATO, the EU, the leading members of OPEC, South Korea, Japan and the Philippines.
US power rests on many foundations. There is the superior force and technology of the large US military, with its capacity to intervene anywhere in the world through a carrier task force or long range warplanes. There is the leading role of the dollar and US commercial banks in world, trade and finance. There is the leadership the US usually gives to NATO as its majority donor. There is the grip US technology companies have over every family and business throughout the free world by supplying the software, communications, data storage and the rest that allow people to live their lives and businesses to pick up and process orders. There is the influence of US film and media entertaining and informing many in the world.
Today this power is under the microscope. Has the US won the war in Iran as they claim, when the Straits are still not open and the Revolutionary Guards still control the Iranian people? Is the yuan and an alternative trade and banking system growing faster as China and Russia seek alternatives to US directed activity? Will the US break up NATO in anger over the refusal of European countries to offer more help against Iran? Will there be more challenges to the US story? Or will the US with its growing control over oil and gas worldwide come to exert more power in a world which may think green but acts fossil fuel?
April 11, 2026
Richard Feynman:- “For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled,” was written in his personal appendix to the 1986 Rogers Commission Report regarding the Challenger space shuttle disaster. It emphasizes that physical reality and engineering integrity are paramount, and that scientific facts cannot be ignored or bypassed by management, PR, or wishful thinking.
Not something many our PPE, Classics, Geography (May) and Lawyer politicians ever seem to take on board.
April 11, 2026
Well it is good that Artemis II touches down safely after nine days in space with a broken loo. I wonder if any of the crew in these 9 days have managed come up with any scientific benefit remotely worth the £billions spent yet or why a far more costly manned crew was ever needed.
I am still waiting for something real – just v. expensive show business and politics I guess. The money could have saved many hundreds of thousands of lives and produced a large financial return too on Earth.
April 11, 2026
Or solved the controlled fusion energy barriers perhaps – to replace fossil fuels energy dominance.
April 11, 2026
You surprise me Ll. I never thought you a luddite
Space exploration has been responsible for many advances in technology and medicine
Perhaps you’re a little jealous that the Americans can pull off such a feat.
I for one am happy with their endeavours which can ultimately benefit mankind.
No doubt you would have criticised Columbus or Cook.
Ad for Americans, they will do what’s best for them unlike the spineless traitors in Westminster. Trump has shone a very bright light on the green scam and other countries are raking note.
Europe notably the EU wants to be the regulatory capital of the world but he rest of the world isn’t interested.
While Brussels legislates for bottle tops and the definition of Marmalade, the USA powers on with real world discoveries.
April 11, 2026
I am not Luddite at all. It is just that there are obviously so many better ways to spend the £60bn saving perhaps circa 1 million lives in the ways Bjørn Lomborg suggest perhaps “How to Spend $75 Billion to Make the World a Better Place (also published as How to Spend $75 Billion to Fix the World)” or getting controlled Fusion to work.
To govern is to choose so what did we get but a few more pictures of the “dark” side of the moon and even that could have have been done without people on board for perhaps 5% of the cost.
Though the Luddites were right in that their particular jobs and skills did go – but other jobs and better prosperity overall ensued. But perhaps not for the Luddites!
April 11, 2026
The BBC is hugely almost positive (in a rather silly weather girl way) on this expensive moon fly-by. Rather strange as they usually attack Trump as much as they possible can on everything.
Good to see Tump has caused Starmer to ditch Chagos for now. Now Starmer needs to take his wise advice to:- Control the Borders, accept Net Zero/Climate Alarmism is a hoax, ditch Ed and Net Zero get some decent defences and drill, frack and mine!
April 11, 2026
“We will be doing it again next step Mars” says Trump.
Anyone going to Mars will clearly never be coming back again as you clearly cannot take a return rocket and fuel with you. If you know some science and engineering & think about it for a while this is very clear indeed. Life under the sea or on top of Everest for ever more would be far preferable & far more comfortable.
April 11, 2026
Feynman explains “why returning from Mars is impossible” videos. Not Feynman but an AI version but surely correct and entertainingly explained too.
April 11, 2026
I could volunteer some Establishment figures to offer us the one-way trip.
April 11, 2026
+1
April 11, 2026
Surely as a STEM advocate you know that progress occurs in increments.
Under you the Mayflower might never have sailed. Columbus and Magellan would be court jesters and Captain Oats would not have gone outside for a while.
April 11, 2026
So many better increments for that money!
April 11, 2026
So many better “investments” for that money rather!
April 11, 2026
I think the point is that the USA started the Artemis project simply because they could. Since the financial crisis of 2008 their GDP per capita has risen by 72% whereas in UK it has barely risen at all. UK GDP per capita is less now than the poorest USA state – Mississippi. The USA economy is bolstered by huge tech firms which have achieved explosive growth. They are in a position where they can afford to fund projects like Artemis which may have many indirect spin-off technology benefits and, as Reeves has told us, government spending is itself good for growth. Of course for an impoverished country like UK to fund anything like a massively expensive borderline vanity project with no apparent real benefits would be absurd – but they persist with HS2. So, best not to criticise how USA spend their money, it’s as pointless as complaining how Bill Gates spends his – it’s their money, they can afford it, it doesn’t affect us and it’s none of our concern.
April 11, 2026
Comparisons with the US are somewhat misleading Roy. Anyone who has driven through the outskirts of New Orleans or walked around parts of San Franscisco will attest that you will witness levels of poverty that I have never seen in this country (whatever this government might tell us). The very rich and the very poor co-exist in the US in a way that simply doesn’t occur here. I recall going to one convention where the organisers had hired a small ‘park’ in the centre of the city for attendees with drinks and performers etc. The 1/2 mile route back to the hotels was clearly marked and there was a unifomed police officer every 100ft on the way (both sides of the street). We were told not to leave the guarded route as there had been many muggings and a murder at the previous event.
April 11, 2026
my eye- opener, many years go was taking a train out of Chicago going north…a mile of ‘cardboard’ city living by the tracks.
April 11, 2026
Perhaps.
But I am surely allowed to point out that (for example) saving circa 1 million lives with £60 bn (and getting a huge financial return to from this) might perhaps have been a rather better use of the money than getting a few more pictures (in better resolution I admit) of the back of the Moon.
Also it is US tax payers money that is being spent ( & largely wasted) by the government mainly for pure political reasons
April 11, 2026
That’s not the point. Astronauts going to Mars for any longish period would feel the Martian gravity, only 38% of the Earth’s one. Medical people in the know have been warning about the very likely impact on the bones/rest of the body. Even if people once there could adapt (not clear how for the time being) they would have major problems if they were to come back to Earth later on.
That has nothing to do with being a Luddite, simply basic science.
April 11, 2026
And the Astronomer Royal, Martin Rees, agrees with LL (guardian 11/04/2026 M.Rees & D.Goldsmith ‘Congratulations to the Artemis II crew – but the case for sending astronauts into space is rapidly shrinking’.
April 11, 2026
Hef…
Aliens watching must be bemused, maybe for centuries at least?
The beings on that planet keep chucking things up in their atmosphere that protects them, sometimes they send craft further afield but they don’t colonise anywhere, they don’t collect raw materials they need, several individual areas do these things uncoordinated? What exactly are they doing these things for? Should we go and have a look?
April 11, 2026
+1
April 11, 2026
Plus radio activity out side the protective earths atmosphere is about 2 years worth for each day on earth. So 20 years worth perhaps for 10 days in space. Take about 8 months to get to Mars one way. So 500 years of radiation. Not sure what the NHS on Mars is like for Oncology!
April 11, 2026
He is a good man, though I think he is far too over concerned over CO2 and Climate alarmism.
Our Final Hour a 2003 book by the Sir Martin Rees is v. good albeit a bit depressing. The full title of the book is Our Final Hour: A Scientist’s Warning: How Terror, Error, and Environmental Disaster Threaten Humankind’s Future In This Century—On Earth and Beyond. It was published in the United Kingdom under the title Our Final Century: Will the Human Race Survive the Twenty-first Century?.
April 11, 2026
@LL. Yes, I haven’t followed this Artemis thing but wondered why in earth such sums of money could be spent on a lunar jaunt, when we have so many terrestrial problems that need hard cash. As you say, just very expensive showbiz and politics – a circus to keep the plebs from thinking too hard.
April 11, 2026
+1 and even if it served any purpose an un-womaned or un-manned jaunt would have been hugely cheaper as far lighter, no people, food. duff loos, oxygen, or much safely is needed and no need to bother to return indeed could have go on to photograph something else – the sun perhaps.
April 11, 2026
They took some great photo’s
April 11, 2026
Indeed a few good photos or save hundreds of thousands of lives tricky choice. They could have done the photos using the old ones and some photo editing software! Or an unmanned trip if they really wanted them that badly.
April 11, 2026
possibly available using AI?
April 11, 2026
@LL. I think most of our politicians, and many of the tech oligarchs and their ilk are modern snake oil salesmen. Products that make them very wealthy indeed, which may possibly harm the end consumer in unexpected ways.
April 11, 2026
“If you want to be rich, start a business; very rich, start a religion” The CO2 devil gas climate alarmist one. Give me your money now and we will save the world from a fiery hell! The usual guff the priests like to push.
April 11, 2026
And I say to my people’s masters: Beware,
Beware of the thing that is coming, beware of the risen people,
Who shall take what ye would not give.
Did ye think to conquer the people,
Or that Law is stronger than life and than men’s desire to be free?
We will try it out with you, ye that have harried and held,
Ye that have bullied and bribed, tyrants, hypocrites, liars!
– PH Pearse
April 11, 2026
The Straits will surely be opened somehow as it is in everyone’s interests that they are. Surely a better outcome than an Iran with nuclear weapons which seems to be what Starmer and Hermer seemed to prefer judged by their actions (the only was to judge such people). I remain optimistic compared with the nuclear anrmed alternative that we are surely (thanks to Israel and Trump) in a far better place than we would have been with Biden or Kamala Harris? We shall see fingers crossed.
April 11, 2026
Agreed. I have yet to hear any coherent explanation from the war’s many opponents (practically all sides in Europe and the UK) as to why it was a better and safer option just to do nothing (in effect the alternative) and allow Iran to develop nukes and create a huge stockpile of long range ballistic missiles. Perhaps it would all have been fine. or there again perhaps not. All US presidents supported by all UK and European govt have said “Iran can’t be allowed a nuclear weapon / to menace opponents” etc. the first one to be prepared to do something about it is Trump.
April 11, 2026
Nothing “green” about a war on tree, plant and crop food – the gas of life. Or “pollution” as some like to call it. We currently have rather a dearth of it in historical terms in the world’s atmosphere. Anyway the politicians plans for reduce it – public transport, heat pumps, “renewables”, EVs, walking, cycling, biofuels, killing home industries with expensive energy … make little or no difference many like EV and exporting industries can actually increase world CO2.
See Dr William Happer “the gas of life” and his other excellent videos.
April 11, 2026
@LL
‘plant and crop food – the gas of life’ being generated to create food for the rest of us
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m001w96b/rick-steins-food-stories
April 11, 2026
I wonder if the average American is aware of the impact of the major isolation, if not intolerance being waged by the bully President? Perhaps it is indeed long overdue that Europe and others really recognised the military and economic contributions made in their past. Are we at a crossroads – choose serfdom as always, or strike out for much more independence and responsibility? And the loser being – USA or former minions? This egotistic and somewhat uncontrollable President seems to be forcing a decision Americans may live to regret.
April 11, 2026
@Mickey Taking – the average US citizen(America although that’s haw we always say it, is a big place Canada, Brazil and so on) is to busy getting on with life and prospering to reflect as to what others maybe thinking. Its not isolation, its the comfort that comes from a government do a reasonable job of keeping them safe and secure each and every day
April 11, 2026
I know lots of people who no longer value USA friendship, are alarmed at what their President insists we do at his whim, leaving the *f****** mess behind we have to sort and live with. I used to travel widely in several states and found educated americans to be fine sensible people – – whatever happened? But then look at England and the wider UK – not so diferent.
April 11, 2026
CN these people you know stand on their hind legs?
April 11, 2026
Lynn it is about time you gave the insults a rest – talk about whining.
Cheerful soul aren’t you!
April 11, 2026
Whatever you aay I am not convinced I think America has passed it’s ‘best before’ date and is in decline on several fronts – that 77 million people could vote for an oaf like Trump say’s a lot about the disadvantages millions are working under then voting for movie stars and glamour for the most important job in the land – of course that’s democracy but it doesn’t always work. Today we’ll see if the other Mr populist Victor Orban can hold on – I bet our own N Farage will be hanging to the edge of his seat – populist are all rhe same and In the end people generally deserve what they vote for but sometimes they don’t. In the case of America I hope they have a period of reflection post Trump so they can better judge for what’s most important when it comes to elections to high office – they are a good people and deserve better.
April 11, 2026
77 million voted for that oaf
Perhaps they are fed up with the whole woke green bullshit of the Obama and Biden era. Just as we are sick of the duplicitous uniparty covering against the interest of the voters.
Like him or loathe him, Trump saw a real problem and acted
Maybe we have o accept short term pain for long term gain
April 11, 2026
@James4 – reflect Trump and oaf, because he is keeping his country safe & secure, because he is concerned about the lack of reciprocity in trade by other with the USA, he is concerned by those other nations profiting by dumping drugs on his citizens.
Trump would have once more been subject to a vote on the directions of the country this autumn – its called democracy. By the time Kier Starmer seeks approval for the fist time, Trump would have faced 3 elections and Starmer even then would still have another full year to run after that.
Now relate that to the UK’s leadership, the I’m a ‘Great Internation Statesman’ Two Tier Kier, what has he done to keep the UK safe & secure, protect UK trade, giving our fish away and subjecting to powers from another dictatorship with zero in return is not protection. What would 2TK done to seek approval of those that lent him power and pays his wages.
April 11, 2026
Well as I say you have to admire Trump’s self effacing manner and general modesty. He is after all still right on climate, cheap reliable energy, border controls, frack, mine & drill baby drill, the need for good defences, the Net Zero hoax and I think right on Iran/Israel too.
If not perhaps on the rather pointless Moon trip.
April 11, 2026
The deciding factor in who will come out on top of world influence and affairs during this century rests entirely on AI.
How we embrace it or more accurately how it embraces us and how we keep control over its innate capacity to devolve and develop its own agenda independent of human control is where the real question is.
The most benign outcome we can expect from AI development is robotised servants and automatic systems monitoring itself to maintain our health and wellbeing needs.
The opposite of that vision of benign assistance is also a potential outcome.
It will not matter if the AI authority is initiated in the USA or in China or wherever. The future geopolitical landscape is changing fast, but it is not down to traditional power projection despite current events.
April 11, 2026
Digital power was inevitable as the computing world has advanced. It hasn’t finished with us yet, there are more evolutionary ideas to come. Whether all of that is a good thing remains to be seen.
The so called green revolution was far from organic based around lies and deception, as well as a good amount of brainwashing of the masses, as it was to stimulate action. It was always a false god, but they tagged on protection of the Earth and plastics to make it more real.
With luck green energy will fade away once more people have spotted the failure of ideology to rule us without having real technology now, but probably in the future backed up by the digital age to come it may make ore sense
When Trump is triumphant in Iran the energy situation will settle down to a degree, but we still have to worry about our nutcase government taking us back to the dark ages with our energy left in the ground, while the other concern will be that Starmer doesn’t get us involved in WW3.
April 11, 2026
The British Government has allocated £54 million to ‘block out the sun’. They are spraying the same dangerous chemicals and metals into our air, which make people sick, without sunlight crops are hard to grow.
They are determined to manufacture a ‘climate crisis’ at least in European countries.
The Irish Replacement and Fuel Protestors are being filmed, subject to facial recognition technology, their bank accounts frozen etc by one Shawna Coxon who used all this technology to crush dissent in Canada. If technology is used to enslave native people and deny their human rights then it must be destroyed.
For instance the U.K. has very strict banking laws governed by terrorism and money laundering legislation. Non residents can’t open bank accounts even if they are British citizens and own property here, but Lloyds bank allowed Iran UK bank accounts to evade Western sanctions.
MI5, MI6 MUST have been aware that the U.K. was allowing the Iranian regime to break the US led sanctions.
Can you see why President Trump is so annoyed with Starmer?
April 11, 2026
Computer tech. and AI will race away as each improvement in hardware and software make a better tool to develop the next improvement also once developed software is free to copy. In the last 45 years silicon chips have got over a billion times cheaper and similarly more powerful too. The wonders of compound interest see the Exponential growth – The Parable of the Rice on the Chessboard
Alas batteries over the same time have only advance to be perhaps 5 times better.
April 11, 2026
The USA supports business to thrive but it has the benefit of being able to borrow silly amounts of money on the back of the grrenback being the world’s reserve currency.
With the amount owed, the USA is in reality bankrupt and it only needs China to stop loaning money for the model to crash.
It works….. for now.
April 11, 2026
China has HUGE debts…
April 11, 2026
and a prospect of finding work for hundreds of millions to do.
Dig up and make more dams?
April 11, 2026
‘China has HUGE debts’: Indeed but who owns the different parts of it (corporate, domestic, private, foreign-investment in China, China investment abroad)?
What is essentially helping the USA is the amount globally owed in dollars.
You were, not that long ago, posting about the trend of trade happening in other currencies than the dollar. Did you change your views?
news.harvard.edu 09/05/2025 ‘Era of U.S. dollar may be winding down’.
YouTube 10/04/2026 ‘The next 12 days will determine whether the dollar survives as the world’s currency’.
April 11, 2026
I suggest that Two-Tier, and the treacherous pro-EU British Establishment, is going to find that it was a very bad idea to fall out so badly with President Trump.
The first consequence is that Trump has withdrawn his (weak) support for the Chagos Treachery and Two-Tier has been forced to drop the legislation. The islands will remain British. Since our Human Rights PM is, according to his justification for the treachery, going to be breaking International Law – which he prioritises above everything else – he should resign, taking Hermer and Jonathan Powell down with him.
April 11, 2026
They should return the islands to the Chagossians, they at least seem to have a better understanding of the issues involved.
Once Labour are out, a Public Investigation into this ridiculous issue should be made and identify who made “loadsa money”.
April 11, 2026
Not a public investigation but a criminal investigation
April 11, 2026
It seems to me that we have a simple choice. There are two large power blocks in the world. China and the US. Europe and the UK) are no longer at the table as recent events have clearly shown.
There are many here who hate (an appropriate word in this context) the US with a vengance. In fact they don’t like us very much either. However, much they might rail against the West, I have no doubt where I prefer to live.
The regimes that run China, Russia, Iran and North Korea have little regard for their populations as has been demonstrated many times in recent years. If you don’t want to be welded in your room during Covid, sent to be killed by drones, executed by anti-aircraft fire or machine gunned in the street – then you should have no doubts about where your bread is buttered. We need the US much more than we should but we also need to rapidly reduce our reliance on China – who (like the French) are not our friends…
April 11, 2026
Nicely summarised. However, I suspect the British Mandarin Class and the authoritarians in Parliament would far sooner have the level of control over the population that President Xi wields, than the land of the free, which is currently represented by President Trump.
(As the Covid Tyranny demonstrated all too clearly, the authoritarians in Parliament are found in both Labour and Tory Parties. I shall never forget Jeremy Hunt calling for the UK to have draconian Chinese-style Covid restrictions imposed.)
April 11, 2026
We live in fascinating, if turbulent, times. It does look as if the US under Trump 2.0’s latest update has catalysed the rest of the world’s mistrust of and resistance to US hegemony. I think his crude F-word and blasphemous Easter message probably broke the camel’s back.
Those US power foundations are crumbling. I don’t think its AI dominance (if it has it – the Chinese produced AI at a fraction of the cost) will save it (if anything I think the tech oligarchs will try to use the technology to enslave the population, much as China does). In military terms US dominance has been defied very publicly by Iran, the Huthis and the Taliban. Its economic dominance though the petrodollar is resented and the rest of the world is in the early stages of moving away. When that falls the US debt bubble will break but that is down the road. Dominance in media has already gone – Fox, CNN, cable, WSJ, NYT – fewer and fewer people consume or believe any of this both in the US and across the world. I do think the “challenges” you mention will overcome the US Empire sooner, rather than later.
Of particular interest is that social cohesion in the States is unravelling as the right-left /trad-woke split is now joined by an America First-Epstein class split. If we get to the Midterms without a nuclear calamity, then I assume the Democratic wing of the Uniparty will hold the rpolitical cards and harass Trump but not deliver policies that their base, and America Firsters want. So the next Presidential race could bring forward some real independent challengers, as the US sun sets and the BRICS sun rises.
April 11, 2026
You don’t know the BRICS countries do you?
And what facts we have you disbelieve?
How can you hope to come to a rational conclusion?
April 11, 2026
Why are you so surprised? Since the 1980’s UK politicians, government and establishment have consistently failed to match the support other countries have provided to their commerce and industries.
April 11, 2026
A glaring comparison proving the UK and the EU got it wrong!! Surely the leaderships must realise their gross errors? Or is it again an arrogant matter of refusing to lose face? Germany has reverted to Coal already, so why can OUR country not follow?
Such a move would ensure CHEAP energy again and give many brownie points to the government that acts upon it. Duh!
April 11, 2026
Narcissists NEVER get anything wrong.
Now you will understand why we are in big trouble.
They will never change course, they have to be REPLACED.
April 11, 2026
Derek :
Correct. Not only do we have coal, it is onshore, cheap and easily and cheaply storable. We now have the technology for coal burning to be completely clean of everything except CO2. The communist CAGW story that anthropogenic emissions of CO2 will cause the planet and seas to boil is entirely false. We need more CO2 in the atmosphere, not less, to aid food production.
April 11, 2026
“Green revolution has been largely top down, pushed onto a reluctant consumer” needs a name change manipulation being forced through by Political Ideology – unproven political ideology.
Crossing the 2 themes today a couple of weeks ago Rick Stein did an item on TV relating to automation in agriculture (well worth a watch – iPlayer?). It showed James Dyson one of the countries largest land owners and farmers having automated the husbandry around growing and picking his crops. The main crossover on today’s themes yes he has great digital resources at his disposal, but he also had to deliberately produce CO2 to encourage plant growth.
April 11, 2026
On that last point I always finding it amusing when the ‘Greens’ as a generalisation the vegetarians want to reduce atmospheric CO2?
April 11, 2026
People will believe outright lies if told often enough. Attributed to Goebbels but was possibly not him, just used it.
April 11, 2026
Back in the 1950s a grand parliamentary committee decided that three computers would be quite enough for the UK. True enough if all they do is maths. Not a strategic industry. But Jo Lyons saw the future, bean counting and stock control. So did IBM.
Transistors were a thing, we made a good start but the British valve makers were against – vested interests. And the military were wedded to WW2 technology, reliable, not like these new fangled transistors. Then silicon. Much more expensive to process. Better let the Americans and the Japanese do it. We spent our money on Kenya, Mau Mau and TSR2.
In the 1980s there was a belated push for the semiconductor business. Oh no old boy, we do the brainy design and the foreigners out East do the fabrication. When it came to funding startups – about £1 million for an ‘awareness campaign’ was all we could find. Useless.
Had a British Bill Gates trotted along to his bank for a loan to start a software company – not our sort of thing old boy, now if you were talking property development…..
Put not thy faith in Parliament and Whitehall.
Green looked an opportunity – so long as other people bought into it. A possibly serious problem 100 years down the pike. But industrially speaking we had noting else open to us – unless making aircraft carriers is a thing. Anyway, marvellous opportunities for totally fake carbon counting and tree planting scams. Totally up our street, a few office people, some fancy publicity, political connections and bungs. Miliband might be right, we are killing ourselves, but no one else seems to care much.
Don’t much care about Iran, no real threat to us. Current problem the result of poor Middle East strategy planning. Trump may be calling on a bunch of mugs to go and do the ground takeover, he doesn’t do body bags what with elections coming up. There is an answer, but a bit painful for Trump but maybe not so painful he won’t take it.
April 11, 2026
…a variation on the Thomas J. Watson Sr., founder of IBM, his most famous for the (likely apocryphal) 1943 quote: “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers”.
April 11, 2026
It’s a true quote. IMB was not a computer company then, tabulators.
April 11, 2026
The quote was scathing about setting IBM to produce ‘computers’ instead.
He sort of misjudged the future.
April 11, 2026
The UK suffers from an inept Parliament so engrossed in self, political gesturing, political ideology they skirt around and deny their purpose of keeping the people and the nation safe and secure.
We can’t defend our shores as Parliament refuses, then we have the new phrase, the UKs defence is reliant on ‘our partners’ – what ‘partners’ who would ride to inept UK Governments rescue – International Law, we have seen how that works keeping the sea lanes open in the Gulf.
Then on technology the UK has a great track record on its development, but an inept Parliament doesn’t understand, comprehend or even care, that the greater majority of this technology is vital to our defence, our safety and security.
The big one ARM 99% of all the Worlds devices, phones, pads, TV’s, planes, defence and son on depend on ARM – the UK Parliament got shot of it. In the last few weeks it has been confirmed that all the Worlds major ‘data-banks’ have signed deals to use ARM chips(actual chips) to run these facilities. Repeat the UK Parliament got rid, disposed of ARM. These new chips are to be manufactured in the USA
Following on from the above all the major AI, LLM’s, have at their core UK brain power, the UK Parliament it appears was glad to see it go. The UK Parliament yet again sort to undermine the safety and security of the people and the country
I could go on and on, but the clear enemy of the people and the nation is the quality or lack of quality of the people embedded in the UK Parliament . Do they consider keeping the nation and its people safe and secure, surely to each and everyone of them that is their duty?
Could any one see, China, the USA, France, German or an other country and its Politicians selling their own people, their own security down the river?
April 11, 2026
The reason 2TK is picking up and running with this destruction, is once complete it empowers his desire to bring the UK under EU yoke. No formal deals but a 3rd World country submitting to a higher power. All fabricated by an out of control leader in an out of control Parliament
April 11, 2026
Strategically US has lost the war. Iran controls the Straits of Hormuz and its military, although degraded, retains some operational effectiveness. I suspect Netanyahu’s keenness to attack Iran caused Trump’s response. His failure to fully understand the economic consequences have now been laid bare. In many respects the world is poorer and less secure now than it was before Israel and US attacked Iran. What remains, yet more death, destruction, misery and hatred. No more forever wars we were told? We never learn.
April 11, 2026
So you choose submission. Hand over your women and your manhood – that is what submission entails.
What a hero!
April 11, 2026
‘US power rests on many foundations.’ the first it is a Democracy, it defends democracy, it practises democracy. It allows the freedoms of speech, they right to challenge the view of others including those of the State.
Every 2 year the House of Representatives( equivalent but less cumbersome than our House of Commons), its members have to seek validation from the electorate for the direction they are taking the Country.
As a comparison the UK doesn’t do any of the above in any meaningful way it is in fear of the people so instead take to fighting the people. The UK Parliament doesn’t like to be challenged, to justify its actions. As we have seen the Leader of Parliament makes up his own Laws and Rules as he goes along – approval for them is not a thing, he is the Law. Elsewhere in the World those individuals are seen as dictators.
A ‘Great International Statesman’? a decree by himself for himself.
April 11, 2026
The Green Revolution was of course devised by Al Gore, in his quest to make himself a personal fortune that was no longer available to him via the US Presidency, but was evidently there for the taking via royalties and sinecures. Then came the unholy alliance of the globalists and the Chinese, the former because of the scope that Climate Change provided to control people’s lives, the latter for the manufacturing and stealth domination opportunities.
Despite not holding high office beyond Bill Clinton’s VP, Al Gore is arguably a Top Ten contender for Most Destructive Politician in Living Memory.
April 11, 2026
The Prime Minister(Starmer as global statesman) has agreed that the UK Armed Forces and law enforcement officers will now be able to interdict vessels that have been sanctioned by the UK and are transiting through UK waters.
“Russian shadow fleet crews will be able to claim asylum if Britain seizes their ship in the Channel, Yvette Cooper, the Foreign Secretary, and Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary,”
A united cabinet in defence of the UK
In defence of the UK – “Well, as the Prime Minister said, you know, we’re working flat out on this, will publish it as soon as possible.”
April 11, 2026
That why they have 4 new big Border Force boats?
And I thought it was so they could ferry the new army over the Channel faster.
April 11, 2026
ah! but an army in which direction?
April 11, 2026
Regarding the article, you are correct. The digital revolution is bottom-up, with people buying the products and systems as they became cheaper and more reliable. The Green Revolution is top-down, with the Government trying to force people to buy what they don’t want. It is also undepinned by lies, Ed Miliband trying to tell us that wind and solar are cheaper while signing deals to give massive subsidies to the operators for 20 years ahead.
If they were really cheaper, they would not need subsidies.
As to the future, American debt frightens me, as does the UK’s debt pile. History teaches that debt kills empires and countries. The fall of Rome is the classic example. But I think America will survive for many more years, and at some point, China will face an internal rebellion.
April 11, 2026
KfL : “It is also underpinned by lies, Ed Miliband trying to tell us that wind and solar are cheaper while signing deals to give massive subsidies to the operators for 20 years ahead.
If they were really cheaper, they would not need subsidies.”
Correct. According to Professor Gordon Hughes of the Renewable Energy Foundation we have already spent £200bn = £8000/household. Renewables appear “cheap” because firstly they are supplied by coal powered China often using slave labour and ignoring environmental damage and secondly by a costing system which systematically ignores the system-wide costs of intermittency: overbuilding, backup dispatchable generation (often gas-fired at inefficient part-load), grid reinforcement and balancing services.
April 11, 2026
JR is it legal for foreign nationals, I’m speaking of people who are NOT British citizens or Irish, people who are excluded from the voters roll, to stand in British Election?
Just that Reform is standing a number of these aliens in May.
Being Governed by people who are excluded from voting seems odd.
Reply You can stand if you come from a Commonwealth country not needing leave to permanently remain.
April 11, 2026
So that needs to be put right.
We need our independence from the God Forsaken Commonwealth!
April 11, 2026
“The Green revolution has been largely top down, pushed onto a reluctant consumer by subsidies, bans, taxes and rules. It has been mainly a feature of the EU and UK.”
And the US when the Democrats (false labelling), and Biden in particular, were in power. The “green” (for it is not) revolution is a communist scam to sabotage the West’s energy, economy and national security. It will never work and it is not intended to work. The communist countries are not on this bandwagon as they know it is a scam and their populations are already poor and controlled. Although they know there is no climat6e crisis the Chinese government pushes the electrification transition as this gives them even more control over their population. Although the Conservative Party appears to have finally woken up to the cost and impossibility of Net Zero by 2050, being more the party of practicality, as opposed to the communist Left who are driven only by ideology (the ends always justifies the means) they unfortunately still believe this false CAGW theory that anthropogenic emissions of CO2 are warming the planet and we’ll end up with a boiling planet. Until they get over this false belief they cannot be an effective Opposition to the communist plans. We need more CO2 in the atmosphere, not less, to aid food production.
April 11, 2026
The digital and the Green revolutions isn’t bottom up ….its not even supply led, its command led.
I’m told by my government to adopt a smart/digital gas/electrcity/water meter, new digital TV, buy new smart phones with G4/5, do HMRC return online ….hell everything online ….its not demand led or by choice, its government intervention ….and the same is true for green policies, driven and indoctrinated in schools, universities and the civil service
What ever happened to demand/customer led capitalist market
April 11, 2026
Electrification, together with smart meters and smart devices, is designed and pushed by the communists as it brings total control right down to the individual level. A degree of control the 20th century communists could only dream of. That’s why China is electrifying. It has nothing to do with curbing anthropogenic emissions of CO2. They are still building coal fired power plants at a furious pace.
April 11, 2026
Do you think it’s fair to publish comments by the same person 17 times within one diary entry.I recall you saying that this sort of over commenting or lengthy comments would not be allowed.Of course it is entirely up to you ,but the same derogatory content goes on and on .I enjoy your daily article when I have time to read it ,but methinks that you must personally know this person who is allowed to break your own rules repeatedly.
Reply No I do not know him. I delete a lot of repetitious material he sends
April 11, 2026
My ex husband always said that it is not what you know but who you know.
April 11, 2026
It appears that the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed, not because of Iranian missile/drone threats but because the Iranians are claiming they sowed mines in the Strait’s normal shipping passages, and forgot to chart the exact positions, and no shipowner/insurer wants to guess whether they’re bluffing or not.
Interesting, it seems the US does not have suitable mineclearing equipment, so others will have to step up. It sounds complicated.
Meanwhile the oil and energy prices rise inexorably. I’m astonished markets are so sanguine.
April 14, 2026
I am very late (14/04): a book worth reading to stop blathering about the wonderful bottom-up aspects of the digital age is ‘Enshittification’ by Cory Doctorow.