By Jo Nova
All around the world, politicians are stepping back from Net Zero
The Net Zero debacle has become such a deadweight for the UK Labour Party, that Tony Blair, Former Labour Prime Minister has dropped a second bombshell on the Environment Minister, blaming renewables for high electricity prices and telling him to abandon Net Zero targets and green levies.
This is good news, but before anyone think he has seen the light, be aware the light his team are watching is mostly the rising star of Reform UK. What he’s really afraid of, apparently, is that the horrid “Right-wing populists” might win more elections. It’s a thought so awful, even a Labour stalwart is willing to give up the Net Zero incantation. Imagine how much damage Nigel Farage might do to the Blob if Reform UK romped home?
This then, is damage control to stop an electoral wipe-out:
Tony Blair urges Ed Miliband to abandon green levies
Jonathan Leake,
Sir Tony Blair has urged Ed Miliband to abandon his clean power targets and slash expensive green levies.
The Tony Blair Institute (TBI), the former prime minister’s think tank, warned that a pledge to decarbonise UK electricity by 2030 was destroying industry and damaging households.
The target to ditch fossil fuels puts Labour at risk by pushing voters towards Reform UK before next year’s crucial Scottish, Welsh and English regional elections.
Ryan Wain from the TBI urged the Energy Secretary to instead focus on making electricity much cheaper to stop “Right-wing populists” undermining support for net zero.
One wonders if Tony Blair would have said a single word about the poor suffering victims of Net Zero, if Reform wasn’t streaking far ahead in the polls, and the Conservatives were still cheering on the plan too. Where was Blair in last year’s elections?
With a former Labour heavyweight speaking up against Net Zero in the UK, and US Democrats recognizing that “climate change” turns off voters, The Australian conservatives could end up being the last people on Earth still endorsing Net Zero.
This is a do or die point for Sussan Lee and the Liberals
If Lee was brave enough to hold a torch against the trillion dollar bullies and their quest to control the weather, she would already know half the nation is skeptical. And after she shone the light on the storm-stopping witchcraft, many more would see the light. It would be a whole new national conversation.
Polls show 83% of Australians don’t want higher emission targets, nor do they want to pay for it. The IPA poll found 93% of Australians only want to pay $2 a week, or nothing at all to reduce our emissions.
As long as the Liberals pander to Net Zero, they’ll never know the passion and strength of the millions of skeptics who are fed up with bullying, namecalling, secret costs and hidden taxes on pagan quests.
Tony Blair is just mapping out the escape path for the Labour Party — how they sell their retreat:
They’ll never say they were wrong, they’ll just rebrand the mission. Tony’s Blair’s personal thinktank (TBI) has put out a report called “Cheaper Power 2030 … Resetting the UK’s Electricity Strategy for The Future”. Like a true Blob production he still wants to electrify everything so all the minions can be tracked. He still wants to pander to the hobgoblins and waste money on Carbon Capture and Storage, and decarbonisation, but the TBI is pro-nuclear, at least and talks about energy security as a strategic concern.
The Labour Party, he thinks, should still fight climate change, but they can turn off the tap to more wind and solar power, and cut out the subsidies, and ahem, even call it a day on any more emissions reduction:
At the same time, the global context is changing. Addressing climate change is an increasingly pressing imperative, as extreme weather is felt more and more around the world. The efforts of the global community to curb emissions have been substantial but insufficient. Technological progress offers hope of easing this transition, but we are reaching a stage where further reduction of emissions carries a higher and higher economic and political cost.
NetZeroWatch says this is good news but the TBI still doesn’t get the physics of affordable high density energy:
Where it falls short is in its prescription. It treats electrification as the route to abundance rather than the outcome of it, focusing on technical market tweaks and “flexibility” while ignoring the physical foundations of any affordable system – density and reliability.
The first and second laws of thermodynamics are not policy choices. Replacing dense, controllable sources like gas, coal and nuclear with diffuse, intermittent ones such as wind and solar increases entropy across the system — more infrastructure, more storage, more loss. The result of the renewables-based grid the TBI assumes is a structurally higher-cost, lower-efficiency system. Since 2005, when Britain’s generation peaked, firm power has fallen from 95 per cent to less than half. In two decades, we have de-densified our grid and made the supply of electricity more volatile.
The consequences are clear: soaring policy and systems costs (which total £17 billion today), collapsing industrial competitiveness, and stagnant productivity. No amount of flexibility or subsidy can offset low energy density. Neither cheaper finance nor higher gas prices will alter that physical reality.
… The TBI’s calls for a delay will reduce this burden, but will not reduce bills.
For the record, there is a new party in Australia called Reform. Check them out…
Cheaper Power 2030 … Resetting the UK’s Electricity Strategy for The Future”.Tony Blair Institute, (TBI)
The bombshell in May: Sir Tony Blair says climate policies are unworkable, irrational, and everyone is afraid of being called a denier
Image by ReligionsInTheRaw.blogspot.com from Pixabay
As long as the Liberals pander to Net Zero, they’ll never know the passion and strength of the millions of skeptics who are fed up with bullying, namecalling, secret costs and hidden taxes on pagan quests.
Then for heaven’s sake get an Australian version of ReformUK up and running. It doesn’t need to win a single seat in order to cause a U-turn in the green policies of the major parties. Fear of losing enough votes to lose a General Election is enough.
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See the last line of my post. Someone has done that: https://www.reformau.au/
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I wish it well, Jo. The dificulty is take-off. ReformUK already had a charismatic leader well known and trusted after doing years in the wilderness working for Brexit. I dare to make comparison also with Churchill’s years out of favour during the great appeasement. Who in Aus?
You?!
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So Labor are also terrified of the sensible middle, Reform. Name calling is not in earnest yet. Usually sensible conservatives are called Far Right or Extreme Right. The most effective is NAZIs, which is used by NAZIs to label the Conservatives when the NAZIs were the National Socialists. But it works as few know any history or philosophy. It’s the left who are the racists, as is so obvious today.
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In fairness to Tony Blair (not a man I am fond of) it was his Chancellor (Finance Minister) and successor Gordon Brown who was the real Labour green. While Chancellor in 2005, Brown commissioned a review by a Treasury group led by Sir Nicholas Stern. Coming out the year after, The Economics of Climate Change worked to the gloomiest published IPCC scenarios and ignored the mitigating effect of human adaptation to warming. Because the cost of climate-induced problems falls on third parties, as well as on energy producers and consumers (CO2 is an economic ‘externality’), Stern argued that a free market in energy cannot deal with it, so government should intervene. Government can tax fossil fuels (‘polluter pays’) and subsidise zero-CO2 energy (renewables, nuclear). But Stern’s 1.4% average discount rate in cost-benefit analyses, used in comparing immediate costs against future benefits of intervention, was criticised as far too low (i.e. too high a ‘social cost’ of CO2) by prominent economists including:
William Nordhaus (Nobel economics prizewinner re climate issues)
Partha Dasgupta (Cambridge)
Martin Weitzman (Harvard)
Nigel Lawson (UK Chancellor 1983-89).
Error bars on that figure of 1.4% cannot be smaller than those in the science. Once Brown was PM he passed the Climate Change Act 2008. It committed the UK to an 80% reduction in CO2 emissions from its 1990 level by 2050. Existing interventions in energy markets were ramped up, mainly the Renewables Obligation on electricity producers (from the Utilities Act 2000) and the Climate Change Levy (previously the Fossil Fuel Levy) on consumers. To advise Parliament, the Act created a government-funded statutory body, the Climate Change Committee (CCC). The CCC’s outgoing chairman stated in 2023: “The structure is remarkably good… when Parliament passes the [carbon] budgets, which we have to produce, they become law and cannot be changed without reference to the Climate Change Committee, which would have to give permission were it to be changed.” The CCC has specialised in talking nosense ever since.
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At least Nordhaus appears to have quit the cult. (See WUWT.)
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No that is his nephew Ted who quit.
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Another new Party in Australia, this time called “Reform.” More of the same will not change things. We need all these small, Conservative voices to coalesce, not compete.
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Tim, what we need is a sensible leadership that supports these groups. I am a long time LNP supporter, occasionally a member (years ago). I want a party that will show mature leadership in a way that cannot be denigrated by the MSM while challenging the evil and malevolent orthodoxy of the Green Left.
And I want to see Bowen, Kean, Forrest, Turnbull and many others held to account.
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This is hawse signs her emails:
Sussan Ley
Leader of the Opposition
Probably not that important because I think wet Liberals are on the outer.
Australia needs leadership that understands big government is a hindrance not an asset. Those in government have one priority over all others – to take what they can from taxpayers. They all want bigger salaries and more influence.
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Susssssssan Ley is neither a “leader” or “opposition”.
She is a Labor Party asset, as you say Rick.
Liberals are part of the problem.
They are not conservative and must be replaced by a conservative party like One Nation and allies.
Conservatives waste too much time and invest too much hope thinking Liberals are the answer when 1) they haven’t been a conservative party for decades and 2) they are still fanatically committed to Net Zero.
At best Liberals represent a very slightly less bad alternative than Labor.
Unless they can say they will fully and unequivocally abandon Paris and Net Zero in all its firms they are finished.
If a Government can commit to that they need to temporarily establish a Government department led not by a public serpent but someone like Musk, to unravel the whole Net Zero mess. No new staff need to be employed, they can come from closures of other Government departments.
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How much of a problem would invested interests be? I suspect that a large number of politicians, lobbyists and hangers-on have big dollars invested in green schemes, think Turnbull’s son, etc.
No doubt the pressure is on both sides to maintain the crock of net zero!
How to overcome this is the issue.
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The Australian conservatives could end up being the last people on Earth still endorsing Net Zero.
Don’t forget NewZealand. There’s just as much stupidity here
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Susan Ley hasn’t got a choice, she either wakes up now or she will be replaced soon and the sooner the better.
If an Aussie reform party is able to explain the CC lunacy quickly they could easily make a big difference. But PHON has been trying and so far we’ve only seen a small increase in their vote.
Who knows, we’ll just have to wait and see?
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We’ve got to this point in time in the climate change blob advancement largely due to politics. For that we can thank Al Gore. Then the so called science became politicised, extremely partisan. Before Gore you could have a sensible discussion about climate in the public forum, even on their ABC. After Gore, nup. If you doubted the “ science” you were a denier , a heretic. A person to be shunned. Just ask Judith Curry how she went after doubting the effects of man made climate change. So, the politicians have to end it, not the scientists. The people to end the CC blob in Australia should be the LNP. So, like the Voice. Not only drop Net Zero, just forget about man made climate change. Wishing is easy , isn’t it?
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Al Gore did enormous damage to science , the scientific method and established the Leftist ideology of there being such thing as “settled science” and “consensus science” which could not be questioned. There is no such thing, except in woke Leftist ideology. If it can’t be questioned, it’s not science.
In fact if you did question “the science” he established the precedent of sacking/firing people who disagreed with it as Will Happer found out.
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Happer wears that sacking by Gore now as a badge of honour. He mentioned it again on the Rogan podcast the other day. One of the worst things about Gore was the throng of Gore wannabes that bobbed up in western politics around the world. They all thought they could attract votes by promoting climate fear. Australia’s prime example being that fool Turnbull.
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A significant problem with making power prices cheaper is the fact that prices will never actually reduce to former levels. Sure the endless spiral of increases may slow but true reductions in price seems highly unlikely.
Once the public get use to paying “X” then that’s the new base. Savings can then be alleged against this artificially high but they will never go down to 2020 levels regardless that this could be achieved with coal powered plants by governments simply reducing royalties on the raw material.
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Take GST off of Power Bills for a start.
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Also forgotten now was the Labor after 2010 Carbon Tax of 10% plus GST 10% on every electricity bill retail price.
That was removed 2014/15 by the Abbott Government supported in the Senate however the repeal of Labor’s RET transition was rejected by the Senate at that time.
Another moment in history circa 2014 was the letter from Doctor Jennifer Marohasy and colleagues pointing out many errors and omissions (as the BoM response to the Minister acknowledged) to Prime Minister Abbott and Cabinet.
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I think market forces will drive prices down if the government deregulates and allows competition.
Prices will not return for a long time to how they used to be before Howard initiated the destruction of the power grid because a lot of money will need to be invested in building power stations. That money and more was wasted on building useless wind and solar plantations.
Also, there might be compensation payable to the wind and solar subsidy harvesters, we don’t know how much because many of the deals are considered State Secrets.
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The fastest way for individuals to lower their power bills is to make their own electricity – but that currently requires you to own a suitable roof and have some capital or a loan.
The grid could halve prices by taking off all carbon related costs including the retail theft paid for LGCs then going to daily scheduling of only disptachable generation. It would get rid of all the FRACs charges and AEMO could cut their staff by 90%.
It could be done over night but that would likely involve some hefty legal bills. The retail theft ends in 2030 and it is down to just $11/MWh now. So it disappears anyhow.
Rooftops have killed grid scale solar in SA and well on the way in other States. The writing I not as clear for wind but every household battery makes it harder for wind to make money.
The best thing anyone can do to get back to sensible electricity other than voting PHON is to install rooftop solar and battery. If you do not have room for rooftop then a battery still makes sense. I believe there are still plans that charge nothing for electricity from 11am to 2pm so you charge your battery then and discharge it the rest of the day. Might require some work on the battery from standard but should be an option. The free lunchtime power still appears to be on offer:
https://pages.ovoenergy.com.au/the-free-3-plan
If you are confident PHON will get a majority in the next election then hold steady. If not, start investing to insulate uyourdelf from the never ending cost rise. Everyone else who puts a solar panel on their roof is using your tax dollars and increasing your cost of electricity by lowering the volume in the wholesale market so all those high fixed costs are levied cars fewer customers.
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A word of caution from a builder who has had many requests for roof leak repairs where solar panel have been installed, and without the extra expense of electricians and removal of solar panels finding and repairing leaks is difficult and even impossible to carry out.
He said best to install solar onto new original roofs or renew the old roof.
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Would make sense to repair the roof before putting on panels.
I have a friend who has not installed panels because he knows he needs a knew roof and the house will be demolished for apartments once he leaves.
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FWIW
“A Bright New Energy Dawn In The UK”
Concludes
“The Conservatives came close to destroying the party by joining the Left’s net zero crusade. The current u-turn may or may not be enough to save the party. However, adding the Conservatives’ position in the polls to that of Reform UK would indicate that opposition to net zero is now close to if not an absolute majority electoral position. That represents an enormous swing in a few short years.”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/10/23/a-bright-new-energy-dawn-in-the-uk/
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Both UK & Australian Labor parties must dump net zero AS WELL AS INTRODUCING NET ZERO IMMIGRATION!!
Blair in the UK would never dump his favoured 3rd world immigration fetish. Just like Australian Labor Party! It’s not a coincidence it’s a foundation stone of Socialist / Marxist plans for the One World Government!
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FWIW
“James Lyons-Weiler: RFK Jr. Gave Ed Martin a List of 28 Scientific Studies that Defrauded the American Public – The Scientific Journals Have Been Put on Notice”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/10/james-lyons-weiler-rfk-jr-gave-ed-martin/
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Michael de Percy has recently written an article for The Spectator Australia magazine trying to imagine what an Aussie Reform Party could look like.
He covers most of the popular talking points and I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see what happens from now on.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2025/07/its-time-for-a-reform-australia-party/
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FWIW
More on those Whitehouse renovations –
“Right Angle News Network
@Rightanglenews
·
20h
BREAKING – A 2010 CNN clip of Obama’s $376 million White House renovation, fully funded by taxpayers unlike President Trump’s $250 million ballroom he’s paying for himself, is going viral as viewers call out Democrat hypocrisy and fake outrage.”
https://x.com/jpodhoretz/status/1981195167911858330
Via https://instapundit.com/752495/#disqus_thread
Anyone notice that on the Courier Mail’s yesterday’s “frantic excavators” Whitehouse thread?
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And
“Deranged Democrats Go All In On “Trump Is Destroying The White House” Hoax”
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/deranged-democrats-go-all-trump-destroying-white-house-hoax
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And
“Karoline Leavitt Did Not Say ‘Nothing Will Be Torn Down’ for the White House Ballroom Renovations”
https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2025/10/23/karoline-leavitt-did-not-say-nothing-will-be-torn-down-for-the-white-house-ballroom-renovations-n3808147
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A time-line
“Trump ‘White House Timeline’ Hits Back on Renovation Attacks, and It’s Glorious”
“The message is as clear as it is devastating: if the Democrats really cared about desecration of the White House, they would have vented their outrage against Clinton, Obama, and Biden for their genuine desecrations of the Executive Mansion, not against Trump for building a ballroom.”
More at
https://pjmedia.com/robert-spencer/2025/10/23/trump-white-house-timeline-hits-back-on-renovation-attacks-and-its-glorious-n4945197
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And this is Talk TV from the UK discussing the Tony Blair ‘advice’ to UK LayBore –
“Ed Miliband’s Team Admits Net Zero Numbers ‘Don’t Add Up’ | Tony Blair Urges Ditch Of Green Levies” –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyWWchV1txQ
Around 16 minutes long
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I got that wrong. The video only goes for around 7 minutes.
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Two days ago Joe Rogan talked to Dr Happer and Dr Lindzen about the CC lunacy and I’m sure Joe learnt a lot.
This is two hours long but you could break it up into 30 minute chunks and then return again when you have the time.
It’s well worth the effort.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt32chvO_iY
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FWIW
Some interesting phraseology there
“Engraved on the heart-shaped pendant are symbols of the Tudor King Henry VIII and his first wife, Katherine of Aragon, who married him in 1509.”
In
“Detectorist Unearths 15,000 Roman Silver Coins in Hoard That Could Be Wales’ Biggest Find”
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2025/10/23/detectorist-unearths-15000-roman-silver-coins-in-hoard-that-could-be-wales-biggest-find/
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The holy grail of UK detectoring.
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Isn’t there a chronology problem there? Or were the Roman coins part of a much later collection?
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All Energy Systems are governed by the Laws of Thermodynamics. The Australian Electricity Grid is no different.
Australian Laybore’s Ideology clashes with these Laws and their ‘Nut Zero’ push with the Ruinables and Batteries will not work.
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Well, I’m no Rhodes Scholar, but as I see it this whole carbon reduction scam is based on one point,Net Zero. This is the foundation point that any real conservative,or common sense party should hammer home at any and all opportunities the fact that Australia is Net Zero already! Get the message out to the punters that their being taken for a “ride” by con men, shysters, main chancers,imbeciles (Bowen) for interests other than whats best for the country. The Liberals are a waste of time in their present incantation. Poor fellow my country.
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Former Prime Minister Abbott is a Rhodes Scholar and he has always pointed out that in his view IPCC climate politics is based on inaccurate modelling.
Contrary to the left’s deliberate misinterpretation of his comment that climate change is cr*p, he didn’t say that, he said the modelling is.
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Here’s a Chris Kenny Sky News report from the last election campaign and they report on a Chennel 7 story about the toxic EV ruinables and Chinese involvement in Indonesia’s Nickel batteries lunacy.
This level of environmental damage is beyond belief and I wonder what most Aussie voters would think if this was properly promoted over a period of time?
Albo looked guilty and didn’t want to know and the clueless B O Bowen FLED the scene and used a THUG to aid in his retreat. Just 6.5 minutes and just unbelievable footage, but true.
Does this look like CLEAN ENERGY to you?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmX0ICdRHcU
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Climate politics, follow the money trails and influencer lobby groups finance sources.
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And in The Australian newspaper an interesting observation …
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Who cares about net zero? The ID card is the most important thing. After that the CBDC.
Then the world of population-wide deprivation and bug-eating is your oyster.
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Last night Sky News did another honest hit job on the left loonies BS and con tricks over their so called dangerous CC.
In fact we live in the safest period in Human history and today’s death rates prove that for every count of 10000 lives lost 100 years ago from extreme weather events we only lose 100 people today.
This video is well worth 5 minutes of our time. Go Sky News.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UG6unzYOwYg
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“Stepping back from Net Zero”
I guess sometimes I’m too much of a literalist.
Who wouldn’t want to.
Except maybe a Zen master.
Climate Action
Stop Climate Change
No human is illegal
What is a woman?
Words are violence
Believe in Science and follow it or him/her/they
Somewhere along the line I got the mistaken impression that scientific enlightenment meant the development of precise language and a retreat from symbolism where possible.
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Some of us in England will be denied our right to vote next May as in Southern England the leftwing Tories are scared of Reform taking over and have asked for our elections to be cancelled for a second year. There is fear from both of the main arms of the Uniparty over the rise of Reform as an alternative.
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The blob can still achieve the Utopia(R). They’ve just got to refine the approach, re-tune the propaganda, find a new way to distract and manipulate the vulgar peasantry. C’mon guys?
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TBI = Tony Blair Institute… I thought it was Traumatic Brain Injury
oh, I see…
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