"What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?"

Wilfred Owen, Anthem for Doomed Youth.

Misleading Imperial College modelling predictions and unchallenged veterinary axioms, resulted in the 2001 unnecessary mass cull of cattle and untold human misery. The parallels with the response to 'Coronavirus 19', driven by 'scientific experts', are obvious. "Following the science" sounds great, but what if the scientific assumptions and methodology are themselves deeply flawed?

A major peak in deaths, mainly of the elderly in institutional settings, happened immediately after the lock-down was introduced in 2020. From the beginning I have argued this resulted primarily from the policy not a named virus, although this was blamed. Why otherwise would this have been a peak and not continued when the 'Covid epidemic' continued for two years? Another peak occurred following the mass vaccination programme being introduced in November/December 2020. A rational assumption may well be the two were causally related. This is supported by the reported adverse effects by the national 'Yellow Card' reporting system. We now see a roughly 20% rise in the non-Covid death rate compared with pre-Covid years. This is linked to worrying signs of coronary-related incidents to a young and healthy cohort and micro-biological changes to treated blood. These topics are discussed in greater detail in the video below which comes highly recommended. The question remains whether beneath and behind these policies is actually a sinister plan to reduce population and target particularly vulnerable individuals? You decide.

https://www.richplanet.net/richp_genre.php?ref=299&part=1&gen=99

Eleven million, predominantly healthy non-infectious, animals slaughtered on suspicion, in Foot and Mouth outbreak, statistics manipulated for political reasons. Sound familiar?

https://www.ukcolumn.org/video/insight-slaughtered-on-suspicion?fbclid=IwAR3n7a0QDewQB9zSsAKHJRynA_lEf33UP2i0NA-QPTLWkqodgmuRlnhfsAI

"Made in 2014 and recently removed from the Internet when Vimeo shut down the UK Column channel. Viewer discretion is advised.

This documentary covers the UK Government's 'slaughter on suspicion' policy, designed by Imperial College's Neil Ferguson, which saw millions of cattle unnecessarily slaughtered to 'prevent the spread' of foot-and-mouth disease.

This is the same Neil Ferguson whose computer models drove the UK's Covid-19 policy recommendations."  UK Column.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/feb/21/foot-and-mouth-20-years-on-what-an-animal-virus-epidemic-taught-uk-science#:~:text=It%20took%20more%20than%20seven,by%20the%20end%20of%20September.

“Other Ill-defined and Unknown Causes of Mortality” On The Rise

September 26, 2022

See: https://gumshoenews.com/other-ill-defined-and-unknown-causes-of-mortality-on-the-rise/

The same phenomenon is happening wherever the experimental Covid jab has been rolled out. What other common factor (besides 5G) is there?

An example from Romania. Of course it couldn't happen here - or did it?

https://www.radiotimes.com/programme/b-vfkr9j/storyville/episodes/?episode=b-vohb9j

USA Figures:  Killing off the young!

 

Kwarteng's Incompetence Costs us Dear.

"Time to wrap up, after the most turbulent market reaction to a fiscal event that I can remember.

Investors are reeling from Kwasi Kwarteng’s package of huge unfunded tax cuts, and spending pledges such as the energy price freeze. The pound is languishing at just $1.09 tonight, a 37-year low, and 3.5 cents lighter than yesterday, while UK government bonds have had a shocking day. The yield, or interest rate, on two-year gilts close to 4% tonight, the highest since 2008, on fears over the huge borrowing ahead."

https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2022/sep/23/uk-consumer-confidence-economy-recession-mini-budget-tax-cuts-kwasi-kwarteng-business-live

Where do I start?  We all knew the sad demise of the long-serving Queen Elizabeth, coming at the same time as a change in Prime Minister and Cabinet - though not the ruling political party - marked the end of a political era and the start of a new one.  But could anyone have predicted how current economic circumstances could interact with government policy, to create the perfect storm we are now witnessing, of which the rate of inflation, the base lending rate, borrowing, national debt and exchange rate with other currencies - notably the dollar - have all reached high and low peaks in decidedly the wrong direction?

GB Pound / US Dollar Exchange Rate.

Having been effectively in control of economic policy and the British Treasury since 2010, it is understandable that the old excuse of blaming the Opposition for the mess they left behind has lost it's rhetorical power.  Only the Conservatives can claim responsibility for the current economic circumstances, produced by twelve years of indecision and incompetence under now four different Prime Ministers (Cameron. May. Johnson. Truss) and six Chancellors of Exchequer (Osborne. Hammond. Javid. Sunak. Zahawi. Kwarteng)  The fact that Labour, Scottish Nationalists, Liberals or Unions cannot be blamed for the current situation means the Spin Doctors must look to other causes, whilst careful not to choose one that the government is not responsible for. This is proving rather difficult.

The policy of restraint pursued by Cameron and his mate Osborne, cutting back on expenditure on Local Government, the NHS, the Police and armed services merely built up pressures that now have to be addressed.  Following the 'Green Agenda' despite the paucity of its global impact, including dependence on other nations for energy and the closing down of our own, had a direct effect on resilience and energy prices which has now gone ballistic. Privatising essential services to foreign providers has increased costs to the consumer, whilst profits have gone abroad. 

At the same time crazy, irrational spending took place on vanity schemes such as two aircraft carriers, a new high speed railway and the corona virus panic (to name but three) all of which have plunged the country into unsustainable debt, which current policies can only worsen. How many billions were and are paid to the EU in blackmail payments?  How many billions were and are being wasted on a new railway which will do virtually nothing for journey times. How many billions were wasted on bombing Libya, Syria and Afghanistan. How many billions (over 400!) were wasted on pointless Covid schemes? How much is currently being poured into the war in Ukraine, largely provoked by Western foreign policy? What a catalogue of disasters resulting from twisted priorities and outdated notions of our role in the world, of which sad to say the Queen's funeral was the apogee.

What is the result of all this? An unprecedented level of national debt, whilst most of the nation real estate assets, the famous 'family silver', have been sold off so there is little to back it up.  Meanwhile the independent Bank of England is forced to raise the interest rate as the classic control of raging inflation (largely caused by energy prices but compounded by other factors) which has a direct effect on cost of living (most people having loans to service) and on other costs. The strange thing is the BoE and Treasury are engaged in an economic tug of war, in which the Government claims it is going for growth with a target of 2.5 % whilst the bank's interest rises, and they are likely to go higher, directly stifle it.  The borrowing costs to lenders have been mentioned, but so too will the repayment costs of servicing the enormous government debt rise to many billions of pounds annually. This disparity can only be paid for by increased taxes or increased debt. Truss and Kwarteng have gone for the latter. It can only be described as brinkmanship of the highest order by complete novices in the field. It is as if the Bank Manager is high on drugs or the drug pusher has taken over the supermarket.  

International investors have made their assessment and the pound against the dollar has dropped to an all time low.  We all remember Harold Wilson's disingenuous assertion that a devalued currency didn't mean the pound in your pocket was worth less. That fallacy has long since been disproven and no one would dare propose it today. Not only will the pound buy you less abroad, it has a direct impact on the cost of living and inflation - effectively how much a pound will buy you at home. Oil is priced in dollars which means an extra five pounds to fill the tank and more for all energy cost where oil is a factor.

 Everything imported, and Britain is an importing nation is more expensive in proportion to the fall. If inflation runs at 10% not only are basic living costs more expensive by that amount, but labour costs for manufacturing and retail are increased, whilst savings if any are also decreased in proportion. So if you are lucky enough £100.000 in the bank at the beginning of the year, you will have effectively lost £10,000 at the end of it, just to inflation. Meanwhile any investments in stocks and shares will have probably depleted by even more. Yet what is the Truss/ Kwarteng solution to all this?  Allowing the highest paid bankers and executives to keep more from money making opportunities denied the generality of the public?

One of Kwarteng's first actions was to sack his highly experienced Permanent Secretary in the Treasury, Sir Tom Scholar.  Within 48 hours, Kwarteng was calling for a change in leadership and Scholar had to go with immediate effect. Was this gesture politics or a tyrannical Kwarteng wishing to assert his authority and put the fear of god into everyone else, bending them to his reckless will?  There are reasons to question whether Kwarteng is quite all there if his demeanour in the House and at the Queen's funeral are anything to go by. Perhaps he has been taking happy pills, because nothing in his novel policies or the almost uniform and international response to them, would support much elation or glee.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSCqqWhx044

https://www.independent.co.uk/tv/news/mini-budget-kwasi-kwarteng-reaction-b2174477.html

https://www.civilserviceworld.com/professions/article/tom-scholar-treasury-perm-sec-sacked-kwasi-kwarteng

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8CQXwEYwKA

"Bold experiment or reckless gamble?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Poxa3k8qVE&lc=UgwpT_tjKAecaAAs4dB4AaABAg.9gKJkeF0NIE9gQZBHYIcLx

Light Switch

The shining sun, around which all the planets run,

Has suddenly gone out, though long predicted by the wise,

And even ordinary folk.

Yet still it's met with shock and some surprise,

As if the darkness were not normal -

An expected consequence of time and tide.

When daily we awake, we do not gasp amazed by light,

A light that makes the day and brings all colour out,

But what if at six o'clock, form failed to coalesce,

And nothing brightened, nothing came to life?

Then we'd be shocked and struggle to comprehend

What had occurred - the breaking of some fundamental law,

By which the every moment of our lives relied, 

Something on which we all sub-consciously depend.

For seventy years the sun came up, the sun went down,

The seasons came and went,

But still it was relied upon, a given in god's scheme of things,

The glow in heaven's gate.

Not now it shines, instead on catafalque of state,

It rests the centre of a cosmos, dead, 

It's spirit flown to some other place unknown,

To which a multitude file past in silent tribute,

Not really knowing what drives them there,

Or where their destination is, unled,

Adjusting to their common fate, devoid of central star.

Yesterday, I think I over-dosed (with everyone else) on death and pageantry, all designed to bolster the unity of and support for, the State, in all its intricate workings. How clever to turn an immense bureaucracy into an intimate personal soap, to which people can relate as if it were their own family, ensuring it is so well financed and serviced so as to make it a sort of aspirational goal for everyone? Monarchy, with its roots in the mythical and romantic past, is maintained because it adds glamour and style to the otherwise grimy world of politics and finance. It is important that the Queen or King are kept well clear of sexual or any other form of scandal, but as we know that has not always been easy or possible. There is no doubt the late Queen had a very special sort of constitution that managed the role well. She was essentially a pragmatist who realised human nature was what it was, that the world is as it is, that the continuance of the ancient regal role was dependent on a certain style and behaviour which happily coincided with her own. In contrast to her husband, she prized continuity above ingenuity and 'progress'. In contrast to her son, she saw no reason to be despondent or depressed by the state of the world. She had the Nelson knack of 'turning a blind eye' to what did not accord with her optimistic world view. As long as she was surrounded by dogs, horses, wild landscape, true friends and a loyal nation, she was content. The affection in which she was held was genuine but no one should be blind to the way it and the whole panoply of the State Funeral - effectively a glamourized death ritual - and succession fits into the complicated business of state craft, where many ogres lurk and secrecy reigns supreme. The nation willingly gave itself up to mass mourning bordering on an irrational jingoism, that usefully distracted from foreign wars, excessive inflation, homelessness, food banks, immigration, race riots, child exploitation, corruption, pollution, a declining importance in the world and all the other evils of the modern age.  How long that rainbow shines over Windsor and Westminster, remains to be seen.

In reply to Russel Brand here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uS1ywMKFxno

Tim Veater

1 second ago

A pretty good summation of some of the psychological, philosophical and political issues revealed in and by the funeral of a British Queen. It's deep and very complicated. When we look at a building we do not necessarily see it as representative of mind, of ideas in their historical setting, but of course they are. As you say, the Queen was the embodiment of abstract ideas and ideals, part King Arthur, part a second Elizabeth, part Pope, part Virgin Mary, in some of the oldest physical structures in the country. It is impossible to detach monarchy from all the historical events that created it in its present form. Undoubtedly there was a genuine two-way emotional relationship between Queen and people but we should not underestimate how this was achieved by a sustained and coordinated effort over decades, so people are led to believe they had a personal knowing relationship, when in fact they didn't. Monarchy survived in previous generations in spite of the personal characteristics of the holder. In Elizabeth II case she managed to enhance it by dint of effort. Britain is certainly a very different place at the end of her reign, than at the start of Victoria's. Then Britain literally ruled the waves and a third of the land surface. But on a much more complicated level it is different psychologically. In both areas the funeral reflected a remnant. Ironically the new King, in stark contrast to his father but not his mother, harks back to a former age. Time will tell whether this endears him to the public or distances him. Much depends on how powerful financial and commercial interests portray him. You do quite well in reminding people what this might mean in practical terms but sometimes these are too painful to contemplate.

Lying in State

(A personal view)

It has been an extraordinary week for the late Queen's family and Britain. H.M. Queen Elizabeth II has set records for being the oldest and longest serving Monarch in British - indeed World - history, respectively ninety-six and seventy years.  But more important than the quantity, it has been the quality of her reign that has made its mark, truly justifying what Boris Johnson coined, in perhaps his most impressive speech to Parliament, as 'Elizabeth the Great'.  In the future annals of history, the label will probably stick and sets an formidable bar for the unfortunate King Charles III to meet, in what must inevitably be a relatively short reign.

A week has now passed since the news of her death was announced at Balmoral in the Scottish Highlands on Thursday 8th September, 2022.  At lunchtime the concern of her doctors was made public and she passed away, we must assume, shortly after. The public pronouncement by the BBC was held back until six-thirty pm. The rationale for this has not been given, nor details of who was physically in attendance at the time but it is fair to assume that both Charles and his sister Anne were. It is unlikely the other siblings and grandchildren reached the bed chamber to witness her passing, although able to pay their respects immediately following it. A cause of death has not been given but it may be assumed that it resulted from a combination of advanced years and an underlying medical condition that had pre-dated the event by many months.

There is no doubt, despite her stoicism and amazing constitution, the decline and death of her husband of over seventy years on the 9th April 2021, hit her hard. Who can forget the image of that lonely masked figure in St Georges Chapel, abandoned by, and separated from, the world? Both had received a Covid 'vaccination' on the 9th January, 2021and two subsequent ones. She later (10.4.2021) reported that the infection 'had left her very tired and exhausted.' Following the first vaccination, Prince Philip was admitted to hospital on the 23rd February, 2021 'with an infection' which was not specified, although stated to be unrelated to the vaccine. He was to survive for only another forty-five days. 

Later that year on the 14th November, 2021, the Queen herself was admitted to hospital 'for tests' and received treatment for some unspecified condition, which was reported publicly as a 'mobility problem'.  It is unlikely to have been that simple.  In any event, from that time onwards, there was a progressive and marked decline in Her Majesty's physical, though not mental, state. What is beyond doubt, both the Queen and Prince Philip suffered from symptoms of Coronavirus after inoculation with the experimental vaccines and both suffered a marked decline in heath leading to their deaths following it. It is a moot point whether the vaccines or the illness hastened their demise, as it has done to many thousands of others.

Despite her underlying illness, she continued performing her duties right up to the very end. Only three days before her death she said goodbye to Boris Johnson and hello to the new incoming Prime Minister, Liz Truss. At those meetings, as Mr Johnson subsequently confirmed, it was clear her health was failing. In the days that followed it was reported that Prince Charles visited frequently and at her side, which did not bode well, until the sad news finally broke to the world. To a select inner circle the serious nature of the circumstance was known as indicated by the discrete in the number of personnel planning the funeral. The Earl Marshall, the 18th Duke of Norfolk, stated as early as April the number had increased from twenty to two hundred and eighty.

Elizabeth II has filled the role of Monarch for so long, indeed for most of the lives of those now living, that it it hard to adjust to the fact that she will no longer be there.  No one now alive will have witnessed another British Coronation or State Funeral other than hers, although many will remember similar ones afforded Sir Winston Churchill, Lady Diana Spencer, Princess Margaret and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.  She stated she was herself a great believer in continuity and the importance of history and she made sure all the necessary arrangements were put in place for King Charles with Camilla at his side as Queen Consort. Both were given her public blessing before she died, he having previously taken on the role of Head of the Commonwealth at her recommendation.

In the long history of England, dating right back to the Roman Conquest and before, the population has subscribed to Kingship, from small tribes and geographical areas, to larger ones. It was a continuously developing story of peoples and their leaders, through Anglo Saxon to Norman times, up to the present day. Essentially it was in Thomas Hobbes terms a trade off between State and individual citizen - an unstated contract for security and protection from enemies without and within. That essentially remains the case, and all the military pageantry now on display is a reminder of that relationship, with Monarch still at the apex of it all. We should remember that all armed services vow allegiance to the Crown not the Government, as do government Ministers themselves. 

In the 17th Century the country engaged in a bloody civil war over the principal of the 'Divine Right of Kings', and where executive power to act and tax actually lay. For a decade or so Britain was a republic to which a sizeable minority would have us return, yet monarchy and most of its trappings has survived with the consent of both Parliament and people. Despite a very different world, both physically and philosophically to that of 1066, the history and religious-based ritual, still endows the occupant with a mysterious, indefinable quality, that evokes affection and respect, as has been amply demonstrated in the case of the late Queen. Few, if any, politician or any other celebrity can lay claim to this remarkable public reaction, combining both respect and affection and we may wonder what the secret ingredient is? Whether Charles will be able to illicit the same degree of loyalty and awe remains to be seen. He certainly has a hard act to follow.

In the case of Queen Elizabeth it was a combination of factors. The double and tragic nature of her accession, first with the abdication of her uncle and then the untimely death of her father. As Princess in line to the throne she was already a notable and romantic figure, having fallen in love at the tender age of thirteen with someone who has been described by his cousin as a 'Greek God'. From images of Prince Philip at eighteen it would be hard to disagree. Married in 1947, with two beautiful children, in 1952 the death of her father from the strain of the war, his natural diffidence, heavy smoking and lung cancer, involved "a very sudden taking on, and doing the best you can," as she said herself. 

She benefitted from the mythic stature of the first Queen Elizabeth, to shape a new Elizabethan Age, full of technological promise after the agonies and deprivations of not one but two World Wars. Her Coronation in 1952 was resplendent in pomp and circumstance, the first to be made generally accessible to the public via the new medium of 'television'. 

But we should not underestimate the personal attributes this young woman brought to the role and her star quality. She bore the responsibility lightly - "she was never grand" as Boris Johnson so neatly put it - yet with grace and commitment, never shirking her duty, as many monarchs had done before her. Throughout her reign, her integrity based on her religious faith, shone through. It was as if she was guided by her father and wished to honour him - surely achieved in full measure.

Can there be anyone in the world, who for seventy plus years has had a life so minutely and precisely dictated by time and engagements? Almost every minute of those seventy years was organised and predicted. She became a creature of her diary, her year marked by regular state and other events. She could almost set her clock and calendar by them.  Visits abroad, the continuous arrival and departure of diplomats, the weekly private conversation with fifteen Prime Ministers from Churchill on.

For this very reason there can be no doubting her last trip to Balmoral was both intentional and fully informed. She knew, as firmly as anyone can, she would die there. Two Prime Ministers visited her there. It was her last political act. She chose Balmoral both for personal and political reasons. Personal because she loved the place with all its happy family memories for her and her husband. Political because she knew it would be her final statement of affinity with Scotland and with the importance of the Union dating from 1707 and of the Crowns since 1603. The Scots demonstrated their loyalty at her death, notwithstanding a strong nationalistic sentiment. The UK's political establishment has patently failed to resonate with the Scots in the same way. Blair's devolution has been a huge failure but that's another story.

I have referred to the timing of her death elsewhere. One wonders if it could have been wholly coincidental? Only the death of a Queen of her standing could push the 25th anniversary of Diana's death off the front page, or the 21st anniversary of the events of 9/11. As we have already noted it was almost exactly five years since her husband officially retired and a year and five months since he passed away. The announcement of her death was made at 6.30 pm. The journey from Balmoral to Holyrood took six hours.  Her cortege set off from Buckingham Palace at precisely 2.22 pm on the 14.9.2022 and arrived at Westminster Hall at 3 pm where it will lies in state for five days. The vigil will last until 6.30 am on Monday 19th.

All the ceremony, religious services - six in all - and ritual serve a purpose of channelling the nation's grief and accommodating the public mind to a new new Monarch - King Charles III pending his own Coronation early in 2023.  To look in on Monarchy is not the same as looking out. ("Uneasy the head that wears the Crown" as Shakespeare put it) To ride in convoy behind the Queen's car (as I once did) is to get just a glimpse of the psychological impact of being surrounded by thousands upon thousands of well-wishers. She and the Duke had experienced that all their long lives, on virtually every continent and in most countries. The Queen once said, "I have to be seen to be believed". Countless millions, even in death, proved that to be true. Monarchy is a weird throwback to a British past that has somehow survived the centuries but the Queen made it international. That it has retained its magic for seventy years is plain to see. Only time will tell if it survives the modern secular, cynical and disputatious world, in the capable hands of her son and heir.

 "The Queen is dead. Long live the King!"

KING LEAR

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Smite flat the thick rotundity o' the world!
Crack nature's moulds, an germens spill at once,
That make ingrateful man!

Fool

O nuncle, court holy-water in a dry
house is better than this rain-water out o' door.
Good nuncle, in, and ask thy daughters' blessing:
here's a night pities neither wise man nor fool.

SHAKESPEARE - KING LEAR. ACT II 

At six o'clock I went for a walk. I had been following the BBC's coverage of the momentous events taking place at Balmoral Castle, in the Scottish Highlands, where a longstanding Monarch - I am tempted to add, 'of the Glen' - was gravely ill. 

According to the BBC, Queen Elizabeth II was at that time, still alive. In fact we were later informed she has passed away earlier in the afternoon, and the pretence was maintained for several hours in accordance with Palace and family protocol, presumably in order for numerous persons around the world to be informed and procedures put in place. Nevertheless for several hours the 'News' was effectively inaccurate and misleading. 

When I went out, I put the BBC internet broadcast on pause, so when I got back roughly two hours later nothing seemed to have changed, so imagine my surprise when I watched Canadian PM Trudeau announce the death of the Queen. It appeared that Canadians were being informed of an historic event denied to the British audience.

Of course this was not the case, merely me getting confused by technology. Clearly a lot had transpired whilst I was out. Time and events had moved on. I was still stuck in the past.

My circular walk had taken much longer than usual. This was because I kept attempting to shelter from the rain under trees and hedges. I had never seen rain like it! The heavens had opened. It was portentous. It was apt. 

Heavy continuous rain for two hours with only minor respite, filling the gutters with rushing water, turning roads into ponds, millions of droplets hitting the ground, so that they could be both seen and heard. 

When eventually, soaked to the skin, I got to my lane, it had literally turned into a river, and I had no alternative but to wade, ankle-deep, up through it. I left the house still in the Second Elizabethan Age. I returned to the third Carolean one! 

The Queen's reign was synonymous with my life. I had known nothing else. It was a constant. Similarly the new King, being the same age, we had lived parallel but very different lives. 

Just as his mother held the record for the oldest and longest reigning British Monarch, so her Heir holds the record for the oldest person to take on the role. Both of us our in our respective final Act. What that will be, waits to be seen. In matters of the Crown, continuity is all but there is no doubt that the late Queen will be a very hard act to follow. 

For me in my anonymous, insignificant life, the day the Queen eventually passed, will forever be the day I took a walk on the wild side, caught in a deluge, returning home wet and cold, to discover we had entered a new age. Rain or reign, it all eventually passes over.

Some of the Articles relating to the British Royal Family on this Blog:

Thursday, 21 April 2016  Queen Elizabeth II - Primus inter pares.

The ambivalent nature of monarchy in the 21st Century.  https://veaterecosan.blogspot.com/search?q=primus

Sunday, 25 June 2017 Right Royal Coincidences 

https://veaterecosan.blogspot.com/search?q=duke+of+edinburgh

Friday, 1 September 2017   Charles and Camilla to Split?

(Reliable or fake news?) https://veaterecosan.blogspot.com/search?q=charles

Tuesday, 24 September 2019 'Prorogue' gone Rogue? And the 'Queen is not amused'! 

https://veaterecosan.blogspot.com/2019/09/porogue-gone-rogue-and-queen-is-not.html

Sunday, 20 October 2019  "Prince Charles: A Mad King in Waiting?" https://veaterecosan.blogspot.com/2019/10/prince-charles-mad-king-in-waiting.html

 

Friday, 9 April 2021. Wednesday, 27 November 2019  Queen Elizabeth And Prince Charles Force Prince Andrew To Cancel Engagem..  https://veaterecosan.blogspot.com/2021/04/wednesday-27-november-2019-queen.html

Saturday, 19May 2018   The Wedding. Which Wedding? 

https://veaterecosan.blogspot.com/search?q=harry+meghan

Sunday, 5 May 2019   "The King (to be) and I." 

https://veaterecosan.blogspot.com/search?q=prince+of+wales

Saturday, 11 January 2020  Harry and Meghan to give up "royal highness"
titles, according to statement from Buckingham Palace 

https://veaterecosan.blogspot.com/search?q=the+queen

Saturday, 22 August 2020 Duke Visits Flood Disaster Town; And Scavengers At Dump (1968) https://veaterecosan.blogspot.com/2020/08/duke-visits-flood-disaster-town-and.html

Tuesday, 9 March 2021 The New Prince of Bel Air  

https://veaterecosan.blogspot.com/search?q=royal+family

Sunday, 18 April 2021  The death and funeral of HRH the Duke of Edinburgh. (A personal assessment)  https://veaterecosan.blogspot.com/2021/04/the-death-and-funeral-of-hrh-duke-of.html

Apropos 'YouKnowWho': You can't buy class or cover up the lack of it. Her innate sense of social inferiority, and trying to compensate for it, is at the root of all the problems she has brought upon herself, her husband, her wider family and the Institution of the Monarchy. As I was once told, I think as a refined insult, "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear." When the testosterone wears off, what will Harry be left with but embarrassment and regret?

Europe’s Energy Armageddon from Berlin and Brussels, Not Moscow

By F. William Engdahl

Global Research, September 01, 2022

Region: Europe, Russia and FSU

Theme: Global Economy, Oil and Energy

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 19 57

 

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https://www.globalresearch.ca/europe-energy-armageddon-from-berlin-brussels-not-moscow/5792005?fbclid=IwAR2hDs26ArihkZkJwJheX-2KFRdueAAADuOQnuiSBwN8RnAqT60fF9OIKUg

On August 22 the exchange-traded market price for natural gas in the German THE (Trading Hub Europe) gas hub was trading more than 1000% higher than a year ago. Most citizens are told by the Scholz regime that the reason is Putin and Russia’s war in Ukraine. The truth is quite otherwise. EU politicians and major financial interests are using Russia to cover what is a Made in Germany and Brussels energy crisis. The consequences are not accidental.

It is not because politicians like Scholz or German Green Economy Minister Robert Habeck, nor EU Commission Green Energy Vice President Frans Timmermans are stupid or clueless. Corrupt and dishonest, maybe yes. They know exactly what they are doing. They are reading a script. It is all part of the EU plan to deindustrialize one of the most energy-efficient industrial concentrations on the planet. This is the UN Green Agenda 2030 otherwise known as Klaus Schwab’s Great Reset.

EU Gas Market Deregulated

What the EU Commission and government ministers in Germany and across the EU are carefully hiding is the transformation they have created in how the natural gas price is determined today. For almost two decades the EU Commission, backed by the mega banks such as JP MorganChase or large speculative hedge funds, began to lay the basis for what is today a complete deregulation of the market for natural gas. It was promoted as the “liberalization” of the European Union’s natural gas market. What it now allows is for unregulated real-time free market trading to fix prices rather than long-term contracts.

Beginning around 2010 the EU began to push a radical change in rules for pricing natural gas. Prior to that point most gas prices were set in fixed long-term contracts for pipeline delivery. The largest supplier, Russia’s Gazprom, provided gas to the EU, most especially to Germany, in long-term contracts pegged to the price of oil. Until the last several years almost no gas was imported by LNG ships. With a change in US laws to allow export of LNG from the huge shale gas production in 2016 US gas producers began a major expansion of LNG export terminal construction. The terminals take an average of 3 to 5 years to build. At the same time Poland, Holland and other EU countries began to build LNG import terminals to receive the LNG from abroad.

Emerging from World War II as the world leading oil supplier, the Anglo-American oil giants, then called the Seven Sisters, created a global oil price monopoly. As Henry Kissinger noted during the oil shocks of the 1970s, “Control the oil and you control entire nations.” Since the 1980s Wall Street banks, led by Goldman Sachs, created a new market in “paper oil,” or futures and derivative trading of future oil barrels. It created a huge casino of speculative profits that was controlled by a handful of giant banks in New York and the City of London.

Those same powerful financial interests have been working for years to create a similar globalized “paper gas” market in futures they could control. The EU Commission and their Green Deal agenda to “decarbonize” the economy by 2050, eliminating oil, gas and coal fuels, provided the ideal trap that has led to the explosive spike in EU gas prices since 2021. To create that “single” market control, the EU was lobbied by the globalist interests to impose draconian and de facto illegal rule changes on Gazprom to force the Russian owner of various gas distribution pipeline networks in the EU to open them to competitor gas.

The big banks and energy interests that control EU policy in Brussels had created a new independent price system parallel to the long-term, stable prices of Russian pipeline gas which they did not control.

By 2019 the series of bureaucratic energy directives of the Brussels EU Commission allowed fully deregulated gas market trading to de facto set the prices for natural gas in the EU, despite the fact that Russia was still by far the largest gas import source. A series of virtual trading “hubs” had been established to trade gas futures contracts in several EU countries. By 2020 the Dutch TTF (Title Transfer Facility) was the dominant trading center for EU gas, the so-called EU gas benchmark. Notably, TTF is a virtual platform of trades in futures gas contracts between in trades between banks and other financial investors, “Over-The-Counter.” That means it is de facto unregulated, outside any regulated exchange. This is critical to understand the game being run in the EU today.

Algeria to Central Europe: NATO Plans Gas Pipeline from Spain to Germany – Reports

In 2021 only 20% of all natural gas imports to the EU were LNG gas, whose prices were largely determined by futures trades in the TTF hub, the EU de facto gas benchmark, owned by the Dutch Government, the same government destroying its farms for a fraudulent nitrogen pollution claim. The largest import share of European gas came from Russia’s Gazprom supplying more than 40% of EU imports in 2021. That gas was via long term pipeline contracts whose price was vastly lower than today’s TTF speculation price. In 2021 EU states paid an estimated penalty cost around $30 billion more for natural gas in 2021 than if they had stuck with Gazprom oil-indexation pricing. The banks loved it. US industry and consumers not. Only by destroying the Russian gas market in the EU could financial interests and the Green Deal advocates create their LNG market control.

Closing EU Pipeline Gas

With full EU backing for the new gas wholesale market, Brussels, Germany and NATO began systematically to close stable, long-term pipeline gas to the EU.

After she broke diplomatic ties with Morocco in August, 2021 over disputed territories, Algeria announced the Maghreb-Europe (MGE) gas pipeline, which was launched in 1996, would cease operation on October 31, 2021, when the relevant agreement expired.

In September 2021 Gazprom completed its multibillion dollar undersea Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia across the Baltic Sea to northern Germany. It would double the capacity of Nord Stream 1 to 110 billion cubic meters annually, allowing Gazprom to be independent of interference with gas deliveries via its Soyuz pipeline going through Ukraine. The EU Commission, backed by the Biden Administration, blocked opening of the pipeline with bureaucratic sabotage, and finally German Chancellor Scholz imposed sanction on the pipeline on February 22 over Russian recognition of Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic. With the growing gas crisis since, the German government has refused to open Nord Stream 2 despite the fact it is finished.

Then on May 12, 2022 although Gazprom deliveries to the Soyuz gas pipeline through Ukraine were uninterrupted for almost three months of conflict, despite Russia’s military operations in Ukraine, the NATO-controlled Zelenskyy regime in Kiev closed a major Russian pipeline through Lugansk, that was binging Russian gas both to his Ukraine as well as EU states, declaring it would remain closed until Kiev gets full control of its pipeline system that runs through the two Donbass republics. That section of the Ukraine Soyuz line cut one-third of gas via Soyuz to the EU. It certainly did not help the EU economy at a time Kiev was begging for more weapons from those same NATO countries. Soyuz opened in 1980 under the Soviet Union bringing gas from the Orenburg gas field.

Next came the Jamal Russian gas pipeline through Belarus and through Poland to Germany. In December 2021, two months before the Ukraine conflict, the Polish government closed the Polish part of the pipeline cutting Gazprom gas delivery at low prices to Germany as well as Poland. Instead Polish gas companies bought Russian gas in the storage of German gas companies, via the Polish-German section of the Jamal pipeline at a higher price in a reverse flow. The German gas companies got their Russian gas via long-term contract for a very low contract price and resold to Poland at a huge profit. This insanity was deliberately downplayed by the Green Economics Minister Habeck and Chancellor Scholz and German media, even though it forced German gas prices even higher and worsened the German gas crisis. The Polish government refused to renew its gas contract with Russia, and instead buys gas on the free market for vastly higher prices. As a result no more Russian gas to Germany via Jamal is flowing.

Finally gas delivery via Nord Stream 1 undersea pipeline has been interrupted because of needed repair of a Siemens-made gas turbine. The turbine was sent to a special facility of Siemens in Canada where the anti-Russian Trudeau regime held it for months before finally releasing it on request of German government. Yet they deliberately refused to grant the delivery to its Russian owner, but instead to Siemens Germany, where it sits, as the German and Canadian governments refuse to grant a legally binding sanctions exemption for the transfer to Russia. By this means Gazprom gas through Nord Stream 1 is also dramatically reduced to 20% of normal.

In January, 2020 Gazprom began sending gas from its TurkStream pipeline through Turkey and on to Bulgaria and Hungary. In March 2022 Bulgaria unilaterally, with NATO backing, cut its gas supplies from TurkStream. Hungary’s Viktor Orban, by contrast, secured continuation with Russia of TurkStream gas. As a result today Hungary has no energy crisis and imports Russian pipeline gas at contract very low fixed prices.

By systematically sanctioning or closing gas deliveries from long-term, low cost pipelines to the EU, gas speculators via the Dutch TTP have been able to use every hiccup or energy shock in the world, whether a record drought in China or the conflict in Ukraine, to export restrictions in the USA, to bid the EU wholesale gas prices through all bounds. As of mid-August the futures price at TTP was 1,000% higher than a year ago and rising daily.

German Highest Price Madness

The deliberate energy and electricity price sabotage gets even more absurd. On August 28, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner, the sole cabinet member from the Liberal Party (FDP), revealed that under the opaque terms of the complex EU Electricity Market Reform measures, the producers of electricity from solar or wind automatically receive the same price for their “renewable” electricity they sell to the power companies for the grid as the highest cost, i.e. natural gas!

Lindner called for an “urgent” change to the German energy law to decouple different markets. The fanatical Green Economics Minister Robert Habeck immediately replied that, “We are working hard to find a new market model,” but cautioning that the government must be mindful not to intervene too much: “We need functioning markets and, at the same time, we need to set the right rules so that positions in the market are not abused.”

Habeck in fact is doing all possible to build the Green Agenda and eliminate gas and oil and nuclear, the only reliable energy sources at present. He refuses to consider re-opening three nuclear plants closed a year ago or to reconsider closing the remaining three in December. While declaring in a Bloomberg interview that, ”I will not approach this question ideologically,” in the next breath he declared, “Nuclear power is not the solution, it is the problem.” Habeck as well as the EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen have repeatedly declared more investment in unreliable wind and solar is the answer to a gas price crisis that their policies have deliberately created. In every respect the suicidal energy crisis ongoing in Europe has been “Made in Germany,” not in Russia.

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F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Featured image is from Libertarian Car Talk 

9.8.2023:  Anyone would think the Ukrainians were winning the war like little angels if you believed the media, not 400 000 dead and wounded from US/UK long-term meddling and Russian bombardment. Tucker Carlson claims America will be at open and direct war with Russia within a year, with all its horrendous possibilities. And what does Western media concentrate attention on? Anything but. The slogan the corrupt and decrepit 'Democrats' have come up with is "Fight the Russians there to avoid fighting them here". What baloney - both facile and dangerous for all of us? https://veaterecosan.blogspot.com/search?q=Putin+nuclear