Where We Are Today

Image credit: juicy_fish on Magnific

In the last year or so, I have written many essays about things that are going on (and, in virtually all cases, going wrong) in UK politics today. It is, as the image suggests, a tangled tale. This missive gives a summary of those essays, in enough detail to enable me to move on to the next phase of my work. That is, diagnosing what has gone wrong.

I have found myself concentrating mostly on the following subjects:

  • The green and anti-car agenda, and the role of the UN, the EU and successive UK governments in it.
  • Issues with local government, both with particular councils and with re-organization.
  • Digital ID and facial recognition.
  • Big Tech and AI.

There have been also a number of essays not fitting into any of these boxes, which I will summarize at the end.

The green and anti-car agenda

Why there is no climate crisis

On this strand, I began with โ€œWhy there is no climate crisis.โ€ This did what it said on the tin; it examined the hard evidence for a putative climate crisis, and found it severely wanting.

The UK Climate and Nature Bill

This was a live issue in July 2025, when the essay was written. The bill aims โ€œto require the UK to meet climate and nature targets,โ€ and a whole lot more. I concluded by asking:

  • Why the United Nations is being allowed to control UK government policies โ€“ and has been for more than 30 years, regardless of which party has been in power.
  • What specific evidence there is of the โ€œdegradation of natureโ€ that we, the people of the UK, are accused of having caused, and that implicates us as individuals in causing it.
  • Why a private memberโ€™s bill is being used to introduce โ€œby the back doorโ€ policies as radical as ending the use of fossil fuels, political takeover of farming, destroying economic freedom, and establishing a presumption against nuclear power.
  • How these policies could possibly be in the interests of the people of the UK in the current economic situation. Or, indeed, at any other time.
  • Why the entire Liberal Democrat parliamentary party have expressed support for these illiberal and undemocratic policies, that go against the interests of the people of the UK.

As of now, this bill is still on the books, but there is as yet no date for its second reading.

A Brief History of the Green Agenda

This was a series of three essays, summarizing the history of the green agenda from its inception in about 1968 up to the time of writing.

The first part examined the build up to the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. At which, our self-described โ€œrepresentativesโ€ signed us up to a whole raft of commitments, that they must surely have known were utterly opposed to the interests of those they were supposed to represent and serve. As I like to put it, they sold us all down the Rio.

In the second part, I found myself comparing deep green environmentalism to a religion. An extremely intolerant one, at that. And one that is dishonest, deceitful and reckless, to a level that once you start to piece together the evidence, you will find absolutely incredible.

They have sought to sideline the use of objective science in risk and cost-benefit analysis on green policies. They have fabricated โ€œevidenceโ€ to suit policy. They have collaborated with the UN and the EU to impose on us all a tyrannical culture of arbitrary, collective, and ever tightening targets and limits. Which, they plan, will continue to be tightened for ever.

They have suppressed the voices of skeptics. They have cited their activist pals in what are supposedly scientific reviews. โ€œScientistsโ€ among them have acted in dishonest ways, that are in no way scientific. And instead of following up and punishing these malfeasances, the UK government whitewashed them.

At the end of the final part, I concluded that those that have pushed the green agenda, and the climate scam in particular, have lied to us and deceived us for decades. And we are all poorer and less free because of the deliberate, planned scams they have carried out against us.

Our Enemy, the UN

Having looked at the UN and its history, I concluded that the UN has failed to deliver world peace, economic advancement and human rights, as it was supposed to. Instead, it has, bit by bit, taken on and promoted agendas that both hold back economic activity, and violate our rights and freedoms. What we need is a step beyond Brexit: UNexit.

That essay was written before Donald Trumpโ€™s recent order to withdraw the USA from a slew of UN and other agencies, here: [[1]]. That order includes list of proscribed UN and non-UN organizations. A Reform government would need to do something very similar almost as soon as it takes power.

Predatory Precaution

In the 1990s and early 2000s the UN, EU, corporate interests and UK and other governments perverted the โ€œprecautionary principleโ€ from its original โ€“ โ€œLook before you leapโ€ โ€“ into something more like โ€œIf in doubt about a risk, government must act to prevent it.โ€ This made it into a tool for tyranny and predation.

This perversion lies at the heart of many of the problems we suffer today. It violates our rights in at least three ways. It inverts the burden of proof, denies the presumption of innocence, and requires the accused โ€“ thatโ€™s us โ€“ to prove a negative.

Further, it has led to two serious cultural perversions. One, of arbitrary, collective, ever tightening targets and limits on what we may do. This has been pushed by the UNโ€™s World Health Organization (WHO) and the EU in areas like air pollution. The other, a culture of โ€œsafety at any cost,โ€ that throws out all consideration of objective cost-benefit and risk-benefit analysis, and demands that people make sacrifices for โ€œsafety,โ€ even if the costs to them exceed the benefits.

The Clean Air (Human Rights) bill

This is very like the โ€œclimate and natureโ€ bill, but targeting a different fake issue, โ€œclean air.โ€ If implemented, it will hand all but absolute power to a commission of petty despot โ€œexperts,โ€ to set ever tightening, and ultimately unachievable, air pollution limits that, just like โ€œnet zero,โ€ will hugely reduce our freedoms and our quality of life.

These โ€œexpertsโ€ must take advice from the UN WHO, UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). Yet these organizations are exactly the sources of our woes! And they must use the โ€œprecautionary principle.โ€ As corrupted by โ€“ yes, youโ€™ve guessed it, the WHO, the EU and the UK government. (See below).

The bill is currently in a similar state to the Climate and Nature bill.

A Brief History of Air Pollution in the UK

I traced the history of air pollution policy in the UK from the Great Smog of London (1952) through to the present. The pollutants causing that smog were known, at the time, to be a mixture of particulate matter (PM) and sulphur oxides. Such mixtures, indeed, have been the culprits in every air pollution event with proven major negative health effects since about 1930, except the Bhopal disaster.

I also traced how in 2009 UK policies were perverted, by the Committee on Medical Effects of Air Pollution (COMEAP) โ€“ aided and abetted by the WHO โ€“ into controls on PM, even after sulphur oxide emissions had been cut by orders of magnitude. And nine years later, COMEAP, despite dissenting views from several of its own members, initiated the demonization of nitrogen oxides, and so diesel cars.

I also related how the WHO and the EU โ€“ hardly unbiased parties! โ€“ worked together to force us all into a noose of ever tighter โ€œclean airโ€ regulations. Indeed, the WHO and EU jointly funded two studies specifically designed to raise the perception of air pollution as problem!

Along with the โ€œsafety at any costโ€ culture, these shenanigans are, ultimately, why we have been subjected, by successive governments of all parties, to draconian policies designed to make it both hassleful and unnecessarily expensive for people to drive cars.

Farncombe Local Streets โ€œImprovementsโ€

This essay was a response to a โ€œconsultationโ€ on proposed โ€œimprovementsโ€ (ahem!) to roads in my local area. My conclusions included the following.

Most of the proposals will have negative impact on those who need their cars in order to get around the Farncombe area, particularly those who live up the hill. Yet they will not lead to any benefits for people in Farncombe. They are not improvements, but the exact opposite.

With just a few exceptions, all the proposed changes should be scrapped.

The Corruption of Science

In this essay, I outlined the scientific method, and examined how well it is followed by the โ€œscienceโ€ funded by government today. I concluded that โ€œโ€œClimate science, air pollution, species extinctions, epidemiology, medical statistics and more, seem to be geared up to produce, not knowledge, but propaganda that supports dubious political narratives.โ€ In each case, they fail to use the scientific method properly.

I also concluded that the main cause of this corruption is โ€œhe who pays the piper calls the tune.โ€ When the funding comes from the corrupt political state, the tune is always liable to be a political one, not a scientific one.

I ended with some (very) good news from across the pond: Donald Trumpโ€™s executive order titled โ€œRestoring Gold Standard Scienceโ€ [[2]] for all federally funded scientific projects.

The Case of the Missing Cost-Benefit Analysis

Here, I told the sad history of the missing cost-benefit analysis for โ€œnet zeroโ€ and associated policies in the UK, and the trail of dishonesties that ensured it was never done.

I traced this trail from the biased Stern Review of 2006 to the climate change bill of 2008. Then on to the โ€œshadow price of carbonโ€ that, in effect, made it impossible to do a proper cost-benefit analysis on anything involving carbon dioxide emissions. To the 2019 report on costs and benefits of net zero, which was not a cost-benefit analysis. And Rishi Sunakโ€™s 2020 โ€œgreen bookโ€ review, that in effect exempted โ€œstrategicโ€ projects like net zero from any requirement for cost-benefit analysis at all.

Meanwhile, weโ€™re still waiting for a proper cost-benefit analysis for net zeroโ€ฆ

The UN Sustainable Development Goals

In this essay, I traced the history of, and looked at the agreements made (without our say-so) to implement, the UNโ€™s so-called โ€œSustainable Development Goals.โ€

My conclusions were as follows:

  • The United Nationsโ€™ โ€œSustainable Development Goalsโ€ agenda is a blueprint for the destruction of human civilization as we know it, and for tyranny by a self-appointed global ruling class over every human being alive.
  • For more than 30 years, successive UK governments have been a major leader in a stampede towards the โ€œsustainable developmentโ€ agenda. They have done this without allowing us, the people they are supposed to serve, any other choice, or any chance to object.
  • The main thrust of the agenda is a global power grab by an international รฉlite of the rich and powerful, at the expense of ordinary people. The world-view of its promoters seems to be a globalist, feminist form of fascism.
  • The agenda is a charter for government meddling and centralized control.
  • The negative effects of the agenda are now plain for all to see. For example, in economic turmoil and food shortages in Sri Lanka. Energy unaffordability in the UK. And serious political disruption to farming in the Netherlands.
  • As time goes on, it is becoming increasingly clear that the โ€œsustainable developmentโ€ agenda, wherever implemented, will produce results that are quite the opposite of sustainable.

When Reform gets power, it must revoke this agenda swiftly and completely.

Local Government

Local Government Re-organization in Surrey

This was our local Reform branchโ€™s โ€œconsultationโ€ response to Labourโ€™s plans to re-organize local government in the county of Surrey. It looked at several major issues with these plans.

First, though presented as โ€œdevolution,โ€ the plans in actuality centralize power. Second, the new West Surrey council will be in debt by ยฃ4.5 billion from day one, and this issue has still not been resolved. Third, the local elections scheduled for May 2025 were cancelled, allowing the Tories two more years in power for which they had no democratic mandate. Fourth, the โ€œconsultationโ€ was a sham, offering a โ€œchoiceโ€ between two proposals, neither of which was in the interests of the people of Surrey. And fifth, waiting in the wings for a couple of yearsโ€™ time are plans for a Mayor of Surrey with unprecedented, draconian powers.

Some thoughts on Godalming Town Council

This essay looked at how my local town council, Lib Dem controlled but with a significant Green presence, has chosen to behave towards the people it is supposed to serve.

The current โ€œcorporate planโ€ is a litany of woke and green nonsense. For example: Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. Carbon neutrality. Biodiversity Net Gain. Net zero emissions. Promoting โ€œunderstanding of the climate and ecological crisis.โ€ Reduction of individual carbon footprint. Divestment from fossil fuels, and opposition to development of fossil fuel sources. A โ€œzero-waste town.โ€ And a blanket 20mph speed limit throughout the area. None of this does any good for the people of the town, and just about all of it goes against our interests.

In conclusion: Godalming Town Council is not, in my opinion, what a town council should be. Its function ought to be to make the town a good place to live, and to supply local services cost-effectively. Instead, it is seeking to impose on the people of the town and its suburbs an agenda that is undemocratically being pushed by the UN and EU. This agenda is a scam, based on lies, scares and bad โ€œscience.โ€ And it goes seriously against the interests of very many of the people of Godalming. Including me.

Waverley Local Plan โ€œIssues and Optionsโ€ response

This is another consultation response, for the next iteration of the local plan for Waverley borough (which will be abolished in 2027).

The response is very wide-ranging. It covers, among much else: Centrally imposed house building targets that are impossible to meet, and that imply a 53% increase in Waverleyโ€™s population by 2043. The worn-out mantras of sustainability, climate change and net zero, biodiversity and โ€œnature recovery,โ€ air pollution and โ€œclean air.โ€ And public transport that doesnโ€™t meet the needs of local people, and can never do so cost-effectively; implying that a car will remain an essential for most people in Waverley for decades to come.

The May 7th West Surrey Local Elections

This essay was, in effect, a โ€œparty political broadcastโ€ on behalf of Reform UK in the run-up to the 2026 local elections. Unfortunately, we did not manage to get any councillors elected in our immediate area this time round. It is very difficult territory for Reform. But many peopleโ€™s sentiments, I think, are beginning to shift.

Digital ID and Facial Recognition

Response to โ€œCall for Evidenceโ€ on new forms of digital ID

This was another response to a โ€œconsultation,โ€ in which the views of ordinary people were โ€“ as has become normal โ€“ totally ignored by government. I identified six specific issues:

  • The idea, that data in computer systems can be โ€œa single source of truth,โ€ which can override evidence from the real world, is fundamentally flawed. The whole idea of digital ID checking, therefore, is also fundamentally flawed.
  • The Home Office, and government in general as at present constituted, are untrustworthy, and should not be allowed the kind of power that any new digital ID system would bring.
  • If use of a mobile phone is to be a necessary part of a digital ID system, some individuals, particularly disabled and older people, will be unable to prove who they are.
  • There are serious risks to human rights and freedoms in any digital ID system. These include inaccuracy, overreach, wastefulness, intrusiveness, violations of privacy and dignity rights, and failing to act in the interests of, and with the consent of, the people.
  • Digital ID systems could far too easily lead towards an Orwellian system of total surveillance and control.
  • The call for evidence is asking the wrong questions. Instead of what new digital ID systems should be developed, it should be asking whether attempts at digital ID systems in the UK have gone too far, and should be scaled back or even scrapped.

Response to facial recognition cameras consultation

This was another โ€œconsultationโ€ response, to the proposal of the then home secretary to make the UK into a โ€œpanopticon.โ€ [[3]]. Here are the last two and a half paragraphs of my response. โ€™Nuff said.โ€ฆ

In common with the other consultations I referred to above, it seems that I am wasting my time replying to this. The decisions are already made, and no dissenting voices will be heard.

For the avoidance of doubt, the option I would pick, given the opportunity, would be a total ban on the use of facial recognition technology in the UK, except for the sole purpose of checking passports at international borders. But that option is not even on the table.

There seems little point in my trying to answer any of the more detailed questions, so I will close with a friendly warning. If you really do want to restore public trust in the police and in government as a whole, you are going to have to start listening to the public. Really listening. To pass this exercise off as a โ€œconsultation,โ€ when it is obvious that the decisions have already been made and no disagreements, however principled, will be entertained, is deeply dishonest towards the people you are supposed to be serving.

The digital ID scam

In this essay, I took a different approach to a government โ€œconsultation.โ€ Rather than waste my efforts on the deaf ears of bureaucrats, I decided to write for the general public about digital ID. My conclusions included the following.

Not only does this project bring to the people of the UK no benefits whatsoever. But it also lays us open to Orwellian treatment โ€“ or even worse โ€“ at the hands of the state. And it will cost us billions in the process.

It is clear that those driving this project within government have no concern at all for the people they are supposed to serve. They do not care about our rights and freedoms, or what we think, or what we want.

It is also clear that those driving this project are violating the Nolan Principles of Public Life, to which everyone in government should be bound by the terms of their employment contracts. (I also wrote an essay on these principles โ€“ covered below).

Big Tech and AI

A sad tale and an AI fail

In this short essay, I told of an encounter with AI (so-called artificial intelligence) that was โ€œfunnyโ€ in more senses than one. I asked Google for the population of a local village (Brook in Surrey), and their AI told me that the village did not exist! Then, next morning, it gave me a different answer, also wrong. (Today, though, it gave an answer close to right. I suppose thatโ€™s โ€œprogressโ€ of a kind.)

From this encounter, I learned much. AI gets things wrong, and its results arenโ€™t reproducible. Therefore, AI isnโ€™t useful as a real-world tool, and to treat it as such is dangerous. Yet the establishment (and Microsoft most of all) are pushing for everyone to use it!

I concluded with: โ€œThat is worrying. For having people โ€“ likely including government โ€“ regularly using, and believing, an unpredictable tool that makes egregious errors like these, could easily become a major threat to those few freedoms we still retain.โ€

Microslop

I wrote at the beginning of 2026 about the ructions taking place in the tech world due to Microsoftโ€™s insistence in trying to force Windows 11, and the AI functions built into it, on to users who donโ€™t want these things. Among my conclusions were the following.

It looks to me as if Microsoft are seeking to turn the PC, which ought to be a tool under the userโ€™s control, into an instrument over which Microsoft and AI developers have more control than the user does. Moreover, Microsoftโ€™s approach of โ€œContinuous Innovationโ€ leads them to force new features on you whenever they feel like it. This is hardly a recipe for a stable working environment. All this is leading to the beginnings of an anti-AI political movement. And this is still growing: [[4]].

In my view, the prognosis is not good. Not good for Windows as a product. Not good for AI as a technology. And not good for Microsoft as a company. It looks as if the eruption, which is starting to build today, may well lead to Microsoftโ€™s greed and arrogance coming back to haunt them.

I hear that, since then, Microsoft have started to address some of the issues, notably performance. But this, I expect, will be too little, too late.

The Case Against AI

In this short-short, I prised out another issue with AI. AI โ€œlearningโ€ comes from the data on which it is trained. Which will reflect the prejudices of those who trained it.

Miscellaneous Subjects

A Brief History of England

To be sung, by those with stamina, to โ€œWhile shepherds watched their flocks by night.โ€

Replacement Migration

I looked at the history behind the mass immigration, which we are seeing today. I traced its origin to a UN document from 2000, outlining how replacement migration might be used to contain the effects on nation-statesโ€™ economies of providing benefits to an aging population.

It turns out that the UK was seen as one of the โ€œeasiestโ€ European countries to do this in. That said, to keep the potential support ratio (of working age people to the retired) constant would require the UK population to increase to 136 million by 2050. It looks as if successive governments, beginning with Blairโ€™s 2003 granting of unrestricted access to the UK labour market to EU citizens, have been aiming for this, or as near it as they can get.

This explains why whenever a government, Tory or Labour, promises to rein in immigration, it never happens. Indeed, immigration rates always go up, not down. This UN-sponsored policy is a gigantic scam, which has been staring us in the face for a quarter century.

The Nolan Principles and DOGGHIE

I looked at the โ€œNolan Principles of Public Life,โ€ commissioned by John Major in 1995 from a team led by senior judge Michael Nolan, to make recommendations โ€œto ensure the highest standards of propriety in public life.โ€ The result was in due course incorporated into the employment contracts of many, if not most, government office holders and employees. It has evolved over the years.

The following is a synopsis of the seven principles:

  • Selflessness: Everyone in government must act solely in the interests of the governed. (That means in the interests of every individual among them, real criminals excepted).
  • Integrity: No-one in government may allow themselves to be inappropriately influenced.
  • Objectivity: All government decisions must be impartial, fair, unbiased, and based on merit and the best evidence available.
  • Accountability: Those in government must be held accountable for the effects on the governed of what they do.
  • Openness: Government must act and take decisions in an open and transparent manner, and may not withhold information from the governed without very good cause.
  • Honesty: All holders of government office must be truthful. (Also candid, straightforward and sincere).
  • Leadership: Everyone in government must treat the governed with respect. And they must practise whatever they preach.

I put forward the idea of Nolan Audits, to check that government officials and employees are keeping to the standards they are committed to, and take appropriate action on violations, including dismissal if appropriate. This could be combined with DOGE style cost control functions into what I call DOGGHIE โ€“ a Department of Good Government, Honesty, Integrity and Efficiency.

Whoโ€™s a Fascist?

I examined the often-trotted-out mantras that Reform UK and Nigel Farage are in some sense โ€œfascist.โ€ I concluded that, whatever its detractors may say, Reform UK is not a fascist party. And on the evidence which I have examined, Nigel Farage does not behave like a fascist. Nor can he justly be accused of racism or anti-semitism.

In contrast, both Labour and the Tories have shown plenty of evidence of racist and anti-semitic tendencies in their pasts. And both of them include elements in their agendas which, even if not strictly Fascist, are nevertheless fascistic in tone. These include: Contempt for democracy. Ever increasing taxation and state control. Green and anti-car policies. Increasing violations of human rights and freedoms. And lack of respect for the individual human beings, whom they are supposed to serve.

And thatโ€™s where we are todayโ€ฆ

Contempt for democracy. Ever increasing taxation and state control. Green and anti-car policies. Increasing violations of human rights and freedoms. And lack of respect for the individual human beings, whom they are supposed to serve.

Thatโ€™s a pretty decent summing up of recent UK governments, no?

But thereโ€™s more. I havenโ€™t written any essays in this set specifically about the economy, but what is going on is quite clear. They are de-industrializing the economy, and shutting down the economic free market. They are making an economy that favours those, that are adept at raking in money without creating any wealth, over genuine business and working people. As a result, the rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer. In particular, the politically rich โ€“ those with connections to power, whether globalist, governmental or big-corporate, are getting richer. And the rest of us, the politically poor, are getting poorer.

Our enemies are doing these things to us quite deliberately. They are attacking people like farmers, private schools and small and family businesses. As a victim of IR35 for more than a quarter century, I know how that feels. They hate us for our virtues! Indeed, they hate humanity as a whole, and want to reduce us to no more than numbers in a database.

Moreover, they are attacking anyone who feels a need for independence, such as car drivers. They are seeking to use regulation and extortion to squeeze us human beings out of existence.

Successive UK governments have also been seeking systematically to destroy all trace of the Enlightenment values, which sprung from the people of Britain in the late 17th and 18th centuries, and held sway around much of the world through the 19th. Such as individual liberty and independence, freedom of speech, opinion, religion, association and protest, the natural rights of human beings, and government with the consent of and for the benefit of the people. It is no wonder that Reform UK, the only significant political party not aligned with the state and the establishment, are finding increasing support across the country.

Meanwhile, our enemies emit a miasma of falsehoods, deceits, lies, evasions and self-contradictions. And seek to suppress those who want to tell truth and set the record straight.

And thatโ€™s where we are today.

[[1]] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/01/withdrawing-the-united-states-from-international-organizations-conventions-and-treaties-that-are-contrary-to-the-interests-of-the-united-states/

[[2]] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/05/restoring-gold-standard-science/

[[3]] https://www.irishlegal.com/articles/uk-home-secretary-dreams-of-ai-powered-panopticon

[[4]] https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/the-american-rebellion-against-ai-is-gaining-steam/ar-AA23w1HH?ocid=finance-verthp-feeds


Discover more from The Libertarian Alliance

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Leave a Reply