Monday, July 25, 2022




UK: Tory leadership: Liz Truss’s tax cuts will damage public services and bust Treasury rules, economists warn

They always say that about tax cuts. They forget the stimulatory effect of such cuts

The £30bn tax-slashing plans of Liz Truss have been savaged by economists, who are warning they will fuel inflation and risk a return to austerity while busting Treasury rules.

The Tory leadership race favourite was dragged into a damaging row about the credibility of her strategy after she argued it would tame soaring inflation – turning economic orthodoxy on its head.

One economics professor told The Independent the claim was “ridiculous”, while the respected Institute for Fiscal Studies went further, also highlighting the danger for public services and spending rules.

The row came as Rishi Sunak rejected bringing forward his 1p income tax cut – announced for spring 2024 – to woo Tory members away from Ms Truss, and underline his “fiscal responsibility” credentials.

The IFS concluded Ms Truss’s proposals would “likely result in the current fiscal rules being broken”, requiring borrowing for day-to-day spending and leaving debt still rising at the next election.

The think tank warned of a “deterioration in the quality” of public services if, as she has suggested, Ms Truss puts tax cuts ahead of protecting services against rising inflation in her emergency autumn budget.

The damning verdict came as the foreign secretary appeared to be coasting to victory in the contest, securing a yawning 24-point lead over her rival Mr Sunak in a poll of Tory members.

On the campaign trail in Peterborough, Ms Truss doubled down on her plans, rejecting the IFS warning that she would break fiscal rules and insisting her tax cuts were “affordable”.

She signalled her readiness to make cuts if necessary, saying: “When I was a Treasury minister, I was in charge of public spending. I controlled public spending effectively.”

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'Woke' Disney Again Ruins the Fun at it's Theme Parks, 'Fairy Godmother in Training' to Become Gender Neutral Alternative

Once again the people who run Disney Corporation, specifically those who run the theme parks, have gone full woke by changing the name of the ‘fairy godmother in training’ to a more gender-neutral alternative which keeps with their latest theme of grooming kids to adopt non-traditional lifestyles.

Via the Daily Wire:

“The Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique at Magic Kingdom Park in Florida and the Disneyland Resort in California will reopen on August 25 after being shuttered during the pandemic. Park employees in the boutique used to be referred to as “Fairy Godmothers in Training” but will now be called “Fairy Godmother’s Apprentices.”

Per the park website, this makeover experience caters to young guests ages 3 – 12, helping them transform either princesses or knights.

“With the wave of a magic wand—plus a few hands-on tricks of the trade—our Fairy Godmother’s Apprentices will pamper and primp your child until they look storybook stunning,” the page reads. “Children can choose a hairstyle then add makeup, nail polish and accessories—even a Disney costume.”

The Disney-themed blog Streaming the Magic described the name change by saying, “This way, cast members that might not identify as female can still be part of the process to dress up & style the children without having to refer to themselves as a female Disney character.”

It seems like Disney management is more interested in pleasing left wing extremists than actual parents who buy and consume their products, theme parks and streaming service.

Do not think this will end well as Disney has completely left it’s roots in wholesome family entertainment behind.

In fact it appears Disney employees are not happy with this latest move by management, as Fox News reports:

“Most Disney employees oppose left-leaning efforts to promote inclusion, such as the recent change to the “Fairy Godmother”-themed titles at the Bibbidi Boppidi Boutiques at Walt Disney World in Florida and Disneyland in California igniting internet outrage, a Disney cast member told Fox News Digital.

“There is a plaque as you enter Disney World that reads ‘Here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow, and fantasy,’ but increasingly it’s becoming the world of wokeness, political correctness, and indoctrination,” Jose Castillo, a current Walt Disney Company employee who is running for Congress in Florida as a Republican, told Fox News Digital on Wednesday. “This isn’t what Walt Disney envisioned, and it isn’t what Disney’s fans signed up for.”

Sadly Mr. Castillo is absolutely right.

Disney now stands much more for wokeness than it does for family values and wholesome entertainment.

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John Cleese slams wokeness for ‘disastrous’ impact on comedy

Entertainment icon John Cleese slammed wokeness for having a “disastrous” impact on comedy during an interview with Fox News Digital.

Cleese was a keynote speaker at last week’s FreedomFest conference in Las Vegas where he spoke about how to cultivate creativity, a skill he believes is essential and not just in showbiz, but sounded the alarm that political correctness has become a major obstacle, particularly for young comedians.

When asked if comedians have the freedom to be funny in the year 2022, Cleese firmly responded, “No.”

“There’s always been limitations on what they’re allowed to say,” Cleese said. “Why you go to Molière and Louis XIV. I mean Molière had to be a bit careful. And there will always be limitations. I mean in England, until some ridiculous late date like 1965, all plays had to be submitted to what used to be a part of the palace called the Lord Chamberlain, and he would read it and there were hilarious letters used to go back was saying ‘you may only say f–k once,’ this sort of- ‘and you cannot say bugger. But you can say-‘ this sort of ridiculous negotiating letters.”

“But I think it’s particularly worrying at the moment because you can only create in an atmosphere of freedom, where you’re not checking everything you say critically before you move on. What you have to be able to do is to build without knowing where you’re going because you’ve never been there before. That’s what creativity is—you have to be allowed to build. And a lot of comedians now are sitting there and when they think of something, they say something like, ‘Can I get away with it? I don’t think so. So and so got into trouble, and he said that, oh, she said that.’ You see what I mean? And that’s the death of creativity,” Cleese continued. “So I would say at the moment, this is a difficult time, particularly for young comedians, but you see, my audience is much older, and they’re simply not interested in most of the woke attitudes. I mean, they just think that you should try and be kind to people and that’s no need to complicate it, you know?”

The “Monty Python” star explained that wokeness allows the “critical mind” to take over the creative, saying they’re “definitely in opposition to each other.”

“You can do the creation and then criticize it, but you can’t do them at the same time. So if you’re worried about offending people and constantly thinking of that, you are not going to be very creative. So I think it has a disastrous effect,” Cleese told Fox News Digital.

Cleese lamented that “everything is more politicized now,” including late-night comedy in America. He pointed to “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert, who he says he “adores,” but acknowledged that his audience is “more obviously politically aligned than it used to be,” adding “it wasn’t like that.”

“It wasn’t like this when I first got to America,” Cleese said. “When I first got to America in the 60s… two things happened. First of all, I very much admired the cross-the-aisle friendships and thought we don’t have that in England. We have real battles between the Tories and the Labour, but in America there seems to be these- and this was destroyed by Newt Gingrich, quite deliberately, for purposes of power. I think that’s a tragedy.”

When asked if late-night comedians can ever reunite both sides of the aisle like they used to, Cleese replied, “No,” adding that comedians can “sometimes summarize in a moment what’s happening very well” but they don’t “ever change anything.”

The 82-year-old British funnyman stood firmly against the notion that any comedian should be “canceled” over a joke and allow audiences to decide what’s funny.

“If you go to a Republican convention and tell anti-Democrat jokes, you’ll get a very good response. If you tell anti-Republican jokes, you won’t. So you’ve got to fit your material to some extent to your audience. And that’s part of it… If you go to see your granny and to have tea with her, you don’t start telling her sex jokes. Now that’s not because it’s illegal, it’s just bad manners,” Cleese said.

He continued, “So I think you would think what the audiences is and then you might shock them a little bit because that’s fun. And also, as I point out on stage, if you get into areas that are a little bit taboo, you actually get the biggest laughs, which is why sexual humor is often greeted with huge laughs when it’s not particularly funny. It’s to do with anxiety and the release of anxiety when people relax or laugh with spare energy that comes from the fact that they just laughed at something they’ve been anxious about before.”

Cleese offered a grim forecast on the future of comedy, saying he feels a “great sadness” about how there are “very, very few really good comedy scripts.”

“Certainly in England, when I went to the theater between the 60s and 2000, there were probably six or seven writers writing absolutely wonderful comedies, beautifully constructed, good characters. And I think this was true in America too because Broadway was all important and the people working on Broadway were very literate. They wrote a great deal, and they knew how to plot,” Cleese told Fox News Digital. “What I feel now is that very few people understand how to plot the comedy, so the comedies in America are really aimed at young men because they’re the ones who go to the cinema on Friday night, which means that the box office looks good. And it’s all done ultimately to money because we now have studios that are more interested in money than in making great movies and in the old days, they wanted to make great movies too.”

“Can you recall the last great comedy you’ve seen?” Fox News Digital asked.

“‘Roxanne,'” Cleese chuckled, referring to the 1987 Steve Martin film. “‘Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.'”

He added, “I don’t go to comedies much because when you spent your life in comedy, by the time you get to 55 years in comedy, you’ve heard most of the jokes. And you watch people you think, ‘Yeah, that’s funny,’ but I have better things to do this evening than to watch comedy. I don’t need to be entertained. I’d rather read a book.”

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A North Carolina town lost its police department one month after a progressive new town manager took over

Kenly Police Chief Josh Gibson and four full-time officers resigned on Wednesday, as did two town clerks. The 2,000-person town now has only three part-time officers, according to WRAL-TV.

“In my 21 years at the Kenly Police Department, we have seen ups and downs. But, especially in the last 3 years, we have made substantial progress that we had hoped to continue. However, due to the hostile work environment now present in the Town of Kenly, I do not believe progress is possible,” Gibson wrote in his letter of resignation.

“I have put in my 2 weeks notice along with the whole police dept. … The new manager has created an environment I do not feel we can perform our duties and services to the community,” Gibson said in a Facebook post.

“I do not know what is next for me . I am letting the lord lead the way.. I have loved this community.. it has become family and one of my greatest honors to serve.. God bless you all in Kenly,” he posted.

“It was just a lot of stress on a lot of us,” Gibson said, according to WTVD-TV. “This is heartbreaking. The community has always been so tremendously supportive of us.”

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Australian anti-China activist pleads for help and says he's facing seven years in a UK jail after the Chinese sent police a fake email saying he'd made a bomb threat during a protest outside its embassy

The Chinese administration is increasingly a rogue one

An Australian student activist faces seven years in jail after claiming a bomb threat was sent from a fake email address under his name to a Chinese embassy in the UK.

Drew Pavlou, 22, had been staging a 'small, peaceful' human rights protest and flying the Uyghur flag outside the Chinese Embassy in London on Thursday.

Mr Pavlou is a vocal critic of China and the Communist nation's handling of Tibet, Hong Kong and Uyghur Muslims.

He was then arrested by UK police and detained for the next 23 hours where his phone was seized and he claims to have been denied access to a lawyer.

Mr Pavlou was informed by officers they had received reports from the Chinese Embassy he had sent an email threatening to bomb it.

He has firmly denied the allegation saying he had never sent the email and that he was being set up.

'It's the worst thing to ever happen to me in my life,' he told Daily Mail Australia. 'Why would I throw away my life, my career, my future prospects, the ability to go back home to see my family, my loved ones, my dogs, my girlfriend, to write such an insane email? 'Why would someone sign their name to a bomb threat - somebody with no past history of violence whatsoever?'

Mr Pavlou claims the Chinese Embassy had forwarded the email to police and that it had been sent from a fake account with the address, drewpavlou99@proton.me.

'I have never held such an email address in my life,' he said. 'It’s clearly a fake email designed to look like my real email address.'

Mr Pavlou said police had informed him of the contents of the email while he was being detained.

'This is Drew Pavlou, you have until 12pm to stop the Uyghur genocide or I blow up the embassy with a bomb, regards Drew,' the email reportedly read.

Mr Pavlou has been released from police custody but was told he is not allowed to leave the country while they investigate the matter.

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

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