James Connelly

Keith Best: Conservative pragmatists should embrace electoral reform | Conservative Home In the local elections, Reform UK gained 40 per cent of council seats on just over 30 per cent of the vote.

Arguing to change the voting system because your party is no longer popular is utterly wrong-headed.

Conservative pragmatists should seek to understand why the public lost faith in them - and then rectify it.

conservativehome.com/2025/07/29/k...

4/ The most dishonest referendum campaign in the UK during the 2010s was the No2AV campaign, and it's not even close.

"The Mother of Parliaments" is not Parliament, it's England

Donor List Suggests Scale of Trump’s Pay-for-Access Operation

The most corrupt White House in history. Here is an account of what people are paying, directly to a PAC called MAGA Inc, in order to meet the president, get pardons, change policy

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/02/u...

“Only” 29%? Brexit has been an unmitigated disaster for Britain. How is support for it even that high?

The increasing intermittency of….nuclear power stations:

Source: Financial Times | “Heatwaves test Europe’s electricity system as air conditioning use soars” on.ft.com/4fsSclS

Excellent read and goes a long way to explain much of what we’re seeing and experiencing across many issues.

Scientists slam Trump administration climate report as a ‘farce’ full of misinformation Experts say the report being used to justify the mass rollback of climate regulations has many claims based on long-debunked research

What’s embarrassing about the DOE report is that it’s the same climate denier (we used to call them skeptics) talking points from when I was in grad school three decades ago. Can’t these deniers come up with something fresh?

Scientists slam Trump administration climate report as a ‘farce’ full of misinformation Experts say the report being used to justify the mass rollback of climate regulations has many claims based on long-debunked research

Scientists slam Trump administration climate report as a ‘farce’ full of misinformation

“It is shop worn, decades-old, discredited climate denier talking points, dressed up in the clothing of some sensible new set of revelations”

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

It's paperback publication day for my book THE LIE OF THE LAND - an exposé of what the 'custodians of the countryside' have done to nature in Britain! 🔥💥🌳

Order yours here: lnkfi.re/JhxHno

Tour dates here: lnkfi.re/PkfOhd

There's been some BIG policy wins since the hardback was published - a 🧵⬇️

Huge win! Government announces plan to open up Land Registry This post is by Guy Shrubsole. Today the UK Government has announced plans to open up the Land Registry – which, if delivered, will finally reveal more about who owns land in England and Wale…

4/ Who owns land in this country remains a dark secret - but we know that less than 1% of the population owns half of England.

In March, the Government announced plans to finally open up the Land Registry - which, if delivered, could spell an end to this secret:

whoownsengland.org/2025/03/06/h...

Heather burning ban on peatland to be expanded under Government plans Healthy peatlands can help tackle climate change, reduce flood risk, improve water quality and support rare wildlife.

6/ In the book I discuss the scandal of moorland burning - how the landowners who own half a million acres of upland peat, our most important carbon store, set fire to it each year for grouse shooting.

Now the Govt plans to expand a ban on moorland burning:

www.standard.co.uk/news/environ...

My submission to the Government’s Land Use consultation This post is by Guy Shrubsole. This is my submission to the Government’s Land Use consultation, which was launched by the Environment Secretary Steve Reed on 31st January 2025 and closes on 2…

7/ A chapter of my book is devoted to the urgent need for a Land Use Framework to guide decisions about how we use land for nature, food & housing.

The Govt's consultation on their forthcoming Land Use Framework contains some bold ideas, here's my submission:

whoownsengland.org/2025/03/12/m...

Miles & miles of maize
but 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗮 𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗹𝗲 insect—in 2 days of 🚴‍♀️🚴in Brittany.

Maize is mainly 🐄 feed.

Linked to high pesticide use—and damaging soil erosion.

Governments must be honest about the hidden costs of meat.

@georgemonbiot.bsky.social warned about maize a decade ago 👇

Justin Webb talking about immigration policy being "interfered with, to put it mildly, by judges".

What an impartial presenter would refer to is immigration policy coming up against the law.

#r4today

Very chuffed indeed to find that my essay for @corridor8.bsky.social on the @nenature.bsky.social archive is amongst Jonn's list of interesting other stuff this week:

‘When the facts change, I change my data analyst. What do you do, sir?’

Western politicians love the excuse “Why should we invest in renewables when China isn’t doing anything?”
adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-...

Well, this is what China is upto:
China installing wind & solar equivalent of 5 nuclear plants per week
globalenergymonitor.org/report/china...

Barclays follows HSBC in exit from banking industry’s net zero alliance US banks have already pulled out of NZBA, the UN environment programme’s finance initiative

Barclays follows HSBC in exit from banking industry’s net zero alliance.

They all support Trumpism and chase profits whilst humanity and planet earth face crisis.

Can't expect banks to voluntarily accept social responsibility, it must be imposed by law.

Latest pheasant release stats point to widespread rule-breaking by shooting estates This post is by Guy Shrubsole. Photo: a rather gruesome sight on a shooting estate in Berkshire. 25.9 million pheasants are currently being bred, reared or released in England, according to the lat…

I got hold of the latest *official* stats for how many pheasants are being bred, reared and released in England

It's a big number - 25.9 million - but it's far less than the reality

It points to widespread rule-breaking by shooting estates failing to register:

whoownsengland.org/2025/07/31/l...

I really think universities underestimate how true this is for a lot of students and their parents. They don’t want us to try to pretend to be cool. They want us to be a bit dusty, and very serious. Enthusiastic, definitely! But also nerdy. We’re selling them ACADEMIA.

YouTube video by DW News Anne Applebaum: 'The West doesn't understand the extremism of Putinism' | DW News

I wish Western leaders had taken Applebaum's accurate view of Putin seriously.
"I never thought he was a great reformer. He has changed strategies; in the early 2000s he found it useful to be friendly with the West, but he always had Russian imperialist ambitions. Many people chose not to see that."

Continental Drying - the world is losing freshwater at dangerous rates Climate change is driving profound changes across the whole Earth system including the water cycle which is now changing at unprecedented rates with impacts on society, ecology and sea level rise.

A new satellite study has identified an alarming loss of global freshwater with implications for society, ecology and sea level rise. Four mega-drying regions are identified, all in the northern hemisphere.
drtomharris.substack.com/p/continenta...
#climatechange #drying #drought #sealevelrise

Reddit post on r/technology about young people and AI: "I recently heard about a teacher who instead of trying to circumvent students using AI, which is impossible, she made assignments by going "ask ChatGPT to write a report on this subject, and then research how and why it's wrong". Not only did the students discover that ChatGPT is extremely wrong a lot of the time, it also lead them to realise that they should not use it as a primary source".

This is one of the best ideas I've heard in ages.

The Wall Street Journal has published the most anti-science editorial I have ever seen, celebrating a victory against "climate imperialism" - ie. efforts to respond to an accelerating crisis that is endangering hundreds of millions of lives and is on course to end organised civilisation.

Only 0.5% of 90,000 oil slicks reported over five-year period, analysis finds Pollution incidents reported between 2014 and 2019 were compared against scientific study that used satellite imagery to count slicks

You can read the full article here:

www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Image of oil slick at sea. Guardian article by Watershed Investigations. Title: Only 0.5% of 90,000 oil slicks reported over five-year period, analysis finds. Subheading: Pollution incidents reported between 2014 and 2019 were compared against scientific study that used satellite imagery to count slicks. By Leana Hosea and Saroj Pathirana.

Paths of poison across our oceans:

of 90411 oil spills from ships, only 474 were reported in a 5 year period - satellite analysis exposes high density "slick belts" coinciding with shipping lanes.

Our latest article with @pulitzercenter.bsky.social journalist Saroj Pathirana out now:

Polls show that a clear majority of Israelis oppose the resettlement and annexation of Gaza. Even some Israelis who dream of one day ruling the entire land balk in practice at the notion of maintaining a perpetual military occupation against a Hamas insurgency. But Israel’s prime minister is beholden to the minority demanding exactly that. Netanyahu’s fragile coalition received just 48.4 percent of the vote in Israel’s last election, and relies on explicitly anti-Arab far-right factions to remain in power while Netanyahu is on trial for corruption. President Joe Biden understood this dynamic, and his administration undertook a public and private pressure campaign to prevent Netanyahu from acceding to his hard-right allies.

“We have been clear, consistent, and unequivocal that Gaza is Palestinian land and will remain Palestinian land,” the State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a January 2024 statement, publicly rebuking two Netanyahu ministers for their “inflammatory and irresponsible” call to encourage “migration” from Gaza to make way for Jewish settlement. Secretary of State Antony Blinken flew to the region and assured America’s Arab allies that it opposed forced displacement. “Palestinian civilians must be able to return home as soon as conditions allow,” he said at a press conference in Doha, Qatar. “They cannot, they must not, be pressed to leave Gaza.” Blinken then traveled to Israel, where he apparently delivered the same message to Netanyahu. The next day, the Israeli leader posted a video in which he declared, “Israel has no intention of permanently occupying Gaza or displacing its civilian population.” A member of Netanyahu’s party told the press that the prime minister’s stance had shifted because of American pressure. For the moment, maximalism had been shoved back into the box.

Something many do not know: The Biden administration engaged in a public and private pressure campaign to compel Netanyahu to reject the ethnic cleansing calls of his far-right allies. It worked. Then Biden lost, the pressure stopped and Trump reversed everything.
www.theatlantic.com/internationa...

Tilting at windmills? Trump’s claims about turbines fact-checked The US president has taken a swipe at wind power as the blades visible from his Turnberry golf course turn

Facts are not Trump's strong point