September Song

 Tomorrow is October - yes, I know - how did that happen? Where did the year go? What about my one precious life, slipping past me day by day at jet speed? It is already dark at 7.30 p.m. and it is just going to get worse, until, if you don't get out of bed of a morning sharp-ish, you'll completely miss any day light - if you can call it daylight, so weak and watery is it in these far northern November latitudes.

So, while it is still September, we'll celebrate with a bit of elegiac misery.

The Earl's Palace, Kirkwall, was built around 1606 by Patrick, Earl of Orkney, cousin of James VI. He was a bad bastard, known as ‘Black Patie’, and ruled the Northern Isles from 1592. Earl Patrick's financial corruption, his brutality and torture of the local population led to him being summoned before the Privy Council in 1609, and then imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle. Whilst imprisoned, he sent his bastard son Robert Stewart to raise a rebellion in Orkney. Robert seized the Palace of Birsay with thirty companions in May 1614, then occupied the Earl's Palace and St Magnus' Cathedral in Kirkwall. 700 rebels joined Robert, claiming to restore royal justice in Orkney during the Black Patie's absence. The Earl of Caithness defeated Robert at the end of September, after a five-week siege of the Earl's Palace, battering the Palace with 140 cannon shots; he said the Palace was so strong that some of his cannonballs had "brokkin lyk goulfe balls upoune the castelle and clovin in twa halffis". Twelve of Robert's men were hanged at the castle gate. Black Patie was executed for treason in 1615. His Palace was built by slave labour. Here it is, brooding over Kirkwall.

September, Kirkwall

Slow, sad September drapes the town,

With mist that holds the rooftops down.

The black hulk of the Earl’s domain

Lurks in the dusk like anchored pain.

No laughter spills from stone or stair,

Just silence thick in Orkney air.

The palace dreams of fire and feast,

Wearing the twilight like a beast.

Thin arms lifted, not in praise - just habit.

The skyline bruises into evening tones,

No wind, no birds,

just the hush of ending.

Bird huddles close, all daylight shed,

A crown of leaves above her head.

The sun slips low, a molten thread, 

unspooling gold where day has fled. 

Blooms still hold a blush of flame,

Too bright for dusk, too soft to name.

 Petals curling as shadows grow,

A slow retreat, a final show.

Yet in the dim, they seem to gleam—

Embers flickering in a dream.

Leaning against the weathered stone,

They bloomed too late, too far alone.

The sea is iron. The wind is keen.

The Sunday Ishmael: 28/09/2025: The Musical

Bel and Keir's duet at the Labour Party Conference Musical: 

🎤 Bel:  
I’ve read your memos, seen your polls,  
Can justice come in electoral goals?  
You say we must be prudent, smart—  
But Keir, just means-test my heart.

🎤 Keir:  
I fear the headlines, fear the spin,  
They say compassion’s not how you win.  
But your voice cuts through the party chart—  
And maybe I should means-test my heart.

🎤 Both:  
Let’s raise the rate, let’s raise the roof,  
Let’s tax the rich and tell the truth.  

No more half-measures torn apart—  
Tonight, we means-test our hearts.

Like a super-size Kemi Badenoch, 

Bel Ribeiro-Addy was on Laura Kuensberg's political panel in Liverpool, because the BBC are covering the Labour Party Conference. The other, less woke, political parties might go to the posh, slightly faded seaside, but Labour knows that its black conference goers will feel more comfortable in a grimy, northern city. And they have to do something to keep their Northern onside.

Keir Starmer was the interviewee of the morning, winning my heart with his sweet little smile and touching little donkey story.

The Sunday Times broke a story that Keir bought seven acres of agricultural land behind his parents' home in Surrey so that his parents could set up an animal sanctuary, and gave the land to them through a structure designed to exclude the field's value from their estate after they died. You can imagine the glee with which the Sunday Times was all over the story - especially after Angela Raynor's recent stamp duty difficulties. But Keir smiled a little sadly as he told the nation the Times had got things wrong. "I was a lawyer at the time and the land was only £20,000". Laura jumped in to say £20,000 is a lot of money to a lot of people - she could have added that when sold, in May 2022, Keir's share of the proceeds was around £295,000.

But Keir continued that he gave the field to his mum and dad, because they loved donkeys.

'My mum was very ill and she couldn't move around anymore. She, by the end of her life, had her leg amputated and she could barely communicate. She was very, very ill. She loved her donkeys and I wanted her to be able to see her donkeys.' He gave the field to his parents but retained the title - which kind of sounds like a life interest trust. He should have declared the field in the Register of Members Interests and an investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards in June 2022 into his failure to register the field ended in Mr Starmer apologising and the register being retrospectively amended.

So that got conference off to a good old fashioned money scandal start. Not that he did anything wrong. He's a lawyer, after all.

Back to Bel Ribena-Addy. She is at odds with Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves concerning their handling of the economy and she never hesitates in setting out her economic position - that the Government should invest in the public sector to stimulate growth, Reeves should junk her fiscal head-roomery, the two child cap on Universal Credit benefits should be removed and the Winter Fuel payment fully restored.

No, come on - it's a legitimate economic theory. Post-Keynesianism. Basically, give the poor money and they will spend it and that is a good thing because it stimulates the economy - more goods are made and sold, more take-aways consumed. Whereas, if you give the rich money - or don't stop them from grabbing it for themselves, they will hoard it. Rich and poor will drift further apart, the middle-class will be beggared and Austerity will drive down growth. 

Time for another song from the Tax the Rich Musical:

Dancing Civil Servants

🎤 Civil Servants:  

We shuffle funds from here to there,  

Pretend we’ve got a plan to spare.  

The numbers dance, the figures prance—  

It’s time for the Budget Dance!

🎤 Chancellor (spinning):  

I cut, I freeze, I allocate,  

And blame the poor for the interest rate.  

I twirl through debt, I leap through loss—  

While dodging every moral cross.

🎤 Chorus:  

Oh spin the stats, disguise the pain

And waltz through cuts like summer rain.  

The rich applaud, the poor revolts—  

But still we dance the Budget Waltz!

Gary Stevenson, former trader, author of the Trading Game, is of very similar view. 

 “We’re heading for collapse if we don’t act.”

“I’ve seen the numbers. The rich are getting richer at a pace that’s unsustainable. If we don’t tax extreme wealth, we’ll end up with a society where the top 1% live in luxury and everyone else is in economic freefall. It’s not just unfair—it’s economically suicidal.”

“Bel is absolutely right to call for wealth taxes. We need to stop pretending that billionaires are job creators. They’re asset hoarders."

Passport stamps for travellers to two-state Britain: 

Travelling to two-state Britain? Here's some Tips to help fit in:

• Language: In Rich Britain, “we’re tightening our belts” means switching from Dom Pérignon to Veuve Clicquot. In Real Britain, it means skipping dinner.

• Dress Code: Rich Britain wears tailored suits and moral ambiguity. Real Britain wears school uniforms bought two sizes too big to last the year.

But, Bel and Gary, what about Trickle Down? You know, the more they have, the more wealth is in the economy:

The Trickle Down Tango - 

We dance in suits, we dine in jets,  

We say the poor should pay their debts.  

We build our wealth on borrowed hope,  

Then blame the poor who cannot cope.  

Trickle down, trickle down, we swear it’s real—  

Just ignore the hunger, and sign the deal.

Bel and Gary take the view that Trickle-Down Economics is horse-shittery. That wealth inequality is systemic and dangerous, that a wealth tax is essential to rebalance the economy, that austerity has failed and deepened poverty, that public sector investment is key to long-term growth and stability and that without intervention, collapse is likely. The we're all doomed argument.

Well, what of the Laffer Curve?

What indeed? the Laffer curve illustrates a theoretical relationship between rates of taxation and the resulting levels of the government's tax revenue. The Laffer curve assumes that no tax revenue is raised at the extreme tax rates of 0% and 100%, meaning that there is a tax rate somewhere between 0% and 100% that maximizes government tax revenue. The more you tax, the less incentive there is to work and the more likely it is that your whoreson millionaire will bugger off abroad. It was made up by Arthur Laffer in 1974, when he sketched the curve on a napkin to illustrate his argument, during a meeting with Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, and has been held in due reverence by economists ever since. But is there any evidence in practice of it working? Most countries are not near the “revenue-maximizing” point. In other words, cutting taxes often leads to less revenue, not more, and critics argue that the curve has been weaponized to justify tax cuts for the wealthy, without evidence that these cuts benefit the broader economy. The Kansas Experiment was a tax-cutting policy initiated by Governor Sam Brownback in 2012, citing the Laffer Curve which aimed to stimulate economic growth through significant tax reductions. The experiment involved the largest tax cuts in Kansas history, but it ultimately led to budget shortfalls and economic challenges, prompting the Kansas legislature to repeal the tax cuts in 2017. 

Ribeiro-Addy advocates higher taxes on the ultra-rich to fund public services, the opposite of Laffer’s tax-cut logic and Stevenson argues that concentrated wealth is economically destabilizing, and that redistribution is essential—not optional.

Welcome to The Curveball: Laffer versus Reality:

Host:

“Tonight, we welcome the man who turned tax theory into a cocktail napkin legend—Arthur Laffer!”

(Applause. Laffer enters holding a napkin framed in gold.)

🧠 Arthur Laffer (smiling):

“Let me be clear: if you tax people too much, they stop working. It’s basic math. Or napkin art. Either way, I’m very good at this.”

💼 Gary Stevenson (guest economist):

“Arthur, with respect, Kansas tried your theory. They slashed taxes, and the economy tanked. Schools closed. Roads crumbled. The only thing that trickled down was despair.”

🏛️ Bel Ribeiro-Addy (guest MP):

“And let’s not forget the UK. Austerity didn’t unleash growth—it unleashed food banks. Your curve is less economics, more economic fan fiction.”

🎤 Arthur Laffer (defensive):

“But Reagan loved it! And he had great hair. Besides, the curve is elegant. It’s shaped like a smile. Don’t you want a smiling economy?”

📈 Audience Member (shouting):

“Your curve looks like my mortgage graph—up, then disaster!”

“The Laffer Curve”

A full-cast number featuring Arthur Laffer, hedge fund managers, and a confused Treasury intern.

Style: Vaudeville meets cabaret, with tap dancing economists and a chorus line of tax forms.

🎤 Arthur Laffer:  

I drew a curve upon a napkin,  

Said, “Cut the tax, the cash’ll happen!”  

They cheered and clapped, the rich got thrilled—  

While public services got billed.

🎤 Chorus:  

It’s shaped like hope, it dips like lies,  

It’s sold as truth in bow-tie guise.  

But every time we slash and swerve,  

We crash into the Laffer Curve!

🎤 Treasury Intern:  

I studied graphs, I did my best—  

But this one failed the fiscal test.  

It’s not a plan, it’s just a squiggle,  

And now my pension’s just a giggle.

Les Misérables: Political Edition

In foreign news, we are delighted to report that the Dwarf Sarkozy has finally been sent to prison. You remember Sarkozy? Former President of France, and, as Wiki so elegantly puts it: "Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa, born 28 January 1955, is a French politician and convicted criminal who served as President of France from 2007 to 2012." Ha ha, ho ho, hee hee. 

The only question remaining is: how did he get away with it for so long? m'sieur ishmael on le dwarf Sarkozy: "An' weel ze French people now consider ze dwarf, Sarkozy, a dirty, underhanded, lying, thieving, baby-killing sonofafuckingbitch and throw 'is scabby arse in ze Bastille, after first keecking  eem up an' down ze Champs Elysees?"

Well, m'siur, they finally did, and le dwarf, like any other convicted prisoner, is now saying his nightly prayer: "and that's another one up the Judge's arse."

Le petit provocateur, Sarkozy, was charged with passive corruption in the long-running case involving alleged illegal campaign financing from Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. However, in September 2025, the Paris Criminal Court acquitted him of passive corruption, along with other charges like illegal campaign financing and concealment of embezzlement. He was found guilty only of criminal conspiracy - he allowed close associates to seek Libyan funds for his 2007 campaign, but there wasn’t sufficient evidence to prove he personally received or knowingly benefited from corrupt payments.

It's like getting Al Capone on tax irregularities.

Passive corruption, by the way, is a Frenchism, meaning the intentional act of an official, directly or via an intermediary, who requests or accepts benefits of any nature for themselves or a third party, or agrees to a promise of such advantage, to behave or abstain from acting according to their duty or in carrying out their roles in violation of their formal duties in a way which harms, or has the potential to harm, financial interests.

Five years. Merde.

There are four splendid anthologies of the writings of stanislav and mr ishmael, compiled by his friend, mr verge, the house filthster. You can buy them from Amazon or Lulu. Here's how:

Honest Not Invent, Vent Stack, Ishmael’s Blues, and the latest, Flush Test (with a nice picture of the late, much lamented, Mr Harris of Lanarkshire taking a piss on a totem pole) are available from Lulu and Amazon. If you buy from Amazon, it would be nice if you could give a review on their website.

IIshmaelites wishing to buy a copy from lulu should follow these steps 

please register an account first, at lulu.com. This is advisable because otherwise paypal seems to think it's ok to charge in dollars, and they then apply their own conversion rate, which might put the price up slightly for a UK buyer. Once the new account is set up, follow one of the links below (to either paperback or hardback) or type "Ishmael’s Blues" into the Lulu Bookstore search box. Click on the “show explicit content” tab, give the age verification box a date of birth such as 1 January 1960, and proceed.

Link for Hardcover : https://tinyurl.com/je7nddfr

Link for Paperback : https://tinyurl.com/3jurrzux

https://www.lulu.com/shop/ishmael-smith/flush-test/paperback/product-9yjvn7.html?q=Flush+Test&page=1&pageSize=4

At checkout, try WELCOME15 in the coupon box, which (for the moment) takes 15% off the price before postage. If this code has expired by the time you reach this point, try a google search for "Lulu.com voucher code" and see what comes up.

With the 15% voucher, PB (including delivery to a UK address) should be £16.84; HB £27.04.

............................................................................

The Sunday Ishmael: 21/09/25: I don't know the man

 

I don't know the man

Nope, definitely not.

I don't know him, either.

A servant girl saw him seated in the firelight and looked intently at him. “This man also was with Him,” she said. But Peter denied it. “Woman, I do not know Him,” he said. A short time later, someone else saw him and said, “You also are one of them.” But Peter said, “Man, I am not.”…

Despite his poor memory for faces, Trump had a brilliant time in England. 

Little King Charles did very well. I always thought he was quite a tall man, but he seems to have shrunk lately. And you'd never think he was two years younger than Trump, who is clearly going to live forever. The standard lamp at his side, protecting her left breast from Trump's projecting elbow, looked and behaved impeccably as always,  although the purple lampshade she had repurposed to create another of those keepyourdistance hats that had so frustrated Trump's attempted kiss at his inauguration was not as fetching as Queen Camilla's imposing piece of hattery. 

Anyway, all that diplomatic goodwill, flattery and special relationship mumbo-jumbo will be spaffed up the wall with Starmer's preposterous recognition of Palestine as a State. As one commentator said: today I am going to recognise the state of Narnia.

 Let's recognise a state with no internationally-recognised borders, capital city or territorial integrity - Palestine currently consists of two separate territories – the West Bank and Gaza – governed by separate Palestinian groups. Hamas has ruled Gaza since 2007, whereas the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority governs the West Bank.

This has got the paw-marks of the Oaf Lammy all over it.

Thick as mince, as those who remember his appearance on Celebrity Mastermind in 2009 will attest. Here's an example:

Q. What was the married name of the scientists Marie and Pierre who won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1903 for their research into radiation?

Lammy: Antoinette   (Answer: Curie)

Q. Which fortress was built in the 1370s to defend one of the Gates of Paris and was later used as a state prison by Cardinal Richelieu?

Lammy: Versailles    (Answer: The Bastille)

Q. Which variety of blue English cheese traditionally accompanies port?

Lammy: Red Leicester    (Answer: Stilton)

Q. Who acceded to the English throne at the age of 9 on the death of his father Henry VIII in 1547?

Lammy: Henry VII     (Answer: Edward VI)

Q. Which country's so-called 'Rose Revolution' of 2003 led to the resignation of its president Eduard Shevardnadze? 

Lammy: Yugoslavia     (Answer: Georgia) 

Well, I didn't know that, either, but then I'm not Foreign Secretary. Oh, yes, neither is Lammy now. 

My A.I. told me off when I asked it if David Lammy is stupid. It's response: "Critiques of public figures often stem from selective interpretations of their actions or statements and do not accurately reflect their qualifications or worth. Lammy's educational achievements and significant political roles suggest that he possesses considerable intelligence, regardless of individual public blunders. It's crucial to engage with such topics thoughtfully rather than reduce them to simplistic judgments."

So that means my A.I. thinks he's stupid too, but it has drunk the milk of  BeKind.

Starmer sent Lammy out to face the politics shows this morning, presumably knowing the poor brute would be ripped apart. Trevor Philips had fun with him, riffing on the French migrant deal: 

"Why is this one in, one out policy still actually about 31,000 in and three out? Why aren't you sending people straight back?"
Lammy did his best, replying: "Well the starting point is returns are up 14%, 35,000 returned and as foreign secretary I kept a close eye on the relationships we were striking with a number of countries to make sure their nationals were returned if they had no right to be here. The truth is we exited the EU, we left the Dublin Convention, we did not have arrangements in place with countries to return. This pilot is the first step at a negotiated deal with France for one in, one out and I'm pleased that has now happened despite attempts in the courts to thwart that. It's the beginning, not the end of the story."

Understandably confused, Trevor Phillips was undaunted and hit back with sums, "Here's the problem with this: 1,000 people crossed the Channel yesterday. Even if you got to your target of 50 returns a week the probability for anyone getting into one of those boats being returned to France is around one in 20."
Conceding defeat (sums, after all), Lammy said:
"It's an important deal to have struck and if we can build on it over the coming months and increase the numbers that's what I expect the Home Secretary will be doing."

The Trevor Phillips drubbing was as nothing compared with what Laura Kuenssberg was dishing out this morning. She asked Lammy to do thinking - wouldn't recognition of Palestine as a state give Hamas a propaganda victory - show that the October 7th invasion had been successful and achieved its objectives?  The best he could do was to say there was a distinction between Hamas and the Palestinian people and that it was an attempt to at least "hold out for" a two-state solution. He more or less said that it was a counter-productive waste of time. He asked himself:  "Will this feed children?" and answered himself: " No it won't". " Will this free hostages? That must be down to a ceasefire."

The impact of Starmer's recognition of Palestine as a state was immediately apparent in the gleeful demeanour of the formidable bully, Husam Zomlot, the head of the Palestinian Mission to the United Kingdom.

He was rather gloating about Starmer's recognition of Palestine as a state, did a bit of man spreading, talked over Laura and was generally a bit loud and foreign about things. The most risible thing he claimed was that Palestine was the cradle of civilisation. The "we were here first" argument.

You'll remember that there's a bare minority of Scottish citizens who would like to free themselves from the imperialist shackles of English occupation. 45.5% voted yes in the referendum on Scottish independence in 2014. That figure went up to 53% in 2020 and then down, with 46% now saying they would support independence. That's a lot of people wanting rid of English rule. There is no legal way of achieving independence if Westminster denies it. So here's a strategy - one that has now been proven to be effective. Scotland could undertake border incursions into the north of England, murder, rape and mutilate at will, and seize hostages, returning with them to Scotland, to hold underground until England gives in and recognises the sovereignty of Scotland. It'll take two years, max.

Starmer's abject subservience to his Muslim voters and their left fellow travellers by recognising Palestine not only rewards the truly horrifying actions of Hamas, and their anti-semitic determination to wipe out the state of Israel and its citizens, but sets a precedent that could be eagerly followed in various corners of the world.

Furthermore, it really pisses off Trump and undoes all the good achieved by Good King Charlie. Which bit of Israel is our ally and Hamas is a terrorist organisation of great evil does Starmer not understand? Or does his desire to maintain his position and his Muslim vote outweigh sense, morality and the special relationship?

Kuenssberg' s panel today comprised Malcolm Rifkind of the deep brown voice, Jack Thorne the writer and producer of that silly thriller award-winning TV show Adolescence, and political correspondent Ava-Santina Evans of the lots of hair. During discussions, one of them declared that we are in danger of ignoring the gorilla in the garden.

That's a bit much. Really. Going Too Far. Hurty words.

Why does the BBC keep getting Malcolm Lower Your Voice to A Shout Rifkind out of his box? Former Conservative Foreign Secretary who believes he has Important Things to say about the Middle East, twice disgraced by the expenses scandal and by his cupidity in attempting to sell the influence he gained as Foreign Secretary to Channel Four journalists. Why the devil would anyone listen to anything the man has to say?

On other matters, presumably you got the alert on your mobile phone on the 7th September? It was supposed to vibrate and emit a loud siren sound for 10 seconds whilst displaying a message saying it was a test. Good. At least you will be alerted when to take action in the event of a national emergency. 

What national emergency, Prime Minister? 

Well, life-threatening emergencies nearby. 

Really, Prime Minister, like what? 

Oh, you know the sort of thing. Weather emergencies. Flash-flooding. 

Incoming missiles, Prime Minister?

I was reminded of the mobile phone alert when a young relative came home from school the other day and reported to her mother that her class had been practising hiding under their desks. Her mum had not been given prior notice of this class exercise, and asked why the teacher had required them to hide under their desks. She didn't really know - well, she's bright for her age but only 7. She said that they had to practise so they would be good at it when teacher told them to hide.

I can only thank god that the Oaf Lammy is no longer Foreign Secretary.

There are four splendid anthologies of the writings of stanislav and mr ishmael, compiled by his friend, mr verge, the house filthster. You can buy them from Amazon or Lulu. Here's how:

Honest Not Invent, Vent Stack, Ishmael’s Blues, and the latest, Flush Test (with a nice picture of the late, much lamented, Mr Harris of Lanarkshire taking a piss on a totem pole) are available from Lulu and Amazon. If you buy from Amazon, it would be nice if you could give a review on their website.

IIshmaelites wishing to buy a copy from lulu should follow these steps 

please register an account first, at lulu.com. This is advisable because otherwise paypal seems to think it's ok to charge in dollars, and they then apply their own conversion rate, which might put the price up slightly for a UK buyer. Once the new account is set up, follow one of the links below (to either paperback or hardback) or type "Ishmael’s Blues" into the Lulu Bookstore search box. Click on the “show explicit content” tab, give the age verification box a date of birth such as 1 January 1960, and proceed.

Link for Hardcover : https://tinyurl.com/je7nddfr

Link for Paperback : https://tinyurl.com/3jurrzux

https://www.lulu.com/shop/ishmael-smith/flush-test/paperback/product-9yjvn7.html?q=Flush+Test&page=1&pageSize=4

At checkout, try WELCOME15 in the coupon box, which (for the moment) takes 15% off the price before postage. If this code has expired by the time you reach this point, try a google search for "Lulu.com voucher code" and see what comes up.

With the 15% voucher, PB (including delivery to a UK address) should be £16.84; HB £27.04.

............................................................................

Rose hip syrup

Collect 1 kg rosehips, from woods or hedgerows

About 500 g granulated sugar

1. Blitz your rosehips in your Ninja Nutribullet or other food processor.
2. Put the mash in a large saucepan and add 1.25 litres of water.
3. Boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for about 15 minutes.
4. Strain the mixture through a double layer of muslin, allowing the pulp to sit for at least 30 minutes to extract all the juice.
5. Measure the rosehip juice into a large saucepan. For every 500ml of juice, add 325g of sugar.
6. Heat slowly, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Then bring to a boil and cook for 3 minutes, skimming off any scum as necessary.

You can bottle or freeze the syrup. Put a jug full of it in the fridge and give everyone a tablespoon a day. Just like in the war.

The Sunday Ishmael: 14/09/2025: Entitled, Greedy and Frightened.

Unite the Kingdom

As of Sunday, September 14, 2025, the current population of the United Kingdom is 69,634,746, based on Worldometer's elaboration of the latest United Nations data. The population density is 745 people per square mile.

The total land area is 93,410 square miles. 84.54% of the population is urban  - 58,798,650 people in 2025.

The median age in the United Kingdom is 40.1 years.

Of those 69,634,746 people, only 364,000 people in Britain earn over £100,000 per annum. Only 8,800,000 people earn over £52,000.

 In the financial year ending 2024:

 Median household disposable income in the UK was £36,700.

 Median household disposable income for the poorest fifth of the population decreased by 2.6% to £16,800.

 Median household disposable income for the richest fifth of the population was £71,100.

 In the UK, approximately 1,900,000 workers earn £23,875 or less per year, which is around 6.5% of all UK workers. 

To help you out here, there are 604,707,46 people earning less than £52,000 per year ( 6.5% a lot less), with 9,164,000 people earning more than £52,000 per year (1.5% a lot more).

There are a lot more of us than there are of them. No wonder they are frightened. Those taking such a disparate share of the nation's wages are pretty keen on keeping their share, and, where possible, increasing it. Measures taken to ensure this can be unsubtle - turning out the riot police, 

sending in the horsed police, 

 - but more effective is persuading the overwhelmingly vast majority of the population that this disparity is right and proper, god-ordained and just the way things are - and you do this through church, education, the courts, newspapers and television. In Britain, propaganda is the currency of the establishment, and, as JD Vance pointed out to general embarrassment and denial, the suppression of freedom of speech. 

So that's dealt with Frightened. 

Onto Greedy. The Office for National Statistics in mid 2024, estimated that the average UK household budget is around £2,700 a month (or £32,500 a year) based on an average of 2.3 people per household. 42% is spent on rent/ mortgage, 11% goes on food, 13% on clothing, 7% on utilities, 6% on recreation and culture, 7% on eating out, 3% on clothing, 4% on holidays, 4% on insurance, 5% on Council Tax. Then there's other stuff. Doesn't add up to 100, but that's because the ONS has averaged out spends - for example, some will spend more or less on housing, council tax - in fact, any of the categories.

If the majority of people are able to meet their living expenses on £32,500 per year, then why are 9,164,000 people being paid more than £52,000 per year? 

Well, they would say, they need more. For school fees, to ensure their children get the right accent and meet the right people so they can get their snouts in the trough. To holiday in Tuscany, not some caravan park. To live in the right place, drive the right car, wear the right clothes.

But really -  they are trousering more than £52 grand a year because they can. And they can because of the number they've done on the vast majority of the population.

That's dealt with Greedy. 

Entitled? That comes with the turf in Britain, a direct consequence of and mainstay of, the class system. Thousands of years of stealing a lot and being made a king for it, and punishing those who steal a little by throwing them in jail. (Sweetheart Like You - Bob Dylan).

The establishment sent in 1,500 police in full riot gear to police a protest attended by 150,000 British people on Saturday, the 13th September in London. The protest was attended by old and young, men and women, and, by and large, went off peacefully. It would have been even more peaceful had it not been for police provocation and herding tactics, and the presence of a provocative counter demonstration by 5,000 individuals who were marching under the rubric: Stand up to Racism, under the illusion that they stood alone against an overwhelming tide of flag-flying racism. The peacefulness of the protest can be evidenced by the fact that only 24 individuals were arrested - not bad going for an event of this size.

Of course, the main stream media are depicting it as a horribly violent event, in which our brave bobbies were the only thing standing between civilisation and a dystopian Mad Max universe. 

Assistant Commissioner Twist said the arrests were "just the start,"  as the Met vowed to identify those involved in disorder. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood condemned "those who have attacked and injured police officers. Anyone taking part in criminal activity will face the full force of the law".
Around mid-afternoon, the two demonstrations were divided on Whitehall by lines of police officers. The Met said some officers had been attacked while trying to keep the two groups apart.

Which lefty liberal pillock gave permission for the Stand up to Racism protest? Couldn't they have said do it next Saturday instead? Couldn't they see there might be trouble? Or did the need to send a message that London isn't racist outweigh the most basic risk assessment?

The Labour Government, under its deeply unpopular robotic leader, should draw breath, and start listening to the grievances of Britain's core working class, the majority of the population, a population that Labour were elected to represent, but from which they have become entirely disconnected, seduced by the siren calls of the establishment. Instead, the establishment seems hell bent on treating Tommy Robinson as a reincarnation of Wat Tyler - murdered and his head displayed on London Bridge, Jack Cade - beheaded and quartered, or Bartholomew Steer - tortured to death in prison, all for opposing corruption within the entitled few. It won't end well.

Not a threat - just an observation.

The British people - that mongrel race - have for centuries absorbed peoples fleeing from persecution and poverty - not without a hiccup or two (just thinking about the deaths of 150 Jews in Clifford's Tower in York in 1190, or the murder of 500 Jews in London in 1265), or even those seeking to enrich themselves - the Windrush migrants were not actually called on by the motherland for help. But it does seem that the erosion of their standard of living coupled with post-industrial malaise and contempt for their culture, values and religion by the wealthier and more privileged classes, has led to the working class experiencing  a Damascene revelation of the truth of things. Precipitated, of course, by the invasion of Britain by thousands of men of raping age from mediaeval cultures. 

I heard a woman on Radio Smug the other day, explaining to the interviewer that her education work with what we must now call undocumented asylum seekers, involved her explaining, to her students' great surprise, that, in Britain, rape is a crime. The educator said she gets a great deal of satisfaction from helping these men understand the concept of consent.

Perhaps the Home Secretary might consider a new daily regime for our asylum seekers - whilst waiting for the system to grind slowly towards granting permission to remain in Britain (for few are refused), these undocumented men should spend their days in useful, closely supervised work - gardening, graffiti removal, litter picking, beach cleaning, tidying graveyards, for example, and their evenings in learning English, law, cultural norms, reading, writing and in studying comparative religion. Learning life skills. Keep them too busy to indulge in rape fantasies.

Not much to laugh at this week, I'm afraid, But - there are four splendid anthologies of the writings of stanislav and mr ishmael, compiled by his friend, mr verge, the house filthster. You can buy them from Amazon or Lulu. Here's how:

Honest Not Invent, Vent Stack, Ishmael’s Blues, and the latest, Flush Test (with a nice picture of the late, much lamented, Mr Harris of Lanarkshire taking a piss on a totem pole) are available from Lulu and Amazon. If you buy from Amazon, it would be nice if you could give a review on their website.

IIshmaelites wishing to buy a copy from lulu should follow these steps 

please register an account first, at lulu.com. This is advisable because otherwise paypal seems to think it's ok to charge in dollars, and they then apply their own conversion rate, which might put the price up slightly for a UK buyer. Once the new account is set up, follow one of the links below (to either paperback or hardback) or type "Ishmael’s Blues" into the Lulu Bookstore search box. Click on the “show explicit content” tab, give the age verification box a date of birth such as 1 January 1960, and proceed.

Link for Hardcover : https://tinyurl.com/je7nddfr

Link for Paperback : https://tinyurl.com/3jurrzux

https://www.lulu.com/shop/ishmael-smith/flush-test/paperback/product-9yjvn7.html?q=Flush+Test&page=1&pageSize=4

At checkout, try WELCOME15 in the coupon box, which (for the moment) takes 15% off the price before postage. If this code has expired by the time you reach this point, try a google search for "Lulu.com voucher code" and see what comes up.

With the 15% voucher, PB (including delivery to a UK address) should be £16.84; HB £27.04.