King Charles, Rishi and Dodgy Dave all cop it for taking a jet each instead of sharing

 

Scroll down for more on the  headline story.

Otherwise, start with this mash mash of stuff.

THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY

To get us the mood,  check out a few amusing extracts from the Devil’s Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce, American journalist of the late 19^th century. Bierce set out to provide alternative explanations in the use of language, to appeal to “enlightened souls who prefer sense to sentiment, wit to humour and clean English to slang” – as the late Miles Kington expressed in his introduction in the 2003 publication by the Folio Society.

Bierce wrote:

 POLITICS. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

PLAN. To bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result.

PEACE. In international affairs a period of cheating between two periods of fighting.

LAWYER. One skilled in circumvention of the law.

CYNIC. A Blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are not as they ought to be…

 

To which may I offer Freedomcycle blog perspectives.

DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT (DfT)

Fact: DfT has never formulated a national transport policy incorporating all modes.

Speculates on future transport needs by dealing with each mode as though others do not exist.  Recent achievements include making compulsory purchase orders on land and homes in the path of HS2 then cancelling the extension to Manchester. Promises a national cycling policy then underfunds it.   When nothing better to do, moves desks and chairs around.

NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE.

World first in long waiting lists. Systematically under funded by a government which favour private health care. Already gone to private care -  dentistry, ear syringing, podiatry. Continues to offer little or no help to those suffering  chronic health conditions such as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME), hypermobolity Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (EDS) Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia (PoTS) and AUTISM.

Conservative party (not worthy of capital letters)

Known for deceiving,  lying, dressing smartly, selling off public utilities to their rich mates, milking the system, promising what they cannot provide, creating a financial mess, under funding of the NHS, mental health services, wrecking the country and then promising to fix it if re-elected but with no intention of doing so.

 

BCF (British Cycling Federation)

Not to be mistaken for Birkenhead Corporation Ferries. BCF (otherwise known as British Cycling) famous for being top UK Olympic sports federation, infamous for selling their soul to the Devil in a sponsorship deal with Shell, whose carbon activities and those of other oil companies have contributed to 5bn deaths worldwide.

Backed by black gold they hope to deliver more Olympic medals even as the podiums are lapped by rising sea levels.

COP 28

We’ll all cop it.

And so to the UN’s COP 28 climate conference last week focusing on the big problem threatening life on earth, heating up of the planet caused by burning carbon.  

It was a week full of contradictions

The King, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary
were criticised for flying to COP 28 in three separate

aircraft.

How odd that the host city was oil-rich Dubai which has increased oil production up to 

4.5million barrels a day?  

Very revealing that the main message from COP 28 is an agreement by the rich countries to help the poorer nations cope with climate change, rather than agree on how best to prevent it!  By leaving the oil in the ground, say, for starters?

And finally, how perverse that King Charles, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and new Foreign Secretary, the former PM Dodgy David Cameron, each took a private jet to fly to COP28?

 The sheer hypocrisy of it beggars belief and they have been widely criticised for burning three loads of carbon instead of one. I suppose they’ll say they each travelled separately for safety.

Heaven forbid anything untoward should happen to them up there. But if did no worries, there are plenty of goons willing to step into their shoes should their jet vanish through a portal into a future world where we would have no need of oil, Britain had rejoined the EU and there are cycle networks in every town and city.

Welcome to the future. We finish as we started, quoting The Devil's Dictionary, which defined the future as: "a period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured."