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It took Keir Starmer just a couple of days to fall from grace after publicly taking gifts of football tickets and fancy spectacles, along with other ‘freebies’, shortly after taking up residence in 10, Downing Street as the then new Britirish Prime Minister.

It’s taken Andy Burnham, his successor, a similar length of time to offer his best plan to reverse global heating and the destruction of almost all life on earth, which is to ban the sale of disposable barbecues.

We hear that Burnham is planning a round-Britain-tour in the manner of a conquering king or emperor, presumably to shake a lot of hands and show people what a great guy he is. No doubt he’ll be well informed where not to visit; the wildfires might scorch more than his ego.

Meanwhile, the whole planet is held to ransom by one man and his group of psychopathic egomaniacs hellbent (possibly literally) on hauling more lethal oil and gas out of the ground.  The tecno-nerd multi-billionaires build their energy and water guzzling data centres willy-nilly with bought planning permission from bent local councillors.

This summer has been a nightmare. Yet it is nothing compared to the nightmare to come. Here in northern France there has barely been more than a few days respite between heatwaves. To be out of doors for more than five or ten minutes has become rapidly unbearable. Oh sure, there will always be the young machos lying on the beach in 40 degree heat, allowing their skin to take on the hue of burned chicken. They pass the time on social media slagging off black people, (who, incidentally, don’t have to risk skin cancer to have what lily-white folks crave), while submitting themselves to a not-so-gentle simmering in order to achieve it.

According to the CCPI 2026 (Climate Change Performance Index) not one country on the planet ranks “very high” on it’s implementation of necessary work to combat climate change. In fact, so low is the bar that the top ranking nation in the CCPI report only managed fourth place. No country on earth managed a 1st, 2nd or 3rd.

Perhaps I’m wrong to slag off Andy Burnham. He’s not really the one to blame for not working furiously to resolve the climate crisis. After all, politicians in a democratic society are supposed to support the majority. Surely, after this summer of hell the majority of folk must support more political effort towards greener energy and banning fossil fuel production?

Wrong.

Here’s why:

In a nutshell, apathy! No, not political apathy, people apathy. Not one major nation on earth has a majority population that believes climate change is the most important issue for them.

Only 23% in the UK; 25% in France. Even Vietnam is well off the 51% necessary for a majority.

So what are politicians supposed to do? The answer would seem simple. Tell the US to bugger off and mind it’s own business. Take a stand against that Mafia-style administration and to hell with the consequences. If necessary, the world can manage without them. Press forward with solid green policies and if necessary privatise the fossil fuel companies and commandeer their assets. They are traitors to the planet. They’ve known what the results of their fossil fuel extraction would be since the pre-1970s and they kept it hidden.

While in the process the governments can tax the data centre billionaires at 95 cents in the euro (95 pence in the pound) to help pay for the new green economy. Britain did exactly that to the Beatles and others in the 1960s.

Oh, but wait! If a few brave, enterprising politicians set about that they’d be voted out of office in the blink of an eye. Why? Because things would get rough for a time. You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs and there would be a lot of eggs to break: lost jobs, price rises, more wildfires, food scarcities, and who knows what damage the US administration might throw out? Sky high tariffs, certainly. Possible withdrawal of military hardware and personnel. I’m sure the madman could find lots to avenge when a nation stops licking his boots, or wherever. There’d be no immediate positive results for having a greener country. The planet would keep on heating for quite a while. Mister & Missus Homo sapiens don’t like to struggle, especially when it’s too hot in Spain for the annual summer holiday and the wildfires  are burning ever nearer.

Perhaps Burnham is a bit more canny than I give him credit for. Better to wait and let those figures creep up over fifty percent.

It may yet take a while.

It may yet prove too late.

The headline in today’s Guardian doesn’t quite say it all.

For, “Marco Rubio launches campaign to dismantle international criminal court,” read:

“Marco Rubio launches campaign to dismantle International Law.”

It’s another of those moments, (of which there’s been many since the present administration gained power in the United States) when the long-term aim of its authoritarian government makes itself blazingly obvious.

The international criminal court was set up in July 2002 following ratification of the Rome Statute in 1998. It had been under discussion for nearly half a century before finally coming to fruition.

“In the prospect of an international criminal court lies the promise of universal justice. That is the simple and soaring hope of this vision. We are close to its realization. We will do our part to see it through till the end. We ask you . . . to do yours in our struggle to ensure that no ruler, no State, no junta and no army anywhere can abuse human rights with impunity. Only then will the innocents of distant wars and conflicts know that they, too, may sleep under the cover of justice; that they, too, have rights, and that those who violate those rights will be punished.

“For nearly half a century — almost as long as the United Nations has been in existence — the General Assembly has recognized the need to establish such a court to prosecute and punish persons responsible for crimes such as genocide. Many thought . . . that the horrors of the Second World War — the camps, the cruelty, the exterminations, the Holocaust — could never happen again. And yet they have. In Cambodia, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Rwanda. Our time — this decade even — has shown us that man’s capacity for evil knows no limits. Genocide . . . is now a word of our time, too, a heinous reality that calls for a historic response.”  — Kofi Annan, United Nations Secretary-General .

Out of 195 nation states in the world, 125 are members of the ICC. Of those that are not, the most obvious are China, India, Israel, Russia, and the United States. China, India and Russia are controlled by authoritarian dictators. Israel has put itself outside of International Law by it’s continuing genocide in Gaza and the West Bank,

The United States, by calling for the disbandment of the ICC, which it has never recognised for obvious reasons, if successful would result in International Law becoming meaningless. It would allow for rogue nations to run riot against their own people and those of other countries with impunity.

The idea for an international court arose from the success of the Nuremburg trials of war criminals following World War Two. It was an attempt to prevent the horrors of that conflict ever happening again.

There are those that say the ICC has failed to achieve its raison d’être. Look, they say, at Myanmar, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, ongoing genocidal conflicts. There are other conflicts around the world afflicted by acts construed as international war crimes.

But this is not the fault of the ICC. The fault is often with lily-livered politicians who allow wanted war criminals into their nations and abscond from their duty to have them arrested and transferred to the ICC at the Hague. One of the most publicized of these occurred when Omar al-Bashir, the ex-president of Sudan, visited South Africa (a member state of the ICC) in 2015 and was never arrested. Jacob Zuma was the president of South Africa at that time until deposed in 2018. He treated al-Bashir as his personal guest.

Marco Rubio’s campaign to disband the ICC can only have one purpose. It is even more evidence that the United States is set to become yet another rogue state at odds with the rest of the civilized world.

There’s so much happening in the world right now and everybody’s writing about it. I’ve decided that at least for this post I’m not going to be drawn into any of the world’s problems.

It’s too hot in France. Yes, even in northern and western France; not areas of the country usually renowned for their skin-crinkling climate. If you want heat, my boy, head south. Not any more. As we head into the third heatwave in six weeks it’s all getting too much. Parts of Normandy have routinely passed 40 degrees Centigrade through June, and while the latest one to arrive unbidden on our doorstep probably may not quite break those records, it’ll still make life uncomfortable for all, and dangerous for the old and sick who have no way to keep cool.

Now you may think that those who believe the earth is flat are all total nutters. After all we’ve sent men to the moon and back; a gazillion satellites have been circling the globe (or, as some see it, the ‘plate’) for many decades and there’s so much tech software up there that if the Earth was flat we’d all know it by now.

The science of man-made climate change – that same science that sent men to the moon, created all those satellites, unraveled the mystery of DNA, gave doctors the ability to perform medical procedures that even a couple of  hundred years ago would have been deemed, not just impossible but probably ungodly witchcraft – yes, that science is what between 20% and 30% of the population of this planet still insist is at best marred, possibly corrupt and undoubtedly wrong.

It’s impossible to calculate how many people still believe the earth is a flat disc. No-one bothers to take polls of that anymore.  However, there are still polls to show us how many deniers of  man-made climate change there are. The last definitive Ipsos poll that comes close to it was in December 2003, when it stated that 36% of the world’s population still dispute the human origins of climate change.  Considered on a nation by nation basis (those with figures available) it does seem that in 2025 the numbers show virtually no  variation from 2003. They have become polarized.

Yale University carried out a nationwide poll of Americans last year, which concluded that 63% of the nation was “…somewhat or very worried about global warming.” That leaves 37% of Americans who apparently couldn’t give a tinker’s cuss about it.

How many of those 37% were numbskull MAGA believers is not known. The poll results differed considerably between states.

One cannot but wonder how the nation that led the western world, built the United Nations,  stood head and shoulders above all others, and was respected by them, could ever need suddenly to be made “great again.” It was already great, though hardly perfect. It’s taken a numbskull with a mass of numbskull followers to destroy what was left of that greatness. The denial of science; free reign given to the fossil fuel industry,  a billion dollars of tax payer’s money paid to stop two windfarms, is not only illogical but bordering on insanity.

Three major heatwaves in Europe over a matter of a few weeks. Who knows how many more before the summer finally comes to an end. The projected effects of the latest ‘Super’ El Nino is not likely to affect Europe, heat-wise, until into next year. A possibility, then of worse to come in 2027. Similar conditions over much of the United States are slowly causing it’s citizens to amend their views. At least among those who have any functioning brain cells left.

Okay, so I said at the beginning I  wasn’t going to be drawn into the world’s problems. I’ve spent most of this post writing about the biggest problem of all. Such is life. It’s hard to get away from, if you live on planet Earth.