Barb Drummond

I write & publish mostly on 18th century history and other curiosities. 3 books published wife sales, technology, manumission & human rights

[James Melville 🚜 @JamesMelville]

Net zero rules for us plebs.
Energy guzzling, polluting AI data centres for the tech giants…

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

A simple strip of wildflowers can dramatically reduce the need for chemical pesticides. So why aren’t they standard on every farm?

Farmers are increasingly planting colorful wildflower strips within and around their fields because these habitats attract beneficial insects that naturally control crop pests.

Ladybugs are the most familiar example. Both adult ladybugs and their larvae are voracious predators of aphids, small sap-sucking insects that damage crops. A single ladybug can eat dozens of aphids a day, while its larvae can consume hundreds before reaching adulthood.

Yet ladybugs are just the beginning. Wildflower strips also draw in hoverflies, lacewings, parasitic wasps, and predatory beetles, all highly effective natural enemies of common pests such as aphids, whiteflies, thrips, and caterpillars.

This approach is known as conservation biological control. Rather than releasing predators into fields, farmers create permanent habitats that support and boost populations of beneficial insects already present in the landscape.

The flowers supply essential nectar and pollen that many of these insects need as adults. Research shows that access to such resources significantly increases their lifespan, reproductive success, and pest-hunting efficiency.

Some parasitic wasps offer an especially impressive form of control: they lay eggs inside aphids or caterpillars, and their developing larvae consume the pest from the inside out.

Multiple studies confirm that fields with wildflower strips support far higher numbers of beneficial insects and achieve stronger natural pest suppression compared to conventional fields.

Beyond pest control, these strips provide additional benefits: they support pollinators, enhance biodiversity, reduce soil erosion, and create valuable wildlife habitat within agricultural areas.

Scientists are now fine-tuning which flower species work best for different crops and climates, aiming to design the most effective and practical wildflower strips possible.

[James Melville 🚜 @JamesMelville]

Shameful. No one voted for AI data centres. And despite enormous local community concerns, John Swinney refuses to pause AI data centre applications.

[Dr Julia Grace Patterson💙 @JujuliaGrace]

To every person who is frustrated about the NHS…

[Dr Matt Prescott @mattprescott]

It's critically important that their LEGACY DEBT is not NATIONALISED. This must be dealt with, and ideally written off in full, PRIOR to any RENATIONALISATION. This DEBT funded EXCESSIVE PROFIT TAKING & FRAUDULENT DIVIDENDS. The PUBLIC did not benefit, yet must pick up the pieces

[Sama Hoole @SamaHoole]

If you are old enough to have driven in Britain in the 1980s, you remember the windscreen.

By July you could barely see through it. A run from Leeds to London in August finished with a bumper that looked like it had been to war and a sheet of glass you scrubbed with a sponge at the services while the engine ticked as it cooled. Moths in the headlights. Flies in the wing mirrors. The grille packed solid. Nobody thought it remarkable. It was simply the price of moving through a country that was still, in living memory, heaving with flying things.

Drive that same road today. Stop at the same services. The windscreen is clean. Spotless. You could very nearly eat off it.

We have the numbers, for those who want them. The Bugs Matter survey, run by Kent Wildlife Trust and Buglife, has had volunteers counting the splats on their number plates since 2004. Britain's flying insects are down by roughly four fifths in twenty years. Gone in a single human lifetime, while the rest of us noticed nothing at all.

The birds went down with them, because the birds lived on them. A child born this year can grow up in the English countryside and never once hear a turtle dove, for the simple reason that there is almost nothing left to do the calling.

And none of it, not one acre of it, happened on the grass.

It happened in the arable fields, where the hedges were torn out for bigger machines and a single crop was sprayed over and over to keep it upright. The herb-rich meadow grazed by cattle still hums. The beetles, the pollinators, the ground-nesting birds, all still there, just about, on the pasture our ancestors never stopped grazing.

So when someone tells you your steak is emptying the British countryside, ask them what grew on that field before it was drained and ploughed and sprayed to raise the oats for the carton in their fridge.

It was grass, and there were cattle on it, and back then the windscreen needed cleaning.

[Barb Drummond @texthistory]

@SusieTa32510601 None

[BladeoftheSun @BladeoftheS]

The UK is spending £369m refurbishing Buckingham Palace for King Charles, who has £22bn and gets £500m more a year.

He can pay for his own renovations, £369m is more than England spends on building Social Housing in an entire year for the whole country.

[caroline jones @11cemetarygates]

The last piece of Denby has been made. Labour is killing our industries, our jobs our society. #labourdestroysbritain #denby #joblosses #heritage #labourbetrayal

[Jo Bacon @LadyJoBacon]

Absolutely #ThereAreMoreOfUsThanThem

[Cris ap Iago @CrisCardotyn]

Please correct this. Welsh Water are not going to pay a penny, it’s us the paying public. It’s about time the execs were personally fined. Water companies are a disgrace.

[Barb Drummond @texthistory]

@writethewrongs2 They know. They don’t care

[James Melville 🚜 @JamesMelville]

The Great British net zero con-trick of Drax.

The Labour government is trying to force through an extension that would give Drax an estimated £1.8bn in taxpayer funded subsidies on top of the £11bn it has already received.

Drax has burned an amount of wood equivalent to 300 million trees. Burning wood creates 18% more CO2 emissions than coal.

And here’s the con trick: Drax is a sneaky way of exporting our CO2 emissions. We pay billions of pounds to cut down ancient forests in the US and Canada, ship the wood across the Atlantic in diesel tankers, then burn it in a Yorkshire-based power station.

And here’s the kicker - the CO2 emissions tally is not counted against the country that burns it, but the country that grows it. So Drax emissions are counted against the countries who grow and export the wood for Drax - like Canada and USA…not UK who burn it. So the UK can reduce CO2 figures by importing the burning wood grown elsewhere.

A gigantic net zero con-trick that is the exact opposite of ‘environmentally friendly’.

[caroline jones @11cemetarygates]

300k jobs destroyed, Denby and hundreds of firms put under. Lies, sleaze, taxes, #labourlyingtraitors

[Get Wild 🐦 🦋 🐝 🍃 @mitchellsnik]

The hidden cost of the spring silage cut: 🚜💔 Intensive late-spring cutting destroys thousands of nesting birds like Skylarks.
Instead of turning a blind eye, simple changes like thermal imaging and wildlife-safe cutting patterns can save generations. 🐦

[Barb Drummond @texthistory]

@cleanupbritain It’s everywhere. Local streets are cleaned by council, plenty of bins emptied regularly yet rubbish still a problem

[James Melville 🚜 @JamesMelville]

More than 100 new datacentres in the UK plan to burn gas to generate electricity, some potentially doing so permanently.

▪️No net zero for the data centres.

▪️Net zero enforced on us plebs (probably to enable the data centres to burn more energy).

The whole thing is a scam.

[Barb Drummond @texthistory]

@NoFarmsNoFoods Why aren’t they challenging the need for data centres at all? Who benefits? Farmers lose land to them

[Good Law Project @GoodLawProject]

The UK is starting to reject Palantir.
Be part of the movement and email your local NHS Trust

https://t.co/PsCDnjsTBl

[Ben Aveling- Radmore Farm @Radmore_farm]

Lab Grown Meat On Supermarket Shelves?

The FSA is fast-tracking approval for lab-grown meat in UK supermarkets — aiming for early 2027. But their own documents reveal consumer acceptance hasn’t increased, there’s no labelling framework, and the nutritional profile is “as yet unclear.” As a primary producer, I’ve read the receipts. Here’s what they’re not telling you.

Want real meat?
Shop now :
https://t.co/OeCNt28O8n