Saturday 24 October: Those denied hospital treatment see no light at the end of the tunnel

Posted on by Geoff Graham

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Today’s letters (visible only to DT subscribers) are here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2020/10/23/lettersthose-denied-hospital-treatment-see-no-light-end-tunnel/

723 thoughts on “Saturday 24 October: Those denied hospital treatment see no light at the end of the tunnel”

  1. Morning everyone. Stiff neck no sleep last night. Dehydrated due to high blood sugar level. Burst blood vessel in eye last week. Apart from that I’m OK!

    1. Sorry to hear that, Minty. I hope that today – the last day of British Summer Time this year – is happier for you. Keep well.

    3. Hope you’ve been relaxing this past couple of hours and that you’re feeling better.

    4. Blimey, and there’s us feeling put out because the papers arrived an hour late.
      Ooops, manners: good moaning, Minty.

  2. Morning all.

    In a day in which several new pieces of crucial data came to light, Office for National Statistics figures showed the number of new daily coronavirus cases across England has doubled in a fortnight but the rate of growth may be slowing down.

    Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2020/10/23/uks-coronavirus-r-rate-drops-to-as-low-as-1-2-13470161/?ito=facebook%7Csocial%7Cmetroukfacebook&ico=taboola_feed_tablet_news?ito=cbshare

    Twitter: https://twitter.com/MetroUK | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MetroUK/

    1. The deliberate conflation of Covid-19 (Chinese Flu) and coronavirus (seasonal colds and flu) is only helpful to the doom-mongers of Project Fear. With ever more tests, it is obvious the number of Covid-19 ‘cases’ could rise but it is only the number of hospital admissions and deaths exclusively from the Chinese Flu that should give us any cause for concern.

      Meanwhile, the economy crashes, the imminent unemployment figures surge and we are left with fewer taxpayers to carry the burden of the clowns in London, Belfast, Cardiff and Edinburgh, as they play one-downmanship with our lives.

  3. Makes detention for wearing the wrong cardigan seem positively benign. Measured, even.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/10/23/school-children-denied-access-water-toilets-ministers-told/

    “School children are being denied access to water and toilets, ministers told

    The welfare of pupils is being overlooked by ‘overzealous’ teachers who are taking unnecessary Covid-19 measures

    23 October 2020 • 9:14pm

    School children are being denied access to water and toilet facilities, made to sit in cold classrooms and eat lunch standing outside, ministers have been told.

    The “basic welfare” of pupils is being overlooked by “overzealous” teachers who are taking measures which they believe will mitigate the risk of coronavirus transmission, according to the parent campaign group Us For Them.

    In a letter to the Education Secretary, schools minister and children’s minister, the group reported: “Some of the cases we are seeing are extreme and many involve alarming issues of child welfare and safeguarding.

    “Many children are faced with an array of measures which are disproportionate both individually and which together add up to a regime which is deeply concerning”.

    Molly Kingsley, co-founder of Us For Them, said said the group have received hundreds of reports from parents about schools going above and beyond what is required in official guidance.

    “No one is policing this,” she said. “Everyone is passing the buck so the schools have a free reign. Parents are having to police the Government’s policies which puts them in an impossible situation.”

    Some parents reported that pupils were only given set time slots to use the toilets and are not allowed to go outside of these times, while others reported that children were told to always eat their lunch outdoors regardless of the weather.

    Ofsted inspectors normally hold schools to account by inspecting them on issues such as children’s welfare as management.

    However, Ofsted says it is not responsible for the implementation of the Government’s coronavirus guidance adding that it has no “scope to interpret or enforce this guidance”.

    “We need to understand who is responsible at Government level for overseeing that measures to control the virus are not implemented so egregiously that they cause harm,” the letter to Gavin Williamson said.

    In depth: Will schools close again?

    Ms Kingsley told the Education Secretary that Us for Them have sought legal advice on the issue and is prepared to bring a judicial review against the Government over its guidance for schools.

    Earlier this week, the Children’s Commissioner warned that overcautious teachers are sending entire year groups of pupils home unnecessarily, as she said that youngsters should “not be sacrificed on the altar of Covid”. Just one pupil testing positive for coronavirus can send an entire school into “chaos” with a whole year group sent home for a fortnight, Anne Longfield said.

    She wrote to MPs highlighting the huge discrepancies in the interpretation of guidance on how to handle cases of Covid-19 at school, and the detrimental effect this is having on children’s education.”

    1. Parents need to take control. If schools impose these insane Draconian measures, keep children at home.

      1. Ofsted need to up their game. Surely HMG guidelines on Covid-19 comes under Ofsted’s management of children’s welfare?

      2. Sadly, in many households, both parents need to go out to work.
        High mortgages ensure a compliant population.

        1. And which came first? The working couple able to afford a higher mortgage or the higher mortgage forcing both to have to work?

          A vicious circle is ever there was one.

        2. Yes. Funny how these things happen. Women roped in to work during wars and some kept on afterwards. Then feminism rolls things along. Inflation pushes up house prices higher than it does wages.
          Financial fiddling in the banks does not help.
          Now we are here. I do not see a way back. The forces of evil now hold the centre. To speak up for society (as we knew it), to speak up for country and people, to speak up for normal, to speak up for Christianity , family and decency is to be torn apart by the agents of Satan*.

          * Even if you are non-believer, if the result is the same, call it what you please. “A difference that makes no difference is no difference” – William James.

    2. “School children are being denied access to water and toilet facilities, made to sit in cold classrooms and eat lunch standing outside….”
      Aah takes me back.
      Why is this such a problem for the PLDs*?. FFS, every generation of mankind up until this one has managed to cope OK.
      *Poor Little Darlings

  4. Put aside all prejudices and think about the human being:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/10/23/cancer-survivor-miscarried-alone-babys-father-could-listen-phone/

    Cancer survivor miscarried alone as baby’s father could only listen on the phone under ‘inhumane’ Covid restrictions

    Many hospitals across the country only allow the mother to attend antenatal and postnatal appointments

    By Jamie Johnson 23 October 2020 • 8:00pm

    “Yvette never meant to get pregnant. At 46 and in remission for breast cancer she was told that her chances of having a child were fractional. She had been through two “difficult” births already and was frightened at how her body would cope.

    “Don’t get me wrong, I was also very excited,” she says, clutching an oat milk cappuccino at a quiet cafe near her home in Hornchurch, East London.

    “But unfortunately, this story doesn’t have a happy ending.”

    By the end of July, when Yvette found out she was pregnant, the NHS was still reeling from the first wave of the coronavirus. Havering, the local borough, saw nearly 300 deaths and was still receiving around 30 covid-related calls a week.

    Facing a myriad of rules and regulations, like many mothers-to-be, Yvette attempted to book a scan at the Queen’s Hospital in Romford, but was told that she would have to wait three months. Her partner David would not be allowed to attend.

    In an attempt to make their NHS Trust as covid-secure as possible Barking, Havering and Redbridge have made antenatal and postnatal appointments available for the mother only. A partner is only allowed to be there when the mother goes into labour.

    These rules are in place at hospitals across the country, and MPs, led by Alicia Kearns from Rutland and Melton, who is herself pregnant, have called on the Trusts to reconsider the position.

    Worried, and looking for reassurance, the yoga instructor with bright pink hair paid £80 for a private scan which David could also attend. On the screen, they saw a tiny baby – their tiny baby – and everything looking as it should.

    But on Sunday, September 30, something wasn’t right.

    Yvette had started bleeding and rushed to hospital for an emergency scan. When she arrived, four other women were sat by themselves in the maternity ward.

    Alone too, without her partner to hold her hand, she was given the devastating news that the baby’s heart had stopped beating.

    “I was in floods of tears,” she says, less than a month on, fighting fresh ones back.

    “But it got so much worse.

    “They put me alone in a bereavement room. There were plastic white flowers, a holy bible and a box of tissues which was already empty.

    “A doctor with a clipboard came in and asked me what I wanted to do with the baby’s remains. I hadn’t even called David. I hadn’t even processed it. But I had to make a decision.”

    Yvette was asked to come back eight days later to be induced into labour and have the baby removed.

    “It came earlier than that,” she says, quietly.

    Illustrated by graphic pictures, Yvette calmly explained how in the middle of the night, while her 12-year-old daughter slept next door, she started bleeding uncontrollably. Three beach towels were soaked through before she could be taken to hospital.

    The bathroom looked like “a murder scene” and she left bloody footprints on the stairs as she limped into her friend’s car.

    Coronavirus restrictions meant that her friend wasn’t allowed in, and had to leave her in a wheelchair at the emergency reception.

    And then, still in a world of pain, Yvette had to have an intrusive nasal swab test to make sure she did not have the virus.

    “Even after I passed it, I had to wear a mask. I could hardly breathe,” she says, her voice growing angrier.

    Surgery was difficult. It lasted five hours and David stayed on loudspeaker on her phone the whole time. He wasn’t allowed to see how she was doing, in line with the hospital’s new regulations.

    Yvette still has nightmares about what she saw during the operation. She often wakes up screaming in the night.

    When she came round, she was by herself on a hospital bed in a small room with an empty chair in the corner.

    Yvette was angry that she woke up alone due to coronavirus restrictions

    “I have never felt more lonely. He should have been there. How can he not have been allowed there?” The anger has intensified.

    “The government has to know that this is inhumane. He lost his child too. This is his pain too. And we could not be there for each other.”

    David was there, outside. He couldn’t come in to give Yvette some fresh clothes, so wrapped a jumper round her as she staggered past people in the reception wearing two flimsy hospital gowns.

    She takes a moment to decompress. In over an hour her coffee has hardly been drunk.

    “I still miss my bump,” she says, softly.

    “I try and be strong, but I do have quiet moments when I cry. In the car, after class. I try and just keep myself as busy as possible.

    “I did think about suicide, but I have two wonderful children and could never do that to them.

    “It’s just sad that I’m never going to have another chance to have a biological connection with David. The ship has sailed.

    Yvette’s friends call her the cat with nine lives. A tattoo on her left arm says “immortal”.

    “I could have died. And I would have died alone. No-one should have to go through that. Pregnancy, birth, miscarriages are all shared experiences. Coronavirus can’t change that. The rules must be made fair.”

      1. Good morning, HJ.

        ‘God almighty, is this what we have come to?’

        Unfortunately yes!

        This is one tragic case which illustrates the wonders
        of our NHS. Our doctors and nurses, who do give
        very good care, as I am sure we have all experienced,
        at one time or another, seem to have completely lost
        the plot; why the organisations who represent them
        chose to follow, and continue to do so, such draconian
        regulations is beyond me.

      2. Yes. My cousin had to face terrifying brain surgery, with complications, alone and unable to hold up a device to at least connect virtually with her family. It’s heartbreaking.

      3. Yes. The rules and their eager over interpretation by jobsworths has resulted in widespread “official” cruelty, inhumanity, and deliberate viciousness that no German would have encountered in 1938.

        1. I have always said that if the Germans had successfully invaded mainland Blighty, they would have had plenty of willing helpers.
          As, I believe, the Channel Islands discovered.

      4. It’s very sad and I hope that I would never have such an experience….however…how many more stories of woe do we need to hear. It is what it is. When will we hear some stories of the stoicism and stiff upper lip that we British are supposed to be famous for?

    2. In no way do I support what is currently being done; but it is worth remembering that when we were born no father was permitted to be anywhere near a birth except accidentally, and he certainly wouldn’t have been involved in the removal of the proceeds of spontaneous abortion. That birth and miscarriage are “shared experiences” is a very new concept. Historically it might have been shared with other women in the community, but not with men.

      I remember parents being kept out of the hospital entirely during a typhoid outbreak in Aberdeen when I was very young, because it was deemed necessary to avoid infection. There was no real complaint at the time – though it looks very draconian now. Hospitals were, until pretty recently, places for staff and patients. Family were neither encouraged nor accommodated except on sufferance at very restricted times.

      1. My firstborn was delivered at Fulford Hospital by York and I wasn’t allowed but in 1970 my second born, in Dulwich Hospital and I was present throughout the whole procedure. Attitudes do change, even if slowly.

        1. Indeed they do, and despite the frequently disparaging comments in places like this, they don’t always change for the worse.

          I wasn’t suggesting that we should revert to those days – merely commenting on how quickly the recent past has become the only acceptable normal and conditions which would have seemed entirely normal to women 60 or so years ago have come to be regarded as so utterly unacceptable.

      2. MB was a bit of a pioneer in the sixties; however, they were home births, I’m not sure what happened in mat.homes and hospitals.
        I gather many mothers have mixed feelings about the father being present, but feel pressured.
        In this case, I would imagine it would have been comforting to have the father present – as long he was stoic.

        1. I know that when my sister had her babies (during the 1980s) fathers were welcome if they wanted to be there and, indeed, my brother-in-law was present; not only for the births of his three living children but for the delivery of the full-term stillbirth which preceded them. That was probably they occasion when she needed him most, so please don’t feel that I’m unsympathetic to the woman whose experience you have re-printed, she has clearly had a horrendous experience.

          I don’t know anyone who didn’t want her husband/partner to be present but had him there anyway; though that’s not to say that no one feels pressured into it.

          It’s ironic that my father wasn’t allowed to be with my mother – who would have benefitted by his confidence – but he presided over hundreds (if not thousands) of births in fields.

          I’m sorry, but disqus is really giving me a hard time today – keeps simply posting comments of its own accord.

  6. Good Morning Folks

    Cloudy start here.

    Staying safe by playing tennis outside now in the cold, the damp, the wind and on a slippery surface.

  7. Morning all

    SIR – My granddaughter has Down’s syndrome and is prone to sleep apnoea. Surgery was planned for last August to remove her tonsils, medical opinion being that it would help.

    However, her operation was postponed, and remains unscheduled. Meanwhile, sleepless and disturbed nights continue with no light at the end of this particular tunnel.

    So please do not expect us to accept the claims of the NHS that it remains open and is there for us.

    My granddaughter lives in Manchester. Do the latest measures imposed there mean that her tonsils will remain even longer?

    Colin Thomas

    Bridgend, Glamorgan

    SIR – Lockdown was first sold to us as a way of preventing the NHS from being overwhelmed. This was mis-selling as the NHS was overwhelmed before the outbreak of Covid.

    At the end of 2019 there were more than 4.5 million patients waiting for hospital investigation and treatment, and more patients were being added to the lists than hospitals could accept.

    Advertisement

    Relentless closure of NHS hospitals has resulted in a reduction of beds from 10 per thousand of the population in 1948 to 1.9 beds per thousand in 2020. By comparison, Japan has 13 beds per thousand of population, Germany has 8, France has 6 and the average of all OECD countries is 5.9.

    As a result the UK has been unique in closing hospitals to all but Covid patients. This deprivation of treatment and investigation of non-Covid patients also extends to private hospitals whose beds and services have been contracted to the NHS.

    Dr Max Gammon

    London SE16

    SIR – I haven’t struggled to get a GP appointment since the pandemic began. My rescheduled eye screening took place as re-arranged.

    My annual blood tests were done without delay and processed within a few days. My flu jab was delivered 10 minutes early, and for it I was in the surgery for under 90 seconds from start to finish. All appointments were organised via an app. Every single person I dealt with was pleasant.

    It may be unfashionable to quote Cecil Rhodes nowadays, but as I look at the healthcare systems across the 195 countries in this world and compare them to the NHS, his dictum seems apposite: “Remember that you are an Englishman, and have consequently won first prize in the lottery of life.”

    Louis Altman

    London SW17

    SIR – It is impossible to prevent death. The best anyone can expect is that it is postponed as long as possible while having a reasonable quality of life.

    The Government has decided that it can postpone some deaths by imposing draconian restrictions on people, to the detriment of their quality of life, while bringing forward a significantly greater number of deaths than those they are trying to postpone.

    Graham Low

    Threapwood, Cheshire

    2. I’ve learned something today; there is a place called Threapwood.
      Does the different spelling discount it?

  8. Morning again

    Walking across farms

    SIR – Ben Goldsmith’s piece on “the right to roam” (Comment, October 22) rang a loud bell for me following an experience last Sunday.

    My wife and I were walking along a wide track across farmland in Rutland. We were stopped, very politely, by a steward of the landowner, who informed us that we were trespassing.

    Without any argument we had a brief discussion about the rights and wrongs of the situation, during which the steward asked if we would mind if members of the public freely entered our garden. There appeared to be no distinction in his mind between a private garden and open farmland.

    The law as it stands seems to support this absurd situation. Does this not require amendment before an attempt to criminalise trespass, which would be reasonable for private gardens?

    Anthony Robinson

    Fulbeck, Lincolnshire

    SIR – I take it that Ben Goldsmith has yet to have mobs of feral children and abusive, drunken adults taking over his property as if it were their own. Vandalism, arson and assault have plagued my volunteer sailing club for years since a public footpath was directed across the club’s property.

    It is eminently sensible to make crossing a defined boundary into a private property a criminal offence enforceable by the police, who are sworn to protect life and property.

    Martin Whapshott

    Frimley, Surrey

    1. Allemans Rätt has long been part of the Swedish constitution, and is generally applied in Norway. Everyone has right to pass anywhere that is not bound by some sort of boundary marker. This means that one is free to roam in open ground, but gardens, which are defined, are out of bounds without the permission of the landowner.

      1. Indeed, and you are allowed to camp on open ground for one night only, leaving no damage or rubbish. If close-ish to residemces, you must ask permission.

        1. I had a sleepless night camping in Sweden in the woods on a dip in the ground covered with a mat of sticks, so it was quite soft to life on.

          It was about midnight when I heard loud snuffling outside my tent, and then spent the rest of the night remembering they have bears in Sweden. It might have been a hedgehog, but when I looked under my tent in the morning, there were a number of slugs that were noisily munching the damp sticks right under me. I never thought Swedish slugs could make such a racket.

          3. The only goat I met during my 3 years in Sweden was my ancient colleague, a real harridan, whom I referred to as “den gamla geten”.

      2. Pretty much the same in Scotland. The policies, the gardens, of the big house should be avoided, that’s all.
        Of course, the freedom to wander has been horribly abused by “wild camping” and vast quantities of litter being left, Especially this summer as there were many visitors who could not go on a foreign holiday to trash the Costa Brava and came to the Highlands instead.

      1. They used to appear pretty quickly, even in the middle of the night, if those who “trespassed in pursuit of game” were reported to be carrying guns. Otherwise not.

    3. “There appeared to be no distinction in his mind between a private garden and open farmland.”

      Well, Mr Stupid Robinson, there is none – because a private garden and open farmland are BOTH private – you idiot.

    4. It would have been better had the steward asked whether Mr Robinson would appreciate members of the public roaming around his office, factory, or other works premises if he wished to make a comparison.

      Having grown up in Scotland I find the English desire to keep everyone to footpaths (and, all too frequently, to obstruct those as much as possible) foolish and counter-productive. But people walking in the countryside do need to realise that it is a place of work. It should be much easier to re-direct paths on a temporary basis so that people can avoid fields with cattle (it simply isn’t possible to keep the cattle and footpaths separate for 365 days of the year). A lot of arable farms now have wide field margins and it should be easier to create permissive paths (and riding routes) along these on a season by season basis; some farmers are doing so but it requires care to avoid created a permanent permission which might compromise the business at a later date.

      The great majority of country walkers do not abuse the countryside they walk across, or camp upon, but the mess left by a small minority tends to spoil things for everyone.

  9. SIR – Free school meals are not free, but funded by the taxpayer. That said, given the billions the Government has lost to fraud through negligence in the awarding of Covid-related grants and loans, and the hundreds of millions spent on the “Eat out to help out” scheme, the cost of continuing this measure until the pandemic is under control is a relative drop in the ocean.

    Do the Conservatives want to be known as the nasty party again?

    David Miller

    Chigwell, Essex

    SIR – The Opposition proposes food vouchers during school holidays. But vouchers will be used as a rebate on the existing food bill, releasing cash for parents to spend on anything.

    Unlike free school meals, this will benefit few deserving children.

    Christopher Bowring

    Wokingham, Berkshire

    2. I would like the Conservatives to be known as the fiscally responsible party rather than Spendthrifts ‘R Us.

  10. Good morning, all. Same old same old, I gather.

    Breezy but – possibly – dry this morning. One lives in hopes. Or not.

  11. SIR – National Maritime Museum authorities are “reviewing” its displays to placate the Black Lives Matter movement (report, October 11).

    One naval officer involved, Admiral Edward Pellew, is chiefly known for his bombardment of Algiers in 1816 to end slavery in the Barbary states. Of course, those slaves were European, so perhaps they don’t count.

    Robert Webster

    Bicester, Oxfordshire

  12. STOP PRESS

    For Ken Burns fans – a new super series started this week on PBSAmerica on “The Roosevelts“. We watched the first two hour prog last night. Right up to his usual standard. Look out for it.

          1. I bet he couldn’t get into that outfit a few years fried peanut butter sarnies down the road.

    3. I’m on episode six of “The West” since hearing about Ken Burns on here a few days ago. Top quality.

  13. Focus group reveals voters are despairing of Boris Johnson’s coronavirus policies and are prepared to break the rules to visit loved ones. 24 October 2020.

    Dramatic evidence of a growing revolt against he coronavirus lockdowns emerged last night.

    The public think the rules won’t work, they will break the law if necessary to see their loved ones and believe it is time to ‘get Britain back to normal’

    If you are under sixty the chances of your being seriously affected by the virus are almost nil. You should ignore the Governments strictures and suit yourself!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8873731/Focus-group-reveals-voters-despairing-coronavirus-lockdown-measures.html

    1. I couldn’t get my watch to adjust when the clocks went forward. Given the situation at the time, it didn’t seem worth mending. It’s been sitting in the drawer since. Maybe I’ll start wearing it again next week.

    2. Car Radio: Wait six five months.

      There: corrected at no charge. GMT: October to March (5 months); BST: March to October (7 months).

    3. The only problem is that I can’t remember which time zone my car radio is on.
      Maybe I should get my lovely local garage to sort it when the Noddy car has her MOT and winter service next month.
      Or will that just confuse me further?
      Morning, Willum.

        1. Yup! There’s a a special gremlin in car clocks. Sometimes I can hear it chuckling above the sound of the engine.

          1. I have managed to set my car clock so that the minutes change from :59 to :00 exactly on the sixth beep of the time signal.
            I’m very pleased with myself.

      2. ‘Morning, Anne.

        My car clock is on permanent summer time, the cooker is accurate to the minute, but 2 hours behind. The only other clocks are the mobile & the laptop.

        1. We positioned the sundial on BST based on the hope that there would be more sun during the summer.
          Morning, Peddy.

        2. I have my mother’s grandfather clock which has been in the family for well over 100 years. Its pendulum rod is a bit too short so it gains about 5 minutes a week and needs winding twice a week.

        3. The timer for the immersion heater needs to be reset, but only takes seconds, the cooker clock only goes forwards so it’s a bit tedious in October. The car clock is a matter of pressing two buttons, easy peasy. Then there’s the bedside clock radio and the lumie-light which will take me about 5 minutes because I always have to check the book for the right method.

        4. My car clock is on permanent GMT. There is no clock on the cooker, but I’ll reset the microwave. The kitchen wall clock and clock in the dining room are easy to reset.

          1. We seem to have so many these days: 2 ovens, microwave, 2 alarm clocks, 2 watches, 1 car etc and, of course, loads which should sort themselves out!

    4. I never bother changing the clock in the car. Tomorrow it will be 15 minutes fast. It’s been 3/4 of an hour slow for the last few months.

  15. UK mounts ‘covert attacks’ on Russia’s leaders and their allies to ‘punish President Putin’, former cabinet secretary reveals. 24 October 2020.

    Britain has carried a series of covert attacks on Russia’s leaders and their allies, the former cabinet secretary has disclosed.

    Lord Sedwill said the UK Government had launched cyber attacks to punish President Vladimir Putin and his senior allies.

    The UK has sought to exploit Moscow’s ‘vulnerabilities’, Lord Sedwill added, including through the deployment of its recently-declared offensive cyber-capability.

    You can’t really do this and then start whinging when the Russians respond!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8874177/UK-mounts-covert-attacks-Russias-leaders-former-cabinet-secretary-reveals.html

    2. Not so very covert, then, if it’s in the papers.
      Since there’s no way of confirming this, it’s likely bollox – sabre-rattling for public consumption.

    3. Why is Sedwill opening his mouth on this and other subjects? He has not ceased to be bound by the Official Secrets Act just because he is no longer employed by the Civil Service. Why has he not been arrested?

      1. Why would Moscow want a retired British snivel serpent? Apart from his the taxpayers’
        money of course.

    5. Is Sedwill the chap who flounced off to complain on the bBC about Priti Patel suggesting he actually do his job? Seems like a disgruntled (former?) employee just stirring the pot.

  16. ‘Morning again.

    Charles Moore:

    The word from the resumed Brexit trade negotiations is that it is boiling down to fish; and therefore to the French. Emmanuel Macron still demands his – or, rather, our – maquereaux. The problems of subsidies and the “level playing field” also remain, and also bother the French.

    EU negotiations are often thus, and it is partly why we have grown so sick of them over the past half-century. Euro-doctrine is generally preached in the high language of ever-closer-union, with the sound of Beethoven’s Ninth playing in the background. But when the pommes frites are down, it frequently turns out to involve small, noisy interest groups, such as pêcheurs putting out from Boulogne.

    Well, you might retort, there aren’t many groups smaller than our own British fishermen, so isn’t it pot and kettle? To which one returns another question: “But why are they so small?” The answer is: “Because of the EU.”

    We have been here before, when it all began. Stephen Wall, who used to be Britain’s permanent representative (ie, ambassador) to the EU, is the best informed, most succinct chronicler of our membership. Although a strong, even passionate, Remainer, he has the true historian’s gift for understanding and summarising views that he does not share. His new book, Reluctant European (Oxford), tells the whole sad story of Britain’s involvement from 1945 to Brexit.

    Sir Stephen vividly describes how, when Britain tried to enter in the Sixties, it was the French who made the trouble. General De Gaulle, who understood the British mentality and knew it would not fit with his protectionist continental entity, said “Non! ” twice. He wanted, in Harold Macmillan’s words, to be “the cock on a small dunghill”.

    When Edward Heath’s government was desperate to gain entry in the early Seventies, the existing Community of six, led by France, saw their chance. “In an act of pre-emptive and ruthless self-interest,” writes Wall, “[they] had decided to equip themselves with a Common Fisheries Policy before the British were allowed to join.” Heath was too keen on the grand design to care. By joining, we lost our fish.

    So it is poetically fitting if the last battle is to stop us getting our fish back, and is being fought with a Frenchman, Michel Barnier, in charge of the talks, and his country’s hyperactive president stamping his foot.

    It is important to the French view – doctrinally and politically – that leaving the EU must never be seen to give any country (least of all Britain) advantages. It could even be that President Macron feels – or wishes to appear to feel – so strongly about fish that he will let any deal die because of it. Deal or no deal, after all, the French will lose a great many “landings”. He may conclude it is politically better for them to lose lots of fish through no deal and blame the British, than to agree a somewhat smaller haul in an agreement and he gets the blame.

    This is the same President Macron who claims the moral high ground by calling for a great leap forward in European integration, when others (notably Germany, who must pay) hold back, and is invoking European “solidarity” for literally fishy reasons. But one must not criticise French hypocrisy. They understood from the late Forties that Germany’s position as the potentially greater, but profoundly guilty power would allow France to pursue its national interest by claiming to do so in Europe’s name. They learnt that trick from Napoleon. We, who also have a strong idea of our national interest, should admire them for theirs.

    But the French option would never have been available to Britain, even if we had not joined the Community 15 years late. Repeatedly lamenting it, Stephen Wall makes clear that the problem has been the same throughout: “Part of the British EU story is an unwillingness to face up to the true nature of the organisation we eventually decided to join.” He confirms it is a project to surrender sovereignty. When a British colleague complains to him about the EU’s “mission creep”, Sir Stephen replies: “ ‘Mission creep’ is the very essence of the European project.”

    This has always been what most British voters disliked, despite sweet-talking from their leaders. How often, over 40 years, have I heard British politicians and diplomats say: “Europe’s coming our way.” It wasn’t (although we sometimes won individually important victories). It couldn’t. It had chosen another path. That is the burden of the story Sir Stephen tells so well.

    Where does that leave Boris Johnson? Despite all the fretting about fish, comes the hopeful message: “We’re close.” As close, indeed, as social distancing permits. Our chief negotiator, Lord Frost, spent Thursday and yesterday in talks with M Barnier in the basement of the Department for Business. This was itself a good sign. Britain’s terse statement that there was nothing more to talk about had brought the EU back to the table. It acknowledged, as it had not before, that this is a discussion between equal entities.

    Given the long, sad history, however, one must ask: “Are the British public being manipulated by a government which is in reality ready to trade major long-term issues of principle for short-term presentational wins?” Old hands will remember the brilliantly spun “Game, set and match to Major”, which fanfared Maastricht in 1991. Yet Maastricht was the treaty from which the Tory party has never fully recovered, and from which the longing to leave was reborn.

    Compared with Theresa May’s efforts from 2017-19, Boris does have major advantages – a mandate, a big Commons majority, a Cabinet united on this issue, and officials specially signed up for the mission. Unlike her, Boris is in an under-recognised category in this country – genuinely pro-European but genuinely anti-EU. He is not hostile to European countries, but nor is he scared of Brussels disapproval. He knows also that insistence paid off in getting Brexit at all, whereas appeasement failed. Earlier this year, Lord Frost himself stated the aim – “to recover political and economic independence in full”. Britain deliberately nailed its colours to the mast to make it harder for faint‑hearts to haul them down.

    Heavy on the Prime Minister, though, lies the thought that failure to get a deal will look like – and might actually be – a failure of statecraft. It is not so much the queues at the ports. These will to some extent happen either way, because we shall be leaving the customs union. It is more the need to unite the country, help secure our own Union, calm global nerves, lift us out of Covid gloom and set a new course on comfortable terms with our former partners – a “good” divorce, rather than a bitter one. He also needs another proof, as at December’s election, that he can succeed when everyone thinks he can’t.

    It is not wrong to search for a deal. Given the way politics works, however, it feels as though the pressure to agree something is stronger than the pressure to get that something right. If the EU – especially the French – sense this, that something will get worse for Britain. Then “success” on the day will bring failure later, as has happened time and again under every previous British prime minister since we joined. Inevitably, the EU will exact a price if we make a clear break, but the price if we do not will be much, much higher.

    BTL commrnt:

    Pip Squeak
    23 Oct 2020 9:53PM
    Well said Charles. Your last paragraph confirms everything. If Boris fudges this he will go down in history as a bungling fool that sold us out and the Conservatives will be consigned to history for a very long time.

    President Macron is a minnow amongst sharks (Barnier) in the EU and we must not give in to him on any fishing rights. Our sovereignty, control of our laws (no ECJ) and borders are sacrosanct. Boris and Frost must stick to their guns and if it means No Deal then so be it. No Deal = Ideal.

    1. Macron’s a strutting midget who would do anything not to lose face. Fortunately for him he has more than one.

    2. The biggest Brexit danger is the WA which has us by the short and curlies and keeps us as a vassal state.

  17. Good morning from the Saxon daughter of Alfred of Wessex with cleaned axe and Longbòw.

      1. Hello Mr Viking, not much apart from lots of walking, a few writing projects but
        I’ve not been online much, just got peeved with politics and negativity due to
        the world going to pot. Hope you’re okay Mr Viking and not up to mischief.

      1. Hello Hugh, the Saxon Queen has been on dark ages rest 🙂
        nice to hear from you too. Hope you’re okay in our Chinese plague
        environment ..

      2. Hello, yes thank you, all is well and I hope all is well with you too.
        I’ve just been having a quiet time and ignoring world events ( as much as
        possible). Doing a History of Parliament course atm via Zoom which is okay
        but not the same as when we all meet in the village hall.
        I did lose my dìsqus password which wasn’t very clever but on my birthday I hope
        to get a new Samsung tablet ( a cheap one as I’ve the lap top) and I’ll set up
        the new account that I’ve been meaning to do for many months.
        Hope dìsqus has behaved itself. I also hope you had a nice safari holiday,
        you were about to go away on holiday when we last spoke.

        1. Gosh! Was it that long ago? We went towards the end of February and were back home on 6th March.

          No testing at the airport- we walked straight through. In Kenya they did temperature checks at the airports.

          The safari was as good as ever. Already booked the next one- hope we are able to go without having to postpone it, next March.

          So bored with all these restrictions.

          1. Good grief, yes it was that long ago, how time flies when when
            time seems to have frozen with the virus thing . Glad you had a
            Good holiday, it sounds amazing. I just hope life gets back to
            normal soon but not holding my breath .

          2. ‘They’ seem to want to prolong the agony infefinitely. So that we never get back to the ‘old normal’.

  19. Apropos the current “pandemic” about impoverished children being forced to go up chimneys to look for food – just HOW MANY such children are there in reality?

    1. I suspect that their parents are more concerned about where the latest iphone is coming from…

    2. You remind me of one of my favourite books, namely The Quincunx by Charles Palliser. It is 1,200 pages of vivid Dickensian story telling. It is about a boy who is due an inheritance but he and his mother were cheated by everyone, from the aristocracy to grave diggers. They gradually become poorer and poorer until the boy is reduced to descending into the sewers of London to search for coins that might have been dropped through grills in the street.

      I don’t think it is possible to get more impoverished than that!

  22. Good morning, my friends

    Here is a BTL comment under the Charles Moore article with which I thoroughly agree.

    Boris Johnson’s ‘brilliant’, ‘oven-ready’ Withdrawal Agreement has turned out, as we expected, to have been a complete and treacherous sell-out. No wonder he was so shy of giving any details about it before the general election and no wonder that he determined to avoid being interviewed on live television by Andrew Neil.

    No trade deal – if this WA remains intact – will be satisfactory for Britain’s interests as we shall remain a vassal state to the EU.

    Sorry if this CM article has already been posted.

    The PM must avoid a Brexit deal which looks like success on the day but brings failure later
    There’s a danger that the pressure to get an EU pact becomes greater than the pressure to get it right

    CHARLES MOORE
    23 October 2020 • 9:30pm
    Charles Moore
    The word from the resumed Brexit trade negotiations is that it is boiling down to fish; and therefore to the French. Emmanuel Macron still demands his – or, rather, our – maquereaux. The problems of subsidies and the “level playing field” also remain, and also bother the French.

    EU negotiations are often thus, and it is partly why we have grown so sick of them over the past half-century. Euro-doctrine is generally preached in the high language of ever-closer-union, with the sound of Beethoven’s Ninth playing in the background. But when the pommes frites are down, it frequently turns out to involve small, noisy interest groups, such as pêcheurs putting out from Boulogne.

    Well, you might retort, there aren’t many groups smaller than our own British fishermen, so isn’t it pot and kettle? To which one returns another question: “But why are they so small?” The answer is: “Because of the EU.”

    We have been here before, when it all began. Stephen Wall, who used to be Britain’s permanent representative (ie, ambassador) to the EU, is the best informed, most succinct chronicler of our membership. Although a strong, even passionate, Remainer, he has the true historian’s gift for understanding and summarising views that he does not share. His new book, Reluctant European (Oxford), tells the whole sad story of Britain’s involvement from 1945 to Brexit.

    Sir Stephen vividly describes how, when Britain tried to enter in the Sixties, it was the French who made the trouble. General De Gaulle, who understood the British mentality and knew it would not fit with his protectionist continental entity, said “Non! ” twice. He wanted, in Harold Macmillan’s words, to be “the cock on a small dunghill”.

    When Edward Heath’s government was desperate to gain entry in the early Seventies, the existing Community of six, led by France, saw their chance. “In an act of pre-emptive and ruthless self-interest,” writes Wall, “[they] had decided to equip themselves with a Common Fisheries Policy before the British were allowed to join.” Heath was too keen on the grand design to care. By joining, we lost our fish.

    So it is poetically fitting if the last battle is to stop us getting our fish back, and is being fought with a Frenchman, Michel Barnier, in charge of the talks, and his country’s hyperactive president stamping his foot.

    It is important to the French view – doctrinally and politically – that leaving the EU must never be seen to give any country (least of all Britain) advantages. It could even be that President Macron feels – or wishes to appear to feel – so strongly about fish that he will let any deal die because of it. Deal or no deal, after all, the French will lose a great many “landings”. He may conclude it is politically better for them to lose lots of fish through no deal and blame the British, than to agree a somewhat smaller haul in an agreement and he gets the blame.

    This is the same President Macron who claims the moral high ground by calling for a great leap forward in European integration, when others (notably Germany, who must pay) hold back, and is invoking European “solidarity” for literally fishy reasons. But one must not criticise French hypocrisy. They understood from the late Forties that Germany’s position as the potentially greater, but profoundly guilty power would allow France to pursue its national interest by claiming to do so in Europe’s name. They learnt that trick from Napoleon. We, who also have a strong idea of our national interest, should admire them for theirs.

    But the French option would never have been available to Britain, even if we had not joined the Community 15 years late. Repeatedly lamenting it, Stephen Wall makes clear that the problem has been the same throughout: “Part of the British EU story is an unwillingness to face up to the true nature of the organisation we eventually decided to join.” He confirms it is a project to surrender sovereignty. When a British colleague complains to him about the EU’s “mission creep”, Sir Stephen replies: “ ‘Mission creep’ is the very essence of the European project.”

    This has always been what most British voters disliked, despite sweet-talking from their leaders. How often, over 40 years, have I heard British politicians and diplomats say: “Europe’s coming our way.” It wasn’t (although we sometimes won individually important victories). It couldn’t. It had chosen another path. That is the burden of the story Sir Stephen tells so well.

    Where does that leave Boris Johnson? Despite all the fretting about fish, comes the hopeful message: “We’re close.” As close, indeed, as social distancing permits. Our chief negotiator, Lord Frost, spent Thursday and yesterday in talks with M Barnier in the basement of the Department for Business. This was itself a good sign. Britain’s terse statement that there was nothing more to talk about had brought the EU back to the table. It acknowledged, as it had not before, that this is a discussion between equal entities.

    Given the long, sad history, however, one must ask: “Are the British public being manipulated by a government which is in reality ready to trade major long-term issues of principle for short-term presentational wins?” Old hands will remember the brilliantly spun “Game, set and match to Major”, which fanfared Maastricht in 1991. Yet Maastricht was the treaty from which the Tory party has never fully recovered, and from which the longing to leave was reborn.

    Compared with Theresa May’s efforts from 2017-19, Boris does have major advantages – a mandate, a big Commons majority, a Cabinet united on this issue, and officials specially signed up for the mission. Unlike her, Boris is in an under-recognised category in this country – genuinely pro-European but genuinely anti-EU. He is not hostile to European countries, but nor is he scared of Brussels disapproval. He knows also that insistence paid off in getting Brexit at all, whereas appeasement failed. Earlier this year, Lord Frost himself stated the aim – “to recover political and economic independence in full”. Britain deliberately nailed its colours to the mast to make it harder for faint‑hearts to haul them down.

    Heavy on the Prime Minister, though, lies the thought that failure to get a deal will look like – and might actually be – a failure of statecraft. It is not so much the queues at the ports. These will to some extent happen either way, because we shall be leaving the customs union. It is more the need to unite the country, help secure our own Union, calm global nerves, lift us out of Covid gloom and set a new course on comfortable terms with our former partners – a “good” divorce, rather than a bitter one. He also needs another proof, as at December’s election, that he can succeed when everyone thinks he can’t.

    It is not wrong to search for a deal. Given the way politics works, however, it feels as though the pressure to agree something is stronger than the pressure to get that something right. If the EU – especially the French – sense this, that something will get worse for Britain. Then “success” on the day will bring failure later, as has happened time and again under every previous British prime minister since we joined. Inevitably, the EU will exact a price if we make a clear break, but the price if we do not will be much, much higher.

    1. We lost fishing quota in 1993 and in 2003. First the Tories gave it away, then Labour. Both times our boats were”de-commissioned”. That is a euphemism for cutting up fishing boats, making tenth generation fishermen unemployed, closing down fish processing factories, shutting down fish sales businesses, wrecking the economies of villages and towns all round the coast of the UK and having to watch the French make fortunes from our fish!

      And now our Government is going to do it again.

      (Re-posted in response to above re-post.)

      1. Good morning, H P

        How many politicians are there who don’t fill us with total contempt and whom we can trust?

        1. Hmmm. Let me get back to you on that. My MP was, at one time, Michael Moore. He seemed decent. He was hard-working and replied to letters and took action. However, like most MPs he was without much power or influence.
          Our current MP John Lamont voted against the free school meals in England proposal. It has been custom and practice for Scottish MPs to abstain from voting on purely English matters, such as cemetery provision in Croydon. However, he is a good little Tory.

      2. If I recall, British fishing quotas were bought up by business interests from fishermen on their last call from the bonus banks, who sold them on abroad.

        Much as how pretty well all of British industry has been carved up and sold on to global oligarchs ever since Thatcher’s deregulation. Now they’re talking about handing over what’s left to settler cut-throat gangsters, because that’s the Done Thing.

        We want our country back now.

    2. Fisheries are a side issue. It’s all about and only about – power. The EU wants us to bend to it’s will regardless. Control over resources is merely their desperate need to tell us ‘we’re getting what we want’ and so must be rejected.

      The EU is terrified of us cutting taxes, scrapping idiotic legislation and flourishing outside the EU. That will cause the domino of other nations leaving or worse, as the EU no doubt fears – of not joining.

    3. Good morning, Master Tastey. My study, boy. One hundred lines for you: ‘I must get up earlier and scroll down before posting.’

      1. At least I apologise in case someone has already posted. The BTL comment I quote was probably not up when the article was posted here earlier.

  23. Nigel Farage’s State of the Nation talk on You Tube 19/10/2020 needs posting on this site if not already done. I don’t have the skill to post it. I would be grateful if someone would oblige.

      1. I tried to post that on Thursday, but i don’t seem to have any luck with my PC, it has seen better days.
        He’s spot on as usual, but i find it very frustrating that other than rhetoric, he has no influence in our lives or the situation we have been unwillingly strapped into by our media and our bastard politicians.

  24. Morning, all.
    Something I’ve never seen before – a field (the one next to Firstborn’s farmhouse) filled with thrushes! Hundreds of them, milling about, and difficult to count because they are almost background-coloured. Amazing! Guess they are on their way south for a winter vacation!

    1. Are they redwings, a small thrush with a red flash. We get some in our garden usually in December or January and they feed on the Roman berries. Beautiful little birds.

          1. Maybe, I’m no great shakes when it comes to bird identification, but they looked more starling-y than that fieldfare.

    2. Once … and once only in my life, I had all five species of regularly-occurring British thrushes in the field at the back of my cottage in Norfolk. I have never before or since seen mistle thrush, song thrush, blackbird, redwing and fieldfare all together in one location. It was a memorable sight.

      1. When we lived in the boondocks, a herd/throng/assembly of fieldfares redwings stripped the holly tree beside our house. The day before, I’d checked and thought “We’ll be all right for holly this Christmas”.
        Ho hum.

    3. I haven’t seen a thrush in our garden for a long time.
      However we did have a guy at the local golf club whose nickname was Thrush. 😀

        1. I think you know the answer uncle Bill. 😉
          Pauly (‘the director general’) Walters, knew him.

  25. Just listened to Phillip Schofield being interviewed on Radio 4 Saturday Live. What an awful self-centred turd he is. Even as a teenager he had a nasty streak which he, unconsciously, boasted about. An overprivileged only child with a fixation on his daddy. Not recommended listening.

    1. He always had that streak about his persona. The only reason he would have been interviewed by the BBC is to promote his once poorly disguised diversity. I feel a bit sorry for his family.

      1. His wife probably suspected for years. But his self-centred posturing (“It’s all about ME”) sticks in the craw.

    2. It was his complaint that Fearne Cotton ‘went to his wife’ when he said he was gay rather than him that sealed it.

      If Mr Schofield is gay no one cares. He was married and had children. His duty is first and only to them, and not to his own ego. Now he’s indulged his own pathetic desires he seems to think that people should care about him, rather than those he has hurt.

      This sort of attitude seems prevalent in the alphabet community these days. You’re gay. Fine. You stick your bits where they shouldn’t naturally go. Fine. It’s your choice. What you don’t deserve is special treatment. In fact, you don’t deserve any recognition whatsoever. No one cares about you. You’re not special because of your life choices.

      2. Appropos “Stick your bits in where they shouldn’t naturally go”, we (workmates) had a good discussion on-line with PHE this week about a new system being brought in for coding GUM and STI history, care and diagnoses.
        The new guidelines expect us to code sex based on what the patient expresses on the day; not gender at birth, gender identity, not what ‘bits’ you’ve got or your partner has got.
        This let on to a discussion of how to record SSPs and OSPs (same sex partners and opposite sex partners) – PHE has said that the same sex is what the patient decides it should be, likewise for OSPs.
        When I asked what an SSP and OSP would be for a person who states they are Bisexual, there was no easy answer for that!

  26. So let’s have another look at this……….

    It turns out Soros invested a hundred million dollars, which probably came from the 1992 UK ERM heist, in a US private equity fund in 1993……

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1993/12/08/soros-pledges-100-million-in-carlyle-fund/c679195a-cb3c-45fb-a5f2-4ba0cbf8a583/

    Then John Major got a multi million dollar job with the same private equity fund in May 2001………….

    https://www.carlyle.com/media-room/news-release-archive/john-major-appointed-european-chairman-carlyle-group

    Meaning Major, assuming Soros was still a Carlyle client, might have got paid from the profits the hedge fund made from investing the money Soros got off Major in the first place………….

    What a great circle !

    Nothing to see here. Please move along..

    1. What did you expect? I apologise, were you not aware that corruption and fraud are rife in the UK political classes?

  27. So let’s have another look at this……….

    It turns out Soros invested a hundred million dollars, which probably came from the 1992 UK ERM heist, in a US private equity fund in 1993……

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1993/12/08/soros-pledges-100-million-in-carlyle-fund/c679195a-cb3c-45fb-a5f2-4ba0cbf8a583/

    Then John Major got a multi million dollar job with the same private equity fund in May 2001………….

    https://www.carlyle.com/media-room/news-release-archive/john-major-appointed-european-chairman-carlyle-group

    Meaning Major, assuming Soros was still a Carlyle client, might have got paid from the profits the hedge fund made from investing the money Soros got off Major in the first place………….

    What a great circle !

    Nothing to see here. Please move along..

  29. Morning, Campers.
    A thought about a subject that is not the C word.
    Why would anyone want to keep lesbian crayfish as pets?

    “Escaped cloned female mutant crayfish take over Belgian cemetery

    Marbled crayfish can reproduce asexually and all their children are genetically identical females.

    Escaped self-cloning mutant crayfish created in experimental breeding programmes have invaded a Belgian cemetery.

    Hundreds of the duplicating crustaceans, which can dig down to up to a metre and are always female, pose a deadly threat to local biodiversity after colonising a historic Antwerp graveyard.

    “It’s impossible to round up all of them. It’s like trying to empty the ocean with a thimble,” said Kevin Scheers of the Flemish Institute for Nature and Woodland Research.

    Marbled crayfish, which travel across land and water at night and eat whatever they can, do not occur in nature and are banned by the European Union.

    Instead the freshwater beasts, which are about 10cm big and voracious, are thought to have been bred by unscrupulous German pet traders in the 1990s. ( I TOLD you I saw Josef Mengele and son in the local chip shop.)

    They are similar to the slough crayfish found in Florida but are parthenogenetic, which means they reproduce with themselves and all their children are genetically identical females.

    The mutation, which occurred about 25 years ago, means populations can spring up rapidly from just a single Procambarus virginalis.

    In 2018 scientists established the global marbled crayfish population was descended from a single female and didn’t need males to reproduce.”

    4. Lesbianism & parthenogenesis are 2 completely different things.

      Marbled crayfish can reproduce asexually and all their children are genetically identical females.

      Has anyone seen a lesbian aphid?

        2. I can’t imagine ever wanting to keep a snake, or a lizard, or a rat as a pet… but people do. Diversity of taste is one of the things which makes human beings interesting – look at all the “talk” we have here about different foods – there’s always someone who likes, or doesn’t like pretty much anything that is mentioned. Pets are a bit the same; only not so easy to solve if you discover, after buying, that you’ve made a mistake.

          It’s likely that the people who originally bought crayfish didn’t realise that they were parthenogenic – which is why they tried to get rid of them (very foolishly) by turning them loose and created a plague in doing so.

          1. Funnily enough, MB loves his lizards, and has ever since he fished for newts when he was a small boy. He keeps fewer now because he realises that I, or our sons, might have to revoke them at short notice.
            I can take them or leave them. At one time, he kept a few snakes. I remember when a small boa escaped; I went to pick up what I thought was a washing machine hose (twin tub – how many years ago is that!) and it reared up and hissed at me.
            I’m conventional and prefer dogs.

          2. So you’ve really answered your own question. I’ve hatched out tadpoles, both frog and toad, and enjoyed watching them develop but I always released them when they got to the hopping stage.

            I should think you jumped quite out of your skin when the “hose” moved – at least one can’t mistake the dog for part of the household equipment.

          4. I tend to forget that not everyone has a spaniel. Spaniels don’t keep still for long enough to be mistaken for anything inanimate 😉

            Actually they sleep for quite long periods, but are instantly awake and excited when a person appears…

      3. I remember counting aphids on ears of wheat. If the aphids got to an average of 20 per ear and you couldn’t find a ladybird in a square metre you had to get the insecticide out – or lose the crop; because from that number the aphids would continue to reproduce faster than the ladybirds could deal with them. Most years the ladybirds appeared before they aphids reached that stage – and we left them to get on with their breakfasts, lunches and dinners unhindered.

        I must have counted thousands of the wretched little green things, so if there was a lesbian one there I probably saw her…. but I really don’t know how one would tell the difference 😉

    6. It won’t be long before technology enables humans to reproduce this way, and the population of establishment-approved black lesbian humans will take over, consuming all in their path, as is their right. Instead of just one Diane Abbott, imbued with “non-abusive” sexual orientation, we can look forward to ten billion of them. Would the Catholic Church recover from this modern take on the immaculate conception?

      When are we going to start exterminating this menace?

      1. He – let’s assueme it’s short for ‘Darren’ is likely a gormless oaf who struggles to tie his shoe laces.

        I’d also place a bet that he also votes Labour.

    2. That’s alright then. I thought for a minute it might be from the contribution I give to the tax men from my hard earned miserly pension.

    3. Interestingly the loan schemes (non-repayable) have been successfully challenged by HMRC in Scotland.

    4. I’d bet if they were asked, Daz votes Labour. She’s likely one of these morons who thinks government has infinite money that it can keep spending regardless.

    1. So clothes and church are non-essential but masks are essential. A little satanic ritual in the woods, anyone?

    3. They should carry on selling them and wait to be taken to court.
      Bet it wouldn’t happen.

        1. Taffy was a Welshman,
          Taffy was a thief.
          Taffy came to our house
          & stole a leg of beef.

    5. What is wrong with them all? They should all get together and completely ignore this ridiculous diktat. For one thing it will finish off the High Street shops and is it legal?

        1. That only applies to Wales I think. They should go on selling them and wait to be taken to court. I bet the CPS would refuse to prosecute them as I don’t think they can prevent people going about their lawful business.

  35. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Today’s DT Leader. I hope that the power-crazed Welshman takes the trouble to read it, and of course the equally awful grandstanding fishwife. Imposing draconian and unjustified restrictions isn’t a competition!

    As of today, Britain has become an experiment in how to fight coronavirus. In England, the local measures are draconian but patchy; they are doing damage to the economy but, philosophically, No 10 still wants to keep life as normal as it can. In Scotland, by contrast, Nicola Sturgeon has shut pubs and restaurants across the central belt – and extended her measures for another week because they are not actually working (deaths are at their highest since May). This is the circular, self-defeating logic of lockdown. If deaths go down, it is taken as proof that it works; if deaths go up, that is the cue for more intervention. Ms Sturgeon’s lockdown has not just three tiers but five.

    In Wales, the Labour administration of Mark Drakeford appears to have been possessed by the spirit of Oliver Cromwell. Under its new two-week “fire break”, citizens cannot see friends, eat out, get a haircut, attend a regular church service or even cross the border except for essential travel. “Our police forces have been given powers and they will use them,” says the Welsh authority. It is sinister, it is ruinous and it is also a bit silly.

    Mr Drakeford’s band of unhappy Roundheads has banned the sale of “non-essential items”, such as clothing and kettles. They have not only defined which shops must shut – “clothes shops, furniture shops and car dealerships” – but which aisles in the supermarket, and the guidance is as clear as mud. Homeware sections, for example, must close. Individual essentials ordinarily sold alongside other things can stay, but any individual non-essentials sold alongside essential items must be removed or “sealed off”. Meanwhile, “some products may need to remain available to avoid creating unnecessary constraints on a mixed product aisle to the safe circulation of customers”.

    Welsh businesses cannot take much more of this bureaucratic nonsense: they survived the earlier, nationwide lockdown by the skin of their teeth and Mr Drakeford is shuttering them just when many customers would begin shopping for Christmas. The rationale behind the war on supermarket non-essentials is that it levels the playing field with smaller shops – but door-to-door deliveries will continue, so all these rules will do is transfer an even greater market share from the high street to online sales.

    Incredibly, this is what Labour also wants to do to the English. Desperate to look like an opposition, Sir Keir Starmer has triangulated his way to becoming more pro-lockdown than the Government – and now demands a circuit break for the whole of England, too. But what Wales shows is that “circuit break” is code for a second lockdown that, in practice, would be much nastier than the first. At least the first had some spirit of national unity and voluntarism – that’s gone, along with any grey areas in enforcement. The next lockdown will be stringently policed and absurdly specific, with the Government telling you exactly who you can meet, where you can go and, if you dare to venture to the shops, even what you can buy. How does Sir Keir, a former human rights lawyer, justify such an extraordinary intervention into the private sphere?

    The measures in Wales intrude upon freedoms taken for granted for centuries, and not just the rights to movement or to choice but to a family life. Would Labour really countenance a Christmas in which no one can go to church for midnight Mass or a pub for Christmas lunch? In which relatives are left alone and isolated – fined if they see a grandchild? This is the new line in the sand in British politics. On the one hand, Labour has embraced Covid orthodoxy with the zeal of a fanatic. On the other hand, the Tories, for all their faults, do at least recognise this for the powergrab it is and say they want to “ensure that people may celebrate Christmas as a family”.

    1. Morning, HJ.
      There was a time when the expression “The lunatics have taken over the asylum” was a joke.

      1. That expression came true for me when I joined the practice in St Ives.

        Staff & management completely bonkers.

        1. Try working in a mental hospital. The line between staff and patients is wafer thin; and often you don’t know who is on which side.

    2. Nipoleon’s 5 tier system goes from Level Zero to Level Four. But before people start cheering her foresight and abilities, it should be noted that even Level Zero has controls and restrictions!
      It appears that Nipoleon has decreed that our freedoms north of the border have been revoked. It will be interesting to see how she can blame Westminster for her draconian act.

  36. Don’t tell vw I told you but it’s the 56th anniversary of our first date today. Went to see Dr. No at the Leicester Square Theatre and afterwards to the Blue Boar Inn next to the Empire.

    1. Sweet dreams are made of this………

      How long before she gave in and agreed to marry you? 🙂

    2. Congratulations, the both of you!
      We “became an item” 42 years ago, so nowhere near your record, Alf. Working on it, though!

    3. Our first date was during the Cuban missile crisis.
      We went to see “Spartacus” at the Regal. Bit of a theme to our lives.
      (Elsie Bloodaxe will know where I mean.)

      1. That was 1961 wasn’t it?
        We met in 1962 vw was still at school I was working, both aged 15. Met at table tennis club.
        Didn’t really talk to her for a couple of years although I thought she was good looking.

        1. 1962.
          We realised we had actually met before by virtue of being in the same age group in a (then) smallish town.
          But there’s a difference between vaguely being part of an age group and actually meeting.

      1. Eh? Not at all. Such information is fascinating, interesting and furthers knowledge. Just because no one bangs a drum praising the post doesn’t mean it hasn’t sunk in to that ‘things to read about later’ well in one’s head.

      1. Never too young to learn about anything. I was fascinated by neutrinos (sub-atomic particles) when I was 14 or 15 years old.

  38. Free school meals should be made available…..to children of households which have no more than one standard size television and where each member of the household has a maximum of one pair of trainers, which must be the same price as Dunlop Green Flash or cheaper.

    2. Ah, you are referring to the ‘Pop out another sprog, someone else will pick up the tab.’ policy as advocated by one Marcus Rashford, multi-millionaire kicker of balls around a field.

      1. ‘Morning, Iffy.

        “…as advocated by one Marcus Rashford, multi-millionaire kicker of balls around a field.” And there he was, our pious saviour of starving children, on a photo op at a food bank, having donned all the PPE garb in the hope of convincing us that he was actually doing something worthwhile. The ludicrous award of an MBE has probably gone to his head, making him think, falsely, that he is now a big and important sleb, and that we will tremble in awe and wonder every time he opens his mouth. Just how much of his spare time, and his vast wealth, has he ‘invested’ in his cause?

          2. And, from rumours, how little goes to the Exchequer as a result of ‘director loans’ from his companies.

          3. Would his ‘earnings’ be under the tax threshold, but his interest free loans are somewhat higher?

          5. Interesting that Mr Rashford is condemned for using the tax laws, as they stand, to his best advantage. I wonder how many of those criticising him here ever made voluntary payments to the exchequer because they thought they hadn’t paid enough tax.

            He has given a good deal of his own money and a lot of his time – he doesn’t just “pretend” to be doing things.

          6. If it was the “full exposé” that I saw, it would only have scratched the surface.
            His “salary” is over £10 million a year.

    3. How about the tats? One per adult? Sleeves – aka a whole armful?
      Would the parent be expected to sell the piercings for scrap metal?
      Would the current baby father have to account for every penny raised via drug dealing before Waynetta is allowed her share of instant mash and 95% rusk beef burger?

        1. Bonjour Harry.

          So they become more of a status symbol, which means more children go hungry.

    4. When our boys were little we would pay for their jeans and gym shoes at the supermarket price. If they wanted up-market trendy brands they had to pay the difference. As a result to this day they do not squander their money on fashionable trash.

    1. Poor Clare. Getting deaf is awfully isolating, you so quickly fall out of a conversation, and folk get fed up repeating themselves when you didn’t hear properly the first or second time.

        1. I couldn’t agree more.

          My sister and brother both now wear hearing aids (I’m borderline and they may well be recommended at my next hearing check) so they should understand. My sister is softly spoken by nature, but speaks clearly and I only need to ask her to repeat a word (on the phone) on rare occasions and never when we are together. My brother was a lazy speaker at 2 years of age and remains one to this day. He constantly mumbles and a phone conversation with him (we seldom meet face to face, he lives in New Zealand) is mostly a matter of guesswork.

          3. Edit – It was a mumbling of “I am Spartacus”. Subject, verb, object all present – no commas required. 😄

          4. That’s quite clear. Crumble or fool (or perhaps tart) seems to be the next appropriate question?

      3. I have the opposite. I hear everything at the same time – and I have tinnitus too. It is very difficult to have a conversation when you can hear the television/music in the background and several groups talking at the same time. I often switch off and let it become a general drone.

        1. I find it annoying that, e.g. in restaurants, I can hear perfectly a conversation 3 tables away while the idiot with me mumbles.

          6. Tel me about it. I have spent years with a vague grin – nodding from time to time – so that people think I can hear them…!

            Hearing aids proved to be quite useless.

          7. My hearing isn’t good and I have tinnitus – but I don’t think it’s bad enough for a hearing aid. I can hear normal face to face conversation, but with a lot of noisy background hubbub it’s difficult.
            I know I subconscously lipread, because I can’t hear what people are saying if they are mumbling into a mask or have their hand over their mouth.

          10. Exactly. When I visited elderly chum, I just lowered my mask; her hearing had worsened and she was lip reading.
            Several months cooped up in a home with masked staff, mostly speaking with marked foreign accents hadn’t exactly improved matters. Sadly, after her serious fall last March, there was no other choice.

          13. It used to annoy me in the German conversation group – if the weren’t mumbling at the carpet, they were talking through their fingers. One of the reasons I quit.

          15. The group I was referring to was “Advanced German Conversation”, a discussion group led by a German woman in her 80s, living in England 30+ years, whose German was way out of date. She was always turning to me for help & never corrected mistakes made in the group. She allowed people to interrupt each other – I didn’t; if anybody dared to interrupt me I gave them a roasting.

            My own group was “Advanced German Reading & Translation”. After 4 years in the chair, I decided that enough was enough, so now I’m doing a 2nd year Swedish course (U3A) on Zoom as a revision exercise, but, although I left Sweden over 15 years ago, my Swedish is better than the tutor’s.

          16. About 25 years ago, J & I joined an ‘intermediate’ German conversation group, with the aim of just keeping our skills alive – in my case those were limited, although I had achieved German A level in’89, my conversational skills were minimal.

            The other members of the group had been doing German for a couple of years, and we’d just had holiday exposure but nothing more.

            The teacher asked everyone to introduce themselves to the group. I was quite surprised that most could barely say who they were, let alone anything more. I managed my bit, then J said a few words before the teacher stopped him.

            At the end, she asked us not to come back as we were an embarrassment to the other particpants. I did wonder what they’d learnt in a couple of years of classes, as I’d done ”O’ level from scratch in one year, and ‘A’ level in two years part time.

            J is currently having a go at Swedish using Duolingo and watching “The bridge”.

          17. One to one – no problems. A room full of people all talking – nightmare (and it was exactly the same when I tried out hearing aids).

            All people have to do is speak clearly and look at me.

            It was quite tricky in hospital (a) because of the ghastly masks and (b) because of background noise.

          19. Remember studying “waves” in physics lessons. Sometimes you just find that you are sitting in the right spot to hear something much further away than seems reasonable.

      5. Yes. It can require great patience from the other half. A deep breath can help.
        I found the grins or polite smiles from other people very distressing when MB misheard or repeated a conversation just after that subject had been discussed. You become terribly protective and have to stop yourself from jumping in first to avoid social bloopers.

  41. I see that “Millions dead” Prof Branestorm is in the papers again… Predicting, er, millons dead.

      1. Looks like this might not be accessible in the UK. Like Bill I’m not prepared to take chances.

        1. Works here… Oh, well, I guess we Weegies can’t spikka da Eengleesh, so no-ah worries-a.

          1. I remember Lottie saying, ages ago, that she couldn’t get onto a couple of US sites she was in the habit of keeping up with. I’m guessing that it’s something to do with the GDPR rules; most of which are sensible but the interpretation of them is, from time to time, somewhat askew.

      2. Thank you for posting, Oberst.

        I realise it is one side
        of the debate but the
        comments btl seem to
        agree with the content
        of the breakdown.

    2. Can’t open – wants me to do funny things to PC. I am very distrustful of such requests…

        1. I do. I am still very suspicious of these things. Only once have I had a PC infected – but it was a nightmare.

          1. ‘Afternoon, Bill, using a VPN (Virtual Private Network) allows you to appear to be using your laptop almost anywhere in the World.

            As for ‘infected’ PCs, learn how to use a ‘Restore Point’.

        2. I have just made Windows 10 (on MOH’s laptop) look like Windows 7. MOH was pleased and said, “it’s working just like Windows 10!” 🙂

      2. No problems over here.

        Just imagine a Brietbart article review of Bidens performance in the presidential debate and you will get the gist of the content.

        If you take this analysis(?) and compare it to the cnn review of Trump, Biden is leading by a few more whoppers told.

        1. I could open it – it “just” asks me to tick a “captcha” box. Leave it alone, a little voice tells me…

    1. I think we are being informed that we have been replaced, Belle. Not an indigene in sight.

        1. Further exploration of the abbey’s website reveals lots and lots of white faces, though there is one small boy of another colour in the choir.

  45. BREAKING
    NEWS: Seven dinghies packed with refugees arrived on a beach at
    Weston-Super-Mare this morning. Government sources said they are being
    returned to Wales immediately.

    2. The refugees however claimed their dinghies were no longer seaworthy due to having too many leeks on board.

  50. Well, dear Nottlers, I have had a packed few hours! At 8pm last night my heavily pregnant daughter phoned to say that she was having contractions, but not to worry! First baby took a long time! We decided that I would come down anyway – just in case! Packed a small bag and left home about 9.15. Drove down M74 quite quickly, willing the police to stop me so I could stick two fingers up to the fishwife for being out of our zone! No such luck! Got here about 10.30 and things were moving! Finally got to bed after mignight, couldn’t sleep and when I did it was 5.15 and daughter and husband were off to hospital! Stayed up and at 9 am SiL phoned to say a little boy was here! His big sister, who is nearly 2, was not so impressed! Amazing feeling! So blessed and grateful again for the service! Although she will probably out this afternoon! Not like that in my day!

          3. I acquired 2 children as part of a package deal quite young (22?) and then we added 2 more – I’ve been poor and writing birthday cards ever since…

        2. I’ve got 5 and another on the way (due in February).

          Reminds me of the Irish grandmother who decided to go on the pill because she didn’t want any more grandchildren.

      1. Thank you sos! I see our determined granddaughter, in a year or so, leading her little gang of 3 (brother and twin cousins) into big trouble on the farm! Her doting grandparents will turn a blind eye!

        1. Not too blind an eye in a farmyard please Sue….

          In fact not a blind eye at all. Keep your distance if all’s well, but keep looking. I’ve been on a farm just after a fatal accident… and they are all too common.

          2. Yes of course! Her other grandpa has just been in to see if she wanted to go and feed the Blue Texels, but she’s still asleep! It will be a blind eye to her “in chargeness”!

          3. My eldest niece was, as we would say around here, “Taid’s girl” and would trot around “helping” whenever she could. There are lots of lovely things for farmyard youngsters to do (I should know, I was one), lets hope they all grow up safely.

    4. Congratulations to you and your family!! Grandchildren are a marvelous tonic, especially these days, hope all continues well!

    5. Another fellow conspirator in the war against your children!
      Think of all those sleepless nights and be free with the chocolate santas.
      Well done.

    11. Praise be. The next 20 years are the worst – for the parents; grandparents, on the other hand, just enjoy every minute.

    12. Good news? We don’t do good news any more. Congratulations though.

      Just wait until you try to drive home, that will be when the police stop you.

    4. It’s all righ’ for you wiv yer ‘and in yer pocke’, Bert, bu’ carryin’ 2 ‘eavy bags up this ‘ill is fair doin’ me in.

    5. No shopping trollies allowed ?
      Get yer ‘and outa yer pockit Bert and carry my ‘eavy bag !

  53. What really happened in Gordon Brown’s gold auctions in 1999 ?

    Why did Gordon Brown apparently deliberately depress the value of the UK’s gold he was selling by announcing the sale two months early and in a series of auctions which made the gold price particularly low for auction one.

    In view of the closeness of Blair and Soros following their conference in New York at the Plaza Hotel on April 20 1996 and the election funding and policy agreements likely to have resulted therefrom, one possible explanation might be as follows…….

    Was George Soros already shorting the gold market with inside information from Blair/Brown before the gold sale announcement ? Thereby resulting in a very substantial profit when later releasing the position. Was it a quid pro quo for election funding ?

    This would match the sale at a low price of 750 UK state buildings in 2000 by Blair to Soros which Soros immediately sold on for a very substantial profit……….

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2000/jul/31/5

    ….and it would also match Soros’ alleged insider trading arrangement with Obama in the US fiscal expansion 2009.

    So the ERM ? Was that an inside job too ?

      1. Tony, and Barack too, are apparently very keen on huge sums of money and it does look that George was only too happy to oblige !

  54. Last one !

    Was Tony Blair’s devolution plan a Soros inspired long term ploy to bring about a crash in the value of the Pound by destroying the UK which could be exploited by shorting and making yet another fortune ?

    Is the visit of Soros’ currency speculator supremo to Nicola Sturgeon an important clue ?

  56. If the ERM was an inside job, it would presumably have been several years in the making, and one of the essential elements would have been to remove Lady Thatcher as UK PM and install someone compliant to the scheme.

    Interestingly, all the individuals who were central to deposing Lady Thatcher were presumably present at Davos in January 1990, and Soros would have been there too.

    So was there a plot ?

    I guess we’ll never know for sure !

    1. It was the Conservative party, therefore by definition there were multiple plots.
      Thatcher’s opponents were the Tory left, and they are of course a perfectly ghastly collection of pussies, fake Tories, whiners and globalists.

      1. Paid off by Soros because he wanted the big prize of shorting the £ ?

        The motive is there for sure, imho.

  57. So here’s another cozy conspiracy theory……..

    Who runs Wales ?

    Is it the same person who apparently runs Scotland ?

    As is apparent by the visit to Edinburgh of George Soros’ #1 currency dealer and shorter Robert Johnson in 2017 ?

    Why would Robert Johnson be interested in meeting Nicola Sturgeon ?

    If the idea is to get Sturgeon to do what Soros wants as looks virtually certain imho, why not Drakeford too ?

    https://www.euractiv.com/section/economy-jobs/interview/johnson-i-was-hired-by-soros-for-black-wednesday/

    2. In a way it is. After all, they’re people and a label just creates division. However, by pushing the ‘black lives matter’ effort they reinforce and perpetuate that racism.

      I’d also bet they don’t see a problem with that moniker because it support their own ideology. As usual, Lefties prove themselves hypocrites.

          3. The Left have always enjoyed rewriting history. What I don’t understand is why they don’t make a film about Saladin.

  59. Meanwhile as we are distracted…………..

    “ The national inquiry into child abuse refused to investigate

    Britain’s most notorious sex-grooming scandals and barred key witnesses

    from giving evidence, it has been revealed.”“Victims and experts

    blamed the decision not to examine mass offending in Rotherham and

    Rochdale on a “cowardly” reluctance to look at a pattern of group crimes

    in which men of Pakistani heritage have been over-represented.”

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/child-abuse-inquiry-scared-of-racist-tag-nh2zcctwq
    Gutless gutless cowards,shame on them all
    Edit
    Full article no pay wall here
    https://archive.is/nnxXq

    1. They have nonetheless run up an astronomical bill – hundreds of millions – and the end is nowhere in sight.

    2. Long winded way of saying as they were all pakistani Muslims they didn’t want to get involved.

      That is racism.

    1. Some idiot just desecrated the tomb of the unknown warrior in Ottawa.

      Police have released a video of the idiot. All you can tell from the pictures is that he (probably) rides a bike and is probably white. What’s the point of surveillance cameras if they are so useless.

      Needless to say public uproar about the offense is non existent.

  64. 325860+ up ticks,
    Morning Each,

    In view of the latest threats a UK mantra should be taken up from every doorstep at a given time in regards to the islamic ideology followers as in
    OUT,OUT,OUT,

    ‘We Will Cut Your Head Off’: French Mayor Threatened in Wake of Teacher Beheading

  65. Apropos the Plague – I was looking at churches we may visit tomorrow as we are “risking” an outing. One is in Sedgeford. The blurb, written years ago, includes:

    “One of the most terrifying things I ‘d seen in a long time is the memorial gate. It remembers twenty people who died in a typhoid outbreak in this tiny parish in the mid-19th century. If such a thing happened in a western European village today, it would be headline news around the world.”

    Chap was obviously prescient…

        2. There is no way that herd immunity will be possible with the way this virus spreads. It could well be that herd is the way to go for the under fifties (or pick another age) but it needs the Swedish common sense approach to reduce the impact on oldies.

          Mother in law is safely locked away in a home. No visitors, staff only work there, ppe for all of the staff just like the supposed experts are suggesting.

          Despite that, in the last few days they have confirmed eight covid cases in the inmates.

          For the deniers, MIL is in her late nineties and was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer about a year ago so there are plenty of co morbidities to deny behind.

          1. I take it from your comment that you are quite content that the actions taken will damage far more lives than they help and that the economies of most countries in the world may well be ruined for years.

            I also supect that you are happy that the lockdowns will bring forward death for hundreds of thousands worldwide as they are prevented from getting necessary treatment

            You use the word “deniers” pejoratively in the same way that so many “science is settled” merchants do to try to belittle reasonable alternative opinions.

          2. You are making a lot of assumptions there, as always you are wrong.

            One thing I do wonder though is if instead of so much complaining and deliberately ignoring commandments, everyone had done the mask and distancing thing, would the controls have had an effect? I suspect some impact but nothing worth the effort.

          3. Masks, no. They’ve been shown to have little to no effect and can be harmful.
            Lockdowns have also been shown to have little effect on the trajectory of the virus within a population. The average age of CV19 death is 82, and the average age of life expectancy is 81. If people wish to shelter, fine, but it shouldn’t be compulsory, especially in care homes where who knows what goes on when visitors aren’t allowed in to check on their relatives.
            Visits can be managed with plenty of hand washing, cleaning of doors/handles, keeping a reasonable distance.
            At the end of this, if there is an end, which I’m starting to doubt with the way governments are behaving, I fully expect there to be more people dead as a direct result of all these lockdowns and withdrawal of healthcare, than from CV19.

          4. And everyone knows that for every study showing A, there is another study showing Not A.

            Hence my rhetorical question – if everyone had followed the commands, would it have been any different?

          5. Because some people had to work – to produce, transport and sell food, to care for other people etc. etc. then it is never going to be possible for everyone to do the distancing thing anyway – it simply isn’t possible.

            If everyone lived in a box and never had contact with anyone else then maybe no one would get sick – but would we still be people if we did that?

            If we hadn’t had a horrible scarcity of PPE and if we hadn’t moved a lot of sick people into homes with a lot of the most vulnerable people we would, almost certainly, have had fewer deaths; but I suspect, like you, that nothing else had a great deal of effect.

          6. You come on here, telling us that :
            There is no way that herd immunity will be possible with the way this virus spreads.

            Despite that, in the last few days they have confirmed eight covid cases in the inmates.

            For the deniers, MIL is in her late nineties and was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer about a year ago so there are plenty of co morbidities to deny behind.

            EDIT I accidentally posted before finishing the comment. It MUST be Covid that’s got me.
            The Governments around the Globe have locked down. What evidence is there that the effect on the spread was remotely worth the economic and health costs elsewhere?

            I would suggest that as always you are wrong.

          7. There seems little for MiL to be living for – pancreatic cancer is nasty and incurable. My mother had that but it was only discovered post mortem – until she went into hospital for ‘tests’ she was getting no treatment at all. She was wasting away and unable to eat anything.

            To be stuck in a home, with no visitors or anything but PPE-clad staff would seem to be a living death.

          8. Although it sounds heartless, we do wonder if CV might be a blessing in disguise.
            My mother had oesophegal cancer and it was the same, it took a lot of morphine to make her comfortable.

          9. No Richard. Heartless is not the impression you give, or not to anyone who can read between the lines as well as the words. You are helpless to change anything for her and you recognise that her life is no longer worthwhile to her (the only person who really matters in this scenario). All you can hope for now is a merciful end, sooner rather than later; and you shouldn’t be made to be ashamed or feel guilty about that sort of hope. Pneumonia used to be knows as “the old man’s friend” for that very reason – it’s not particularly pleasant, but it’s a damn sight quicker than a lot of the other things.

          10. They used to call flu “the old man’s friend” – I didn’t mean to sound heartless but in my MiL’s case, she was physically alive in her care home for several years before an eventual chest infection finished her off. She had been brain-dead for years.

            In my mother’s case, she was mentally alert but her pain was dismissed and she was unable to eat the hospital food. She went in for ‘tests’ and came out dead. They gave her no pain relief and I think she died in agony – I was about to go to see her when I got the call to say she’d suddenly died.

            Dementia and Alzheimers are listed as the biggest killers on the ONS, with cv19 well down the list. It’s such a cruel disease, robbing a person of their mental faculties to the extent they become brain-dead. I hope it won’t happen to me, but I think an infection, whatever it might be, is the kindest way out for them. You wouldn’t let an animal suffer like that.

    2. How patronising can you be. That female “scientist” really talked down to the couple and they didn’t deserve that. This is not a pandemic like no other, the ONS figures show it. The only way it is “like no other” is the overreaction to it

    3. Pro rata to the world’s total population the Hong Kong’s ‘flus of 1957 and 1968 killed far,far more people as a percentage than Corona Virus has.
      Population 1957 under 3 Billion.
      Population 1968 roughly 3.5 Billion
      Today roughly 7.5 Billion

  67. OT – a touch of perspective.

    You will recall the catastrophe in the Alpes-Maritimes three weeks ago. Here is an update:

    “Some good news for the villages of Haute Roya was announced on Friday, during a press conference, by Charles-Ange Ginésy, the president of the Department.

    “Access to Fontan should be completed at the end of next week. A lot of work is being done south of Breil-sur-Roya. And for Christmas, Saint-Dalmas, La Brigue and Tende will be accessible by road.”

    The networks will however be precarious. Strictly speaking, they will not be roads.

    La Roya is a funnel in which it is difficult today to fit large construction equipment. A dozen bridges were washed away. In the North, the situation of the Tende tunnel is very worrying for the future.

    Out of 1,974 assessments for all the valleys, 415 houses are at risk. 106 have been destroyed (classified as black level), 174 are in red (high damage level and access prohibited), and 136 in yellow (moderate damage level).

    In detail, 124 buildings or houses are in danger in Saint-Martin-Vésubie, 85 in Tende, 74 in Breil and 68 in Roquebillière (or 351 out of the 415 affected in only four municipalities). Then come 18 dwellings in danger in Saorge, 11 in Malaussène, 20 in Fontan, eight in Lantosque, two in La Bollène-Vésubie, and one in the municipalities of Ilonse, Pierrefeu, Venanson, Villars-sur-Var and La Tour-sur -Tinée.”

      1. we had some major flooding in Ottawa at least three or four years ago, some people are back home but others still have no prospects of their houses being made habitable. The council declaring the area a major flooding hazard coupled with the insurance companies denying liability is ruining many hopes for a happy ending. .

        1. Sounds familiar. Already, in the Alpes-Maritimes, the PB are saying that people were taking a risk building a house in what turned out to be a fatal situation. Though, of course, the very same PTB granted planning permission….

    1. How many trombetti do you get from each plant? Phil will be jealous
      ?
      they had a giant pumpkin weigh in in our little town last week. Two of the beasties weighed in at over 1,100 pounds. Carve those things out, add a few wheels and Cinderella would most certainly would have been able toddle off to the ball.

      Not that life is boring at the moment but the weigh in was broadcast live on our local radio station. Yawn!

      1. I suppose about 50 through the season. From each plant. We started with five – but one failed….and was removed.

        1. Bill, the scales were showing 7 so I assumed it was showing half a stone. 7 kg is actually 7 x 2.2 lbs or almost 15 and a half pounds.

          I’m getting a little tired, sorry, I don’t like myself when I get pernickety. Back to bed for me now then.

          3. And the worse thing is that birthdays appear to come round every three months, these days. I find the speed with which time passes really depressing.

  69. Alf is watching the rugby. Am I alone in thinking female commentators on men’s sports are not good? I find their voices very shrill.

    2. It’s not the shrill that got my goat, it’s the fact that she never seemed to shut up.

      I thought she was supposed to be the technical analyst, supporting the commentator.

      If they are any good, I want the one suited to the job, irrespective of their sex.

  70. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/abortion-has-effectively-banned-poland-britain-isnt-safe-either/

    Abortion has been effectively banned in Poland – and Britain isn’t safe either
    As a Polish court makes terminations in case of foetal abnormality illegal, Ann Furedi explains the wider impact

    You could argue that the life of the unborn child has been made safer!

    Abortion may have been banned in Poland; on the other hand abortion is legal right up until birth is imminent in France.

    Whose rights matter more: those of the mother who wants an abortion or the rights of the unborn child whose life, some would stress, began at conception?

    This is an emotive issue but the DT’s account presents only one side of the argument:

      1. There is no “unborn child” there is a foetus, entirely incapable of independent life, with no rights at all.

        No woman is forced to have a termination. No woman should be forced to have a child.

        There is no “other side” there is merely abuse of women.

        1. “No woman should be forced to have a child.”

          When the baby is viable or near term she should be made to have the baby otherwise the poor thing is murdered.

          1. No woman should be forced to have a child. There is no conditionality attached to that statement.

            Termination is quite clearly not permitted in this country after the foetus is fully viable – except in cases where it is likely to be severely disabled and, frankly, not viable for other reasons. Given that over 90% of UK terminations occur in the first trimester and 0.1% occur after 24 weeks the issue of “murder” – a ridiculously emotive term – really does not apply. Those women who have late terminations are, almost exclusively, those who have discovered late in pregnancy that their potential infant cannot live to term, or will only live for a few weeks or months after birth. One of the most common causes of late termination is Edwards syndrome – which remains 100% fatal (with an average life expectancy of less than one month) but which is often not detected in the early stages of pregnancy. Having seen babies with Edwards syndrome I would be inclined to suggest that it is infinitely more cruel to take them to term than it is to prevent that from happening.

            Yes there have been a vanishingly small number of cases where arguments about what constitutes severe disability arise – but they are just – a vanishingly small number.

          2. I have friends who had an Edwards baby. They didn’t discover until well into the pregnancy. Although they decided to go the full time, he was born dead.

          3. Pre-term death is quite common in Edwards. And diagnosis is frequently late. If ever there’s a case for late termination Edwards has to be a very good one… it is a horrible condition.

            I knew one young woman who went to term and they were able to donate the baby’s liver and kidneys when he died a week or so after his birth (infant size organs are not often available, so it seems like a good thing to do), but since some Edwards children can live (and suffer) for months there’s a question mark over making your own baby suffer for the sake of someone else’s…. There are no easy answers – and I don’t know anyone who has regarded termination (even in the early stages) as a simple thing to do.

          4. Do you maintain that should a woman nearing term decide she no longer wished to bear her child she is entitled to have it destroyed or, in the interests of humanity should she be forced to deliver it?

          5. What a crashingly ridiculous question. We have (as I have already stated) laws. You are simply trying to manufacture an argument which has no force at all. You are not succeeding.

          6. Thank you. Women then should not be permitted to end the pregnancy when they decide it should end?The Law makes a consideration of the value of the life within her and acts to protect it. At what stage do you consider the child is a child and deserves this respect for its only chance of life?

        2. “There is no “unborn child” there is a foetus, entirely incapable of independent life…”

          Which is only part of the story. Human young are nidicolous, which means they are still not much more than a fœtus (i.e. not fully developed) even after birth since they need constant care and attention from their mother.

          If humanity had been a more advanced life form it would bear nidifugous (precocial) young which would be effectively — to a great extent — much more self-sufficient from birth.

          1. On the contrary. It is the more advanced life forms which bear the most dependant infants – simply because those infants have to do so much more developing than those of the simpler life forms – and partly because, being more developed, humanity is more able to care for dependant infants.

            However, in the circumstances I chose not to tangle with the post-birth situation. I don’t think that anyone is recommending infanticide though the adage of “thou shalt not kill, but needst not strive officiously to keep alive” may still come into play at times.

        3. Umm, it’s a bit personal but what is a termination? The morning after pill? Contraceptives?

          1. As I understand it, a termination is the removal (medically or surgically) of an implanted foetus – complete with a placenta.

            Contraception is definitely prevention rather than termination and given the time sequence below it could well be argued that the morning after pill is also prevention. It certainly prevents any possibility of implantation.

            Conception (when the egg is fertilized by the sperm) can take place as soon as three minutes after sex or it may take up to five days. Implantation (when the fertilized egg attaches to the uterine wall) occurs five to 10 days after fertilization—which means it can happen anywhere from five to 15 days after you had sex

          2. The morning after pill is not a termination or abortion. It prevents conception from taking place, hence its proper term of emergency hormonal contraception. It can be taken up to three days after unprotected sex, depending on stage in the woman’s cycle so the ‘morning after’ name really is misleading

    2. A very, very difficult subject.
      I thought a lot about “What if Second Son was going to be born badly disables and we were offered abortion?” (fortunately, thank God, only hypothetical), what would I do about it? And, for about the only time in my life, I couldn’t decide, it was too difficult. Too emotional, as well. I’d hate to have to decide for real.

      1. When I was very small our neighbours had a very severely disabled baby; he simply couldn’t cope with seeing the child every day and she struggled to care for an infant who required 24 hour attention along with a very active toddler. Eventually the poor mite was left in a hospital of some sort (hospices hadn’t happened at that point). She almost broke herself in two over it and the infant died, alone, before his third birthday. Termination wasn’t an option in the early 1960s, but I fail to see whose life was improved (least of all that of the unfortunate child) by what happened to that family.

        Years later I sat with a friend whose husband had just told her he would leave if she carried a seriously abnormal pregnancy to term, whilst she agonised over what to do for the best. I managed to do nothing but listen and respond with sympathy – it wasn’t my choice.

        I’ve seen and known families with Edwards syndrome children. Knowing that the child will, inevitably die, and exhausted with caring; but still loving and sure that they made the right choice to carry on.

        It has to be personal, but it has to be a choice which, in the end comes down to the woman carrying the foetus – especially if the father (and they often do) opts out.

        Sorry, disqus is playing up and I posted this accidentally before it was complete.

        1. I have seen families whose whole life has revolved round a severely disabled child. I worry about the able siblings who may be pushed into the background, or at least have only the spasmodic attention of tired and over-wrought parents.

          1. My eldest great-nephew has a chromosomal abnormality and a host of problems. Yet his would be classed as a minor disability.

            His mother gave up her profession and both parents do a lot with him – but he slips, continuously, further behind his cohort. And his mother is permanently exhausted.

            My sister and brother-in-law moved when they retired and are now near to my parents and my niece and between helping out the old folk they do as much as they can with the young – but even devoted grannies can only do so much.

            They had no idea that there was a problem until he was several months old and having him they wouldn’t want to lose him – but they worry, desperately, about whether he will be able to live independently when he is older and, in the meantime, the struggle to do everything right for him and for his bright, active, elder sister who loves him too, but sometimes struggles with the fallout.

          2. My brother has severe autism. He lives in a sheltered unit with support in a small flat of his own. He runs his own small business – the wife does his accounts and I do his contracts and he does the programming side of it. His clients are regluars and are aware of his condition but still take him on.

            As regards whether he can live a normal life – much depends on what you call normal. Self sufficient? Not really. Shopping is very hard for him and he cannot cope with super markets – too bright, too big, too much choice, too much movement and change. He cannot conceive of idiocy like ‘bills’, for example so doesn’t have any.

            I’ve visited when he’s little more than a screaming mess and a 6 foot tubby man is more dangerous to himself than anyone else but you wait, quietly until he’s done dealing with the frustration his brain cannot cope with that we all sigh and roll our eyes at. It’s just a more extreme response.

            We tried to cook him meals but say we used Cumberland’s instead of Lincolnshire’s – he wouldn’t eat it. Routine, consistency and method are a way of stamping control on an chaotic world. Honestly I share some of that myself.

            Yet he keeps his home immaculately tidy. He washes and cleans without issue. My only fear for him is loneliness but unlike you or I he has little concept of it. My own sadness is he’ll never get to know Junior until he (Junior) is older and better aware of his circs. Neither would understand. To end on a high, my Brother was best man at my wedding. We did lots of practicing with friends and he looked mostly at the floor but he was there, in that role.

          3. I am glad that your brother has achieved something as near to a balance as possible in his living arrangements, I hope your son will appreciate his uncle when he is old enough to understand (as far as anyone can) his condition.

            I think that parents always worry, at least to some degree, about their children and where those children have obvious difficulties they worry more. When the child is young, naturally, they do whatever they can to help them to gain independence – at least as far as it is possible to do so – whilst accepting that it may not be possible.

            I was careful not to use the word “normal” – except in the term “chromosomal abnormality” because either that or “chromosomal deletion” is the medical term for his condition. Because there are so many different bits of gene which can go missing children with chromosomal deletions are very unlikely to find anyone else with their own particular “dropped stitch” and the ability to detect which “stitch” it is is still fairly recent. For this reason prognosis is difficult/well nigh impossible. It is likely that many of these children failed to survive in earlier generations; the catch-all term “failure to thrive” probably covered a lot of their deaths because feeding difficulties of one sort or another are a common factor for many of them. My niece belongs to a support group for parents of such children – and does some fund-raising for them – and comparing notes with other parents helps her to cope.

            He’s a lovely, lively, little lad but he has both emotional and physical problems and day to day care is just hard work at present; the fact that he doesn’t seem to need more than half a night’s sleep but finds it almost impossible to sleep alone is a major issue when it comes to parental tiredness.

    3. A child has right to life. That is, I think, the secular argument. The future of society needs to be secured. This is why homosexual societies are so futile.
      The US is riven on this, as the nub of the argument is to declare that a child is an American citizen from the moment of conception and therefore fully protected by the Constitution. This aligns with the Catholic view. We are made by God to serve Him and be with Him forever.
      There is an aesthetic argument and that is that the “pro choice” crowd are hysterical harridans. They do not have the courage to state plainly that they are in favour of dismembering children in the womb.
      Significant numbers of women use abortion as a form of birth control, as evidenced by the numbers having more than one abortion (based on statistics for Scotland).
      Oh, and think about history, who would have been killed in the womb, bearing in mind that abortion on demand has little to do with attributes of the baby, but the so-called “mental health” of the mother?

      1. The Catholic view may change as witness the blessing of homosexual civil unions recently. Never thought I’d see the day. I’m not Catholic but have always admired the stance that a man marries a woman.

        1. Well, the Pope is not a Catholic, apparently, and the civil union thing is unacceptable to the orthodox.

    4. The rights of the mother outweigh those of the unborn child which is dependent on her.

      1. The unborn foetus Stormy, there is, prior to birth, no child.

        The over-emotive blether about “dismembering children in the womb” is just that – blether. Over 90% of UK terminations occur in the first trimester and more than half of UK terminations are medical not surgical.

        The mother is the only person involved.

    5. This is basically stopping people aborting DS babies isn’t it? Other abortions will be unaffected.

  72. Just seen that it is twenty to wine – and it is practically dark. Tomorrow, dagnabbit, it WILL be dark. I hate this time of year. Dark mornings; dark evenings. Ugh.

    1. Prefer the clocks not to go back, we lose so much light . Mind you it’s cosy with the curtains
      closed with a glass of red wine after dinner in front of a roaring fire.

      1. The light’s just the same, just gets less each day. You could get up the same time as today, and go to bed the same, but it’s dark by six pm regardless.
        When I was working and getting up at 6am, for several more weeks it meant getting up almost in daylight instead of the middle of the night (or so it felt). The evenings were dark by the time I got home either way. Without the clocks changing, the mornings would be horribly dark for so much longer, nearly half the year. I’m not a morning person, perhaps you can tell.

      2. I prefer the clocks never to go forward. That way we get used to the sun going down at the right geographical time.

  73. Ha ha ha.

    The Oirish deliberately tried to keep the game going so that they could improve their points difference.
    Boy, did that backfire.

    I hope it costs them the title.

    2. The Irish achieved their pre-match objective: to score four tries and thereby win a bonus point. That puts them ‘top of the table’ in the Six Nations Championship.

      To repeat that performance in Paris next week would win the Championship; that is virtually impossible,

      2. I’ve just seen the kick off times for next week.

        The French and Irish will know beforehand exactly what they need to do.

    3. Good grief – are they playing? This year’s tournoi – next year’s?

      What is point?

      1. Completion of this year’s Championship, Bill – interrupted by Covid-19 in February this year.

  74. First time I’ve come across this blog,man’s a Nottler at heart…..

    “The most depressing aspect of the Coronavirus is not the collapse of the

    economy or even being locked up at home. It is the way in which this

    not particularly serious disease has shown us to be a nation of nosy

    puritans, gutless serfs and scowling proles, with a mean and vicious

    streak itching to express itself by reporting our neighbours to the

    police, or just by indulging in plain ordinary nastiness.”

    https://pissedofftoff.com/diary/diary-6-a-tv-series-with-no-black-actors/

    1. Hmm. That blog reminds me strongly of a couple of people I knew at Oxford. Could have been written by either one of them except that the writer appears to have been an undergraduate in the mid 80s.

    1. If I see his name in a headline – I don’t read. If I come across his name half-way down the page I stop reading. I do wish that the journalists would realise that he’s a very clever mathematician – but one who knows absolutely nothing about anything to which the numbers might be attached.

          1. And I only stopped reading when I had already satisfied myself (OK it was 19 years ago, but he hasn’t changed) that he was completely lacking in gumption.

          2. I am still amazed that he retained any credibility except amongst the the credulous, after the foot and mouth debacle.

            Politicians, what does one expect.

            }:-((

      3. Unless it’s an article itemising all his past predictions and how far from the actual outcomes they were, i.e. astronomically, criminally wrong. Like foot and mouth and CV19. With luck, someone will eventually put that on his gravestone.

        1. Why would I bother to read such an article? I already know how astronomically and criminally wrong he’s been.

      4. I read the report about his modelling, and even emailed some questions to him, quite politely. No answers.
        His model is, it appears, not verified. No description as to where the data comes from; no sensitivity studies on the outcome; no limitations. Put it this way, I’d not accept it as a justification to accept the design of an oil rig, let alone as input to serious strategy decisions affecting a whole nation.
        Contrast the Norwegian FHI model. The paper was published by a red-top newspaper, and answers the questions I have for Ferguson on data and validation – hell, the daily hospitalisations were shown daily against the model, based on 3 values of R number, so you could see how it was progressing, and the effect of lockdown.
        Why anyone at all even reports what that man has for breakfast, I don’t know, but if he is still influencing government, then you are all well screwed.

        2. I can’t help thinking that what he has for breakfast might be more interesting – and, at the very least, less harmful.

        3. You are right. His modelling was never peer reviewed. How he has so much influence is a mystery. TPTB don’t seem to listen to anyone with a different opinion. More’s the pity. However the very low number of deaths should have woken them all up by now. Seems to be wilful ignorance with us the sufferers.

        4. He supposedly resigned from advising the government – he shouldn’t have been allowed within a thousand miles of the government after the F&M debacle – and presumably still mouths off for attention.

        5. I read the Daily Mail article about this.

          Talk about accepting failure when they got the healthcare. There was no “it will be difficult”, no “we need to take action”, all they came up with was words to the effect that they expect operations and are to be cut back. Ah well, just carry on.
          .

  79. That’s me for the last day of daylight – until March. Or so it will seem.

    Have a jolly evening – and remember to do something to your clocks.

    A demain – I hope (a gale is forecast overnight).

    1. Sweden is the “elephant in the room.”

      I think it’s a good cartoon, I usually like BoB’s efforts.

    2. I thought that the media and experts had decided that the Swedish experience should be ignored, therefore it gets no discussion let alone consideration.

      If only the climate change doomgoblin received the same treatment.

      1. I think it is probably significant that the cartoonists are, as ever, outliers. Perhaps editors are permitting the cartoonists more leeway because they are aware that the “party line” isn’t really working.

  82. Don’t forget, clocks go back tonight an extra hour of lockdown or lockdoon in Scotland or Llanfairpwll-gwyngyllgogerychwyrndrob-wllllantysiliofuckinglockdowngogogoch in Wales

    1. Saint Mary’s Church in the hollow of the white hazel near the rapid whirlpool of covid Dai-O’Rhoea and the Church of Saint Tysilio of the red cave of Fergufraud’s stuffed us.

    2. If one goes shopping, just as the clocks change, and one clears the non-essential aisles of all the booze, does one escape Scot free because it never happened?

        1. We neither lose, nor gain, an hour. We simply call the same hour by a different name and pretend.

    1. That should be a cautionary tale – but they still use this test which clearly is ineffective.

    2. Presumably the pirates were not of the ‘yet to be’ (or perhaps they were) Moorish Barbary coast.

    3. Life affirming is when they can find 2 black lesbians preferably the result of gender change both with artificial limbs newly arrived in dinghies and lodging with that tw@t Lineker.

      3. Her Majesty has to get a vote. Still doing a good job (shame about the family apart from Anne) in her nineties has to be appreciated.

        1. Indeed, Con. For me she is the most remarkable and admirable woman (or person in fact) of my lifetime.

  91. Just love the name of the programme on BBC 1 now. It’s onomatopoeic – Pointless Celebrities.

      1. Hello daughter. Nice to see you again.
        I do ignore them I only saw it in the listings. Watching Helicopter ER.
        Tipping down with heavy rain here. Likely to continue for a few more hours.

    2. I think it is a great title, and I suspect chosen deliberately, where they could have gone for Celebrity Pointless like Celebrity Mastermind.

    1. But 13 hours since it was 9 o’clock this morning…

      Some people don’t find it easy to sleep unless they leave the screen a while before they actually go to bed.

  94. Just when you thought the race-baiting cretins had reached peak fuckwit……..

    Oh no,another mountain range beckons………

    “Unknown Warrior likely to be white soldier because of ‘bias’, research suggests

    The National Army Museum suggested bias may have influenced the

    selection of the body whose remains were interred at Westminster Abbey”

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/10/24/unknown-warrior-likely-white-solider-bias-research-suggests/
    Who ARE these people????
    I’m calling it a night,beyond civility now and a couple of glasses in

    1. What proportion of the British forces 1914-18 were actually black? The chances of picking a white body when any body, rather than specifically looking for a particular colour, was the idea would be odds on, I would have thought.

    1. I was always intrigued by NEWD – Night Exercise Without Darkness – although it does make sense when you think about it!

        1. A filmmaker’s term meaning “Day for Night” – shot in the daylight and, with filters and other processes, appearing as a night scene.

          PS – With my Peddy hat on, Bill, it’s “Truffaut”.

        1. TEWT – Tactical Exercise Without Troops
          FIBUA – Fighting In Built Up Areas (or as we would call it FISH – Fighting In Somef*cker’s House)

  98. Evening, all. If the truth were ever to be known, probably those lives lost through not being able to get treatment for life-threatening diseases like cancer will outnumber those actually lost to Covid alone, never mind those whose isolation due to lockdown led them to suicide.

    1. I notice they only ever say a test for coronavirus then call it Covid. I don’t think there is a specific test for Covid but am prepared to be proved wrong.
      Those infections will include the common cold and other coronaviruses.

      1. That’s what I think. They will pick up any cold or ‘flu virus, but then they’ll call it Covid.

  99. Good morning to Our Susan, to whom we wish very Many Happy Returns.

    Have as good as a day as you can.

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