Tuesday 27 October: The frightening ease with which Wales imposed arbitrary restrictions

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/2020/10/27/lettersthe-frightening-ease-wales-imposed-arbitrary-restrictions/

607 thoughts on “Tuesday 27 October: The frightening ease with which Wales imposed arbitrary restrictions”

  1. Wales’s Covid competence is inspiring many of us to thoughts of independence. 27 October 2020.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/126b18dc5fb1cbb83459054f57c48b7edae919344e39dfab4df75fc740a11142.png

    Speaking to friends and family in Wales, most people feel the Welsh government knows what it is doing. It is following the scientific advice from its own Technical Advisory Cell, as well as from experts on the UK’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage). That is not to say that restrictive lockdowns are easy on anyone – small businesses are worried they will not survive – but there is faith that the government has the best interests of the people at heart and is doing what it can to bring case numbers down. Compliance with measures such as mask-wearing has been high, adding to a feeling of collective dedication to the nation’s wellbeing.

    As a Welsh person on the other side of the border, I can’t help but feel a bit jealous of my loved ones still living there. It must be nice to have a government you trust, which collaborates with other parties and with the public, and communicates through clear, carefully considered announcements. The lockdown may be restrictive – and will certainly be experienced differently in Cardiff and Swansea than it will in the Valleys or the villages of Snowdonia – but wherever you are in Wales, you can be sure the scientific advice is being followed. In England, people do not have that luxury. The Tories looked at the same advice, and rejected it.

    Morning everyone. God almighty! Self-delusion carried over into psychosis!

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/27/wales-covid-competence-inspiring-independence-trust

    1. Morning Minty, now how did I know which MSM rag featured this letter, way before I reached the end and saw the link

    2. 🎶
      “Corona crossed
      The Bristol Channel;
      Drakeford uttered total flannel;
      Plod deployed
      To local chapel …..
      Let’s close Cymru down …..”

      “We’ll keep a welcome in the hillsides …..
      Both your brain cells will be safe.
      We’ll keep a welcome in the hillsides
      ‘Till … lockdown starts to chafe ….”

    5. The real horror is that this is generally accepted as the norm. Those of us who have read different scientific advice, or just considered the diameter of the holes in the fabric of masks, know that the lockdown is a hoax, even if the disease is not.

    6. And when the SMEs go bust but the numbers still don’t fall, will you be so complacent then?

  3. The ease in which free democratic nation states imposes lockdowns and turn into the CCP suggests that there must have been a lot of planning beforehand.

  5. ‘Morning All

    The usual riots in Philly after “he dindu nuffin” gets himself shot

    The comments are breathtaking in their ignorance and stupidity

    https://twitter.com/TNHTalk/status/1320849074552274944
    I actually blame tv&film for a lot of this nonsense,let me share a few range lessons from the owner and chief firearms instructor of two forces in Florida
    “Why is the target only 15 feet away”
    “Because 90% of confrontations between armed felons (knife/gun) and police happen at 15 feet or less”
    “This is self defence shooting why did you have me fire 8 rounds”
    “Because if you’re in a situation where you have to open fire you keep shooting until the subject goes down,the 9mm is not a manstopper especially if you suspect drink/drugs are involved”
    “What’s the rule of ten feet??”
    “If a felon with a knife gets inside ten feet with malicious intent you ARE going to get cut or stabbed even if you have a gun on him. Don’t allow it”
    Now view the footage again……………
    3 clear warnings to put the knife down and still advances on the officers, got exactly what he deserved

    1. Firstborn has that magic old revolver, a 1926 Webley, in .455 Webley Mk 6. Bullet like an oil drum, weight like a truck. Definitely a manstopper, and if necessary, a very effective club.

    2. The bodycam footage will be interesting and will probably exonerate the police officers.
      Unfortunately, it will not be released until after the ensuing riots have caused several million dollars worth of damage.

  7. Hooray, eat that Democrats.

    Amy Coney Barrett was sworn in as a Supreme Court justice on the White House South Lawn in front of Donald Trump by Clarence Thomas Monday night – an hour after a divided Senate voted for her confirmation.

      1. 325916+ up ticks,
        Morning Bob,
        Batten has been warning of it for years rhetorically & in book form
        only to be set up, stitched up,
        ridiculed & castigated along with TR, and so it has ALL come to pass……..

    2. “It hasn’t changed in 1400 years & it isn’t going to.”

      You would be surprised at how many Arab Muslims wish it would change. There are many in positions to make changes, including some at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo, but their proposals are drowned out by a minority of belligerent bigots with their malevolent threats.

      A Saudi Lawyer, Dr. Khaled AlNowaiser, after the death of Steve Jobs of Apple, bravely pointed out the limitations of Islam on modern life as a result of it’s philopsophy being steeped in the distant past.

      Here is a précis of what he said:

      Why can’t the Islamic world produce a person as brilliant and generous as Steve Jobs? Let me suggest six reasons why we may not be able to do so.

      Our curriculums are sterile and outdated and are unable to produce persons of the caliber of a Steve Jobs. Why is this so? Because these curriculums fail to value or embrace the disciplines that are vital for our modern times, sciences like mathematics, chemistry, physics, philosophy and logic, which have been disregarded and replaced by religious subjects. A nation cannot progress if it uses an educational system whose main focus is religion and in which secular pursuits are not given any importance.

      Secondly, Islamic nations praise the abstract at the expense of the concrete, that is, they believe in the unknown and disregard reality by permitting religion to dominate all aspects of scientific inquiry. When all sorts of freedoms, sciences, inventors and innovators are suppressed and restrained, we are left with those scientists who specialize in the fields of menstruation, nifaas (bleeding after childbirth), halal, and haram.

      Thirdly, Islamic countries are obsessed by angels and demons, God and Satan. If something fails, then its failure is due to the fact that God has decided that it is not meant to be, or Satan and his devilish schemes have caused it to fail. Conversely, if it succeeds, then this is God’s plan and the result of prayer to keep Satan away. We rely too much on all things intangible and insubstantial, remaining in ignorance.

      Fourthly, the religious speech in Islamic countries tells us not to be impressed or admire the lives of other peoples, peoples who have struggled against cancer, walked on the moon and invaded outer space, peoples whose fleets roam the seas and whose aircraft rule the skies. While they have the ability and freedom to do what they please, we go to them in mourning like orphans, searching for medical cures, using their cars and airplanes, and continue to criticize them day in and day out in secret and in public, although we use all of their tools and inventions. How hypocritical!

      Fifthly, we can see that Islamic nations have used lame and illogical excuses to push art aside and intentionally hide it from their people. All kinds of art such as music, theater, painting, and sculpture have been de-emphasized or completely disregarded.

      Finally, Islamic nations generally tend to dwell in the past at the expense of the present and the future and thus become prisoners of an outmoded way of thinking. Times change, challenges arise, and innovators respond and adapt. So must countries.

      As far as I am aware, his head is still attached to the rest of his person!

    1. “Misogynst”? I don’t know what is worse: their vile attitude or their atrocious spelling.

      1. Grizzly, appalling though “their’ spelling is, you have to realise that “they” are Trump supporters, making the point that those who accuse Trump of racism and misogynism are themselves hypocrites.

        1. That fact is not clear on the poster, Else. I took it from Rik’s comment that it was designed (and posted) by a Leftard.

  12. Well spotted, John Stewart!

    SIR – While I have every sympathy with any parent who can’t afford to feed their children, I find it astonishing that so many in Britain apparently find themselves in this position. I thought the problems were that 63 per cent of all adults are overweight or obese, and that UK households throw 4.5 million tons of food away every year.

    John Stewart
    Terrick, Buckinghamshire

      2. For a moment I thought she had eaten the cupboard door as well…but it is just visible (for now). And her hair is a built-in form of high viz…

  13. Chernobyl hooked UK viewers more than any other drama, finds research. 26 October 2020.

    Chernobyl was the drama series that British viewers were most likely to watch to the end, according to research that attempts to work out exactly which television shows get viewers hooked and which simply benefit from first-episode hype.

    Even though most people watching the drama about the 1986 nuclear disaster in the Ukraine probably had an idea of how the story ended, almost all of them watched to the very end of the critically lauded Sky Atlantic series.

    A classic. I have it on DVD. It is, probably inadvertently, one of the best anti-communist programmes ever made. Not because of the melt down but for its depiction of life in a totalitarian state where every decision had to be subordinated and justified to the prevailing ideology. This requirement, enforced by fear, played no small part in bringing on the catastrophe!

    https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/oct/26/chernobyl-hooked-uk-viewers-more-than-any-other-drama-finds-research

  16. Modern Life Laff

    In an inspiring story from the world of professional cycling, a
    motorcyclist who identifies as a bicyclist has crushed all the regular
    bicyclists, setting an unbelievable world record.

    In a local qualifying race for the World Road Cycling League, the
    motorcyclist crushed the previous 100-mile record of 3 hours, 13 minutes
    with his amazing new score of well under an hour.

    Professional motorcycle racer Judd E. Banner, the brave trans-vehicle rider, was
    allowed to race after he told league organizers he’s always felt like a
    bicyclist in a motorcyclist’s body.

    “Look, my ride has
    handlebars, two wheels, and a seat,” he told reporters as he accepted a
    trophy for his incredible time trial. “Just because I’ve got a little
    extra hardware, such as an 1170-cc flat-twin engine with 110 horsepower,
    doesn’t mean I have any kind of inherent advantage here.”

    Banner also said he painted the word “HUFFY” on the side of his bike, ensuring
    he has no advantage over the bikes that came out of the factory as
    bicycles.

    Some critics say he needs to cut off his motor in
    order to make the competition fairer, but he quickly called these
    people bigots, and they were immediately banned from professional cycle
    racing.

    1. Apart from his idiotic comment,”To be fair to the police (for once), even they’re baffled by the latest insane rules coming out of central Government.”
      If the police don’t know why they are doing it, or what they are doing, or how to do it, they should not be doing it.
      The “insane rules” would require every policeman to be trained in calorie content, portion sizes, nutritional values and the like as well has having to be equipped with portable measuring apparatus including kitchen scales, measuring jug, rulers, hydrometer, thermometer, calorie requirement calculator, and a chart indicating the relative interpretation of “substantial” in relation to the size, weight, sex and age of the person for whom the meal is intended as well as considerable training in its use.
      The alternative is to conscript all the nutritionists in the UK and enrol them in special police Fast Response Meal Assessment Flying Squads. (Obviously assessments have to be made before the evidence is eaten.)

    1. I know some one from council planning that was at the meeting (chaired by Kahnt) where the ‘National Institute for Medical Research’ Building was being discuss in London. The Iconic building had a lot of history, the construction was started before WW2 and put on hold until the war was over it was opened late very 40s very early 50s. For the purpose of new housing due to too many people now moving into north London the plans had been passed to demolish all the out buildings and refurbish the large main building, turning it in to apartments and flats.
      the proposal for demolition was submitted for debate and that subversive little shit took less than two minutes to decide it was to be demolished.
      Not for getting when he became mayor of London thousands of Jewish people did not get their ballot papers delivered to their homes, due to ‘an admin’ error.
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Institute_for_Medical_Research

        1. I’ve never seen that ariel shot before, thanks for that. I grew up almost in the shadow of that iconic building , Th whole roof was green it was made of coper sheeting.
          They had a squash court in the basement i use to play there sometimes.
          Because of all the recent building in the area, Barnet council put in for planning permission to build a 50 mega watt gas fired power station just out of camera shot around half a mile away on the right hand side of the building. There was an army ( Inglis) barracks and a lot of land, about a mile south and the the whole of the area has been built over. Mainly to accommodate recent arrivals. Mill Hill was once a fairly liberal to left of centre conservative area. That little shit has been Garnering more votes for his hate filled left wing.

        2. I sent that to my very old mate and my childhood next door neighbour. His uncle was a carpenter and joiner at the building he was in charge of all woodwork and it’s subsequent maintenance. He also made ‘cages’ for most of the animals that were used in the clinical trials. Sometimes on still evenings we could hear dogs howling for hours.
          One of the professors use to frequent the Adam and Eve pub just a stone throw away on the opposite side of the road. I can’t remember his full name but he became Sir Peter.

    1. A very cynical me suggests that millions of white girls go out looking ‘for it’..

      Looking at any high street in Britain, it appears to me that mixed relationships are on trend , as are their babymaking habits.

      1. 325916+ up ticks,
        Morning TB,
        Yes, very cynical, there have always been girls of a mercenary
        nature, easiest route to a lifestyle inclusive of anything goes, a child becomes a form of revenue, two are twice as good.

        Then you have the Jay report.

        26 Aug 2014 — Prof Jay’s report describes the abuse as “appalling” and says it included the rape of girls as young as 11 by “large numbers of male perpetrators”.

        1. I also believe the sexual abuse of young girls and boys is more than appalling, it is a down right outrage

          I am just shrugging my shoulders now , because the authorities have allowed these foreigners to grab bits of young flesh with out any repercussions. Having said that, it is not only foreigners who molest and abuse young flesh , society has gone rotten to the core.

          The BBC are grooming their younger audiences as are the commercial TV channels by showing approval for interracial relationships.

      2. That is the approach taken by the police to justify, to themselves, their condoning these appalling crimes. It is important to remember that society set the age for statutory rape at 16 to protect the daft, innocent, thoughtless children.

        1. Was it Harriet Harman, backed up by Patricia Hewitt, who not only supported PIE (Paedophiles Information Exchange) but also wanted the ago sexual consent to be lowered to 12?

      3. Many of those underage girls were ‘easy meat’ because they came from homes where the parents couldn’t cope, or they were in care. Some of them thought their Asian’boyfriends’ loved them. They were deprived of a decent upbringing and that’s what they got. You should never blame a child for the abuse she has suffered.

      4. I have thought that, too, but as a society we should be protecting these girls from themselves. And why they feel the need to ‘advertise’ themselves as they do is part of our problem. As a society we are selfish and uncaring. This begs the question why? This would lead us to many government policies. Again, the question why? (these policies). And In the answer therein, lies the root of the problem.

        1. Morning poppiesmum.

          Do you think that precocious behaviour almost starts in infancy.. Young mothers don’t appear to treat their babies as babies, women regard their young daughters as mini me’s.

          We see that represented in the media and in the high street, don’t we.

          Clothing companies provide some terrible tarty clothing for youngsters, popular music is sexually suggestive, and make up,jewelry and body piercings are so tarty ..

          I don’t think girls are taught to value the private places on their bodies sufficiently .. and if they were shown the most horrible sexual health film that all of us who were student nurses were made to watch and discuss.. , well, I am saying no more..

          Sadly, basic carnal instincts appear to be the driver!

          1. Good morning Belle – yes, I agree. And early sexuality is encouraged and worshipped by the state to break the bonds of family. Sex us being used as a battering ram to aid our nation’s destruction from within, one of the many tools at their disposal.

            As a teenager back in the sixties I recall ‘the Russians’ taunting us about our decadent society. I couldn’t understand it, what did they mean, we had freedom or so I thought. I can see now, of course, what they meant and that our freedom was an illusion, part of the process of our manipulation.

          2. Exactly .. Freedom was an illusion .

            I am embarassed to say I was still in ankle socks untill I was over 16 years of age !

            Much later on I became an anxious slave to my stockings and how frequently they laddered!

            Then came the mini skirt .. freezing and really an absolute pain!

          3. Even worse now than in our day are the pressures of ‘social meejah’ on young girls – sexting and shaming them, sending intimate pics to ‘friends’. No wonder some of them end up committing suicide at an early age.

      5. I cannot believe that any girl goes out “looking for it”. I think that they are vulnerable one way or another and are easily picked on by unscrupulous mostly Pakistani men, flattered, given alcohol and cigarettes and all sorts of presents, and then have to “give something in return”. And it goes on from there. I think there will always be a certain number of parents who probably never should have had children or who just cannot cope but plenty of girls go around wearing very short skirts (back to the 60s?) who are perfectly decently brought up. No girl deserves to be treated as the Rotherham, Rochdale etc. girls have been. It beggars belief that the Home Office at the time actually told Police Forces not to prosecute the perpetrators but to ignore complaints made to them. I don’t think anybody in the authorities has ever been prosecuted for not doing their job.

      1. 325916+ up ticks,
        Morning OLT,
        The innocent forerunner of many more to come before the day is out, methinks.

        1. Good morning, ogga

          Have you read Douglas Murray’s book The Strange Death of Europe? If not I think you would find it very interesting.

  21. Good morning all.
    Soaking wet weather here this morning , breeze and leaves cascading down onto the garden.

    I can access the DT letters this morning .. I found this one amusing.

    Hello Kitty
    SIR – I read recently that the feline equivalent of a smile is a slow blink.

    In view of the ubiquity of face coverings, is this something that humans could adopt in order to lighten the depressing mood in public places? Or could there be better alternatives?

    Fred Sommers
    Eversley, Hampshire.

    I have noticed people do try hard to smile with their eyes whilst masked up.

  23. Ok, so now let’s have a think about how it likely works for dodgy politicians who eagerly write their autobiographies and then get huge advances for books very few people want to read…..

    Simple answer !

    Big money people order vast numbers of books in advance so that the publisher is assured a profit and the dodgy politician gets his/her laundered reward for selling policy and legislation while in office to the big money people.

    Beautiful mega dollar book deals, no wonder so many politicians want to get published!

    1. And where did the money come from to pay Evila Traita-May vast sums to lecture to empty halls in America?

  24. Sewer Repacement Project: Report from Day #1
    Garden fences demolished, posts pulled up, for digger access.
    Some kind of base cloth laid over the grass (hesitate to call it a “lawn”), down the hill to the neighbours garden (Our garden is two flattish areas linked by a 45 degree slope about 2 m high), and there’s a cliff of about 4 m height between our garden and neighbour’s. Gravel then tipped over the cloth and smoothed out by the Volvo digger.
    Flatbed truck arrives and lifts neighbours garden shed, puts it on our gooseberry bushes. 🙁
    Digger walks slowly down the hill and climbs into the bottom garden, by use of the bucket arm as a support. Quite balletic, really.
    Scrapes away the topsoil & starts digging.
    By 15:30, when the finished, a huge hole by the wall of her apartment, exposing the basement wall and a pile of broken pipes.
    Summary: More progress than I expected in the day. This is good. The cats I kept in, but they didn’t seem to care about the whirring and scraping outside, they only slept on the sofa.
    Back to check on house & cats after work today.
    I’ll try & post pictures, but phone not co-operating just now.
    Exciting, if you like that kind of thing.

    1. Beware….Macavity is described as being a ginger cat…

      T. S. Eliot, “Macavity: The Mystery Cat”,
      Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats

      Macavity’s a Mystery Cat: he’s called the Hidden Paw –
      For he’s the master criminal who can defy the Law.
      He’s the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad’s despair:
      For when they reach the scene of crime – Macavity’s not there!

      And they say that all the Cats whose wicked deeds are widely known
      (I might mention Mungojerrie, I might mention Griddlebone)
      Are nothing more than agents for the Cat who all the time
      Just controls their operations: the Napoleon of Crime!

      1. Well, I thought (unoriginally) of Ginger and Pickles. Ginger was just too obvious. But Pickles was quite apt as the larger of the two was already being inquisitive and play fighting etc. Gus was Carolyn’s idea – a diminutive of Caesar Augustus!

        As I type they are enabling me to waste even more time!

        1. I have never understood the Puritan work ethic, whereby sitting and watching something one enjoys is wasting time.

        2. I have never understood the Puritan work ethic, whereby sitting and watching something one enjoys is wasting time.

          2. Like Jerome Klapka Jerome.
            “I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.”
            “I can’t sit still and see another man slaving and working. I want to get up and superintend, and walk round with my hands in my pockets, and tell him what to do. It is my energetic nature. I can’t help it.”
            “It always does seem to me that I am doing more work than I should do. It is not that I object to the work, mind you; I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours. I love to keep it by me: the idea of getting rid of it nearly breaks my heart.

            You cannot give me too much work; to accumulate work has almost become a passion with me: my study is so full of it now, that there is hardly an inch of room for any more. I shall have to throw out a wing soon.

            And I am careful of my work, too. Why, some of the work that I have by me now has been in my possession for years and years, and there isn’t a finger-mark on it. I take a great pride in my work; I take it down now and then and dust it. No man keeps his work in a better state of preservation than I do.

            But, though I crave for work, I still like to be fair. I do not ask for more than my proper share.”

          4. Thank goodness my parents had a change of heart; they were going to call me Jerome after J K Jerome!

  26. Good morning, everyone. Walked the dog at 0630 and then took my car in for MOT and Service. All in the rain.

  29. New Supreme Court Judge.

    “We haven’t seen Democrats this angry since Republicans freed their slaves.”

    1. The Republicans threw their senate majority around when they prevented judicial appointments in the last year of Obama presidency, they have now rather cynically pushed through a Supreme court appointment in the last month of Trumps presidency.
      However, tthems the rules, once the Republicans showed their intent, there was no point in the Dems wailing and fighting a lost battle.

      Wait until Trump Junior announces that he is running for president in 2024, then you will really see Dems crying foul..

      1. At least most of our pickers and harvesters go back to eastern Europe after all their hard work. Apparently after earning quite of lot of money.

    1. This is just another planned scam, that tanker was completely empty, that was obvious from how high it was in the water.

  32. Morning all……been chasing around since 8:30 on family business, pick ups, drop offs, water softener salt, large breed dog food.
    Just in…………. New government rules for Christmas regarding the rule of 6, you must now block all of your chimneys and send photographs of the blockages and 300 pounds by bankers draft to this account:- Bank of Lagos, account number 235967842 Email justintyme@grotto.com

      1. She’s a 10 year old black Lab, i have a terrible problem trying to put photographs on this website.
        I maybe some time……….
        Have you sent the money yet ??? 😃😉🎅

        1. I have been attempting to move a photo of our dog for more then half an hour……..i can email it to someone else who might be able to post it here.

          2. Can you not drag and drop it? Or click on the second icon from the left at the bottom of the reply box? When the File Upload box comes up, just browse to find the location, click on the file and click Open.

          3. It’s all a bit of a PITAs.
            There is something wrong with my PC Conners i suspect my lovely wife has inadvertently changed something on the set up. I can get a local company to look at it remotely but at a cost.

  33. “Money doesn’t make you happy, but it does allow you to be miserable in comfort.”
    I wonder if this chap is as depressed as his victims?

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/10/26/indias-wanted-man-may-not-ever-stand-trial-depressed-court-hears/

    “India’s most wanted man may ‘not ever stand trial’ there because he is depressed, court hears

    Nirav Modi, 49, is accused of swindling £1.5 billion from a national bank

    26 October 2020 • 7:49pm

    India’s most wanted man, who was tracked down by the Telegraph to a London flat, is “in the grip of a powerfully disabling illness” and unfit to stand trial, his lawyer has claimed.

    Nirav Modi, 49, is accused of swindling £1.5 billion from a national bank but may “not ever stand trial” in India because he is depressed, a court heard yesterday.

    The billionaire diamond dealer, whose jewellery is worn by the likes of model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and actress Priyanka Chopra-Jonas, fled to the UK after allegedly taking part in the country’s biggest-ever fraud on the state-run Punjab National Bank (PNB).

    One of India’s richest men, Modi was arrested in March last year after the Telegraph traced him to an address occupying half a floor in Centre Point tower, where rent is estimated to cost £17,000-a-month, and to an office around the corner in Soho Square.

    Wearing a grey and blue striped jumper, Modi – worth $1.73 billion according to Forbes – followed his latest hearing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court from a prison video-link room.

    Clare Montgomery, QC, defending, said Modi has suffered a “significant decline” and should be bailed to stay at the north London Priory hospital ahead of the extradition judgement.

    Ms Montgomery said: “The reality is he is presently in the grip of a powerfully disabling illness which has led to a significant deterioration in his capacity.

    “Unless he receives treatment there is likely to be a deterioration that will continue to the level where he will not be fit to stand trial.

    “He is at the point of becoming so incapacitated he will not ever stand trial.

    She said that there was a family history of depression and that “it is very very hard to fake, it is an instinctive reaction”.

    “An apparently charismatic and successful businessman travelling the world and having a capacity to escape, to this man. The contrast could not be more stark,” added Ms Montgomery.

    Helen Malcolm, QC, for the Indian government, said: “We’ve had no evidence served from Wandsworth about his mental state.”

    District Judge Sam Goozee, who is writing his judgement after the five-day extradition hearing last month, denied Modi’s request.

    “He was in London in February 2018, however, the government of India’s case is he was fleeing India as the fraud was unravelling. There have been unsuccessful attempts for citizenship in other countries by Mr Modi.

    “Mr Modi has accessed substantial sums of money… there is $356 million unaccounted for in terms of proceeds of the fraud.

    “I have substantial grounds to believe he would interfere with witnesses and fail to surrender.

    “[The Priory] is not secure and even with GPS tagging there would present an ability for him to readily abscond, disappear and evade the proceedings.

    “Should his mental health require hospitalisation the prison are under duty to transfer him to hospital.”

    If Modi is extradited he will face trial in India for conspiracy to defraud and interfering with witnesses.

    Modi, of HMP Wandsworth, was remanded in custody until November 3.”

    2. 1. “…whose jewellery is worn by the likes of model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and actress Priyanka Chopra-Jonas…”Who?

      2. See molamola’s comment

      3. They have doctors in gaols and psych hospitals have forensic wards so what’s the prob? Half the inmates in gaols are said to have have mental illnesses so he’ll fit right in.

      1. Well as to point 3, yes and no. One might suffer mental problems as well as everything else if you were put in prison. However, please see Lewis’ comment below.

  35. 325916+ up ticks,
    This governance party is well into assorted masks,one being their true agenda on OUR BREXITEXIT being masked, we as a nation are still bending the knee and paying through the nasal canal to brussels, WHY.

    Deal ? what deal ? we done away with deals on the 24/6/2016 we want
    total severance NOT some sort of johnsons velcro deal ie a few little hooks leading to a thousand plus.

  36. Former Supreme Court judge Lord Sumption calls coronavirus curbs tyrannical and a ‘breathtaking’ infringement of democratic right. 27 October 2020.

    Lockdowns and other Government-imposed Covid curbs contain all the ingredients of totalitarianism, a former Supreme Court judge warns.

    He will tell the Cambridge Law Faculty that the use of coercion to try to quell the pandemic is unprecedented in British history, even in wartime, and that it runs against basic freedoms.

    He is to say the methods used by ministers will undo the unity of society and will lead to long-term authoritarian government.

    Pretty much spot on there. If they get away with this it will be rule by Diktat for evermore!

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8882273/Former-judge-brands-coronavirus-curbs-tyrannical.html

  37. Russia blamed for airstrike on training camp in north-west Syria. 27 october 2020.

    An airstrike on a rebel training camp in north-west Syria killed more than 50 Turkish-backed fighters and wounded nearly as many, in one of the heaviest blows to the opposition’s strongest groups, a spokesman and a war monitor said.

    The opposition vowed to retaliate for the attack on Monday on Faylaq al-Sham, blaming Russia for the daytime attack. There was no immediate comment from Russia or Turkey, which have worked together to maintain a ceasefire in the rebel enclave, although they support opposite sides in Syria’s conflict.

    Blame? We should be sending them congratulary cards. These people, whatever name they’ve conjured up for themselves now, are Jihadists and ISIS sympathisers if not actual members. They would murder everyone on this forum and think it a job well done!

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/26/russia-blamed-for-airstrike-on-training-camp-in-north-west-syria

  38. ‘Morning, Peeps.

    Goodbye democracy and common sense, it was nice knowing you:

    SIR – I am now genuinely frightened. Not by the coronavirus, even though I am 80. We have spent the last eight months learning about the risk and how to try to keep safe.

    What is frightening is the ease with which the First Minister and the Welsh government closed down Wales and its economy.

    As we approach Remembrance Day, we recall those who gave their lives for us to be free. Now we face tyranny from our own government. It will be a long way back to freedom and true democracy.

    Tony Craig
    Mold, Flintshire

    SIR – Listening to a parliamentary committee last week questioning two senior police officers about the rules in different tiers, I heard one say he was unable to answer at that time and the other gave a wrong answer.

    This raises two questions. First, how many members of the public are aware of the subtle difference between the use of the word should, which implies advice, and must, which is a legal requirement?

    Secondly, if I carefully ascertain the rules and determine that a course of action is not illegal, even if not advised, but then come across a police officer who, like his chief constable, has got the rules wrong, what is my position if he tries to arrest me or impose a spot fine?

    Dr P D Hills
    Norley, Cheshire

    SIR – Isn’t it time we acknowledged the obvious? All that our senior politicians are concerned about is the legacy by which they will be judged – the number of Covid deaths.

    The increased number of deaths from other causes relating to NHS neglect and delay, together with the social and economic impacts of Covid policies, will largely be obscured by history.

    So the cycle of arbitrary lockdown constraints continues.

    Mike Powell
    Quorn, Leicestershire

    SIR – With no end in sight to various levels of lockdown, it is time we recognised that we are being killed either by the virus or by the effects of lockdown.

    The face coverings, the lack of hugs or kisses, the stress of unemployment are all things which are killing us.

    Some parts of the country are under travel restrictions. We are prevented from holding our elderly loved ones. There is nothing to look forward to.

    People are dying because they have been denied treatment they could normally have received. Mental illness is turning into an epidemic. The rate of suicide is up. The Government might just as well have turned off the oxygen.

    This is not the alternative we want. If we are to die of disease, we want to live in the meantime. We want to dream big. We want to love our families like normal human beings.

    We want to be able to be joyful, to go to places and find them open. It seems our Government would rather kill us.

    Hugh French
    Farnham, Surrey

    1. Mark his words:
      “As we approach Remembrance Day, we recall those who gave their lives for us to be free. Now we face tyranny from our own government. It will be a long way back to freedom and true democracy.

      Tony Craig

    1. I am no rightwinger, and no Trump supporter, but I like this lady for her personal qualities. Must one always play the identity card?

      1. We are allowing the opposition to choose the issues and the battlefields on which they are fought. It is possible that historical rules have generally assumed a degree of common interest, honesty and decency in respect of all involved.

  40. SIR – You report that Brexit talks have stalled because France will not compromise on fishing.

    Does Emmanuel Macron realise that no deal means no fishing?

    Charles Penfold
    Ulverston, Cumbria

    Who knows, Charles Penfold? Being French, I imagine that he finds our ownership of our fish a mere nuisance. Just as he finds our 6-mile limit in the Channel is half that of yer French limit, thus keeping our fishermen at a very obvious disadvantage. And he doesn’t give a toss.

    2. Just as France continued to impose the ban on British beef after it had been lifted by the EU. They were, of course fined – but they never paid the fine.

      Macron is the embodiment of why the EU works for France. France only follows the rules it wants to follow. But ther EU has never worked for Britain, which naively does follow the rules.

      I suppose you could argue that France has a more pragmatic and intelligent approach to the EU than we do.

  41. It’ll come to nothing, of course, but just for a brief moment – “Oh how sad”. “Former DPP faces prosecution…”

    Police launch investigation after Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer ‘crashed his SUV into a bike leaving the cyclist in a lot of pain and needing hospital treatment’

    From the Wail…

    2. Might Starmer have been trying to perform an awkward ‘kneeling while driving’ manoeuvre?

      1. How simply awful had the cyclist been a bame. (Most unlikely – unless he had stolen the bike).

  42. Charles Moore’s column today:

    Benenden is a very good girls’ boarding school. I know this is as a former parent and governor. Samantha Price is its very good head; 
I do not know her, but believe this from the testimony of current pupils and parents.

    Now she is in a spot. Addressing school assembly during Black History Month, which some pupils had been studying, she explained the history of the month itself. When it began in 1926, she told them, its founders called it Negro History Week. This illustrated how attitudes to words could change. She was encouraging a debate about whether there should be one special month, or whether black history should be part of all history, all the time.

    Despite the context, the use of the word “negro” was too much for some pupils. They wrote messages of complaint. Some militants, it seems, even called for a boycott of a proposed follow-up meeting with Mrs Price, 
 like some virtue-signalling version of St Trinian’s.

    Mrs Price handled the situation skilfully. She would not accept a boycott and successfully held a proper meeting. Everyone sat down amid courtesy and tea. Pupils digested her view that it was part of their education to debate rather than cancel. If they did not learn this, how could they prepare properly for the rougher worlds of university and beyond? In this context, she apologised for not having “caveated” the offending word even more strongly.

    Heavily backed by parents and staff, Mrs Price restored confidence. Her high reputation saw to that, allowing her to take the risk – always high for people in leadership positions – of saying sorry.

    But the tale is a sobering one, for at least two reasons.

    The first is Covid. The school assembly took place, I gather, on Microsoft Teams. It is hard to imagine the same trouble blowing up if the well-liked head had been addressing all the girls in the flesh.

    The second is that such protests are part of a trend sweeping through many institutions. People who are not – and should not be – in charge, act as if they are. In museums, for example, the junior staff try to radicalise the collections. In schools and universities, it is woke students who try to dictate what everyone should be taught, sometimes going public as they do so.

    If they can do that, what is the point of being taught at all?

    If only Wales had listened to Hastings.

    In Channel 4’s extraordinary story of how the BBC Panorama programme tricked Diana, Princess of Wales, into giving her famous 1995 interview with Martin Bashir, one person stood out – my predecessor as editor of this paper, Max Hastings.

    Sir Max revealed that the Princess had visited him earlier that year to offer him an intimate interview. Concerned for the monarchy and the welfare of both sides of the broken marriage, he refused. “Say nothing” was his advice. Fooled by Bashir, Diana ignored it and pressed ahead.

    Max Hastings seems slightly rueful now. He knows that refusing such a scoop was not what most hardened Fleet Street hands would see as good journalism. But I would argue he should not reproach himself.

    After all, the horrors of the royal marriage could have remained a private story so long as both principals told the world nothing. It was better that way – for the warring parties, their children and the monarchy.

    The trouble started when the Princess let her friends secretly brief Andrew Morton for his 1992 book Diana: Her True Story. This undermined those in the media, including Sir Max and his deputy (me), who were trying to defend her.

    In 1994, the Prince of Wales deepened the mess by admitting his adultery in a BBC interview with Jonathan Dimbleby. After that, his estranged wife naturally wanted to hit back, and disastrously chose Bashir.

    And so the war of the Waleses has gone on ever since, harming 
everyone involved. Harry and Meghan’s ill-judged, but psychologically understandable, revolt against the monarchy is one of the recent results.

    Surely Sir Max was right. Britain would have been a happier country if the Prince and Princess had 
listened to him.

    The dangerous detachment of virtual voting

    As a new boy in the House of Lords, I would expect not to understand the proceedings at first, even in usual times. In the Covid era, the confusion doubles.

    It matters that any Parliament is a physical place where its members can meet, otherwise they cannot bond. At present, peers can gather in the Lords itself (as can MPs in the Commons), but only in socially distanced numbers. Lords staff are patient and resourceful in helping us through, but it is a sort of half-life.

    Anyway, I have now mastered virtual voting. Through a secure system called peerhub, I can vote whenever my mobile phone and I are together. The phone replicates the noise of the Lords division bell – a strange sound on a train – and I have 11 minutes to press a button.

    This procedure is a lot better than nothing, but I hope it does not survive the end of Covid. Without the act of entering the division lobby, one feels dangerously detached.

    In Lords parlance, one never votes “Yes” or “No”, or “For” or “Against”, but “Content” or “Not Content”. In all my votes so far, I have been “Not Content” – an expression, perhaps, of my resentment against Covid’s restrictions.

    A leading BTL comment, which may not last the day:

    brian osullivan
    27 Oct 2020 7:35AM
    There isn’t enough time to teach black history on the national syllabus for history. However, the good news for white self loathers, and BLM (burn loot murder) activists, there are lots of books (things alien to the trainer loving trappers and drillers) on black history. So, instead of spending their benefits and free school meal vouchers on netflix, make up and scratch cards, buy books on black history (of which there are many) and you can learn about it there.

    2. I posted a comment about this above giving a BTL comment:

      An ethnic minority by any other name would have the same skin colour.

  43. Disqus playing up again. I’m not seeing the banner alerting one to new comments above or below. Is nobody ADDING comments. I don’t believe it.

    4. Noticed that myself both here and on Going Postal, but I did just get an alert just now, which may however, have been a flash in the pan.

  44. SIR — Ben Goldsmith (Comment, October 22) calls for people to have greater access to our countryside.

    Three years ago we purchased a small piece of ancient woodland close to where we live. It’s a natural wonder, packed with wild flowers, deciduous trees and an abundance of wildlife.

    We decided we would study it for a full year, through all four seasons, before making any plans to manage it. We met representatives from the Forestry Commission, who were helpful and informative. They emphasised that, as owners, we were custodians with an unwritten obligation to look after and preserve these wonderful natural habitats, maintaining and managing them as best we could for future generations – which we willingly accepted.

    During that time, members of the public would walk through the wood. Most took nothing and left only footprints. Sadly, others used it as a latrine, dumped rubbish, removed timber, damaged trees, let their dogs run wild and generally disrespected the environment. As a result, we had to take measures to deter unauthorised access.

    It’s a noble thought to allow others to roam the countryside freely and enjoy the riches it offers. However, despite the Countryside Code, the case still seems to be that the owner cherishes it most – and is left to clear up the mess left behind by others.

    Rob Larkman
    Taunton, Somerset

    The biggest problem, Robert, is the attitude of vast swathes of the British public towards the routine — blasé — dropping of litter and utter disregard for the property of others.

    Here in Sweden we have a policy known as allemansrättan (“everyman’s right”) which is the general public’s right to access certain public or privately owned land, lakes, and rivers for recreation and exercise. The right is sometimes called the right of public access to the wilderness or the “right to roam”.

    This right, however, does not give people unfettered access to private property (your garden or allotment, for example) or a right to walk across farmland where there is a chance of crop damage. Along with other matters in this country, the general public respect the property of others and do not, as a matter of “culture”, routinely drop litter in the streets or dump household refuse in the countryside.

    1. The British (or rather a sizeable minority of them) have always been a dirty nation. Litter has been a problem for as long as I can remember. It’s one of my pet hates – it’s so depressing to see rubbish scattered around the streets and countryside. I usually pick up rubbish and put it in a bin, where one is handy.

      1. We take a bag with us for that very purpose on our dog walks, to pick up the litter, and bring it home to put in our bin, if necessary. People stop in the church car park on the other side of our part of the green and empty their cars of their rubbish and their ashtrays, fag packs, detritus, on to the ground. We pick it up and deposit it in the very nearby litter bin. I was complaining to a parish councillor about litter in the village and how the proposed new housing could bring more. I was told “oh, but I don’t think we have a problem with litter in this village”, so I replied “that is because we pick it all up.” I find it more distasteful to walk past it than to pick it up.

  46. SIR — Regarding my old friend Bob Salmon’s letter (October 22) about using wild sloes for gin, I’ve used damsons. Much better – you can eat the damsons afterwards. Scrumptious.

    Audrey Buxton
    Kenilworth, Warwickshire

    Moreover, Aud, make a crumble with those boozy damsons and serve it with proper custard or a decent vanilla ice-cream. You’ll never enjoy a better pudding.

  47. ‘Morning again.

    https://order-order.com/2020/10/26/marcus-rashfords-free-bbc-press-officer/

    I don’t know whether this Guido Fawkes post made it to these pages yesterday, so apologies if so. It just goes to show, yet again, that the Charter requirement to remain impartial is being ignored. I’m sure many of us would support the DG’s statement that staff can support what they like but NOT while they are employed by the BBC. However, in the absence of any sanction against this reporter, he will continue to be ignored and the situation will never improve. Some might say that the whole, rotten organisation that is news and current affairs is beyond cure anyway.

      2. Are Auric Goldfinger and Ernst Stavros Blofeld highly influence at the BBC too, Polly?

        :-))

  48. Nicola Sturgeon has connections to George Soros. I wonder if Mark Drakeford has too?

    Thinking of politicians who have had their fingers in the cookie jar, why did those four UK PMs forget to mention George Soros in their autobiographies?

    Despite George spending hundreds of millions of dollars leveraging them through Open Society London.

    Funny how one of them got a mega dollars position apparently alongside billionaire George who makes the cookies and to whom he, in a sense, gave a lot of cookies to in the first place!

    That obviously was only an innocent random coincidence though…..

    Wasn’t it ?

  49. From last week’s Spectator:

    It is counterintuitive but the current spread of Covid may on balance be the least worst thing that could happen now. In the absence of a vaccine, and with no real prospect of eradicating the disease, the virus spreading among younger people, mostly without hitting the vulnerable, is creating immunity that will eventually slow the epidemic. The second wave is real, but it is not like the first. It would be a mistake to tackle it with compulsory lockdowns (even if called ‘circuit breakers’), whether national or local. The cure would be worse than the disease.

    If you cannot extinguish an epidemic at the start, the best strategy is for the healthy to get infected first. Lockdowns ensure that the vulnerable and the healthy both get infected with similar probability. School closures, concluded a recent paper in the British Medical Journal, can paradoxically lead to more deaths by prioritising the protection of the least vulnerable.

    In July the World Health Organisation said full lockdowns could be ‘the only option’ to prevent resurgence. But last week Dr David Nabarro, a WHO special envoy for Covid-19, told Andrew Neil on Spectator TV that ‘We in the WHO do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus… We really do appeal to all world leaders: stop using lockdown as your primary control method.’

    Back in March when the pandemic first poleaxed the country, I argued in these pages that ‘there are no good outcomes from here. Many people will die prematurely. Many will lose their jobs. Many businesses will go under. Many people will suffer bereavement, loneliness and despair, even if they dodge the virus.’ That is still true. There is no course that involves zero suffering. It’s a question of minimising it.

    This time, unlike in the spring, the virus has been mostly spreading among students. Places where more than 25 per cent of the population are university students have seven times the positive test rate of the rest of the country. Among students the infection is mostly asymptomatic or mild. As of last week, 70,000 students in the United States had tested positive with just three hospitalisations (one released) and no deaths.

    By contrast, the effect of lockdowns on the mental health of young people is huge. Psychologists report that anxiety and depression have sky-rocketed, especially among the young, so that the highest mental impact is being felt among those least likely to die. It’s not Covid that is causing this, but lockdown and recession.

    As Professor Karol Sikora puts it: ‘It’s clear that mass testing at universities has uncovered a huge amount of positive results that are largely behind some of the higher numbers. These are already on the way down in some areas. It’s not unreasonable to question whether this has been properly taken into account.’

    Consider my home city of Newcastle. Roughly 50,000 students moved into Newcastle last month. On 3 October Northumbria University announced that there were 770 positive tests among its students, and just 78 of those showed any symptoms at all: that’s 90 per cent showing none. In the seven days up to 5 October, the Evening Chronicle reports, there were 609 positive tests (I refuse to call them cases) in the city centre, Shieldfield and Heaton Park — areas where students live. In Scotswood, a short distance away and where few students also live, there were 16.

    It is the ability of this virus to be spread by those not showing symptoms, yet also sometimes to kill, that makes it so hard to control and so dangerous. Back in March the disease was spreading mostly within hospitals and care homes, among highly vulnerable people and their carers. Policy was based on the false assumption that most people would show symptoms, so carers could go from home to home without testing. That was a big mistake, as the medically trained entrepreneur Hugh Osmond kept telling me at the time: many fatal cases of Covid were caught after going into hospital for something else.

    Locking down the whole country, schools, pubs, offices and all, did little to prevent that tragedy: health workers were not locked down. But it prevented the growth of natural immunity that happens to some extent with most viruses and thus probably made a second wave inevitable.

    At the time I thought it was nonetheless necessary because of the dangerous nature of the virus. As I wrote here in March: ‘The government is now effectively admitting that even if drastic curfews lead to successive waves of the disease, that may be the least worst outcome. It is still a daunting prospect. Successive waves mean successive curfews and successive body blows to the economy. If we clamp down hard now and the infection rate drops, then we might be able, slowly and cautiously, to restart the economy in the summer but have to clamp down again when the virus resurges. Each time we do this, it will be more painful.’

    Yet Sweden shows that the second wave could have been largely avoided. At the end of March, on the very weekend Derbyshire police tried to shame solitary hikers in the Peak District back indoors with drones and snide tweets, the Guardian described how ‘Malmo’s café terraces do a brisk trade. On the beach and surrounding parkland at Sibbarp there were picnics and barbecues this weekend; the adjoining skate park and playground were rammed.’ The New York Times called Sweden a ‘pariah state’. The Sun headline read: ‘Sweden’s refusal to enter coronavirus lockdown leaving schools and pubs open “will lead to catastrophe”, doctors warn.’

    It did not. Sweden, a slightly more urbanised society than Britain, suffered almost as high a death rate in the first wave — it likewise failed to protect care homes — but is seeing almost no second wave. More to the point, its economy is in much better shape and therefore so are people’s lives. It ran a budget surplus in August and its economy is forecast to shrink 3.3 per cent this year compared with 5.8 per cent for the UK. Had we protected hospitals and care homes while keeping schools and pubs open, the chances are we too would be much better off.

    Or look at London, where just 34 people died of Covid in the first week of October, compared with more than 1,000 a week in early April. There isn’t much of a second wave there, despite — or because of — demonstrations and crowded tube trains during the summer. This is probably because London’s first wave was already well advanced when lockdown started. Given widespread immune responses to the four kinds of corona-caused common colds, and the skewed pattern of viral infection, whereby a few super-spreaders cause most of the new cases, it looks increasingly as if the virus is already finding it harder to spread in the capital this time round.

    The alternative to lockdown is not ‘letting the virus rip’, as Boris Johnson puts it. The Great Barrington Declaration, signed by over 20,000 doctors and medical scientists (but disgracefully censored by Google’s search engine), calls for focused protection: help the elderly and vulnerable stay at home, but let the young and invulnerable go out and achieve immunity for us all, while earning a living. The extraordinary truth is that a student catching Covid might be saving Granny’s life rather than threatening it.

    WRITTEN BY
    Matt Ridley
    Comments
    Share

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/students-who-catch-covid-may-be-saving-lives?

  50. I was looking for a song I used to love in the 50’s or 60’s on youtube. A comment BTL which I thought had more than a grain of truth in it was:

    ‘This is a song from the time when we liked each other’.

    But movements like BLM and many politicians encourage us not to like each other at all. It seems that tolerance of others and their views is almost as bad as racism!

    1. Was it this song ?
      🎵Got along with out you before i met you, gonna get a long without you now 🎶

      I had to remove the first and second version there was an effing annoying amazon ad.

    2. “I was looking for a song I used to love in the 50’s or 60’s on youtube.”

      Sorry to disappoint you, Rastus, but YouTube was not in existence until 2005.

  51. If the Fairy Godmother granted me 3 wishes for next January 1st, they would be the CASTRATION of 1. Twitter 2. Facebook and 3. Google (Alphabet) – all of whom achieved their privileged monopolies on the back of a false promise that they would be neutral free speech platforms. Here is another example of how Google makes the world worse:

    You probably haven’t heard of the Great Barrington Declaration. This is a petition started by three scientists on 4 October calling for governments to adopt a policy of ‘focused protection’ when it comes to Covid-19. They believe those most at risk should be offered protection — although it shouldn’t be mandatory — and those not at risk, which is pretty much everyone under 65 without an underlying health condition, should be encouraged to return to normal. In this way, the majority will get infected and then recover, gradually building up herd immunity, and that in turn will mean the elderly and the vulnerable no longer have to hide themselves away. According to these experts, this is the tried and tested way of managing the risk posed by a new infectious disease, dating back thousands of years.

    The three scientists who created it aren’t outliers or cranks, but professors at Oxford, Harvard and Stanford. And since its launch, the declaration been signed by tens of thousands of epidemiologists and public health scientists, including a Nobel Prize winner. So why haven’t you heard of it? The short answer is there’s been a well-orchestrated attempt to suppress and discredit it. I searched for it on Google last Saturday and the top link was to an article in an obscure left-wing magazine claiming the petition was the work of a ‘climate science denial network’ funded by a right-wing billionaire. The top video link was to a Channel 4 News report in which Devi Sridhar, a public health advisor to the Scottish government, denounced the declaration as not ‘scientific’. A bit rich considering Devi’s PhD is in social anthropology, whereas Sunetra Gupta, one of the petition’s authors, is a global expert on infectious diseases. In the first ten pages of Google search results, not one took me to the actual declaration.

    It is hard to find any mention of it on Reddit, the world’s best-known discussion website. The two most popular subreddits devoted to the virus — r/COVID19 and r/Coronavirus — have excised all references to it, with the moderators of the latter denouncing it as ‘spam’. A similar line has been taken by nearly all left-leaning newspapers. The Guardian ran an article on the declaration last Saturday, but only to flag up that its more than 400,000 signatories included a handful of dubious-sounding ‘experts’, such as ‘Dr Johnny Bananas’ and ‘Prof Cominic Dummings’. Hardly surprising, given that lockdown zealots have been openly encouraging their followers on social media to sign up with fake names.

    But it gets worse. On Monday, Professor Gupta appeared on BBC News to talk about the new lockdown measures in the north of England. Just before she went on air, one of the producers told her not to mention the declaration. Naturally, she ignored this instruction, but where did it come from? At the end of last month, Professor Susan Michie, a member of Sage, took to Twitter to complain that she’d been invited on to the Today programme to discuss focused protection on the understanding that the scientists behind it would be portrayed as beyond the pale, only for Professor Gupta to make a compelling, logical argument. ‘I’d got prior agreement from R4 about the framing of the item,’ she wrote. ‘I was assured that this would not be held as an even-handed debate.’ On whose authority had she been given that assurance?

    I suspect Ofcom’s ‘coronavirus guidance’ has something to do with it. This guidance, published when the lockdown was announced in March, warns broadcasters to exercise extreme caution before criticising the response by the public health authorities or interviewing any sceptics. The organisation I set up last February, the Free Speech Union, is currently trying to judicially review this guidance, but in the interim the BBC no longer needs to suppress discussion of the declaration because the WHO, the most respectable public health authority in the world, has done a U-turn on lockdowns. This was made clear on Spectator TV last week by Professor David Nabarro, one of six coronavirus envoys appointed by the WHO’s director-general. ‘We in the World Health Organisation do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus,’ he told Andrew Neil, before going on to highlight the collateral damage they’ve caused across the world, echoing the words of the declaration.

    Ignore the censors and the smear merchants. Go to gbdeclaration.org right now and sign the petition.

    WRITTEN BY
    Toby Young
    Toby Young is associate editor of The Spectator.

    https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-cant-we-talk-about-the-great-barrington-declaration

      1. Today I saw somebody alone in a car wearing a mask and there was a chap wearing a mask outside in the car park waiting with his dog. WTF? I used not to swear, but I must be getting Tourette’s.

    2. If searching for it Google will only ‘find’ it with a detailed search. This finds it “the great barrington declaration petition sign”.

  52. SIR – You report that Brexit talks have stalled because France will not compromise on fishing.
    Does Emmanuel Macron realise that no deal means no fishing?

    Charles Penfold Ulverston, Cumbria

    Nowt changes: the French are always there, when they need your fish

    4. Moh used to suffer from appalling nose bleeds untill the source of the bleed was cauterized.

      I think A+E, years ago used to use something like a Tampax to block out the bleed!

      2. Yup.
        Dentists do, as well, after they have hauled a fang out of your jaw.
        Morning, Belle.

      3. I remember, years ago, trying to use a Lilet (small size) on a friend who was prone to nose bleeds.

    6. A very sordid old joke which was doing the rounds when I was at school sixty years ago.

      Please do not remove the spoiler if you are likely to be offended.

      The old definition of a Tampax was: “What you find in a vampire’s picnic basket.”

    7. Not all people with periods are women? How does that one work? Fair enough with the first; women stop menstruating at menopause.

  54. Good morning all.
    Soaking wet weather here this morning , breeze and leaves cascading down onto the garden.

    I can access the DT letters this morning .. I found this one amusing.

    Hello Kitty
    SIR – I read recently that the feline equivalent of a smile is a slow blink.

    In view of the ubiquity of face coverings, is this something that humans could adopt in order to lighten the depressing mood in public places? Or could there be better alternatives?

    Fred Sommers
    Eversley, Hampshire.

    I have noticed people do try hard to smile with their eyes whilst masked up.

      1. I have printed out the government’s exemption cards. I think from now on, I’m going to carry one and go maskless. Wearing one was certainly giving me a near panic attack today, what with everything else.

    3. Good morning, Maggiebelle

      Rather reminds me of Mae West’s comment: “Is that a gun in your trouser pocket or are you just pleased to see me?”

  55. Over the last fortnight i have had all the symptoms of covid just not on the same day. I’ve been through two boxes of tissues this morning. Toddy time.

  61. Good morning, my friends

    Charles Moore in the DT

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/10/27/dont-let-woke-pupils-dictate-can-taught/

    Don’t let woke pupils dictate what can be taught
    The headmistress of Benenden is in a spot after some pupils took umbrage to some remarks about Black History Month

    (Hugh Janus printed this article below two hours earlier)

    BTL Comment:

    The headmistress of Benenden was referring to the fact that there was a week concentrating on black history in 1926 and this was called Negro History Week. The very mention of the N word in this title has resulted in calls for her dismissal.

    A BTL comment:

    An ethnic minority by any other name would have the same skin colour.

    1. Since when did the word ‘Negro’, which refers to a racial group, become ‘offensive’? You might as well say that any identification of ethnic groups, like ‘Caucasian’, ‘Slav’, ‘Semite’, ‘Arab’ etc. is offensive. If she had used the word ‘N*gger’ that may have been offensive, but it would depend on the context e.g. if she was referring to how black people were insulted, it should not be offensive but a description of past use.

      There seems to be a lot of people who will take offence at the drop of a hat nowadays.

      1. The ‘permanently offended’ hold sway now, more’s the pity. It seems to be a whole way of life for some. If I was on Twatter and/or Arsebook they would have plenty to keep them occupied!

      2. Yes, words like nigger have apparently become offensive for no reason at all, given their etymology. Happily there are still words that can be used that may be mildly disparaging. Why on earth do negroes and half breeds etc think that they are entitled to politeness or respect? Their history in this country is mostly vicious crime, drugs and riots and theft. The use of the term “person of colour/color” is discouraged by a number of darkies online. Perhaps they all want to be known by a symbol, like the pop singer Prince.
        The rest of us could just lift a couple of words from the literature of the 20th century and refer to them all as shines.
        Remember, “the lighter the righter”.

    2. Over here, a university teacher just got suspended for a similar offense.

      Apparently used the naughty word in a class about black history and despite warning the kiddies in a previous class about the forthcoming naughty, one student decided to be offended and complain.

      Our local council just sat through a deposition from some school kid that was calling for a more diverse teaching of history. No one had the guts to tell the rug rat that they are taught history as it happened.

      1. No one had the guts to tell the rug rat that they are taught history as it happened.

        Just as well really Richard, because no one was ever “taught history as it happened”. It’s always someone’s version of history and there is, invariably, a different version somewhere else. Some bits of history have been picked over so thoroughly that we can be fairly sure about most of what happened – but there will be gaps. Other bits are 90% guesswork – but you don’t find that out until long after you leave the classroom. 😉

        A new document regarding the execution of Anne Boleyn has come to light this year – just 484 years later.

    4. Well , as we all know, you can take the African out of Africa ( and send them to Benenden and Roedean), but you will never take Africa out of the African!

    5. In Moore’s next piece just below, concerning Silly cow Di.
      “In 1994, the Prince of Wales deepened the mess by admitting his adultery in a BBC interview with Jonathan Dimbleby.”
      You learn something new everyday.

  62. Mail to a Conservative MP………..

    Needless to say, I have checked Tony Blair’s autobiography and there is nothing in the index about QinetiQ, Carlyle Group or George Soros as far as I can see.

    So why didn’t Tony Blair write about selling part of QinetiQ to former Prime Minister Major’s new employer, Carlyle Group of Washington DC ?

    Did this former UK state asset end up in the fund to which Soros was subscribed ?

    After all, it’s all very close to home to sell state assets cheap to the former occupant of 10 Downing Street… so why aren’t there just a few words about it ?

    Can you think of a reason for keeping this quiet ?

    What do you think ?

    Polly

    2. That’s my morning dental nurse in Sweden (on the right). Imagine 3 years of working opposite that.

      1. Our two are very close – when one of them is “missing” (usually Little Cat, the ginger pesky), Big Cat pines quite noticeably.
        Little is the small ginger & white one, at 7kg, Big the large grey & white one at 10kg – just for info.

      1. They used me as a climbing frame this afternoon! Yesterday’s timidity (I guess the were petrified) has evaporated!

  66. Justin Welby was quickly ushered in the back door and upstairs to ‘the’ room.
    “I’m not sure about this”, he muttered, “I haven’t done this sort of thing before.”
    Nevertheless, he cautiously entered the room, removed his everyday clothing and donned his clerical garb.
    He approached the bed and noticed the partially covered torso, the quivering naked thigh, the bushy blond pubic triangle, the sweat covered ample breasts.
    ‘I must do this’ he thought to himself, ‘It’s all for the best’
    He raised his hands, he made a sign and began
    “Demon begone….”
    “Eh, what ?” slurred Boris “I didn’t request an exorcism”
    “No, you didn’t, ” came a deep resonant retort “It was I, Beelzebub”.

  68. Oh how convenient……. did John Major and Tony Blair team up on this……………….

    In February 2003, when John Major was the Carlyle Group’s European Chairman, it acquired a 31% share in the publicly-owned British defence firm QinetiQ (whose then Chairman was Pauline Neville-Jones) for £42m. QinetiQ was privatised in January 2006 for £1.3 billion netting the Carlyle Group a profit of over £300 million.

    https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Carlyle_Group

    At that time, George Soros was big in Carlyle Group and Soros and Blair apparently had a very special relationship.

    Was this yet another massive sweetheart insider deal ?

    Looks like it might have been !

    3. I should read questions more carefully. I’ll be watching cricket from Sky through the internet in a while. I’ll let you know.

  73. Ah! It looks like the blockage on new comment notifications has had the Dynorod treatment!

    1. Eid-al-Fkr = Idle focker.

      Someone pointed out that this was a spoof, possibly yesterday with a couple of the place names as well

  75. Democrat Florida mail in lead slashed by 52000 in one day to 302000 and is dropping by the hour. It’s projected to be below 200,000 by eve of the election.

    Therefore Donald J Trump will win the key battleground state of Florida hands down as most Rs vote on election day…. This isn’t isolated; this is happening nationwide !

    This looks like heading towards a landslide in favor of President Donald J Trump !

      1. No, this is about the numbers of registered Rs and Ds returns. Which way the vote goes isn’t known but it’s assumed to follow registration.

        Reports indicate that many Ds are voting R, so it looks very good for Donald so far.

  76. Ex UK PM chairs organization apparently featuring George Soros as star client which buys UK state assets cheap from dodgy UK PM which then get turned around for massive profits………

    Nothing to see here…. please move along….. all perfectly normal, fine and dandy !

    ”In February 2003, when John Major was the Carlyle Group’s European Chairman, it acquired a 31% share in the publicly-owned British defence firm QinetiQ (whose then Chairman was Pauline Neville-Jones) for £42m. QinetiQ was privatised in January 2006 for £1.3 billion netting the Carlyle Group a profit of over £300 million.”

    This is on top of the dodgy UK PM, Blair, selling Soros 750 UK state buildings cheap in 2000 which Soros immediately turned around for massive profits !

    Also on top of Gordon Brown’s very dodgy looking gold auction where the gold price was, apparently, deliberately depressed which would have been perfect for Tony’s best friend, Soros, if he was shorting the market with inside information !

    Excuse me…..got to laugh……. hahahahahaha !

    Polly

    1. Not just one of them, but i suspect most of them since before and especially after Thatcher have been on the take.
      On a smaller scale, for at least 6 months our middle son has been working 12 hour days compiling a business project and costings for a large company contract.
      The bid his company submitted was lost, not accepted, due to what he described as the same person putting a spanner in the works at meetings and probably ‘off piste’ on the side of the company that already runs the contract.
      He suspects that this person was given a substantial bung by the current people who already run the Support services.
      He could even lose his job over this.

      1. I have experienced the same, Eddy.
        The guy who was the decision-maker was subcontracted from the company we were bidding against! What a surprise, we didn’t win.
        I’m not so sure that there are bungs involved – just a promise that the person retains their lucrative contract if their company wins…

        1. It stinks Obs these people should be exposed, or at least get a visit !

          I’m sure that a lot of money changes hands behind the scenes with council planning permission.
          When i was a contracts manager for a construction company, I had my suspicions of one building inspector he would always look around the site for longer than he needed to. I often had to sort out a few dodgy things that had been happening on other jobs in the area. After i had left the company i heard the council BI took ‘early retirement’ and the rumours seemed to confirm my suspicions he was after accepting and indeed taking bungs.
          Indecently there’s a little book i found in a box of books destined to be glued to c shelves in pubs in the 90s.
          It’s called sketches by Boz. It was written by Dickens when he was a London journalist.
          The story is about the election of a parish Beadle.
          At the meeting one of the candidates arrived with a large 6 penny bag of cakes, he offered the cakes around to the potential voters.
          Another did the same but paid a shilling for his cakes which were much better, he was latterly elected and Mr Bung became the new parish Beadle.

    2. I suspect that they have put Covid amongst average annual deaths from a 2017 chart to give some sort of comparison

      1. Context is everything. COVID-19 deaths are comparable to those from road traffic accidents. Should we lock down (up?) all motor vehicles?

        1. Agreed and no!

          Given also that Covid is most lethal in those who have some of the biggest “natural” killers we have been stampeded (herds’ immunity, ho ho) into a reaction out of all proportion to the dangers and a reaction that will even increase deaths from the big killers.

          It is a crime gainst humanity and its perpetrators should be punished for such.

    4. Well it’s certainly not the major killer that requires the response it’s got. Why aren’t they shutting the world economy down for cardiovascular disease and cancer?

      1. reducing the number of deaths by more than died of diabetes or liver disease sounds like a wonderful objective but let’s ban chip butties and achieve even more.

        On second thoughts don’t bother, I have finally trained the chef at the golf club to make chip butties.

  79. Oh how surprising…. Tony Blair forgot to mention in his autobiography that he sold part of state owned UK defence contractor QinetiQ to John Major’s outfit, Soros featuring Carlyle Group, for a pittence, which later turned into a 300 million dollar profit for Carlyle !

  80. Yer French appear to be carrying on their hard line against the slammers. The muskee used by the murderer of the teacher has been closed. Not blown up (yet…)

    Would that the shower of shite posing as a government in the UK had the guts.

    1. The slight problem with doing that is that the attendees will be now scattered across many more mosques, spreading their poison.

    2. We should invoke a similar approach as that taken in Saudi Arabia, here – no religion tolerated except Christianity, no places of worship except Christian churches. Goose and gander etc.

    3. We have caved in completely.

      Macron reminds me of Trump. We don’t love him but at least he stands up for his country unlike the Democrats in the US and the politicians of all the main parties in Britain.

  81. Looks as if the British have been taken for fools again by the French.

    The French authorities refused to take the seven stowaways aboard a Liberian-flagged oil tanker five days before they triggered a major incident off the coast of Britain, it is claimed.

    The Nave Andromeda, which was stormed by British special forces on Sunday night after issuing a mayday call, may have tried to set down the stowaways at a French port in the days leading up to the incident, but the request was rejected, according to the shipping journal Lloyd’s List.

    Following the raid by the Special Boat Service on the tanker six miles off the Isle of Wight, seven people were arrested on suspicion of seizing or exercising control of a ship by use of threats or force .

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/france-refused-to-accept-nave-andromeda-oil-tanker-stowaways-cj2l3fsdk

    Sorry I can’t copy any more details

    1. How about a group of retired commandos kidnapping the stowaways, putting them in a fast rib boat with a very powerful outboard, crossing the Channel in the dead of night and dropping them at Barfleur.

      They could then write up the story and sell it to a TV or film company as it would make compulsive viewing.

      2. HR lawyers will no doubt argue that the 7 Nigerians were enjoying a relaxing cruise when they were kidnapped by the SBS. Compo for Hurt feelings, loss of earnings and the lost holiday will be on the tab. Oh, and there will be an asylum claim in the post as well as they had only a one way ticket.

        1. They are absolute wretches.. They screamed for Independence in 1960.. ( my parents were there) What on earth do Nigerians think they are doing .. they cause absolute chaos wherever they are.

      3. HR lawyers will no doubt argue that the 7 Nigerians were enjoying a relaxing cruise when they were kidnapped by the SBS. Compo for Hurt feelings, loss of earnings and the lost holiday will be on the tab. Oh, and there will be an asylum claim in the post as well as they had only a one way ticket.

      1. The death rates from second wave COVID are pretty small when compared with the death related deaths as shown in Hugh Pym’s chart tonight.

    2. “Your problem down there has been caused by sitting on the edge of your desk for too long!”

    3. “Your problem down there has been caused by sitting on the edge of your desk for too long!”

  84. Afternoon, all. The whole lack of freedom, acceptance and obedience is very worrying in my view. Still, I’m glad I’m old. I shan’t have to put up with it for too long. If that sounds a bit depressed, it’s because I’ve had a terrible day; it started badly with MOH getting me out of bed before I was ready in order to cook something, despite having managed it without bothering me yesterday. Then I found a voicemail from my Parish Clerk which needed to be dealt with, followed by having to order more medicines for MOH only to find the anti-depressants were missing, so although I left a message on the website, I rang the surgery to make sure. I filled up the dosette only to find that one day of the evening pill was missing. MOH denied having taken it, but I’m sure I put the whole 7 in – by this time I was beginning to doubt myself, especially as there was one pill left in from the morning’s session (where I’d filled up the whole week). Then I had to repair the towel rail in the kitchen because MOH had torn it off the wall, only to find that it had happened again less than ten minutes later, necessitating a full on, remove, patch, replace job. My friend who helps out rang me in a panic because she couldn’t find some information about her wills (we shared the same lawyer). so I spent some time looking for that, but failed,only to find that she had found it afterwards. I took the dog for a brief walk and then had to go into town because we were running out of essentials. By this time I felt thoroughly stressed and as though I was running hard on a treadmill that was sending me backwards at a rate of knots. Having to wear a mask to shop was about the last straw. I added a G&T to the shopping basket and downed it as soon as I got home, where, as a bonus, I found the tap running in the kitchen. As there was a lot of ice left in the glass, I tried sherry over ice – I am not a fan, but there was still some ice left, so I had another glass. Today I shall well and truly fall off the wagon so please forgive me if I end up tired and emotional!

    1. No need for forgiveness, Conway. Some days are diamond…..others are less than sparkly! Tomorrow is another day and who knows what it may bring? Sherry over ice may become a favourite!

          1. I enjoyed his songs. I like quite an eclectic mix of music, although classical, choral and opera are probably my favourites. I used to sing in a choir (church and university), which probably influenced my tastes.

          2. I have a very broad taste in music as well! Everything from heavy rock to jazz and quite a lot in between! Emerson, Lake and Palmer to Tom Paxton! Deep Purple to Bread! Led Zeppelin to Camel! Joe Bonamassa to Jules Holland!

          3. For me, it’s more composers than artists; Purcell, Monteverdi, Haendel, Vivaldi, Porpora, Cavalli, etc. If it’s sung well, I’m not too fussy about who sings it.

    2. I feel for you Conwy. You put all our small irritations in perspective. I am glad tha you have someone to hep – even though it sounds as though she can be problematic. This may sound trite – but have you thought of The Samaritans? Or – even – the Sally Army? They might be able to provide practical help.

      1. I have been here, there and everywhere for practical help over the last month without any success. My friend (with the problematical will) has been the best, to be honest. This morning I just wanted to run away and not come back! Still, I know that’s not an option; KBO. Tomorrow is another day. It may be better.

    3. I feel for you Conwy. You put all our small irritations in perspective. I am glad tha you have someone to hep – even though it sounds as though she can be problematic. This may sound trite – but have you thought of The Samaritans? Or – even – the Sally Army? They might be able to provide practical help.

    4. Chill out and destress – you needed that G&T after the day you’ve had.

      Sounds as though your blood pressure was up as well.

      1. It probably was no longer that of a 17-year old 🙂 The reason I say that was a locum took my BP and was very concerned that it wasn’t high. After lots of investigation she came to the conclusion, having told me that my BP was what she would expect of a 17-year old (and that’s bad? I thought!), that I must actually be very fit. Mind you, that was pre-lockdown and the worsening of MOH’s condition. The two are inevitably connected, I feel.

        1. The last time I had my blood pressure checked was 10 years ago before I had surgery. It was sky high and nearly broke the monitoring machine. The anaesthetist sat on my bed and when I asked hin about it, he said “If I was about to have what you are about to have – mine would be high too”. So I think it’s just a natural reaction to stress and I don’t worry about it. But if I am stressed, I can feel it going up.
          I read somewhere that BP in older people is naturally higher than in young people.

    5. You don’t have to apologise Conway.
      Nottlers are here to read about your troubles and most of us can empathise.
      Keep writing.👍

    6. Good Grief. There are sh!t days – and then there are really sh!t days.
      I don’t think you need to be told which today was.

      1. Yes, it’s been one of the worst for a while. It was the cumulative effect of little things that did it. MOH also decided to get up and make porridge at 01.45 this morning (it was 01.50 yesterday) so I hope that isn’t going to become a habit.

    8. You may have already said, but have you involved social services. I look after my demented mother and social services will pay for occasional respite care in a home, there is a small nominal cost but it allows me to get away on holiday. In addition, we are allocated a day out at an NHS day-centre, every little helps to maintain sanity. I am lucky to have the assistance of Mrs Pea and I am not so old as yourself. Keep talking and draw on any resources offered, friends or state.

      1. I have been grappling with social services (and getting nowhere, frankly) for the last month or so. I think it depends on where you are in the country as to how much (or little) help you get. Most of what they do appears to involve ringing me up and asking how I am then giving me more numbers to ring. I’ve had no practical help except from the Memory Team, who did at least offer to ring up and contact the various agencies rather than expecting me to do it.

        1. My aunt was at one point looking after her husband with Parkinsons (the home where he had been couldn’t cope as he becaume too ill apparently), and her disabled son (ditto), and nobody in authority gave any sort of hoot that the care for both of them landed on a lady in her late eighties!

          Hope tomorrow is better than today.

          1. Thanks. I’m into my third glass of red and feeling a lot better. My friend (the one with the problem over the will which was sorted) rang me up just now to see how I was, so it was good to unload everything. She has similar problems with her father, so we help each other. Tomorrow is the day I go riding, so the afternoon at least will be relaxing provided the Connemara hasn’t got out of the stable the wrong side 🙂

        3. My mother started declining about 5 years ago and came to live with me two and a half years ago. At about that time she came under an NHS consultant for the Lewy Body dementia and a memory clinic. A great deal of help flowed from these sources. An Occupational therapist and a physio visited to assess her needs at home and advise, it seemed to be arranged by the social service ‘outreach’ team. The whole effort seemed to be aimed at keeping her at home and out of the care system, which I agree with. Home carers were offered but I didn’t feel that I needed them. She should be able to claim Attendance allowance and you may be eligible for Carers allowance. The Alzheimers society came to visit and advise on help available and their services, we used ‘singing for the brain’ before it was closed down by the lurgy. The social services seemed excellent as I have never had to use their services before, we are in a relatively deprived area of South Wales. Hope that you have some ideas from tonights discussion and will push for the help you deserve.

          1. The OT team have been several times; they have measured up for handrails (MOH’s balance is terrible) twice, but they are yet to materialise and the team turned up out of the blue a few weeks ago to advise on getting MOH out of the car (which was in the garage because I’d no idea they were coming). They just caught me as I was setting off to walk my dog. It seems I’m doing it right anyway. The physio team came and looked then went and I’ve heard no more. I get the basic allowance (and have applied now for the higher rate as things have got worse and I need to administer night time care). I believe this is vascular dementia after a stroke five and a half years ago. I have never been given this diagnosis in writing, but I asked if it was and it was confirmed orally.

          2. Sound like you have done all that can be done. Sadly, these conditions are not easy to bear particularly on your own.

    9. You need to unwind now, and try to relax.

      We had a few things to do this afternoon. Moh and I drove to Poole to visit B+Q to buy a few small things , not a very successful shopping trip really.

      The drive there was lovely , the colours of the leaves on the trees were still glorious , and the vast expanse of water in Poole harbour had flocks of seabirds of various types dipping and diving for food.

      The weather was erratic, huge thunder clouds , very dark and threatening, and then we had about half an hour of fresh weather , then it rained again, you could hear it thumping down on the roof of B+Q.

      We drove home in bright late afternoon sunshine after a visit to the quay and to an area popular with visitors on the harbour edge called Baiter, where one could just sit /walk and observe the dunlins, oystercatchers and other birds searching for worms and shellfish amongst the rough rocky tide line.

      It was very breezy, and the as we sat and watched the activity in the huge expanse of water, the RNLI they were practising manoeuvers with a semi rigid boat. There were also a few large yachts chugging on their engines, probably towards the other yacht clubs dotted around the harbour. We also saw a few busy boats tooing and froing from Brownsea Island , and watched the usual kite surfers with their colourful sails using the wind.

      A flock of young starlings chattered on the ground near our car, they must have anticipated a few scraps of food, we had nothing to offer . The people in the next car threw them a few bits of bread , which started an almighty quarrel with the black headed gulls , starlings and herring gulls, fighting for food is always so noisy , and Moh said he hoped the birds wouldn’t poo on the car.

      We arrived home nearly an hour later , spaniels needed their meal , cup of tea for us and a slice of homemade wholemeal bread ( our elderly 20 year old bread machine) butter and black currant jam , and thought , crumbs the days are shorter now!

      Clear sky now, will be a cold night , bye bye to some delicate garden plants!

      I am only relating my afternoon as some form of distraction for you , and am so sorry you are having a tough time.

      1. It was sunny this afternoon, and the autumn colours were lovely as I drove over to my friend’s house – she lives in an isolated farm house surrounded by farmland. She still owns some land and a neighbour has a few sheep in one of her fields. There was a flock of pheasants as I went down the drive, and several more in the garden.

        Drove home as it was getting dark – first time I’ve driven in the dark for months. Not looking forward to winter.

      2. Sounds like a nice day Belle, I answered an urgent phone call from brother, he has had no hot water for 3 days. A drive over to find his immersion heater had been disconnected a few years ago so no backup option when the gas boiler arrangement went wrong.
        I managed to get that rewired so at least now he has hot water and his CH seems to be working. He managed to find a plumber who has just had the all clear following a COVID test who will call shortly. I suspect he needs a 2 port valve replaced and I am more than happy to leave that to a professional, but can and will do it if necessary.
        After due consideration, I would take your day over delving into brothers CH and Hot Water arrangements. I love Poole and the harbour.

        1. Glad you rose to the challenge and almost fixed things .

          We were only away for a couple of hours or so. B+Q was quite busy , and we managed a bit of exercise walking around masked!

          We were looking to replace wall hall lights which really do need changing , nothing suitable , so will look on line in other directions.

          In fact despite being out and about, we both felt really fed up, and wondered why life had come to this!

          1. I have just finished watching the local BBC news propaganda broadcast where they spent considerable time laying out the party line.
            I said to Mrs VVOF that the local authority health expert contradicted herself as to where the virus comes from with regard to the increase of cases, lies, pure utter bo***cks. To much social interaction was the only answer offered. It seems they have no clue as what to do next apart from hand washing and living your life in isolation wearing face nappies with no clue for how long.

            The next expert presented on the program was asked how did the Spanish Flu die out, his answer amounted to herd immunity although not in those words, not in the governments script of course.

            The final piece I noticed in the program mentioned that the Badminton Horse Trials next year will be an online event for the public, no public admission. No end in sight forecast even at the start of next summer.
            You are right, how did we come to this and what price will need to be paid at the end of it.

            We just need Johnson to fulfill my expectations of BINO and that will cap a miserable year.

          2. Some one mentioned with out any prompting that she thought that the areas that are on lockdown have a high proportion of probably new migrants .

            Wouldn’t it be a real shock to find that people of another colour and Eastern Europeans are in fact the super spreaders .

          4. There were 1356 separate strains logged as coming into the UK, which is probably not surprising given the number of flights in and out. The majority of them came in with nice, white, middle-class British people returning from their alpine skiing holidays.

          5. I noticed that next year’s Badminton would be behind closed doors. That means Cheltenham has had it because that comes first 🙁 As you say, Bojo selling us down the river as expected would be the final straw.

          6. And when he does, shortly afterwards he will be sacrificed in the vain hope his party will be absolved of any blame by 2024. A repeat of dumping May to try and save their skins.
            I pray that at the next GE there may be a alternative to support, not the political parties which has done such a disservice to the country.

    10. wow what a day. Every issue a little(ish) one but coming one after the other it was obviously overwhelming. A few drinks to help you relax and recharge your batteries is mire than justified.

      There was a hint in todays telegraph about freezing leftover tonic and using it as ice cubes for your next g&t. Personally I do not understand the concept of left over tonic.

      1. That was just the problem. I could have coped with one, or even two, but it was a cascade. I don’t normally drink (or even particularly like) gin, but it just hit the spot.

      2. Since 90% of my ice cubes go into a G&T, I use tonic to make them.

        Some people drown their gin, some don’t.

    11. Gee, man, that’s some day.
      Have another gin – and a whole bucket of sympathy to go with it.

      1. I only bought one G&T – but to be fair, I did open a bottle of Shiraz Cabernet Sauvignon after I’d downed two sherries 🙂 It went very well with the ready meal (something else I normally don’t buy) lasagne.

        Edit – where are my manners? Thanks for the sympathy.

        1. Goodness. Don’t start guilt-tripping over a ready-meal you don’t need it, and you don’t deserve it either. There’s a time and a place for ready-meals and your house, tonight, looks very much like that time and place.

          Hope tomorrow is better (or as much better as is possible in the circumstances).

          1. Thank you. Wednesday is Connemara day. As long as he doesn’t decide to dump me again, all should be well 🙂

    12. On the bright side, things can only get better! :-))
      Seriously, man, can you take a moment or two to unload? Or you’ll be ill, and that helps nobody.

          1. What do you mean by the right going? He works in the indoor school, which is rubber, carpet and sand.

          3. Yes, thanks. He wasn’t as forward going as he usually is, though, for reasons I explained when I first logged in. I make him stretch down for his Polo before he starts and he found that quite difficult. He found it easier to do that for the post-exercise mint.

          4. As you know, I know naught about your clever dressage stuff. I am, however, very pleased if it gave you some respite and pleasure today. J

          5. Thank you, John. Unfortunately, afterwards I had to do a big shop (because I had the car out) and that was stressful enough 🙁 I really do dislike having to wear a mask.

          6. As do I. I have only worn one twice since March. 5 minutes yesterday for my ‘flu jab was more than enough to have me misted up, sweating and panicking!

  85. Boat carrying illegals capsized in the Channel – 4 people including 2 children have died. BBC Radio News

      1. Evening Conway – Only 4 Conway, 2 adults and 2 children. Stormy weather and I think the cold water killed them.

        1. Yes, I misread that. Even worse result in my view! I am totally fed up with this farce; take them back, land them in the middle of nowhere and sink the boats. It worked for Australia.

          1. Hopefully it will discourage this activity for the next 6 months by which time Priti Patel may have sorted things out to stop this invasion.

          2. You have a cracking sense of humour, Clyde.

            Priti Awful promised – ON TAKING OFFICE – that she would immediately stop this cross-channel malarkey – and deport all illegals.

            That worked well, didn’t it?

    2. It was bound to happen sooner or later. The people smugglers bear most of the blame, but the French have a share – they are either complicit or have not done enough to put a stop to this vile trade.

    3. Time for the beeb to start a campaign to bring all of those poor refugees over and prevent any other mishaps.

    5. If the first boat had been returned then the subsequent ones would not have bothered.

      The state is guilty of supporting this. The French must deal with their problem and international law must be enforced.

      1. Not just supporting it, encouraging it by giving them all those freebies (paid for by us, the taxpayer).

  86. Dentist appt this arvo after developing toothache and a swollen face over the w/e.

    Two options – new cap on front tooth which will cost about £300 and last about five years or an implant which will cost £3000 and last about twenty years.

    Whichever I choose is going to take about six appts.
    😫🦷

    1. I’ve had one tooth removed, as an adult, I didn’t enjoy it. Never had a cap, but that sounds better.

      1. The last time I had teeth removed was when I was about 11, to make room for the adult teeth to grow straight.

          3. “Struggled with it for years”? Silly boy, you should have let go of the rope…{:¬))

            I’ll get me capstan.

      1. it was the potential fees that did it.

        At my age I could laugh at the idea of a twenty year guarantee on any part of my body – real or artificial.

    3. Argh! So many dentist trips, so much money… I was offered an implant, I asked could it be done later? Yes, so right! Pull the damned tooth. Haven’t done anything about a replacement, but chewing not quite so good as it was…

      1. Hmm, Paul, #MeToo. The rotten bit of tooth I had forbidden many dentists to remove, as it held my plate in place, it finally fell out. Because the plate can now wiggle about while chewing, it has now taken the next one out. I dare not wear the plate and am leary of even cleaning my teeth but needs must even though in fear of knocking others out.

        MyDentist (that’s their name) refuse any treatment unless it’s a painful emergency.

    5. If you can, go for the implant. We don’t know what is going to happen in the next five years, things may get harder in our lives, breakdown of society. In all things now I don’t think this is a time for putting things off. I have three implants, 15 years ago, the best thing I have done. The cap I had done at the same time hadn’t lasted as well, it has cracked and I am in the middle of getting it sorted now.

    6. I had a tooth that cracked all the way down through the roots (which were splayed). The extraction, bone graft and implant was a painful process all in all but in the end well worth the £3000+ it cost. Very happy with the result.

  88. Just been to Card Factory

    They sell Cards

    Merry Chistmas to My Two Dads

    &

    Merry Chistmas to My Two Mums

    Not going there again

  90. Making the most of a bumper garden harvest

    SIR – I agree with the letters (October 22) about the abundance of garden produce this year. So far I have made three batches of crab-apple jelly, one litre of crab-apple gin and five pounds of green-tomato chutney.

    Guess what the relatives are having for their Christmas presents.

    Gillian Grinham
    Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

    “Socks and underpants, socks and underpants”, murmur the men in Gillian’s family, looking to the heavens.

  91. With the blockage on new message notifications, I’m not sure of this has been posted:-

    James Kirkup
    The trans debate could cost this Cambridge porter his job

    27 October 2020, 8:28am

    This is a story about a man called Kevin Price, who was until last week a councillor and who is, for now at least, employed as a porter at a Cambridge college.

    The story illustrates two points. First, political conflict over trans rights and women’s rights is far from over, especially in the Labour Party. Second, people who say the wrong thing in this debate can put their livelihood at risk.

    Mr Price last week resigned from Cambridge City Council. He had sat as a Labour councillor since 2010 and was once the council’s deputy leader.

    He resigned rather than follow the Labour Group whip and vote for a motion that declared, among other things that:

    ‘Trans women are women. Trans men are men. Non-binary individuals are non-binary.’

    Those are, of course, the holy words of trans orthodoxy, a catechism that cannot be questioned despite the countless questions it raises. (Here’s a starter for ten: if trans women are women, what does the word ‘women’ mean?)

    Mr Price quit because, he said, he could not accept the unquestioning, uncritical adoption of those words. He noted that for some people, those words have highly troubling implications.

    Resigning, he said:

    ‘The inclusion of the first three sentences of this motion will send a chill down the spines of the many women who believe there is a conflict of rights and who want to be able to discuss those in a calm and evidenced-based way….

    [It is] foolish to pretend that there are not widely differing views in the current debate or that many people, especially women, are concerned about the impact on women’s sex-based rights from changes both in legislation and within society and who fear, not only that those rights are under threat, but that they are unable to raise legitimate questions and concerns without a hostile response.’
    And that might have been the end of the story, seeing Mr Price ending his career as an interesting example of a politician putting principle before position or the party line, with a fairly measured contribution to a debate that too many politicians are still wary to enter.

    If that was the end of it, Mr Price’s tale might prove only that Labour has some way to go before it reaches a settled, unified stance on this issue. There are good reasons that Keir Starmer has been trying to take a ‘listen to both sides’ position on the trans debate; one of those reasons is that his party is seriously split on the issue.

    But that is not the end of Mr Price’s story. For Mr Price is now facing the sort of ‘hostile response’ he spoke about – calls for his employer to dismiss him from his job, because of his thoughts on sex and gender and ultimately, because of his reluctance to say the holy words.

    According to Varsity, a student paper, the Union of Clare Students has condemned him and demanded the college authorities act against him. By discussing issues of policy and law at a council meeting, Mr Price had jeopardised the ‘safety’ of the college’s trans and non-binary students, the union suggested in a statement.

    Varsity further quotes one Clare student as saying Price is ‘unfit both to hold public office and to be in a position of responsibility over students.’

    Now, I didn’t go to Oxbridge and I’m not much for Marxist analysis of society as a class struggle. But I know enough about both to suggest that there’s something both distasteful and revealing about a bunch of Cambridge undergraduates threatening the livelihood of a man employed to serve them because he refuses to share their opinions and adopt their language.

    There’s been a lot of talk in recent years about free speech on campus being under threat, and a lot of that talk has been overblown, based on nothing more than stupid self-important students doing what stupid, self-important students have always done and disinviting or banning people from speaking at events that no reasonable person would ever want to attend anyway.

    But some of the concerns about universities and free inquiry are justified: just ask Professor Selina Todd, an Oxford historian who needed bodyguards because some people objected to her research on sex and gender in history.

    And now it appears that the refusal to permit dissent or debate about sex and gender could cost a man his job at a university. I hope not, and not just for the sake of Kevin Price.

    Bob of Bonsall • a few seconds ago
    All part of the Cultural Marxist strategy of Critical Theory as recommended by Horkheimer, Gramsci, Munzenberg and others of the Frankfurt School.
    To quote Munzenberg:-

    We must organise the intellectuals and use them to make Western Civilisation stink. Only then, after they have corrupted all its values and made life impossible, can we impose the dictatorship of the proletariat.”

    Used in conjunction with Gramsci’s “Long March Through The Institutions”, which has seen Marxist inspired activists take over not only Academia but many other parts of what we refer to as “The Establishment”, Western Society is being weakened and is quickly becoming little more than a hollowed out shell, in immanent danger of collapse.

    https://disq.us/url?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.spectator.co.uk%2Farticle%2Fthe-trans-debate-could-cost-this-cambridge-porter-his-job%3AmVBpDiEg-X0HNXLQdI3djH3gtSE&cuid=5852343

    2. I can see these people introducing a new type of Test Act so that everyone will be required to swear to the new Transgender ideology.

  92. I think this clearly shows which way things are heading………

    Democrat Florida Central. Palm Beach County…………

    Early voting same stage of election.

    Trump +1%

    2016:Clinton +19%

    1. As these people died near the French coast in French waters, I assume the government to which Lammy is referring is the French government.

      2. This is the end game. The slow decline of Europe has been going on all my life, now they are trying to push it. There is no more time.

    3. Would someone like to explain to him the Dublin Agreement as it applies to those seeking asylum? Today’s situation appears to be the usual economic migrants attempting to gain entry to this country illegally. Ergo, they are unlikely to qualify as asylum seekers.

    4. And there was me thinking that the BBC would start the lovey fest. Well they are both left wing.

    5. There’s a war in France, and it wasn’t reported in our media? Well I never!

      Lammy is perfectly awake, he is raking it in from his race-baiting politics, thank you very much.

    1. Well I suppose that it would be possible to say that the covid protective measures are having a big effect on flu spreading and that is obviously what the virus lovers should be saying.

      Of course it doesn’t help Trumps case that us flu deaths were only about 37,000 last year, a bad number that the dems will jump on.

    1. They are called “Data Scientists” nowadays. They do a bit of coding and think they are very, very clever. It’s the new role for all those graduates who are too stupid to do an actual real job.
      Yes, I am being a bit catty, but they are very annoying.

    2. I have had a long moan about my day below (or above, depending on how you read the thread). Please skip if you don’t want to be depressed!

      1. Arghh,they happen,being able to vent among friends here is a life-saver,be lucky tomorrow Conners

          4. Thank you. The vicarette used to run a dementia group once a week, but that has gone the way of everything post-Covid. I’ve been in touch with Age UK, but they seem to be telephone only at the moment and the same applies to the dementia service. I shall investigate the Carer Breaks because I hadn’t seen that before. The trouble is, MOH was always very suspicious and thought the worst of people even before dementia set in. That has only increased, sadly. Strangers might not go down very well. Still, it’s worth a look.

        4. Are you able to play properly now Plum? Sorry if I’ve missed any of your posts Re tennis but hope all is ok. Life is extremely boring just now although we drove down to Littlehampton on Sunday for a short while. Got drenched in a sudden downpour and came back home with wet jeans. Exciting huh.

          1. Hi vw,
            Apols for late reply…
            I’m not playing at present, hopefully back on court soon.
            Agree …it’s boring. Only so much housework one can do,
            and walking is limited to local shop….but Hey Ho soon be
            Christmas…..Keep your pecker up!

          2. We had a painter decorator in on Monday and Tuesday to do a couple of jobs for us, two bathroom ceilings, a wall in the hall, and an area in the kitchen where we’d had a water leak. Did a good job so pleased with that. We’ll probably have him back in spring to do a few more just to freshen the place up. So that was exciting (!) but it was nice when he went.

            Popped down to Littlehampton again today and had a great walk on the prom. Sure blew a few cobwebs away. We’re about to get a huge downpour now really dark skies. KBO.

    4. Exciting stuff here Plum! I ironed for two and a half hours and watched the “debate” from the wee pretendy Scottish parliament! Not had so much fun for years! (That’s a fib!)

    5. Disqus failed again? Perfect time for a gym class then.

      Strange atmosphere nowadays, we are just waiting for the authoritarian boot to fall and shut everything down so it is make the most of friendships and getting together while we can.

    7. Just changed one car to winter tyres. Hard work when you’re old & creaky. Two more to do tomorrow.

      1. In Sweden I had 2 sets of tyres on hubs; one for summer, the other for winter. The set I was not using was stored at a local tyre depot (the manager spoke fluent German). So every autumn & spring I made an appointment to have them checked, changed & inflated to the correct pressures – took 15 minutes while I had a free coffee & a friendly chat. All for a very low fee.

        1. Same here, except I don’t use the tyre hotel. So, they need collected from my lockup & driven to the depot for changing, and the others driven back to the lockup for storage.

          1. I used to keep my spare set in my lock-up in the cellar of the apartments, but that was broken into & the tyres stolen. When I told the tyre depot manager about it, he suggested using their ‘hotel’ service.

    8. MB and I went over to elderly chum’s house and removed approx 20 black sacks of rubbish and then compounded the excitement by going to the tip.
      This hectic social life will be the death of us.

    1. Well the exclusive(?) story does say that although they expect more deaths, the deaths will be spread over a longer period than first time round so fewer deaths per week.

      You pays yer money and you slants yer story the way you want.

  104. I am appalled at the way the shower of shites posing as a government ignore – IGNORE – the 1,700 people who die EVERY DAY from, er, death. Leaving aside the ones the are killing by refusing medical care.

  105. I am off for what has been a heart-warming day. The little buggers have fully recovered from what must have been a terrible shock yesterday – and are now running the house!

    Pickles still is the leader – but Gus has learned to jump – and climb – better than his bro’!!

    A demain.

      1. So parents are incapable of saying no??
        Do the kids drive themselves to McDonalds??
        Pathetic abusive parenting

    4. They are malnourished due to ignorance. Their bodies are demanding nutritious food through the mechanism of hunger, so they and their parents respond by shovelling fries into their mouths.

    6. There is another BUT sadly though.. because there are some very genuine examples of real poverty .

      I found this on Youtube .

      I also know here are some very real impoverished families here in the village through no fault of their own .

      Health reasons, lack of a job , unfortunate bad luck and many other factors mean we should never take our eye off the ball, a little help goes a long way.

      1. As a fat child I was bullied relentlessly. A Stefan Boakes, for his shame.

        Left school and one day as I walked home, I saw him cross the road from me. So I crossed back. Pathetic whelp won’t bully anyone ever again.

        You see, if you hurt someone, you break them a bit. A little bit of the decent, normal, kind hearted soul breaks off and doesn’t come back.

    1. You have to rather wonder why. If there’s some sort of emotional involvement or personal dislike then… they’re dead. What do they care?

    2. That isn’t the half of it; there are some really sick bastards about. I’m not going to post the details because it’s just too sickening, but if you want to know, search for dogs mutilated in woods.

      1. I don’t, I won’t.

        A word to the wise, you might be better listening to your favourite music this evening.
        Written as a friend.

        1. I didn’t either; I only read the headline in a general countryside bulletin I receive and that was enough for me. There are some seriously evil bastards about. Burning in hell would be too good for them. I might watch an opera later; I have several bookmarked.

      3. I’m not surprised, Conway, Most Muslims and many Asians are frightened of dogs – unless they’re being served for dinner.

        As you say, sick bastards.

  108. I have watched ‘The Roosevelts – An Intimate History’ on PBS America. A fascinating story; I commend it.

    I was a guest at a party at one of the ‘Roosevelts of Oyster Bay’ households during a Competition between the RN&CYC and Seawanhaka yacht club in the ‘Eighties’; the younger generation sounded just like FDR !

    1. That must have been very memorable for you .

      Families do sound like each other … you can tell they are related by their grunts, the Royals are all pretty much like that, indecipherable.

  109. Hi, Nottlers. Just a quick posting to say that I’m getting on OKish but it’s hard especially as the fat boy of the Remove has locked us down again. The bereavement club I joined has closed down since Tier 2 was enforced in Essex and that hasn’t made things any easier.
    I noticed a few weeks ago that Peddy answered someone, OB if I recall, that I was resting. In a Thespian sense I was resting from Nottle and much else besides. However, I have kept busy and I’ve added a couple of photographs to prove that I remain capable of getting things done, albeit slowly. I’m also doing much more cooking and tonight’s evening meal – I could have called it dinner but good old Grizz’s wrath is not something I need at the moment 😎 – is included. Cheesy tuna pasta bake washed down with a couple of glasses of Mussel Pot, a very nice Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand.

    Glad to see that you are all keeping well despite the best efforts of what passes for a government.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/c6a84a82c688a59a2ec5493f89ada80ddf9ed551ae6c0db3580c4e82a4ed88ec.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/76a79ea23407e27ecf5104b444aac63b2eaed734df687d186475470a060494c5.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f44d98daa6d3c4fd558bce8ab8994652418974e657db901fbcd6d7c2d4f985c8.jpg

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/32512ee809e0a740c19b396e51696b7430cf3463a3484cc30350be0aaf99051b.jpg

    4. Great to see you Korky, if only for a fleeting visit! Your garden looks lovely and your dinner/supper even better! Take care of yourself and keep in touch.

    6. Glad you’re well and a good idea to keep busy.

      Have you picked up on my terracing wall I’m doing up the garden?

    7. The pathway looks so neat, a job really well done, and the pasta bake looks delicious. So sorry to hear your club has closed down for the time being, these places are a lifeline, and will be for all of us at some point. Do keep on looking in, your comment about the ‘fat boy if the Remove’ made me laugh, we all need as much of that as we can get in these historical times. Take care and look after yourself, nottlers will always be here for you.

    9. You’re sounding positive, Korky. And that slab laying looks great, way beyond my abysmal capabilities. And the pasta bake for DINNER! KBO matey….

    11. don’t hurt your back laying those slabs. I relaid about 30 the other day and it took several days for my back to recover.

      Never mind the gourmand, there are several of us would gladly share a tuna bake with you, especially if you include a nice NZ wine.

    14. That blockwork looks damned good, Korky. Thank you so much for dropping in – we oft think of you.

    1. Good morning, Conway.

      I hope today will be a happier
      day for you.
      It is a sad fact that those who
      are empowered by us, to support
      and nurture us both physically
      and mentally, appear to take our
      money [and trust] and run, leaving
      us to flounder.
      Do not despair, there is goodness
      and kindness around.

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